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© 2024 Tonight's Musical Guest, Today
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The Beatles on Ed Sullivan. Nirvana on Saturday Night Live. Warren Zevon on David Letterman. Sometimes, late-night TV musical performances live on forever. Most don’t. But we still want to talk about them.
Each week on “Tonight’s Musical Guest, Today”, long-time friends Alex Beaton and Jon Hillman dive in on the music and cultural memory of a band through the arc of their late-night TV performances. Watch along with Alex and Jon as they examine and react to these musical history moments preserved in the amber of time alongside two celebrity guests and a talk show host.
From Conan to Colbert, Letterman to Leno, or SNL to MadTV, there is no shortage of iconic late-night musical moments. And no end to the ones you don’t remember.
27 Episodes
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We're talking one of the most successful and volatile bands of the 1990s: hair journeys, lineup changes, #1 albums, and too many Billy Corgan quotes. It's SMASHING PUMPKINS week!Joining the show to talk about one of her favorite bands of all time is the great Marissa Paternoster (ex-Screaming Females, Noun)! Marissa lays out the ways her Pumpkins fandom helped her become of the most renowned and unique guitarists of the past 20 years. The guys and her discuss the frustrating and talented enig...
All the stars are here. It's late-night TV's biggest evening. We even made Kenny make a crooner awards show version of the theme. We're celebrating the best and worst of over 100 performances discussed. It's our One-year Anniversary Awards Show!What was the best interview we saw? Which band's fashion shined? Who gave the vocal performance of the year? Which vest upset Alex the most? And who did we pick for best and worst overall performances? It's a clip show, now more than ever!Want to watch...
The podcast bad boys from Boston are talking about THE Bad Boys from Boston. It's AEROSMITH week!Joining the show with discussion questions in hand is the lead singer and guitarist of another great Boston band Beeef, Perry Eaton! Perry and the guys break down the many eras of Aerosmith and try to make sense of their complicated and epic legacy. The band's first TV performance in 1974 on The Midnight Special is all leather pants and rock god vibes. 13 years later, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry do...
They're pop-punk emo heroes turned anthemic arena radio rock mainstays. Some turned to heavy drug use, while others became tabloid fodder. And hats. Lots of hats. It's FALL OUT BOY week!The career arc is there folks, captured in some ridiculous late night performances. Fall Out Boy explodes into the mainstream with From Under the Cork Tree with a shaky spot on SNL. The anti-vowel movement comes to a head with a pretty great performance of Thnks Fr Th Mmrs on the Tonight Show featuring strings...
In a year that saw Nirvana, R.E.M, and Pearl Jam put out generation-defining albums, Spin Magazine named this band's 1991 album Record of the Year. 33 years later, this cult power-pop outfit remains a weird outlier sandwiched between the eras of grunge and Britpop. It's TEENAGE FANCLUB week!Joining the show is animator, music video director, and self-proclaimed Fannie Mark Neeley (Aquarium Drunkard)! Mark and the guys explore the origins of TFC's rapid ascent from the Scottish indie-rock scen...
The craziest bass playing you've ever seen. Atonal metal breakdowns. Songs about meth heads burying bodies. And multiple top-ten records. How? It's PRIMUS week!It's a guestless, Alex-pick episode: buckle up. Primus breaks on to the national TV scene on the Dennis Miller Show. "My Name is Mud" is a hit somehow, and Primus performs it on MTV's Haunted House Party with White Zombie and Penn & Teller. Les, Ler, and Herb dress up in penguin suits to perform their biggest hit to the dismay of D...
He's gone from causing a national panic to winning Grammys and selling high-end perfumes, all while putting on some of the most innovative stage performances of the 21st century. It's TYLER, THE CREATOR week!Joining the show to school us elder millennials on our most modern artist to date is music and culture journalist J'na Jefferson (Rolling Stone, Uproxx)! The guys and J'na make sense of Tyler's wild early career, including a 2011 Fallon performance for the ages featuring an exorcism. A 20...
Her voice: timeless. Her TV performances: iconic. We're headed across the pond and googling gobby. It's AMY WINEHOUSE week!Clips on Later...with Jools Holland and Friday Night with Jonathan Ross show Amy at her jazziest. Jools Holland's 2006 Annual Hootenanny gives her the big band treatment with Paul Weller from The Jam. Amy breaks out in her American television debut on David Letterman. And award show performances at The Mercury Prize and The Grammys perfectly capture both the zenith and tr...
So what-cha want? An episode on the prolific decades-spanning run of Ad Rock, Mike D, and MCA? No problem. It's BEASTIE BOYS week!Joining the show to break down the iconic rhymes, beats, and general coolness of the B-Boys is Texas Monthly writer and former AV Club Editor in Chief Sean O'Neal! The guys discuss the group's teenage punk roots and watch it in action on a 1984 public access clip. A ridiculous 1987 clip from the Late Show with Joan Rivers featuring a pole dancer captures their Lice...
It's a night of celebration and watching musicians and celebrities awkwardly count down numbers together. We're ringing in 2024 with our second-ever GRAB BAG episode on New Year's Eve performances!The guys watch Tina Turner preview her huge comeback moment on Johnny Carson. Vanilla Ice gratuitously humps the floor of the Ritz Carlton and counts down to 1991 with Pauly Shore and Martha Quinn. Papa Roach butchers a cover of Lithium by Nirvana. Good Charlotte and the Foo Fighters with Jack Black...
From Gilman to the Grammys, they are arguably the biggest American punk band of all time. It's GREEN DAY week!Joining the show is long-time and legendary (as proclaimed by us) Boston music venue booker Ryan Agate AKA Ryan the Terrible! The guys and Ryan talk about their shared music scene experience and a practice space pigeon before going deep on the twists and turns of Green Day's career arc. The show discusses three 1994 clips before watching a special performance of "86" on Letterman a ye...
Maybe you love to hate 'em. Maybe they're a guilty pleasure. Or maybe like most humans on earth you casually enjoy 'em. Either way, It's COLDPLAY week!Joining the show is music critic and writer of the Chicago-based culture blog No Expectations Josh Terry! The guys and Josh take a cue from Chris Martin and lean into sincerity as they discuss why Coldplay became arguably the most popular band of the 21st century. Early clips from Letterman and Kimmel show the band in their rawest and most pala...
They sparked a national obsession with ska horns and new wave keyboard while being led by one of the most famous frontwomen of the 1990s. It's NO DOUBT week!The clip journey this week takes the show from local SoCal cable access in 1990 to Super Bowl 37 in 2003. In between, the guys discuss the formative and massive impact of Tragic Kingdom, with 1996 performances on Conan and SNL. A performance on Conan four years later finds the band trying a little too hard to replicate that mega success. ...
T-M-G-T-P-O-D! Find out what it means this week! We're going way back into the era of bright light variety specials to talk the Queen of Soul. It's 1960s ARETHA FRANKLIN week!The guys discuss Aretha’s intense upbringing amid the civil rights movement and on the black gospel circuit before watching a 1964 Steve Allen clip that captures her jazzy Columbia Record's era. Aretha crushes with Respect and Chain of Fools on a crazy time-capsule variety special called Woody Allen Looks at 1967. Plus h...
We got hella mohawks and ska hats at the ready for this one. It's RANCID week!Joining the show to break down all things bay area punk is the lead singer and guitarist of Boston-area band Bad Idea USA Courtney Denison! Courtney describes her own scene journey in Portsmouth, NH before diving into the long-time career and various side projects of Rancid. We discuss a killer national TV debut performance on SNL in 1995, some exciting left turn albums, and a Skinhead Rob-filled clip on Conan in 20...
We're talking about a band important enough that we use them in our show description. It's NIRVANA week!One of the pod's musical heroes is here to talk about his own musical hero. Musician and producer Rory Phillips (The Impossibles, The Stereo) joins the show to talk about his own Nirvana superfandom and what it was like growing up as a budding musician in the era of Nevermind. Alex and Jon try to not make Rory feel too weird about their own love for The Impossibles before jumping into Nirva...
We're grabbing a bag, shaking it up, and pulling out some clips this week. It's our first ever GRAB BAG episode on famous one-hit wonders!Alex and Jon walk 500 miles with the Proclaimers on Letterman before watching a wild performance by Sir-Mix-a-Lot on Arsenio featuring a giant on-stage ass. The Toadies play their seminal grunge 2.0 hit on The Jon Stewart Show and the guys discuss the anarcho-punk background of Chumbawumba. Harvey Danger comes and goes like a shooting star in the night. New...
They stormed the early 2000s like their name was El Niño. But what happened once the storm died down? It's SUM 41 week!Alex and Jon go solo to talk about the startling meteoric rise and winding transformation of this somewhat pop-punk Canadian outfit. Tommy Lee and Rob Halford join the band for a rock medley to open up MTV's 20th anniversary special before Seann William Scott and Sum 41 attempt to mend a broken nation on SNL. And the guys try to make sense of the band's long and intentio...
Stipe. Buck. Mills. Berry. Beaton. Hillman. One of the most important and significant American bands of all time gets the TMGT treatment. It's R.E.M. week!Joining the show to talk 32 years, 15 albums, and a pod-record seven late night clips is former AVclub editor and current "The Reveal" film critic Keith Phipps! They span the late-night TV globe from America to the UK to Europe to break down the band's prolific and varied longtime career. The guys discuss R.E.M.'s incredible indie run on IR...
What's the worst way to understand a legendary pop punk band famous for shaky live sets and funny stage banter? How about watching their late night tv show performances? This week on Tonight's Musical Guest, Today, it's BLINK 182!Joining the show is cbsboston.com sports writer, NBC Sports Boston on-air contributor, and Blink 182 superfan Michael Hurley! Mike and the guys bond over lost dreams of playing drums for a living before going deep on the varied eras of Blink. They discuss somewhat sh...
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