I guess this is old news already, but I just got around to watching Monday night's Late Show With David Letterman. The top ten list was Top Ten Complaints About King Kullen (whatever that is, apparently a restaurant chain). After Dave read number one, the band played the intro of In The Court Of The Crimson King.
That is all.
...and then Fripp's invoice arrived.Originally Posted by GuitarGeek
I'm holding out for the Wilson-mixed 5.1 super-duper walletbuster special anniversary extra adjectives edition.
"Henry Cow always wanted to push itself, so sometimes we would write music that we couldn't actually play – I found that very encouraging." - Lindsay Cooper, 1998
"I have nothing to do with Endless River. Phew! This is not rocket science people, get a grip." - Roger Waters, 2014
"I'm a collector. And I've always just seemed to collect personalities." - David Bowie, 1973
I still get a chuckle out of the fact that a group led by Paul Shaffer that plays bumper music between commercials, comedy skits and starlet interviews is called "The CBS Orchestra" as though he's frickin' Toscanini or something.
Cool. I've never heard of King Kullen either.
It's actually a goof on NBC.
I don't know if you get the joke or not, but around 1992 when Jay Leno took over the Tonight Show, (which Letterman wanted), Dave moved from NBC to CBS. At the time it was documented in the media that NBC was not going to let Letterman take with him any of his regular bits that he performed on "Late Night" such as "Stupid Pet Tricks" or the "Top Ten List," as NBC was claiming ownership rights to those names. Poking fun at this, Letterman named his band "The CBS Orchestra" as a dig on NBC who had been using "The NBC Orchestra" on the Tonight Show for years.
I'll have slice without so much rat in it.
Yeah, I get the joke.
Mr_Milton-300x224.jpg
King Kullen is a supermarket chain.
It's called irony. It's a joke. You're supposed to laugh at it. Back when they were still on NBC, the band was sometimes billed as the NBC Orchestra, as well.
(Reputedly, the story goes that one of Johnny Carson's stipulations when he chose Dave to replace Tom Snyder after The Tomorrow Show ended, was that Dave couldn't have a big band or orchestra or whatever, but said it was "ok" for Dave to have a "rock band", and hence the NBC Orchestra/The World's Most Dangerous Band was born...I think Dave was the first talk show host to have a "contemporary" sounding house band)
tuned mice playing In The Court Of The Crimson King instead of The Bells of St. Mary's would have been much better!
This would have been the perfect time to play Cat Food. Oh well.
It would be, but it would be even more of an obscure reference than it already was!
Ian Beabout
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No it wouldn't have been. For things like this, the band has to play stuff the majority of the audience will recognize, and most people wouldn't know Cat Food.
On the other hand, the songs that get played when guests come out can sometimes be a bit obscure. One time a guy named Pharaoh (I think it was his last name) was on, the band launched into a few bars Pharaoh Sanders' The Creator Has A Master Plan. Whenever Regis Philbin is on, they play the intro to ABC's How To Be A Millionaire (a nod, presumably, to Who Wants To Be A Millionaire).
I remember years ago, the top ten list was something like "Top Ten Questions Asked At Ronald Reagan's Press Conference". The Number One entry was "FREE BIRD!". The band then breaks into Questions 67 And 68 (their stock number whenever the Top Ten List has something to do with questions), and Dave complained that they SHOULD have played Free Bird, but apparently that hadn't occurred to Paul.
BTW, Paul Shaffer is known for being Dave's sidekick and doing TV things (to say nothing of imploring the members of Spinal Tap to kick his ass in the in store appearance scene in the movie), but don't forget he's a top notch keyboardist. He's played with lots of people (he even let Kate Bush sit on his piano once way back a million years ago, when he was in the house band on SNL, during Kate's one and only US TV appearance), and is able to at least fake his way through pretty much any style of music he needs to play, if not indeed play it fully authentically. Belushi and Aykroyd staffed him with putting together the Blues Brothers backup band (that's Paul on keyboards on the Briefcase Full Of Blues album, and he would have been in the movie, but some kind of contractual snafu prevented that from happening).
And he does the best Don Kirshner impression ever (Kirshner was known to suggest that he was the reason Shaeffer was famous, due to the parodies they'd do on SNL of him). His parody of Cher (specifically of her performance of O Holy Night from an old Sonny & Cher Xmas special) is also pretty good too. I remember one time, he set the scene for the parody by mentioning that Cher came out with "her hands in a muff". Then when the audience laughs, he says "I've been telling this joke for 15 years, why does that line still get a laugh!".
Remember that synthesizer solo on the Scandal song Goodbye To You? That's Paul Shaffer!
I would let Kate Bush sit on anything of mine that she cares to.
I guess I need to use more of theseto help convey that I was joking.
I'd be surprised if a "majority of the audience" would recognize "Court..." or even knows what the Shaffer band is playing most of the time.
The guitar player in the CBS Orchestra, Sid McGuniess, was in Peter Gabriel's band in the late 70s.
Speaking of PG, he's been on David lettermans show many times. A year or two ago he was on, and Dave was showing the audience pics of pg in some of his genesis costumes.
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