Skip to main contentSkip to navigation
Print subscriptions
Sign in
Search jobs
Search
The Guardian - Back to homeThe Guardian

Spinal Tap

April 2024

  • Very Spinal Tap … This Is Spinal Tap (1984).

    Forget Back to Black. Here are eight great fake music biopics

    If you really want to know about making music, fame, exploitation, addiction, egos and challenging personalities – look to fiction. Here are our favourites

February 2024

  • Rob Reiner, with images from Stand By Me, A Few Good Men and When Harry Met Sally.

    The nepo baby who made good: Rob Reiner on Trump, family – and his brilliant, beloved movies

    He directed When Harry Met Sally, Misery, Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, A Few Good Men, and now he’s back with a powerful political documentary. Not to mention the Spinal Tap sequel ...

December 2023

  • Harry Shearer, Christopher Guest and Michael McKean in the original film

    Can Spinal Tap sequel live up to film’s ludicrous legend, 40 years on?

    It was the rock-mockumentary that set a standard for those that followed. Now Macca and Elton are joining the band for an encore. Will its lethal wit survive?

September 2023

  • Glastonbury Festival 2009 - Day Two<br>Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) from Spinal Tap performing during the 2009 Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm in Pilton, Somerset.

    The reader interview
    Spinal Tap’s Derek Smalls: ‘I’d like to collaborate with Mozart. I know chords he’s never used’

    The bass player legend, played by Harry Shearer in the film This Is Spinal Tap, talks facial hair, courgettes and how to break out of a cocoon

December 2022

  • Jenny Harries

    Brief letters
    A medieval approach to managing Covid

    Brief letters: Non-testing times | Hoarding false teeth | Getting lost backstage | The little man on the cross

May 2022

  • Ric Parnell performs in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in May 1992.

    Spinal Tap drummer Ric Parnell dies aged 70

    Parnell, who played Mick Shrimpton in This Is Spinal Tap, also performed in bands including Horse, Atomic Rooster, Nova and Stars

October 2020

  • Harry Shearer 2019

    Harry Shearer: 'To say Trump is "beyond satire" is an admission of defeat'

    He went from Spinal Tap to The Simpsons. Now, with his album The Many Moods of Donald Trump, the comic takes aim at America’s ‘encyclopedia salesman’ president

November 2019

  • FILE PHOTO: Spinal Tap performing during the Live Earth concert at Wembley Stadium in London<br>FILE PHOTO: Nigel Tufnel (played by Christopher Guest), Derek Smalls (played by Harry Shearer), and David St. Hubbins (played by Michael McKean) (L-R) of Spinal Tap perform during the Live Earth concert at Wembley Stadium in London, July 7, 2007. REUTERS/Stephen Hird/File Photo

    Spinal Tap creators settle lawsuit with Universal Music over copyright dispute

    Settlement not disclosed but 2016 lawsuit claiming ‘fraudulent accounting’ initially sought $125m and was increased to $400m

April 2018

  • Harry Shearer aka Spinal Tap’s Derek Smalls

    'Age can be a babe magnet': Spinal Tap's Derek Smalls on why old is gold

    After a career with heavy metal gods Spinal Tap – and a battle with addiction to the internet – the bassist is back with a new album reflecting on the ageing process. As his cells degrade, he shares his hard-fought wisdom

February 2017

  • Harry Shearer, Christopher Guest and Michael McKean in This Is Spinal Tap.

    Spinal Tap creators aim to 'go to 11' with $400m lawsuit

    Harry Shearer joined by fellow band members and director Rob Reiner in claim Vivendi has not fully shared profits

November 2016

  • Spinal Tap take us to a different kind of farm on this week’s playlist, created from your suggestions.

    Readers recommend
    Readers recommend playlist: your songs about farm produce

    This week a reader has harvested your suggestions and produced a multi-genre playlist including songs from Spinal Tap, Shirehorses and Anton Barbeau

October 2016

  • Christopher Guest

    Christopher Guest on life as a baron and how wife Jamie Lee Curtis picked him out of a magazine

    As his new film, Mascots, arrives, the genius behind Spinal Tap talks about sitting in the House of Lords – and dying for five minutes

August 2015

  • Silicon Valley,Series 2,

    Google's hooli.xyz Easter egg proves Silicon Valley is tech's own Spinal Tap

    The HBO comedy mercilessly lampoons Google. But with its latest announcement, when it buried a reference to the sitcom in a press release, the corporation suggests it is in on the joke – much like the rock world embraced Spinal Tap

January 2015

  • Slash of Guns N Roses plays a Gibson Les Paul in 1991.

    Les Paul: the guitar of choice for Chuck Berry, Spinal Tap and the Sex Pistols

    The Les Paul has earned a reputation as the ultimate guitar for rock, blues and reggae greats. As the original Black Beauty model of the Gibson Les Paul guitar heads for auction next month in New York, here’s some of the brand’s most famous fans Les Paul’s original Gibson Les Paul goes up for auction

October 2014

  • This is Spinal Tap

    Readers recommend
    Readers recommend: songs that express excess


    In music, performance or lyrics, it’s time to cross the line and truly define what is flamboyant, superfluous and OTT, says Peter Kimpton

September 2014

  • WITHNAIL AND I

    The 10 best ...
    The 10 best quotable films

    … to mark the return of Withnail and I to the big screen. By Kathryn Bromwich

June 2014

  • Serge Pizzorno and Nigel Tufnel

    Kasabian or Spinal Tap – can Billy Bragg tell them apart?

    The musician was the first to spot the similarities between the two bands, so we put him to the test to see if he could correctly identify their quotes

  • Harry Shearer

    Observer New Review Q&A
    Harry Shearer interview: 'I told them I don't dance – now I prove it nightly'

    The Simpsons veteran tells Michael Hogan about his West End debut, playing at Glastonbury – and how all men turn into Mr Burns
  • Kasabian

    Billy Bragg: Kasabian remind us how true Spinal Tap was

    The political singer-songwriter has compared the Leicester band's swaggering behaviour to that of the famed rock'n'roll mockumentary stars

April 2014

  • Spinal Tap

    Clip joint
    Clip joint: the five best drumming scenes in film

    From anger management for Animal to doomed Spinal Tap drummers, here are five great movie drumming moments. Tell us which others you think are a hit
About 75 results for Spinal Tap
1234
Explore more on these topics
  翻译：