With 1979's Remote Control as my gateway drug, I've backtracked to the debut album, mainly because I happened upon a copy in Half Price Books, and Lordy - it's a good 'un. Back when I first discovered punk, I asked my friend Grez whether there were other punk bands aside from the Stranglers, Sex Pistols and the Boomtown Rats. There was also the Damned, he helpfully informed me, and an American punk band called the Tubes. We were about fourteen and sheltered in our small town rural existence but the misreading has somehow stayed with me, possibly cemented by Crass punning White Punks on Dope as White Punks on Hope a couple of years later. True enough, the photographs did seem to depict a bunch of weirdos, and everyone from Joe Jackson to Squeeze counted as punk for us at that age.
I suppose if we really need boxes to stick them in, they were a blend of glam, prog, showbiz, heads down no nonsense boogie, and stadium rock with a touch of underground comix thrown in as seasoning. Stick this on the turntable and it sits quite well next to Lynyrd Skynyrd but for a fair quota of complex proggy arrangements of the kind everyone did at the time, and some of it is so majestic that it could almost be Man Who Sold the World era Bowie, notably Space Baby. What sets it apart from all those genres which it actually isn't, at least not full time, is the spiky edge, the media savvy, and the suggestion that they might be taking the piss to some extent. If it sounds a little like an album which should have featured either a wizard or a nude woman on the cover, their gleeful disdain for all the bullshit of modern living sets it some way apart from Jethro Tull roundly condemning the rising cost of agricultural supplies. It's like stepping into an alternative universe where REO Speedwagon or one of that bunch somehow made a good record, with the fruity guitar and keyboard solos, an operatic rock holler shaking its curly locks, and somehow with not a trace of California muso-stodge. With ingredients at which I might scowl under other circumstances, The Tubes is somehow a perfect debut album and a genuine work of the art - every track a classic and good enough to have been a hit single even with the screwy time signatures. Imagine Devo in sequinned loon pants if that helps.
