If you've been dying to hear acoustic versions of such timeless Spinal Tap classics as "Big Bottom," "Bitch School," and "Sex Farm"--and let's face it, what serious music fan hasn't?--then you've come to the right place, as Unwigged and Unplugged offers that and more. With the 25th anniversary of This Is Spinal Tap at hand in 2009, principals Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer decided to hit the road as themselves, performing material they wrote for both that film and A Mighty Wind, the Guest-directed folk music spoof, as well as assorted other odds and ends. With Guest and McKean on guitars, Shearer playing bass, and all three singing (a keyboardist joins in on several tunes, as do singers Judith Owen and Annette O'Toole, wives of Shearer and McKean, respectively), this is Tap and the Kingston Trio-esque Folksmen sans frills, other than a few film clips and the occasional audience participation number. That means the music must stand on its own, and it does so admirably, not to mention hilariously. The Spinal Tap numbers are all the more ridiculous in the acoustic format ("Big Bottom" is delivered like a swingin' hipster finger-snapper, while "Stonehenge" is accompanied by a filmed version of the infamous miniature monument from the original movie). But it's the material from A Mighty Wind that really stands out. Like all great satire (as opposed to broad parody), tunes like "Never Did No Wandering," "Blood on the Coal," and "Old Joe's Place" deftly straddle the line between earnest and absurd; the same is true of the songs written for the Thamesmen, Spinal Tap's psychedelic '60s incarnation, especially "Rainy Day Sun" and "Gimme Some Money," which brilliantly invoke British Invasion bands like the Kinks and the Animals. Add to that a Folksmen cover of the Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up," with the Milwaukee audience heartily joining in on the lewd "You make a dead man ----" chorus, and really, who could ask for more? --Sam Graham
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