.jpg)
Tonight's Musical Guest, Today
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.
Tonight's Musical Guest, Today
KISS
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
More business than band. More superhero than human. This group somehow found a way to win the 1970s and recreate what it meant to be an American rock n' roll band. It's KISS week!
Alex and Jon set the stage this week by posing a question that seems almost unanswerable: how the hell did this all happen? KISS make their television debut in 1974 on ABC in Concert before a befuddling Gene Simmons interview on The Mike Douglas Show that has comedian Totie Fields scoring points on Gene. KISS storms onto American television screens on the Paul Lynde Halloween Special, a 50-minute clip filled with camp, disco, and very little connection to Halloween itself. A 1979 interview on The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder finds Ace Frehley seizing control via uproarious laughter and fish puns. And there's just too much stuff discussed to summarize for this nearly 3-hour episode so we're just going to stop here.
Want to watch along with us? Check out the links below for the performances discussed this week!
Nothing to Lose/Firehouse/Black Diamond, 3/29/1974 on ABC in Concert with Dick Clack
Interview/Firehouse, 4/29/1974 on The Mike Douglas Show
Deuce/She/Black Diamond, 4/1/1975 on The Midnight Special
Detroit Rock City/Beth/King of the Night Time World, 10/29/1976 on The Paul Lynde Halloween Special
Interview, 10/31/1979 on The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder
The Oath/A World Without Heroes/I, 1/15/1982 on Fridays
