This One’s For Renfield

Looks good!

How can one rock band be successful, underrated, hugely influential, and criminally overlooked all at the same time? Edgar Wright’s debut documentary THE SPARKS BROTHERS, which features commentary from celebrity fans Flea, Jane Wiedlin, Beck, Jack Antonoff, Jason Schwartzman, Neil Gaiman, and more, takes audiences on a musical odyssey through five weird and wonderful decades with brothers/bandmates Ron and Russell Mael celebrating the inspiring legacy of Sparks: your favorite band’s favorite band.

Directed by Edgar Wright. In Theaters June 18.

9 Replies to “This One’s For Renfield”

  1. Thanks, I can’t wait to see this.

    The answer to that question: Sparks were just too weird for most Americans.

    Kimono My House is an album that I still play all the way through a few times a year, almost 50 years after release. Here they are back in the day on Top of the Pops.

  2. The song cuts off early, but you get the idea. The full version is elsewhere on YouTube if you’re so inclined.

  3. Never heard of these guys, thanks!

    Rock Snob’s Dictionary:

    “Camp-oddity duo of baffling durability, consisting of brothers Ron Mael (keyboards) and Russell Mael (vocals). Though the Maels are from Los Angeles, their most loyal constituency is in Britain, where at the height of the Glam era, they scored a No. 2 hit with the over-the-top mock-operatic single “This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us” and mesmerized Top of the Pops viewers with their bizarre appearance: Ron, with his Hitler/Chaplin mustache, slicked-back hair, and poker-faced demeanor, and Russell, with his Shirley Temple ringlets and yelping, hyperactive singing. At the height of their success, in 1974, the Maels tried to poach Queen’s guitarist Brian May, on the grounds that May’s group was “washed up.” Sparks perseveres to this day, thanks to a corps of starry-eyed devotees that includes Morrissey.”

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