I Shit Music

I was listening to a friend recently talk about his band playing on NBC’s The Today Show or something like that, and the absurd notion of waking up at 5:30 AM to go play 10 minutes of rock music. But you know, it’s one of those things you just gotta do if you’re really trying to have commercial success. At the best points, you’re joking with Conan before hitting his stage. At the low points, you’re fighting with Al Roker for the last gluten-free hot-dog. So this got me thinking about compiling the greatest morning talk show performances of all time, but frankly I didn’t have the stomach for all the archived Katie Couric footage today. Instead, I’ve been contemplating the best TV moments when a rock band appears unexpectedly. Yeah, we all expect them to rock the late night talk show, and forget all the dumb reality show crap. What about when all the sudden your favorite band is a guest cook on Iron Chef? That’s what I’m into. Here’s my Top 3 moments.

1) Pink Floyd Plays the First Moon Landing

How fucking cool was the BBC back in the day? On the evening of July 29, 1969, as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were taking the first human steps on the moon, the BBC actually had Pink Floyd live in the studio to jam along to the footage. I know this sounds like some LSD fantasy – Dude, what if… – but it’s actually legit. This video below has the original audio, but is spliced on top of some later moon footage since the video/audio original seems to have been lost. Originally entitles “But What If It’s Made of Green Cheese”, it was later classified as “Moonhead.”

2) Jeff Tweedy Does The Weather

Last December, before some Wilco hometown shows in Chicago, they must have been doing some sort of in-studio thing for the local station. And some genius producer decided it would be hilarious to have Tweedy do the weather. Well, he was right. His sarcastic charm sets the whole weatherman profession back a good 10 years. Great moment.

3) Gwar Appears on Joan Rivers

The legendary day-time interview from 1990 is magical. Joan Rivers is hilarious, Oderus Urungus is hilarious – it’s a lot better than when they went on Springer. You gotta love when her return-from-commerical music blends into one of their tunes. Fuck though, remember when people really cared about this band (for better or worse?) They used to be huge.

Not a bad time to be a TV executive in New York City – the late night talk-shows are crushing this week, or actually I guess they’re literally crushing at around 5:30 – when these things are recorded, but either way. Things kicked off with Radiohead on Saturday Night Live 2 days ago – they played “Lotus Flower” and “Staircase”, although both seemed a little bit dusty. I think it’s more based upon the fact that a spaced out, 2-song performance is not the ideal slot for these guys to lock in their magic, but we’ll see when they appear on the Colbert Report this evening. And the 2 shows they’re playing at the Roseland Ballroom this weekend are gonna be fuckin’ historic, but I don’t want to remind myself that I won’t be there. The important thing to note is that, like at this summer’s Basement sessions, they have Portishead‘s Clive Deamer on a second drum kit. It really thickened up the beat in a way that says, “Fuck yeah, Radiohead should have 2 drummers” and I hope he plays the whole shows, because it’d be great to hear him fill out some of the older stuff. I put a clip of SNL’ s “Lotus Flower” below.

The 2nd NYC TV event of the week is Jimmy Fallon hosting Pink Floyd week. I guess there’s some huge Floyd reissue due out this week – I mean all the Floyd I got sounds amazing to me, I don’t need some weird 3D reissue bullshit – but I’m into having random bands come on each day to play a different song. The Shins  re-emerge as a functioning band again – tonight they play “Breathe”. The highlight of the week has got to be tomorrow though, when the Foo Fighters play “In The Flesh” with Roger Waters on vocals. Sickness. This is a much better plan than when they did Rolling Stones week, and closed it out with Phish playing “Loving Cup” while Keith Richards just sat there on the plush couch. C’mon, Keith’s right fucking there – can we get a guitar in the man’s hands? Anyway, MGMT on Wednesday, that country-fuck Dierks Bentley on Thursday, and Pearl Jam on Friday. So tune into WNNNNNNNBC each night this week around 1:20 AM for a glimpse into what late-night television would be like if MTV hadn’t forgotten what the “M” stands for.

Ok, so we’re gonna go ahead and put this one in the running for “Most Non-Rock and Roll Move of 2011″ – An ex-member of a Pink Floyd cover band is suing his old bandmates for smoking pot. Basically, it’s as simple as that. The Pink Floyd Experience, based out of San Diego, has been one of the biggest touring Floyd tributes for a while. Now, I couldn’t tell you how good they are since they have none of their music streaming, and I’m not gonna download some random bros playing Floyd covers…especially since their biggest claim to fame seems to be that they have 2.5 million dollars worth of props and lighting equipment. I suppose they want you to presume that their absurd Floyd chops got them that money, and so you should use their production costs as a sign of their talent. But if that’s how shit worked, than Muse would be the most amazing band ever, and not just a bunch of pretentious anthem-whiners who have a ridiculous light show.

Anyway, so this dude Graham Heath has to be one of the biggest tools I’ve ever heard of. First off, he’s just a singer – doesn’t play any instruments. Which is fine, except when you’re just singing in a cover band for an actual band that never had a member who was solely the lead singer. So basically, in his lawsuit he states that the other members of the band used to smoke pot, ILLEGALLY (GASP!) in their hotel rooms after the gig. And he doesn’t liketo smoke grass, and as a whiny singer complained that it was gonna hurt his preciuos little fake Floyd voice. So the rest of the band totally got sick of the jerk, and fired him from the band. Which he is stating means that he was falsely terminated in violation of the California labor code. Dude, you got kicked out of the Floyd band bro – fucking deal with it.

I mean hell, if this thing actually goes to court, I think the other guys’ defense should be – “We’re a fucking Pink Floyd cover band – if you got a problem with us smoking weed, then you probably shouldn’t be in the fucking band.” Case closed if you ask me. Here’s a snippet of the actual complaint:

At the time Plaintiff complained to Quinn, he was concerned that his exposure to marijuana would affect his health, especially because he had severe allergies and would also expose him to potential criminal liability. Despite Mr. Heath’s repeated oral complaints, Quinn did nothing to stop the use of marijuana in the hotel rooms. Shortly after Mr. Heath began complaining about the open use of drugs in the hotel room, Mr. Heath was suddenly and summarily terminated.

Damn right, he was terminated. It goes into more absurd charges, like that the band put up stupid looking pictures of Heath on their website to make him look bad. Fucking prima donna – I hope the dude gets blacklisted from the entire So Cal music scene. Come fucking on – Pink Floyd, California, Weed – and he thinks those things don’t belong together?!?! Here’s the whole story and charges: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/jam-session/2011/may/23/which-ones-pink-the-one-suing-local-tribute-band/ 

I mean, what’s next…somebody’s gonna sue McDonald’s for their co-employees being too fat? Well, in the mean time here’s some real professionals channeling the ghosts of old Floyd: the solo at 2:05 is breathtaking.

So at some point last year Roger Waters stated that the incomparable David Gilmour would join him on stage for one show on his gigantic The Wall tour. Seems like the two masterminds of Floyd don’t utterly despise each other like they once did. For a while, there were rumors of what show it was going to be – for some reason, tweeking bloggers saw Gilmour in Chicago’s O’Hare airport a month before the Chicago gig, so they presumed it was going to be there. Yeah, like the big man needs to get to a gig a month early to rehearse, and like there would be no other reason for him to be in one of the largest hub airports on the planet. And yeah, like they’re going to have the one-off be in the States, when you know their British pride runs rampant. Stupid. Anyway, shit finally happened last night at London’s O2 arena. Nick Mason, (PF drummer) actually showed up too – essentially making it as close to Pink Floyd as you’re gonna get here in 2011.

            The only thing that blows is that basically they only did “Comfortably Numb” together. I mean sure, it’s the hit, and it’s got the legendary guitar solo that you drool to hear Gilmour rock, but wouldn’t it have been really killer if he came out right at the beginning and just shredded “In The Flesh?”? <<<(Note my proper use of punctuation as the song itself has a question mark in the title as well as the sentence being a question. And proper British quotation usage.)>>> Annnnyway, if he had come out from the get-go, I’m willing to bet that the crowd might have even stood up! Hell, Floyd seems to be the biggest band in the world that people just love to sit down for. Well, that’s probably the last time this is gonna happen so it’s worth checking out the footage below. The look on Waters face when Dave first steps out is timeless and beautiful and inspiring and worth all the hype and bullshit though. Hopefully everyone in attendance had their minds primed and lubricated. All hail the Queen.