Hard rock crashed into vaudeville — and never looked back.
Formed in 1972 from a collision of two Phoenix-transplant bands in the San Francisco Bay Area — Bill Spooner's The Beans and The Red, White & Blues Band — The Tubes staged some of the most audacious live shows in rock history. Bondage gear, chainsaws, giant TVs, mud wrestling, and Fee Waybill's Quay Lewd — the platform-booted glam rock casualty with a cigarette the size of a baguette.
Behind the spectacle was a ferocious musical outfit: synths before synths were normal, multi-part suites, razor-edged guitar from Bill Spooner and Roger Steen, and some of the tightest rhythm section work of the decade in Prairie Prince and Rick Anderson.
The band's early A&M records — self-titled (1975), Young and Rich (1976), Now (1977), Remote Control (1979) — are underground landmarks. In the early 80s, Capitol Records and producer David Foster pushed them into the pop spotlight with The Completion Backward Principle and Outside Inside, yielding "Talk to Ya Later" and the Top-10 smash "She's a Beauty."
The music video for She's a Beauty — directed by Kenny Ortega, 1983 — was one of the earliest clips in heavy MTV rotation. Carnival ride, dwarf ringmaster, Bowie-eyed mermaid: pure Tubes spectacle, translated to the new medium.
Early-MTV staple from The Completion Backward Principle.
Watch → 1975 · LiveThe anthem. Quay Lewd in platform boots with a cigarette the size of a baguette.
Watch → 1981 · VideoThe ballad that proved The Tubes had more than one speed.
Watch → All VideosConcerts, promos, interviews, and deep cuts — straight from the band.
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