Spike Jones - Influence

Influence

This section does not cite any references or sources.

There is a clear line of influence from the Hoosier Hot Shots, Freddie Fisher and his Schnickelfritzers and the Marx Brothers to Spike Jones — and to Stan Freberg, Gerard Hoffnung, Peter Schickele's P.D.Q. Bach, The Goons, The Beatles, Frank Zappa, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, Mr. Bungle and "Weird Al" Yankovic. Billy Barty appeared in Yankovic's film UHF and a video based on the movie. According to David Wild's review in Rolling Stone Magazine, Elvis Costello's 1989 Album "Spike" was named partly in tribute to Jones.

Syndicated radio personality Dr. Demento regularly features Jones' music on his program of comedy and novelty tracks. Jones is mentioned in The Band's song, "Up on Cripple Creek". (The song's protagonist's paramour states of Jones: "I can't take the way he sings, but I love to hear him talk.") Novelist Thomas Pynchon is an admirer and wrote the liner notes for a 1994 reissue, Spiked! (BMG Catalyst). A scene in the romantic comedy I.Q. shows a man demonstrating the sound of his new stereo to Meg Ryan's character by playing a record of Jones' music.

In 1997, singers Artie Schroeck and Linda November directed a production in Atlantic City entitled "The New City Slickers Present a Tribute to Spike Jones", with a band that attempted to re-create the style and humor of Jones' music.

Read more about this topic:  Spike Jones

Famous quotes containing the word influence:

    Perhaps I stand now on the eve of a new life, shall watch the sun rise and disappear behind a black cloud extending out into a grey sky cover. I shall not be deceived by its glory. If it is to be so, there is work and the influence that work brings, but not happiness. Am I strong enough to face that?
    Beatrice Potter Webb (1858–1943)

    What arouses the indignation of the honest satirist is not, unless the man is a prig, the fact that people in positions of power or influence behave idiotically, or even that they behave wickedly. It is that they conspire successfully to impose upon the public a picture of themselves as so very sagacious, honest and well-intentioned.
    Claud Cockburn (1904–1981)

    Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men. We do not like that kind of immortality, but what is to be done about it?
    Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)