This Is Spinal Tap: The Official Companion

Rating:
Summary: Value to the "Tap" fan
Review: "This is Spinal Tap: the Official Companion" has some worth to the die-hard Spinal Tap fan, but won't really mean much unless you are a big fan of the famed mockumentary. It has some good points, but overall an unsatisfying book.

The book starts off with a comprehensive timeline of Spinal Tap, followed by a meticulous transcript of the mockumentary, transcripts of the film outtakes, song lyrics ranging from goofy ballads to hard-rock fiascos like "Sex Farm." Finally there is an A-to-Z that lists not only stuff in "This is Spinal Tap," but all the rock bands that influenced it.

One of the problems with the book is the transcript. It's a good transcript (it includes ad-libs, stammers and stuff like that) but still only a transcript. It includes all the words but none of the action, which means you need to have seen the movie to understand anything at all. The song lyrics are pretty well-documented, but have some flaws. What's more, there isn't much background info to them. Why not tell us what's up with the kiddie ballad "All The Way Home"?

The A-Z reference is both tiring and informative. Wading through a sea of rock trivia that is half fiction and half fact can be a headache. But it offers more insights into the cut scenes from "This Is Spinal Tap," not to mention the influences behind it. (For example, Jeanine Pettibone was influenced by Anita Pallenberg as well as Yoko Ono)

It's not bad, but it fails to be good. Die-hard Tap fans may be interested in the lesser-known bits of trivia, and can use the transcript to identify what that drowned-out line was. But beyond that, it isn't a particularly useful guide.

Rating:
Summary: Value to the "Tap" fan
Review: "This is Spinal Tap: the Official Companion" has some worth to the die-hard Spinal Tap fan, but won't really mean much unless you are a big fan of the famed mockumentary. It has some good points, but overall an unsatisfying book.

The book starts off with a comprehensive timeline of Spinal Tap, followed by a meticulous transcript of the mockumentary, transcripts of the film outtakes, song lyrics ranging from goofy ballads to hard-rock fiascos like "Sex Farm." Finally there is an A-to-Z that lists not only stuff in "This is Spinal Tap," but all the rock bands that influenced it.

One of the problems with the book is the transcript. It's a good transcript (it includes ad-libs, stammers and stuff like that) but still only a transcript. It includes all the words but none of the action, which means you need to have seen the movie to understand anything at all. The song lyrics are pretty well-documented, but have some flaws. What's more, there isn't much background info to them. Why not tell us what's up with the kiddie ballad "All The Way Home"?

The A-Z reference is both tiring and informative. Wading through a sea of rock trivia that is half fiction and half fact can be a headache. But it offers more insights into the cut scenes from "This Is Spinal Tap," not to mention the influences behind it. (For example, Jeanine Pettibone was influenced by Anita Pallenberg as well as Yoko Ono)

It's not bad, but it fails to be good. Die-hard Tap fans may be interested in the lesser-known bits of trivia, and can use the transcript to identify what that drowned-out line was. But beyond that, it isn't a particularly useful guide.

Rating:
Summary: Like Derek's trousers: Lacking solid, satisfying content
Review: This one's a mixed bag, and ultimately disappointing as an official reference.

While the transcript of the film (complete with stutters and stammers) is still a fun and funny read, it's the parts detailing the dialogue of the outtakes that fans will find most interesting. A lyrics section contains a few rare songs ("Back in Harness," "Just Spell My Name") but does not offer any information on them.

The A-Z portion is written not by the book's timeline & discography scribe Chip Rowe (author of the excellent 'Spinal Tap A to Zed') but instead by British TV/film critic Karl French, who seems to have compiled the list based on whatever source materials were in his house before the deadline. Most of his bibliography is British in nature, thereby ignoring some excellent American magazine interviews (Guitar World, Marshall Law, etc) and their respective anecdotes. While the A to Z section--the meat of the book--still contains some gems on Tap elements and personalities both real and fictional, it could be more logically organized ("Racism: see bass"; the entry for bass contains an obscure Derek conversation about Pakistanis but not, say, Derek and Nigel's thoughts on racism from the actual film), omits some things I was very eager to get the official word on (No mention of how the rare song "Goat Boy" came to be, what its lyrics are, or why it has yet to be released) and is just plain incorrect in some cases (From the entry for "Big Bottom": "I'd like to sink her with my *flesh* torpedo"?).

However, there is enough redeeming content here to make fans want to pick it up--the color plate sections, featuring rare photos, is appreciated, and Michael McKean's all-too-short "prepilogue" introduction is an enjoyable, heartfelt tale about the entire project's origin. More of stuff like that from the people who created Tap and less subjective noise from French would have made this "companion" not only "official" but comprehensive as well.