Video of the Day: Los Campesinos!, “Romance is Boring”
We have a baseball bat pulled on an abusive lout, and a kid in a luche libre mask. What’s not to love?
Video of the Day: OK Go, “This Too Shall Pass”
OK Go - This Too Shall Pass from OK Go on Vimeo.
Chicago alt-pop weirdos roll around in the grass with the Notre Dame marching band for this key track from the Dave Fridmann-produced Of the Blue Colour of the Sky. Real savage-like!
Of course, OK Go has produced some of the silliest and most-played low-budget music clips in viral-video’s short history — “A Million Ways” and the treadmill-tastic “Here It Goes Again.” But as a bonus clip, here’s a personal favorite from the band’s first disc, “C-C-C-Cinnamon Lips”:
OK Go - C-C-C-Cinnamon Lips from OK Go on Vimeo.
Video of the Day: Hot Rats, “(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)”
Sort of Supergrass’ version of the Damned’s Naz Nomad and the Nightmares or XTC’s Dukes of Stratosphear, Hot Rats is an all-covers project in which the ‘grass puts their filthy mitts on your time-honored childhood favorites. Here, in a great Letterman clip, they blast through the Beasties as if they raised Keith Moon from the dead.
Video of the Day: Marina and the Diamonds, “Hollywood”
Last week, StaticBlog featured “Mowgli’s Road,” which showcased Welsh singer-songwriter Marina Diamandis’ art-pop tendencies. Now, this is the one that is likely to break her stateside.
And as a bonus, here’s the acoustic version:
Chin Up at NBC, Part IV: NBC Announces Its Post-Leno Prime Time Strategy
NBC just announced its plan to fill the 9 p.m. CST hour that will be vacated by “The Jay Leno Show” on Feb. 10. This plan goes into effect as soon as all the ice dancing and snow jumping exits stage left in Vancouver.
From the Associated Press:
New and veteran NBC dramas and a comedy produced by Jerry Seinfeld will take over the bulk of the prime-time slots soon to be vacated by Jay Leno.
NBC announced Thursday that the freshman drama “Parenthood” and the relocated “Law & Order” and “Law & Order: Special Victim Units” will fill three slots. Another will go to the comedy panel series “The Marriage Ref” from Seinfeld.
“Dateline NBC” will fill another 10 p.m. EST slot.
The new lineup will debut after NBC’s coverage of the Winter Olympics from Feb. 12-28.
Yet to be resolved is NBC’s effort to make way for Leno to return to late-night by bumping Conan O’Brien’s and “Tonight” to midnight, a plan O’Brien has rejected.
I guess NBC should be glad that “Law & Order” is still “chung-chung“-ing along. Otherwise, NBC might have been forced to show a daily repeat of that excruciating Hoda Kotb-Kathie Lee Gifford fourth hour of “Today.”
Just so we understand ourselves, my position on this is clear: while it might not be completely true as it relates to either contract law or the institutional mores of the National Broadcasting Company, Conan O’Brien is getting the raw, jagged, poison-tipped end of NBC’s late-night deal. While there appears to have been a clause in O’Brien’s 2004 contract allowing the network to move “Tonight” to a later time on its schedule, there was no sane reason to believe that NBC would actually make such a move, thereby cheapening one of its most important franchises.
But Jay Leno has a Rasputin-like hold over the network, and if he insisted that NBC program nothing but Spike TV’s muscle-car obsessed “Powerblock” shows in prime time, Jeffs Zucker and Gaspin would immediately start making break-up calls to Tina Fey and Dick Wolf. Leno failed in prime time, but NBC is absorbing the blame. Leno tells Broadcasting & Cable in November that he would like to have stayed at 10:30 p.m. CST, and presto — it’s done.
So that’s why, when Leno decides to wedge himself into the circle of complaint, his little chortles ring so hollow. On Wednesday night, Leno responded to O’Brien’s statement, in which the current “Tonight” host bemoaned the fact that NBC only gave his tenure seven months before it decided to play havoc with a six decade-old institution.
“Seven months!” Leno said on Wednesday’s edition of “The Jay Leno Show.” “How did he get that deal? We only got four.”
Where do I begin, exactly? NBC has moved the programming equivalent of mountains in order to make Leno happy. When Leno wanted to stay on the air despite turning over “Tonight” to O’Brien, NBC obliterated five hours of its prime time budget to give him his cheap chuckle hour. That’s K2. When that didn’t work out, they offered to push “Tonight” to 11:05 p.m. CST. That’s Everest.
Matt Lauer better watch himself. Leno might decide that waking up in the morning just isn’t right without a camera trained on him.
Teddy Pendergrass, 1950-2010
Teddy Pendergrass, truly one of the most powerful and charismatic singers of the Philadelphia soul scene in the 1970s, died yesterday following a difficult battle with colon cancer. He was 59.
Pendergrass was originally the drummer for Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, joining that longtime Philly band in 1970, but later that year, when lead singer John Atkins left, Pendergrass took over lead vocals. It was his voice that powered such classics as “If You Don’t Know Me By Now,” the original (arguably better) version of “Don’t Leave Me This Way” and the great protest song “Wake Up Everybody.” At the Kenny Gamble/Leon Huff-led Philadelphia International label, which provided some of the most distinct soul music of the ’70s Pendergrass was one of the most recognizable voices.
Pendergrass went on to a successful solo career in 1976, but in 1982 he was involved in a car accident that left him paralyzed. He managed to come back and record some strong mid-’80s albums for Elektra, but the quality and frequency of his output tapered off in the 1990s. His last studio release was You and I in 1997.
In his prime, Teddy Pendergrass got more panties thrown at him on stage than Tom Jones. Here’s some classic bedroom music, “Close the Door,” from a 1979 performance. You can hear the women in the audience losing their minds.
Video of the Day: Field Music, “Them That Do Nothing”
This Sunderland trio makes it so much easier to deal with XTC’s absence. From their forthcoming album, Field Music (Measure).
Chin Up at NBC, Part III: A Leno/NBC Public Relations Move?
This morning, as everyone was watching Hulu and YouTube footage of Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Kimmel and David Letterman deliver withering jabs at Jay Leno and NBC, a new meme took hold thanks to an anonymous “TV insider” speaking with the celebrity blog PopEater:
Now that Conan has made it clear he is leaving the troubled network, Jay is considering doing the same. They have put Jay in a terrible position. It looks like he is the reason that Conan is now without a job. Jay is a great guy and it’s not fair that due to NBC’s stupidity he looks like the bad guy. Plus, what happens when Jay does return to the 11:35 slot if his audience doesn’t immediately follow? How can he possibly trust the same network that canceled Conan after only seven months?”
That sounds awfully nice, doesn’t it?
Now, please consider the following. Executives at NBC, having chosen to back Leno against O’Brien, who has garnered most of the positive press, now see that this late-night meltdown could result in permanently tarnishing the good-guy reputation of their horse in the race.
If you are a suit at NBC, you are now thoroughly, toxically unpopular with a wide swath of the viewing public, but being an unpopular executive at a major television network will not result in a massive ratings crater. However, if it drags down the star who has been backed with the full faith and credit of the network, that means a loss of real, concrete dollars. If Leno is painted by the vast majority of media and viewers as the moustache-twirling villain who tied O’Brien to the tracks, he might be permanently tarnished. So far, that seems to be the likely outcome.
So if you are such an executive and people are throwing trash at you from passing cars anyway, you tell Leno to start a whisper campaign that he hates the situation, and his executives, and might just walk away from NBC because of its shoddy handling of the late-night and prime time schedules.
The NBC executives can deal with the sadness of public rejection, but they cannot deal with the financial wormhole they will find themselves in if the return of Jay Leno to “The Tonight Show” is not accepted warmly by the public. They’ve got to make Leno a hero again, so they are making themselves the villains.
Anybody who is falling for this is a sucker.
Video of the Day: RJD2, “Let There Be Horns”
Life is hard for the modern minotaur. Apparently, Xanax helps.
Chin Up at NBC, Part II: Conan O’Brien Rejects Leno Plan; NBC is ‘The Biggest Loser’
In a statement released today, Conan O’Brien says he has rejected NBC’s plan to move “Tonight” to 11:05 p.m. CST, allowing the network to move “The Jay Leno Show” to 10:35 p.m.
Here is the statement, in full:
People of Earth:
In the last few days, I’ve been getting a lot of sympathy calls, and I want to start by making it clear that no one should waste a second feeling sorry for me. For 17 years, I’ve been getting paid to do what I love most and, in a world with real problems, I’ve been absurdly lucky. That said, I’ve been suddenly put in a very public predicament and my bosses are demanding an immediate decision.
Six years ago, I signed a contract with NBC to take over The Tonight Show in June of 2009. Like a lot of us, I grew up watching Johnny Carson every night and the chance to one day sit in that chair has meant everything to me. I worked long and hard to get that opportunity, passed up far more lucrative offers, and since 2004 I have spent literally hundreds of hours thinking of ways to extend the franchise long into the future. It was my mistaken belief that, like my predecessor, I would have the benefit of some time and, just as important, some degree of ratings support from the prime-time schedule. Building a lasting audience at 11:30 is impossible without both.
But sadly, we were never given that chance. After only seven months, with my Tonight Show in its infancy, NBC has decided to react to their terrible difficulties in prime-time by making a change in their long-established late night schedule.
Last Thursday, NBC executives told me they intended to move the Tonight Show to 12:05 to accommodate the Jay Leno Show at 11:35. For 60 years the Tonight Show has aired immediately following the late local news. I sincerely believe that delaying the Tonight Show into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn’t the Tonight Show. Also, if I accept this move I will be knocking the Late Night show, which I inherited from David Letterman and passed on to Jimmy Fallon, out of its long-held time slot. That would hurt the other NBC franchise that I love, and it would be unfair to Jimmy.
So it has come to this: I cannot express in words how much I enjoy hosting this program and what an enormous personal disappointment it is for me to consider losing it. My staff and I have worked unbelievably hard and we are very proud of our contribution to the legacy of The Tonight Show. But I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction. Some people will make the argument that with DVRs and the Internet a time slot doesn’t matter. But with the Tonight Show, I believe nothing could matter more.
There has been speculation about my going to another network but, to set the record straight, I currently have no other offer and honestly have no idea what happens next. My hope is that NBC and I can resolve this quickly so that my staff, crew, and I can do a show we can be proud of, for a company that values our work.
Have a great day and, for the record, I am truly sorry about my hair; it’s always been that way.
Yours,
Conan
This is what I suspected would happen. O’Brien has taken the high road in all of this, but it’s been clear to most observers that acceding to NBC’s plan would not be beneficial to him.
Two possible outcomes can take place at this point: a) NBC backs down and goes with its original plan with O’Brien on “Tonight” at 10:35 p.m. CST, even if that means losing Leno to a competitor, or b) Conan leaves and becomes the competitor, and Leno is reinstated as host of “Tonight.”
In either instance, NBC is, in the spirit of their ever-increasing love of cheap unscripted television, “The Biggest Loser.” The executives at NBC must pay out a contractual settlement to O’Brien in the eight figures, and even if they breathe sighs of relief as Leno is returned to “Tonight,” they have tarnished the show’s platinum brand, and Leno will forever be seen as having thrown his weight around.
If O’Brien jumps to 10:35 p.m. CST — or even 10 p.m. CST — then late night becomes more competitive for everyone involved. And let’s be clear: there will be no surplus of good will toward Leno if things shake out this way.
Everyone hates bullies except other bullies.
