{"id":1187,"date":"2008-02-02T09:00:30","date_gmt":"2008-02-02T14:00:30","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2010-07-06T13:20:02","modified_gmt":"2010-07-06T13:20:02","slug":"group-grope-the-tubes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/group-grope-the-tubes\/","title":{"rendered":"Group Grope: The Tubes!"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Yvez2V6XPDg?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>So I&#8217;ve been thinking about how we truly do need a &#8220;Group Grope&#8221; with the Super Ginchy Rock Combo, <strong>The Tubes!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m really not kidding.  These guys were way ahead of the curve when they came out.  I can remember dropping a quarter into the jukebox at Master Pizza and playing <em>both<\/em> sides of the <strong>&#8220;White Punks on Dope&#8221;<\/strong> 45, and standing on my chair and letting it wail above the Pong machine.  Was I cool?  Hells, yeah!  I thought so, anyway (it was a pretty quiet pizza shop, we weren&#8217;t bothering anyone).  <strong>The Tubes<\/strong> were a band that thought the kids were important. They understood that kids want sex and violence, and that parents had no idea what popular culture, their kids, rock and roll, and the freedom of a Driver&#8217;s License were capable of on an unsupervised Saturday night.<\/p>\n<p>Their music holds up today.  The synth flourishes tend to be a bit much, but the drum sound and the guitars are still there.  The lyrics are smart and funny, and <strong>Re Styles<\/strong> was the greatest &#8220;Secret Weapon&#8221; any band ever had.  <em>Trust me<\/em>.  I saw her.  I saw what she did on that motorcycle.  I wanted to be on that motorcycle with her <em>so bad<\/em>.  <strong>&#8220;Don&#8217;t Touch Me There&#8221;<\/strong> was one of those hit singles your mom cringed at when driving you to swimming practice in 1976.  <strong>&#8220;What Do You Want From Life&#8221;<\/strong> and its final line, &#8220;A baby&#8217;s arm holding an apple,&#8221; made a lot of teenagers go &#8220;huh?&#8221; But the old man just said, &#8220;I don&#8217;t <em>like<\/em> these guys.&#8221;  But I did.  I loved <strong>The Tubes<\/strong>.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xrMuZUIhjHI?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I think the first time I saw them was at Public Hall in Cleveland in 1976.  If my mom knew what happened there, she&#8217;d have never dropped me off, let alone let me pick up a few odd jobs around the house to pay for my ticket.  By the time <em><strong>What Do You Want From Live<\/strong><\/em> came out, I played <strong>&#8220;Mondo Bondage&#8221;<\/strong> almost every morning before school as loud as I could.  I convinced my parents that everyone was up anyway, so a little thumping from my room shouldn&#8217;t hurt anyone.  Hey, the &#8217;70s weren&#8217;t a bad place to grow up.  But then again, Punk came and a spectacle like <strong>The Tubes<\/strong> were a little passe.  But then again Disco was huge, and <strong>The Tubes<\/strong> actually drew plenty of rockers toward them because they had more than just pushing in the bush, or boogie oogie oogieing.  If <strong>The Stones<\/strong> could do Disco, then why shouldn&#8217;t <strong>The Tubes<\/strong>?<\/p>\n<p>If you find any of their albums, I think you&#8217;d be pleasantly surprised at the talent level in the band and the quality of their music. I think it will make you wish you had the chance to see them way back when they were demanding <strong>No Titties in the Twin Cities!<\/strong>  They were one of a kind, and I&#8217;m glad I got the chance to be part of it.<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/stX5ocngd8A?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So I&#8217;ve been thinking about how we truly do need a &#8220;Group Grope&#8221; with the Super Ginchy Rock Combo, The Tubes! I&#8217;m really not kidding. These guys were way ahead of the curve when they came out. I can remember dropping a quarter into the jukebox at Master Pizza and playing both sides of the <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/group-grope-the-tubes\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2006,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[66],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2006"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}