The Daily Swarm

Via The Village Voice:

Ted Leo’s Blog:

Wednesday – 01/13/2010 TEAM CONAN!!

This is a mushy story about how a big and famous late night TV host helped a scrappy cynical punk guy who WANTED to believe, learn to believe (a little bit)...

Sounds heart-warming already, doesn’t it? Well let me assure you, it is! With all of this ruckus being kicked up about NBC‘s late night TV line-up, I thought it might be nice to revisit my thoughts of 2003, when Conan O’Brien gave us our first of two appearances on his show – to date, the ONLY late night TV appearances we’ve ever made:

It’s funny to me, re-reading this now for the first time in almost seven years. I think about all that’s happened since, and how much more comfortably I’d approach this situation today – indeed, how much more comfortably I approached it the SECOND time Conan had us on (I guess that video doesn’t work, but maybe someone can find that one too?) – and it makes me all misty! My dear dear old friend Debbie, who still works with the show, and who I’m such a crappy correspondent with, always was and always will be important to me. Terre T from WFMU‘s Cherry Blossom Clinic, who factors into the story, and who I was just getting to know then, has become a dear and important friend SINCE this all happened. Molly, Cathy, and Tristin from Lookout!, Nic Vernhes, THE PHARMACISTS – we all went through a lot together in the ‘90s and the ‘00s. And I realize as I type this now (don’t get on my case for starting a sentence with “and”), that I feel a deep personal allegiance to Conan himself – and I barely know the guy! It’s just an indication of what a huge event having us on the show has wound up being for me, and what a profound effect we can have on each other in even the briefest of encounters. Interesting.

Anyway, I’m sure you’ll catch just how weird it felt for me to all of a sudden have anyone but a small core of loyal friends and fans actually care about what I was doing, and how much brain power I was devoting to finding my lines and boundaries and negotiating the paths through these areas that I’d been brought up to believe are MINEFIELDS (and in most cases, they are), and I don’t want to give too much away, but the enthusiasm and kindness that everyone at Late Night with Conan O’Brien showed us in this particular instance can not be over-valued. This originally appeared on an older version of this website that used XML coding in 2003. I’ve tried to fix all the weird character things that resulted from copying and pasting, but I may not have caught all of them – let me know if you see something strange.
Read on, dear reader:

Feb. 12, 2003
Let me set this whole thing up by letting you in on the week I was in the midst of when this whole thing went down. I’d never done anything like this before, but then, I guess there’d never really been cause to do anything like this before, but I suppose that now that there’s cause doesn’t necessarily mean that I should’ve done something like this, but it seemed like such an insane challenge, it totally got my blood going, and I was MAD for it! “What exactly was it that you were doing?” You might well ask yourself. I’m not talking about Conan yet, I’m talking about that most mythical of chimeras, the “promotional tour.” Yes, I was presented with an opportunity to play 1 solo in-store and 2 solo radio shows in Boston on Tuesday, 1 solo in-store and 2 solo radio shows in Providence on Wednesday, a full-band radio show in NJ on Thursday, a solo afternoon show and a full-band evening show in NYC on Friday, a full-band show in Upstate NY on Saturday, a solo radio show in DC on Sunday afternoon, and a solo in-store in Philly, also on Sunday, on the way home that evening from the solo radio show in DC. Sounds like a lot? It was, but how could I refuse?

So anyway, in between my second and third Boston shows on Tuesday I get a call from someone who works at Conan who, in the interest of full disclosure, I should admit to having dated from 1990–92. However, I have to make it clear that though she’s been working for NBC since then, and has been with Conan almost since the beginning, and though everyone and their mothers have been yapping at me to “Call Debbie! Ask her to get you on Conan,” obviously, I wasn’t going to do that. It’s not the way we operate, right? But so all of the main-stream press that we’d been getting throughout the fall actually brought me to their attention, and after having not talked for quite some time, Debbie calls me about a month ago and is like, “Hey – I’m really psyched you’ve been getting all this press – let’s get you on Conan.” And I’m all, “Hells yeah – that’d be cool.” And she’s all, “Well, we don’t have any openings now, but I just wanted to check in and see if it’s something you’d be into if I started to work on making it happen.” And I’m all, “Yeah, well, I never knew how I’d answer this particular call, but I have to say, now that it’s in my lap, I think I’d be psyched.” And she’s all, “Awesome! I’ll be in touch.” And I’m all (to myself), “Well, we’re about to leave on tour until the middle of April, so if this happens at all, it probably won’t be until the spring – and you know – that’s cool…” But so then I’m in between these two Boston shows, and lo and behold, who calls with the call, but Lady Ms. Debbie herself. It turns out they have a last minute opening this Thursday, are we in? My first reaction, which in hindsight I’m not sure was noble or naive, was to be like, “Well… I mean, we’ve had this radio thing booked at WFMU for a few weeks now, and I don’t really want to cancel it…” Silence on the other end of the phone, and then, “Dude – your not gonna blow off Conan, are you?” Then I realize the gravity of the situation, so I’m like, “Lemme call you back!” I immediately call Lookout! and ask for their advice (because I trust those muh fuhs with my life), and they steer me gently but firmly toward the Conan option, promising they’ll make everything straight between me and Terre T. at WFMU, who’s show I’ve wanted to play on for ever. So I call Debbie back and tell her we’re in, and spend the next day and a half (in between the Providence in-stores and radio shows – one of which I had to cancel – sorry BSR!) on the phone and e-mail sorting out all the logistics (which were too many and too boring – but necessary, I’m sure – to waste typing energy on here).
So I rush home on Wednesday night, because I have to get some rest because they’re coming to get our gear at 6 AM. Yes, that’s correct, they actually came with a van and brought our gear into the city for us, which considering having to go through the tunnel check points with the Orange Alert in place at the time and the looks of our “Tali-van,” I realized was a blessing – even when I heard my alarm go off at 5:30 that morning. But so they get our gear, then they send another car around to get us at 9, so we can be there at 10. We get there, get shown around, set our stuff up on the stage, and go chill in our decidedly beige green room for about an hour. Then we go out for sound check. We do the usual “get sounds” stuff, but before we actually start playing the song, the sound person, an amazing woman named Jules comes down and introduces herself, and says she’s been looping the song and really getting into it, and likes the record a lot and all this stuff I really didn’t expect to hear from anybody there, and she actually talks to us about what kind of sound we want. We had Nicolas from the Rare Book Room and Cathy from Lookout! there with us, as friends, but also to “liaison” and lend some clout or whatever, but everyone was actually making us feel very welcome, and sincerely in an “I’m not blowing smoke up your ass” kind of way. So we start checking, we run through the song about 5 or 6 times, then we break for lunch. They come in and ask, “So you guys are vegetarians and vegans right? If we order Zen Palate, is that o.k.?” “Uh… Yeah – that’s pretty fuckin‚ o.k….!” So we chill and we eat, and we go back in at around 1:30 for the rehearsal and camera blocking. This was where it got interesting. So that they could get the lighting and camera blocking together, they asked us to “go for it” with every take of the song – about 5 or 6 more takes, which was not as weird as it sounds. It actually got pretty comfortable after the 3rd or 4th take . Around that time I decided that I should run the idea of putting something like “NO WAR” on my guitar by Debbie and the director. Everyone had been so cool and respectful to this point and I didn’t want to do something that would seem like a “fuck you” to them, plus, the show is taped in the early evening and broadcast later, so they could always cut us if they didn’t like what we did, which would do no good for anybody. So I pulled them aside and asked how they’d feel about it, and not only were they like, “Cool,” but when I suggested I do it in duct tape, they scrambled around to get the fucking tape for me! Not what I expected, but that much more appreciated for that fact.

I have to be honest and say that all day I was feeling pretty chill about the whole thing – I felt like I was on top of the situation, like we deserved to be there – you know – just calm and confident. When the actual taping began with Conan’s monologue (during which he made a “Gandalf” joke – get out of my mind!), I lost my shit and all the coolness rushed down into my feet and out my toenails, melting into the carpet of the beige room, never to return. Luckily, I had things like “make up” and “tuning” to deal with to keep me busy, and an early Valentine’s Day gift of one of those scented bead-filled eye pillows in the shape of some too crazy for America San-Rio character apparently only available in San Francisco’s Japan Town, who’s name I can’t read, but who has become known as “Flat-Fat,” and who seems to be part platypus, part whale, and part plant, to ionize my eyes and relax my nervous furrowed brow when I wasn’t busy. Eventually, we found ourselves on stage, and I heard the cue from Conan—“Ted Leo and the Pharmacists,” and away we went. I don’t remember much that happened from that point until I was shaking Conan’s hand when the song was done except that I did catch the eye of the sax player from Max’s band looking skeptically at me… The next thing I know, I’m getting invited to the couch, which was also unexpected, and probably sensing my nervousness, possibly even being able to hear my heart still pounding, Conan starts rapping with me about my guitar and guitars in general and shit, kindly taking my mind off the last 5 minutes and helping me to relax. And then it was over.

The crew brought our gear back to my house and helped me load it in, I thought about taking a nap so I could last through the actual broadcast but didn’t, but lasted anyway; some friends came over, and we watched the show. It was a little surreal to actually see it, especially since I really had no idea how it was going to look or sound since most of the memories of the actual playing of it are just not there, but not so surreal that I couldn’t enjoy it. In fact, I was pretty damned psyched. I think we played well, Jules did some of the best TV band sound I think I’ve ever heard, Conan looked like he was sincerely into it (he held up our LP instead of a CD), and to cap it all off, if I still had any cynical assumptions about it, the camera work, swooping in and focusing pointedly on the “NO WAR” thing on my guitar was really gratifying, and, I think, earns the whole operation over there at that show shown by that network owned by General Electric some fucking massive kudos. The Grammy’s have apparently banned any anti-war talk for their CBS broadcast, MTV wants us to edit our video (for the same song we did on Conan, by the way) to take the words “knife,” “razor,” and “bullets” out, regardless of the context in which they’re used or the meaning/message of the song as a whole, and Clear Channel wouldn’t even let “Imagine” be played after Sept. 11, 2001. In times like these, an experience with such potential for frustration and negative vibes turning out even just “accommodating” would have been encouraging. For me, going through such a positive experience in a main-stream media context was downright inspiring. You’ve got to find your allies wherever you can, and you’ve got to keep one eye away from the bottom of the cup you’re staring down – you never know when you might spot a friend…

So that’s my story. Funny now to read my own thoughts from back then and feel like even after having been at it for fifteen years at that point, I was still such a “little guy.” Kinda cute.

Anyway, I stand by those last words – it gets bleak, it gets discouraging, we tend toward cynicism; but if we don’t stay open to the possibility of good good things, we won’t ever receive them because we won’t even know when they’re being offered. It’s a lesson I learned from Late Night with Conan O’Brien.