The Case for Conan: 8 Essential Musical Performances
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The White Stripes - "Let's Build a Home" (Live on Late Night With Conan O'Brien)
A week or so after my 16th birthday, I made my first unsupervised visit to New York City. The reason for the trip was to see one of my idols in the flesh, to catch a taping of Late Night With Conan O'Brien. Anyone who's ever gone to a late-night taping knows that you book tickets well in advance without knowing who the guests are. A few weeks before my trip, I discovered I had hit the jackpot: my tickets were for one of four consecutive appearances by the White Stripes. Yes, they rocked so incredibly hard that it was worth sitting through a lackluster appearance by Matt Dillon. I remember very few of the jokes or gags, but I have vivid memories of Jack White rocking out, of noticing that Meg White didn't wear shoes or socks while drumming.
I've thought about the reason that this memory stuck out to me as I became horrified at the news that Jay Leno is very likely booting Conan from his newly-acquired Tonight Show slot… or, at the very least, bumping his show back by a half hour. It's one of the many things that's always made Conan great, one of the myriad reasons people of my generation preferred him to the chinned one: the music.
David Bowie - "Dead Mean Walking" (Live on Late Night With Conan O'Brien)
David Bowie - Dead Man Walking ( acoustic )
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Is Jay Leno savvy? Of course not. His musical taste, like his sense of humor, is appallingly safe, vanilla, and can even be condescending. The new Jay Leno Show rarely books musical guests, let alone promotes discovery. Conan, on the other hand, was responsible for a good portion of my own musical upbringing. Long before the Hype Machine or MOG were founded or Pitchfork became the tastemaker it is today, Conan was where I first heard acts like Spoon and Nada Surf, where I would catch "new" favorites like the Flaming Lips perform without leaving a state too small to ever attract them.
The Flaming Lips - "Spongebob and Patrick Confront the Psychic Wall of Energy" (Live on Late Night With Conan O'Brien)
From that perspective, marginalizing Conan is the worst possible move that NBC could possibly be making. Pushing him back will cause a setback; allowing him to leave will disastrously shatter the DNA of music discovery. Sure, Jimmy Fallon has begun to take up the torch by making savvy musical choices, but does he really have the stamina to keep it up? Conan spent 16 years as the undisputed source of cutting-edge music on network television. While some of the show's ballsiest moves may seem like old hat in the age of YouTube, you've got to applaud a man with the guts to let Ben Folds and William Shatner perform together over a decade ago.
Fear of Pop feat. Ben Folds and William Shatner - "Fear of Pop" (Live on Late Night With Conan O'Brien)
What's truly hard when it comes the Leno-Conan feud is that one has to address the generation gap and risk seeming like a punk kid that doesn't respect his elders (a "Kid Pretentious" if you will), and no one really like to be that guy. But Leno's audience is aging, and the passing of the torch to bring Conan to the 11:30 slot - before this whole Jay Leno Show disaster was even a glint in Jeff Zucker's eye - was meant symbolize shifting demographics, a new era where Conan's now slightly older and wiser audience became the majority. While some thematic concessions would have to be made, Conan's new slot represented a new attitude towards cutting-edge humor and a surprising openness towards up-and-coming music in the mainstream. Now, of course, that symbolism has been shattered by the need for "ratings success." Because of that, you might never get to see something as challenging and weird as a Les Savy Fav performance on national television.
Les Savy Fav - "Patty Lee" (Live on Late Night With Conan O'Brien)
Will Leno have higher ratings than Conan by peddling whatever musicians are in the top 40? Temporarily. But like it or not, NBC, the next generation is the Conan generation, the one that watches Fallon for the musical guests even as it leaves his jokes on mute. Today, comedy and music are both consumed differently. NBC's inability to understand this is underscored by the fact that nearly all of my favorite Conan performances of yesteryear have been removed from YouTube for copyright violation. It's like NBC is ignoring the water as they drown. The people you want to reach, the ones that you want to turn into viewers for life, are younger and react differently than the people you currently have success with. People my age, people ten years older than me, we're the future. We download our music and have grown up with every sort of music imaginable at our finger tips. We discover new humor on YouTube. We grew up into these kinds of people as we stayed up past our bed times watching Late Night With Conan O'Brien. And you're about to lose us to the infinitely less exciting annals of grainy online video, of documentation that anyone beyond geeky bloggers took an interest bands like Dungen or My Morning Jacket.
Dungen - "Panda" (Live on Late Night With Conan O'Brien)
My Morning Jacket - "One Big Holiday" (Live on Late Night With Conan O'Brien)
What truly hits home for me is that White Stripes performance: somewhere, there's another impressionable 16-year-old who's robbed of the chance to see a live musical act that might change their lives forever. Sure, he can look it up and find a bootleg online, but it isn't the same experience, and, in any case, you need a seminal event from a mainstream outlet before you can even begin to dig on your own. That they'll never get to fight off sleep to watch Conan playing guitar alongside Bruce Springsteen and Max Weinberg is a tragedy in and of itself. I don't know about you, but that's a late night world I don't want to live in.
Bruce Springsteen - "Merry Christmas Baby" (Live on Late Night With Conan O'Brien)
Comments (18)
This is a fantastic agrument for Conan. I don't watch much late night programming, but you've hit it right on the head when you say that Conan has pushed the envelope.
I remember when M2 [before it became that crap channel MTV2] had a special co-hosted by Conan, promoting the Live from 6A album: http://www.discogs.com/Various-Live-From-6A-Conan-OBrien/release/1441413
and the lineup was incredible! This was music I loved as a middle-schooler and there was Conan, making it available. And not just available, but putting a GOOD slew of songs available.
I am of the Letterman generation. He was our Conan. However, I always hated Leno, just because. And I am old enough to know that they all pale in comparisson to the great one.
That being said, I like Conan, and I like his show.
The one thing you are missing in your arguement tho is this.
Take all of the people in the world who prefer Letterman and put them over there. Take all of the people in the world who prefer Leno and put them over here, then do the same for Conan and put them on the other side.
Now consider how much money each group pulls out of its pocket each week to spend on products that the host identifies with.
Sorry, Conan comes in third. And its a pitty. But those idiots at the helm of NBC do not care about taste, style, cred, kewlness....
They only care about how much they can charge for a 30 second commercial spot. And how much it cost them to produce the show and pay the star.
They are going to let Leno keep his job, but I can almost guarantee you it will cost Leno a chunk of his salary.
This is a WIN WIN for NBC, and the $30,000 a year salaries of the early twenty somethings out there who can afford a new White Stripes album, but not a new Buick....
Well, they are SOL.
And its a pitty... Personally I would have Letterman Conan and Fallon all on at 10PM on the three major networks, and dependent on their guest and musical appearances I would choose nightly who to tune into.
Leno can go suck an egg.
Good stuff. I remember when Conan was just getting started and he had this idea to discover the best unsigned band in the USA. Blightobody of Columbia, South Carolina won and rock-n-roll in the Palmetto state has never been the same. I need to find some of their music and get it up.
"Dry Fly" was a fav of mine.
I remember when Blightobody won--used to go see them now and then when they'd come down to the Holy City. It was a huge deal when they made it there.
Groon-
I went to CofC and when Blightobody came to town it was a blast. Remembering a show with them and Daddy Know it All. Good times indeed!
I'd choose "Kitty's Back" over "Merry Xmas Baby" for the Bruce performance, but it is fun to see Conan blissfully playing guitar.
I'd also note that, while Conan has featured some terrific musical acts over the years, the above list of great performances has no hip-hop/rap.
Loved Daddy Know it All! Sounds like we were in college around the same time here (early 90s?) but I went to CSU.
good piece, man. a different reason for respect that isn't in any of the articles that are coming out a mile a minute while this gets sorted out. i'm hoping that a bunch of my friends keep their jobs with Conan and wonder who he'll book if he runs to Fox at 11pm.
I haven't read this yet but I saw the DUNGEN performance listed, so that's enough for me to support you and this post.
MOG IT UP
Now I've read it and agree even more. Leno isn't even entertaining and never has bee. It's not so much a generation issue, because I liked Johnny Carson, i't san issue being bland. The equivalent of not having an opinion, so that you won't offend anyone, meanwhile never really appealing to anyone either.
Then again... I hate LOLCATS... so who's generation is what, anyway?
Just a heads up to everyone, Conan just officially announced he'd be leaving the Tonight Show. FOX ahoy?
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/conan-obrien-says-he-wont-do-tonight-show-following-leno/
I couldn't agree more. Conan is my Lettermen, I actually just said that on FB tonight. And Conan's letter? Brilliant! The true heir to the Tonight Show legacy, not Leno. The Leno thing is because affiliates had people bailing out before the news, so local news casts were losing viewers before the news. Leno is toxic, dump him. He wins either way, might as well go to fox, ick up a huge pay check and let Conan become the comeback kid he always was.
"People of Earth." Clasiic Conan.
I support Conan, But more importantly, that Les Savy Fav performance is awesome!!!
i agree, but this is missing arcade fire..hello
AND death from above
Excellent post, Kid. And right on! Conan's been the Tom Snyder of the late 20th century. He's been one of the few broadcast media outlets giving independent bands some airtime.
I think Ghost hit the nail on the head. The broadcast industry plays it safe / vanilla / middle of the road. Which says a lot about why broadcast TV is dying. Ya gots ta take some chances. Sure, you may fall on your ass, but you might also win the jackpot. I do hope Conan finds a good home somewhere.