I’m going to second the suggestion made by “I’m Not a Medium I’m a Petite” in today’s discussion:
“but of course it’s not just movies and TV… there is a musical canon as well.. for instance Frank Zappa and Talking Heads / David Byrne were the source of many many riffs.”
Last week we listed the movies MSTies should see if they hope to get most of the movie references, and that brought up the music MSTies should have heard, so let’s go there this week. INAMIAP took the band I was going to pick (my favorite band of all time, btw): The Talking Heads (“LOOK AT THESE HANDS!” ). So instead I will go in another direction and point out that this topic would also include music the Brains apparently hate, so I’ll name Morrissey…
What music would you add to the list?
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Bonzo Dog Band (riff from Rebel Set on their song “The Intro and the Outro”) …and looking very relaxed- Adolph Hitler on vibes.
The Beatles
Maynard Ferguson!
The Grunge sound from Seattle that’s so popular with the kids these days
Emerson, Lake and Palmer – many Lucky Man riffs with wonderfully vocalized synth solos.
Jazz–or you’re a Crash Test Dummy! More Specifically, Tatum, Powell, Monk (Tormented), and Horace Silver (Teenage Strangler).
B-52’s ; “here comes a NAR-whal!”
“The one on the right is the Miles Davis of strippers.” – Final Justice
The kids today, they seem to like the Lisa Loeb…
Blue Oyster Cult (Soultaker, Final Sacrifice, etc.)
They’ve seem to have an appreciation for good prog bands (and good music in general). I’ve heard them mentioned King Crimson more than once and Gentle Giant. Joel slams Styx in Eegah during the host segment about the nature of hell.
Asia of course! Kevin sings it all the time!
I just read a bio of Hüsker Dü and think I heard them mention the board game, but they seem to have a surprising paucity of refs to Minnesota bands, outside of the Replacements – Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson were reffed, the former in Alien from LA, for instance. But how about a joke about the Suicide Commandos? Man Sized Action?
Mike did that killer imitation of Michael Feinstein, too. Lots of refs to the Great American Songbook, lines like “Let’s do it, let’s fall in love,” or “One for my baby, one for the road.” Those are simply too innumerable to count.
“We’ve wander into an Eagles concert—It’s a nightmare!”
*Cymbal roll* – The Mahavishnu Orchestra
“At least we have Yusef Lateef on flute!”
Led Zeppelin: From the host segment in Season 1 where Joel uses the bagpipes with a blower to quote “Whole Lotta Love” (the first time I saw that I laughed for about 5 minutes straight), to “Terror From The Year 5000” when Servo references Plant’s “war-cry” from “Immigrant Song” a couple times when the Terror makes her squealing noise.
This one actually happened to me. I was watching “Danger: Death Ray!”, and every so often, Mike & The Bots would start up with “Watermelon Man”. Having no idea what this song was, I researched it, and found out it was Herbie Hancock. Long story short, Hancock is now on my iPod thanks to M&tB. And yes, the music does sound like Watermelon Man.
I also think listening to any 80s music is required listening for MST3K. Between the Crow/Servo slam of Mike’s “precious 80s”, to Tom’s questions about “Owner of A Lonely Heart”, and the accidental “Didn’t Mean to Turn You On”ing, they’re everywhere!
The B-52s, absolutely. I can think of riffs on “Love Shack” alone in three different eps (Catalina Caper, Terror from the Year 5000, Final Sacrifice).
Also, Jethro Tull, with all the Ian Anderson riffs, “Aqualung” references, bits of Tull lyrics, etc.
And as one who did party to Journey to the Center of the Earth (oh the shame), I appreciated all the Rick Wakeman references, too.
Sounds like Jerry Reed/ Ick!
Does Kronos Quartet live on this street?
Party Girl? Is he Elvis Costello?
Rush
They make several Rush references across the life span of the series.
“They’ve stumbled onto Geddy Lee’s birthplace!”
The Monkees
David Bowie
Emerson, Lake & Palmer (“Lucky Man” sung in Giant Spider Invasion, I believe)
Also Rush: “Neil Peart on drums.” Neil liked his drum solos, I guess.
Can’t leave out the Hearts of Space. And Philip Glass. Remember that Gamera flick with music by Tomito?
“And a Lou Reed shall guide them.” I just watched the ep with the woman at a bar who looks creepily like Lou, too. “Oh yeah, from the Transformer album!” Daddy-O?
Cool. Now THIS is a topic. Even if I do say so myself :)
Indirect musical prerequisite: K-Tel Records TV Commercials from the 70s & 80s.
( oh and Sampo. great to hear you’re a TH fan… huge fan myself too: got into them back in 78, later saw them at Radio City on the Remain in Light Tour… )
WOW, it took 21 comments to get to a Rush reference. But, that’s what I was gonna say. Rush!!
Songs from musical theater are very popular on the show. “Chicks and ducks and geese better scurry / When I take you out in a Surrey” is from Oklahoma and has been used a lot. So has “Whe-e-e-e-er…is love?” from Oliver.
Let’s not forget the frequent Prince riffs (Agent For Harm is basically a Prince song book of riffs).
The one that really got me into the show, was a Tom Waits riff. When M&tBs started singing “Underground” in Alien From LA, I knew the show was for me.
During the Sci-Fi years, the Brains really had a hate on for Beck and Paula Cole for some reason.
Of course, that’s why I love the show’s musical tastes, since it could go anywhere from classical to grunge on a dime. Heck, Kevin seems to like to do Lady Gaga refs in Rifftrax bits.
Tom Waits gets a few references (“Let me play ya something from Bone Machine”-Final Sacrifice).
Chirs DeBergh (sp?)
The Who
Ted Nugent (required for any long-haired barbarian hero.)
Yes
Emerson, Lake and Palmer
Those would be helpful musical references
KISS!!! Both Mike and Joel riff on the song Black Diamond. Once in Swamp Diamonds and another in Design For Dreaming. They both try and sing the guitar riff with varying results. Also whenever there is a long tongue present, Gene Simmons is referenced.
Sinead O’Connor, “Nothing Compares 2 U.” Every time there a sustained organ note, someone goes into “It’s been seven hours and fifteen days…”
Spalanzani and Wilford, don’t forget Servo’s Waitsian rendition of the Gamera theme song. 8-)
Sunglasses at Night.
Lest we forget the classical repertoire:
– Beethoven, part of whose Waldstein Sonata is played in the invention exchange of The Amazing Colossal Man
– Debussy, whose Arabesque No. 1 in E Mike plays on wine glasses in The Phantom Planet
– Prokofiev, who’s mentioned whenever there’s really vicious background music, and in particular in one of the Hercules movies
– Rachmaninoff, mentioned in Gunslinger
– Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, whose O Fortuna was parodied as Tom Servo’s theme song from The Violent Years
– Stravinsky and Rite of Spring comes up quite a bit, like in The Truck Farmer and the credits of The Projected Man
– Mozart’s The Magic Flute, and there’s so much more!
General music terms also come up a lot. Any time that Mike does the NPR voice and says, ‘The adagio was fantastic—absolutely fantastic …’ And one that cracked me up was in Century 21 where the narrator says “And presto!” to which Mike replies, “Well … andante maybe.”
Zappa, natch. But if nothing else, his song “Jewish Princess” as they borrowed the “la la la” from it for use in just about every version of the opening theme.
Otherwise, I’d throw in a vote for Bruce Springsteen. A great deal of the opening host segment from “Master Ninja” is derived from the lyrics to “Born to Run.”
Sadly, I don’t recall many Kinks’ riffs- although they do refer to Ray Davies in The Final Sacrifice.
see that cloud. it’s Mick Jagger’s stay off it.
she’s in tatters.
but if you try sometime you might find you get what you need.
Actually Prince wrote Nothing Compares 2 U. Also Manic Monday, covered famously by the Bangles of course. Tom growled out some lines of Tom Wait’s Diamonds on My Windshield in one show, it sounds like beat poetry.
Cued up Santa Claus Conquers the Martians totally by random just now, right before the “Dear Hair Club, I need help big time” line we all remember from the documentary, Crow says “But first, a tour of Paisley Park.” Which is Prince’s Minneapolis studio. The Hendrix equivalent was Electric Ladyland. Think they mentioned another MN studio, Blackberry Way, in some show.
That film also has the line “Woah, Maynard Ferguson playing a ballad,” after some frenzied trumpet playing. Maynard’s specialty was screaming into his instrument’s highest registers. The crack about Maynard’s Band Live In Some High School Gymnasium is in reference to a live LP of theirs, big bands faced progressively more desultory prospects after WWII, and by the 70s were barely eking out an existence.
There were a few Springsteen references. Off the top of my head:
– “Do The Bruce Springsteen!” in The Horror Of Party Beach as one of the characters on the beach does a vaguely “Dancing In The Dark” music video-like move.
– Two in Deathstalker: One of the characters is referenced as starring in “The Bruce Springsteen Story”, and “57 Oracles And Nothin’ On” (a reference to the 1992 song “57 Channels And Nothin’ On” ).
– In The Killer Shrews intro, Servo makes mention of Springsteen cassettes that Joel gave him with his car.
– In Parts: The Clonus Horror, when the river is mentioned, one of the guys begins humming, go figure, “The River”.
I seem to remember hearing a few more, but I can’t recall them right now. I get the impression someone on the staff was/is a Bruce fan. Maybe Kevin, based on The Killer Shrews intro?
A lot of 70’s mellow hits/artists get mentioned along the way.
Gino Vanelli gits mentioned in Pod People and Soultaker.
I can’t remember the movie (Dr. Z perhaps?) when Crow quotes the lyrics to Brandy.
My favorite is in Angel’s Revenge, when Peter Lawford shouts at his attack dog. “Baby!” “I’m a want you!” follows Crow.
“SAIL AWAY!”
David Crosby eating a McRib Sandwich, Stephen Stills in “Atomic Brain” and frequent Neil Young riffs. Strangely, I can’t recall a Nash riff.
It used to be VERY difficult to track down a copy of This is Spinal Tap, at least where I’m from, so it wasn’t until later in the series that I was able to get some of the references. “Nobody knew who they were or what they were doing” and of course the references to Nigel Tufnel guitar solos.
Difford and Tilbrook- well, at least the Mads are called that in one episode- rather obscure, I suppose.
WE’RE the DEAD!
ENO !
From The Gunslinger, Servo’s “Don’t sleep in the subway” riff must confuse a lot of younger viewers who don’t know who Petula Clark is.
Deep Purple “Smoke on the Water” as they sing it as Yole (Or Oele) sings in “Hercules Unchained.”
Rock Lobster from the B-52s. Love Shack from the B-52s for Gamera. “I got me a Turtle, it’s a big as a whale and it’s about to set sail!”
Batman Theme for Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster
Jungle Love by Morris Day and the Time for Hercules Unchained. With the dancing girls and Joel says “Jesse, now Jerome!”
Dang – someone mentioned the Bonzos right off the bat. But now that I think about it, who didn’t they reference over the course of the show? Napoleon XIV, maybe?
There’s a whole host segment about Ambrosia (with a bonus dig at Eric Carmen), for crying out loud.