The Tubes seem to be a theater group that parodies rock & roll and its associated social conventions of the last five years. There are witless sendups of Bowie ("Space Baby"), Chicago ("Haloes") and heavy metal ("White Punks on Dope") as well as an expressed fondness for the revival of that ancient fad, sadomasochism ("Mondo Bondage").

Why anyone would be interested in recorded parodies of musical...

Last time out, it was a McLuhan-esque swipe at mass media. Now the Tubes are sending up those industrial giants of the Big Board–your IBMs, Du Ponts, Xeroxes, et al. – and the whole merger-minded corporate mentality. Fee Waybill as Lee Iacocca? Hmmm. Yes, the seven musicians-cum-businessmen pictured on the back cover of The Completion Backward Principle, affecting well-tailored...

Apparently, the Tubes agree with Randy Newman's opinion that the members of Toto are "the best players of rock & roll ever," because their eighth album, Outside Inside, sounds at times as shrill and overdone as any of Toto's records. With Outside Inside, the Tubes have in large measure sacrificed wit for airplay: they serve up stock rock scenarios about faceless wonderwomen, alternately emulating...

Onstage, the Tubes are the Marshall McLuhans of rock & roll because the sheer force of their audio-visual firepower practically demands a ravishing rethink about the media, the source of many of our national, everyday preoccupations. An uncanny blend of public dream and personal nightmare, the troupe's double vision is so diabolical and precise that one is both entertained by the magic of the...