'Tommy' Is Way More Disturbing Than You Remember

If you ever wondered what happened to the guys from Yacht Rock and Channel 101, they just put on a one-night-only stage rendition of the classic rock opera, Tommy. Also, if you didn’t believe that L.A. is obsessed with rock operas, this might prove the point. David Lyons and Tony Zaret gathered a handful of their friends, including Community creator Dan Harmon and Yacht Rock creator/Drunk History storyteller JD Ryznar, along with The Whom (“the grammatically correct tribute band to The Who”) and took the stage at The Blue Star, a dive bar located in the quaint industrial section of downtown L.A., where absolutely no buses are running, even when they say they are. Before the show, I wrote to ask David and Tony a few questions about what I could expect. I was told later they were drunk when they replied. I said, “That’s OK. I was drunk when I wrote the questions.” Even playing ground.

VICE: Both of you guys and some of the cast are veterans of Yacht Rock and Channel 101, and some of you went on to Acceptable TV. What the hell have you guys been doing?

Tommy People: Producing the shit out of a rock opera, isn't that why you contacted us?

I have a joke with friends that when I have kids, I'm only going to play them Weird Al songs and pass them off as the originals, so when they're at parties later on, they'll be like, "Who the fuck covered 'Addicted to Spuds' and totally fucked it up?" I have never seen Tommy; you're about to be my "Addicted to Spuds." Tell me how much better your version will be.

We took out all the shitty songs. And we're gonna play it really loud. To coin a phrase, it will be "all killer, no filler." Plus way more dongs.

Who is playing Tommy, and will he play little-boy Tommy as well as adult Tommy?

Tommy is played by Tim Marklevitz, but little boy Tommy will be Dan Rieser. We separated them so the audience wouldn't be confused.

Who has the privilege of playing Uncle Pedo (Ernie) and do they have experience with the role? Tell us about the rest of the cast.

David is playing Uncle Ernie. He's not a molester, but he's willing to learn. The rest of the cast includes Whitney Avalon, the only real singer, JD Ryznar as the pinball wizard, Hollywood's Dan Harmon as "the doctor," Mark Teich as the Stepdad, and Ernie Walker as the Acid Queen.

We need to talk about Kevin. Why is Tommy's cousin Kevin so sadistic?

We cut out Cousin Kevin because his song is shitty.

Will you be using smell-o-vision and other special effects?

David, as Uncle Ernie, will have an actual erection during his scene. He's really method.

This is a live show. Which one of you will fuck up his lines first? Feel free to be a dickhead in your answers here.

Fuck you, you dumb fuck.

What do you want people to take away from this show?

About 10cc's of my nut juice. And a free poster.

During the show, I did not receive any promised nut juice, but I was, indeed, dazzled by a large mustachioed man in a black unitard, bandana, and bowtie. For someone whose only real knowledge of the story of Tommy comes from Wikipedia, I was totally shocked that Roger Daltry must have been raped at least ten times in that movie. Seriously, everyone wanted a piece of his ass, and always when you least expected it, like, for instance, after the dissolution of a pinball cult. And after Uncle Ernie took his pants down for Tommy the first time, which I have to say was mostly hilarious in the saddest way possible, because you can’t imagine why anyone would want to revolve a rock opera around excessive child raping, someone from the crowd said aloud, “Oh, god, did we all just laugh at that?!”

Also, The Whom was actually really fucking good, so good, in fact, that the bass player ended the show by smashing his bass into one of the pinball machine props, which was apparently a shock to the band, as they screamed at him, “Dude, it’s not worth it!” I was told later that they had planned to play several more Who covers after the show, but bass dude fucked it up/made it awesome. I have now vowed never to see the original Tommy. In fact, I was so inspired by David and Tony’s production that I’ve already begun pre-production on my new rock opera adaptation of Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire: An Inappropriate Touching Story. Mariah Carey’s songbook already basically captures every scene from the movie perfectly, so there’s really not much work involved.

Photos taken by Jeremy Bird. 

@AWolfeful