This week’s batch of late night musical moments takes us on a breakneck journey from the sublime to the surreal, as street-savvy punk rock makes its way to Broadway, cult-hero indie-poppers go for the brass ring, grunge-era icons return for better or worse, and singer/songwriters brush shoulders with grand-scale popmeisters. It all flickered across your TV screen at one point or another over the last few days, but now you can catch up on what you missed.
Dr. Dog – Jimmy Kimmel Live (April 28, 2010)
Wait a minute, when did Beck start singing with Dr. Dog? Oh, sorry, just a momentary case of mistaken identity there. In any case, everybody’s favorite indie-rock mutts seem to be ready for the big moment in the sun they’ve spent the last few years building up to. Not only have they ironed all the wrinkles out of their sound, they’ve gotten all spiffed up — check out that tighty whitey t-shirt on the bass player, that alone probably took hours of preparation before it was camera-ready. But seriously, there was a time when seeing Dr. Dog on network TV would have been strictly a pipe dream, so it’s nice to see the Dog getting their props these days.
Hole – Late Show With David Letterman (April 27, 2010)
So this is what we waited 12 years for? Judging from some of the bootleg versions of Nobody’s Daughter that have been circulated around over the last year or two, this kind of rote grunge redux wasn’t even on the original agenda, but nevertheless, here it is. If a new band put out a debut single that sounded this uninspired, it would get remaindered so fast it’d make your head spin. Kudos to the ever-caustic Letterman for inquiring about Courtney’s scruffy-looking, generic decadent-rocker-dude bandmates and commenting “I’d like to see the paperwork on those guys.”
OK Go – Late Show With David Letterman (April 28, 2010)
Making up for the sartorial sins of Courtney Love’s backup guys (yeah, sure, they’re a band) the night before, OK Go is an act that knows how to dress — look at those suits! They even go so far as to dress up the stage with a batch of background singers. Of course, the extra vocalists also contribute to the larger-than-life sound they deliver here, which builds up nicely over the course of the song till it reaches a big, booming climax. Post-performance, Letterman also seems oddly taken with the drum kit.
Aqualung – Tonight Show with Jay Leno (April 28, 2010)
Stop calling Matt “Aqualung” Hales the indie-pop Elton John! It’s just not fair, for one thing, and for another, we prefer to think of him more as the unplugged Thomas Dolby, what with all his fanciful lyrics and elegantly arcing melodies. Just because he sings softly and pounds a piano, that doesn’t automatically put him on a par with the weak-kneed likes of The Fray, you know. Listen closely here, this guy not only writes actual songs, with memorable lyrics and everything, but he knows how to arrange them and put them across.
Broadway Cast of American Idiot – Late Show With David Letterman (April 29,, 2010)
Is this what hippies back in the Age of Aquarius felt like the first time they saw Hair? It’s hard to know whether to laugh, cry, or check oneself into a mental hospital for some rehab after seeing even a few moments of this surreal cultural phenomenon. That’s not to say that it’s “bad” per se — in fact, the band does a pretty good job of approximating Green Day’s pop-punk roar. But wouldn’t these theater brats be just as happy, if not better off, staffing a revival of West Side Story somewhere? The real mind-boggler of course, is the fact that Green Day themselves had to sign off on this.
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