Inside Conan: An Important Hollywood Podcast - Music Booker Jim Pitt Revisits Radiohead, Disturbed & More

Episode Date: October 29, 2021

Legendary music booker Jim Pitt joins writers Mike Sweeney and Jessie Gaskell to discuss Conan’s most memorable musical guests. He talks about booking Radiohead as the first Late Night musical act, David Bowie’s willingness to perform sketch comedy, and how Disturbed’s performance of The Sound of Silence became the biggest Conan clip ever.Visit Team Coco’s Spotify account here to check out the year-by-year playlists of musical acts from 1993 to 2016.Got a question for Inside Conan? Call our voicemail: [phone] and e-mail us at [e-mail]

And now, it's time for Inside Conan, an important Hollywood podcast. Hello and welcome to Inside Conan, an important Hollywood podcast. I'm Mike Sweeney, a writer on Conan, and I'm Jesse Gaskell, also a writer on Conan. This is the podcast about all things Conan related. Yeah, so thank God we work there because it helps. It does help. It does give us a leg up. Yes. Sweeney, I saw you in real life this morning. That's right. We saw each other. Yeah, in person. We had coffee together. We did. You were wearing a peacoat and a scarf. You looked very fall. There's really never an excuse to wear a scarf ever in LA, maybe in the last thousand years. There's not. But it's a good thing to have around in case you need to strangle someone.

Exactly. You were, I don't, you know what? I think I have a blindness for what people are dressed in. It's probably for the best. Right. You were in a pants ensemble. It was. How do you say it? I was wearing trousers. Uh-huh, trousers. And a sweater.

Very nice. Yeah, we got together with some other Conan writers. Yep. Just to catch up. That was fun. Gossip a little bit. And gossip is a very loose term. We were hoping to drum some up.

Because this show seems like it could be a good delivery system for gossip. If we had our act together. And then also, I mean, this is actually a pretty big piece of news. Next week on November 3rd, Conan's going to be recording the first live taping of Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend here in Los Angeles. Yeah, at the Wiltern Theater. At the Wiltern Theater, yeah. Yeah, it's like a 2,000 seat theater. So that's going to be wild.

Have you been involved with that at all? No, I got sent the rundown for the show. Okay, yeah. It's basically a live version of the podcast, which I think, I assume, is what all his fans would want. Yeah. He's probably going to be very excited to be back in front of a live audience.

I'm sure he is, yes. I feel like once he hears that crowd, Oh, boy. it's really going to get him going. Oh, boy. It's going to be only live podcasts from now on. Yeah, every single night. Huh, wait. i think i'm describing a late night show but yeah so that's gonna be in la but if you can't make it

they are going to release that right of course yes wherever you get your podcast and more importantly yeah conan's podcast is our show. Oh, right, right, right. Inside Conan, because we have an excellent show today. I'm very excited about today's show. Me too. It's our second episode of season three. And one thing we didn't get to cover in season one and two, the musical guests on The Conan Show, which, you know, 28 years of late night television, musical guests on the show were such a big part of the show. They were. It was often where, like, huge bands would get their first booking.

Right, on television. Yeah. I mean, one of those bands early on was Radiohead. The very first band, and we're going to hear all about that. Yes. Yeah, and it was before OK Computer, and, you know, their big hit was Creep, I think, at the time. Right. It was a band that was going places. What we're leading up to as our big guest today is Mr. Jim Pitt, who was the music booker on Late Night with Conan, on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, and on The Conan Show.

For 24 years. Yeah. Yep. And currently now he's the music producer on The Jimmy Kimmel Show. The Jimmy Kimmel Live, yeah. So we're going to get right into it with Mr. Jim Pitt. Hi, welcome, Jim. Hello, guys.

It's great to see you both. Hi, Jim. Yeah, good to see you again. It's great to see you again. I miss you guys. Yeah, I miss you too. Us too. Those are legitimate kisses.

They're not Euro kisses. Right. But so you were there from the very beginning. I was. I was there. One of the lifers. I was a Conan lifer. I started working on the show.

I worked with Conan at SNL when he was a writer there and that's interesting i didn't know that the writers would interact with the music booker well when conan started i had that experience that i think a lot of people do with him i remember going home and telling my wife like i i met a guy today who's like maybe one of the funniest people I've ever met, which I know sounds crazy, but he like, I don't know. Yeah, that's true. Not that I'd spent that much time with him, but we definitely connected. It's not like we became best friends, but you know, at SNL, especially for a young, a new writer like that, when you would identify someone who was sort of nice and supportive and, you know. And a good laugher a

good laugher yeah oh my god you get a pair of handcuffs he was like i got a live one yeah yeah so we so and of course smigel worked at at snl uh so robert smigel robert and i worked together my entire time at snl uh you know we were we were pals and got to know Conan a little bit. And so when the opportunity came up, so each season, like the year after I started, I got a job in the talent department. And then the next season, I became a talent coordinator and just sort of worked my way up to music booking. Right. Which is what I did the last few years I was there. And so when Letterman was leaving, it was obviously a huge deal.

We all know the story, obviously. Right, he was leaving NBC. Leaving NBC, and Lauren was given the hour to find, given the 12.30 show. Charged with picking Letterman's replacement. I'm assuming that everybody read Bill Carter. Anyway, when he chose Conan, I was thrilled for Conan and knowing that Robert was involved. And I knew that Jeff Ross was going to be involved and I knew Jeff a little bit. So I saw that as an opportunity to do something musically or A, to be part of a cool startup.

And were you like, I don't know how much longer SNL is going to last. I know. Listen, I did the calculus and I think there's no way it could go beyond 95. Yeah. Yeah. No,

but no, the, the, the second element was that music wise, I always thought the 12th or like the letter on the Letterman show, they were able to do a much more varied lineup. You know, SNL had to be a big, big, big. In terms of the musical acts. Yeah.

And what appealed to me was, you know, doing stuff that was sort of all over the map and a little more eclectic. And so. Finding new talent. Yeah. eclectic and um so finding new talent yeah so conan they did a press conference at the um his opening press conference was at the rainbow room where he was introduced and i i ran into he and smigel up there and said hey you know i'd love to be a part of this show and you know one thing led to another you just happened to be dancing up there i was yes that was a fortuitous moment i guess it was and then you know i spoke to lorne and he sort of gave his blessing for me to change shows.

And so I was part of the first, I mean, Paula Davis, myself, who's a head talent booker. Talent producer. There were only a handful of us, but we were there, I would say, and like the show went on in September. We were there in like July for the startup. Were you like, well, the show's went on in september we were there in like july yeah for the startup were you like well the show's coming on in september it's july i'll get around to looking at bands like you know late august there's no rush kona requested the first guest that was on well yes yes i mean he has distilled it down to like, they told me I could have whoever I want. I mean, it was in a way. Within reason.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. Conan all that summer while we were in the office, it's sort of a well-known story now. But he, as he always does, walked around with his guitar. But the song that he was more obsessed with than any was Creep. Sure. So that was 1993, and I remember him doing that in 2021. Last week.

Right, right. So he's been doing it for 30 years and still hasn't improved. And, you know, you have to remember, they weren't yet Radiohead. Right. You know, they were another band. Was that the year their first album came out? Creep was the single, was the current single. Wow. Yeah.

And yes, it's when that album came out. So I, you know, went right out to Capitol Records and said, hey, you know, everyone's aware of the new show. And like, hey, we'd love for them to be the first music guest. And so it wasn't really a huge get at the time. I mean, yes, they had a big hit and Conan loved it. Right. But they just as easily could have been. It could have been a one hit wonder.

It could have been, you know, Urge Overkill or, you know, The Breeders. You know, any other band that we had on in those weeks. You know, but of course, in retrospect, it looks genius and it's awesome. I love it. I mean, it's, it's just a great, uh, it's a great legacy and a great, it was a great kickoff for music on the show and it, yeah. And Conan loved it. So did Conan try to play creep with them on the show? Did he want to do that? No, no. Yeah. I don't know if you, Sweeney, you remember probably, Jesse, I don't know if you've watched many of the old music clips or remember them from when

they aired, but the first year on the show, one of Conan and Robert's ideas was to have footage, like stock footage, playing on a screen behind the bands. Right. Weird. Yes. Just non sequitsequitur ridiculous you know and was it like a menu that the bands could choose from yes we gave them our film researcher i don't recall who it was at the time but right would give us gave us a list of here you know and so i remember taking when you do karaoke and there's always just sort of exactly so we took random stock footage yeah we took radiohead up to the ninth floor

conference room and um you know showed them a few of the different options and they chose cars driving around in circles very slow like in slow motion and so that's what appears behind them on their first conan appearance that's so strange yes i love how random it is but the other the other some of the other ones were like uh scenes of uh people get having dental work done businessmen handshaking after an important deal exactly the dental work was for like folk acts someone used it eventually i can't remember who jim do you remember from early on uh what was your first big get that you were like oh my god i can't believe we well this person it's a good question the first

few months were sort of a combination of alternative acts like a lot of new acts the premiere of the show really coincided with sort of the alternative scene you know early 90s then there were a lot of bands yeah Letterman, when they moved to CBS, they made the decision that, you know, we're only going after big artists. So it did leave a door open to us to have a lot of these bands on that, you know, maybe would have done Letterman previously. So the first few months, it's a combination of newer artists like Radiohead. I'm looking at the first couple of weeks. Yeah.

Urge Overkill, The Breeders, Sheryl Crow, her debut. Yeah. Oh, is that true? Sheryl Crow had done a test show for us a few weeks before we went on the air. Oh, wow. Yeah. Did she have her giant hit song yet? No, no.

No, she was a new artist. Oh, wow. Yeah. Did she have her giant hit song yet? No, no, no. She was a new artist. Oh, wow. Yeah. You know, I think I made a deal with the guy at A&M Records and, you know, well, she does this test show. We'll book her a few weeks later on the actual show, you know? Right, right. It's people like that, Barenaked Ladies and the Cranberries.

I mean, that was there. Oh, yeah. Bjork. Oh, what stock footage did Bjork choose? Oh, that's a good question. We should find that. It was those people combined with like Les Paul, Ruth Brown, like all these old timers who are great. Some legends.

Yeah. I mean, Les Paul played and paneled like second week of the show, I think. Oh, wow. Wow. So some of those sound like big bookings in retrospect because of who they became. Right. The first one that because he had had a career renaissance and he kind of brought some class to the joint was Tony Bennett. He did us first Christmas. And I remember feeling like, okay, here's, because he was

happening again. And he was Tony Bennett. He was a sort of a combination of both of those things, you know? And it really felt like now it's a real show now, you know, we got Tony Bennett. This is class. Yeah. So, and then he did the show 16 years in a row at Christmas. I always remember, that's how I knew it was Christmas, that Tony Bennett was hanging out in the 6A hallway all day. He seemed very friendly and chill, too. He was. He was.

So that was the first one that felt like a big deal. Right. But then a couple of months later, well, again, they were a new band. But Green Day made their first TV appearance a couple of months later. Oh, again, they were a new band, but like Green Day made their first TV appearance a couple of months later. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. You know what you are really pointing out, you know, because of the passage of time, it's hard to, when you hear these names, you're like, oh, well, they were already famous. No, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's so cool. But they were just like, ugh, people with a demo CD then. Right, yeah, they were new artists. Yeah. Of course, Conan loved them from the first time they were on. But yeah, so it was a real mixed bag. And paneling them was adventurous, especially with some of the younger bands. It was awesome because it made for some great moments.

Like there's a great clip that we ran. The Breeders were on. Right. Again. They had paneled with Conan like the second week of the show. Sometimes back then there'd be like, oh, we still have time to kill. And so let's talk to the musical guests. Exactly.

Is that how that happened? Or was this planned in advance that the the breeders would get interviewed by conan i think at first it was planned i think there was a thought that like yeah let's talk to the music guests that yeah then it did turn more into you know jeff would say you know see if you can get a few minutes from you know whoever right just in case we needed the time got it as an option we talked to a lot of people and it's one of the funniest was dick dale who was like um you know a great guitar guitar legend the big surf surf kind of surf guitar yeah and conan you know conan being a guitar guy just loved you know having those guys on duane eddie and you know people like that right and uh

dick dale is sort of a maniac and told these great stories and then halfway through you realize like like he he's full of shit like i know that's not true he told the story about ed sullivan you, the reason he stood that way is because he got shot in the war. I was like, Ed Sullivan, I don't think he was in the Army. The reason he was hunched over. This was before Wikipedia. Yes, exactly. But, you know, the guest situation in those days was, you know, it was challenging, the lead guest situation.

So we often did have time. I remember one, and there was a thought to keep guests on the panel yes after their segment to stay out yes try to have some intermingling yeah but i remembered like one day it was like bob vila and bare naked ladies putting together legos or something i can't remember what i was like wow right those are still i mean that the idea behind that is great is like let's put these disparate people out there on a couch and who knows what'll happen it was good and it got conan yeah you know sort of people took notice i will say in the industry uh so and by next spring, there was an article in Billboard about the music on the show.

We definitely started to see the demand to play on the show. To get on Conan, definitely picked up. Did that make your job harder or easier? Because now you have to deal with... It's a double-edged sword.

Sure, it cuts both sure yeah yeah yeah it does yeah it's nice to have the options and of course if the names are bigger i mean that that's that was always a goal too right of course it's you know as the years went on the names got much bigger right and you know by the mid aughts you know we had you too for a whole show and you know week of neil young the white stripes the white stripes were there for a whole week right they were wow yeah yeah i remember that we did the strokes we did a residency every monday for a month we did the strokes wow yeah yeah i know so they yeah by the third week it's like oh those guys again They leave a mess in the dressing room.

But we still did a fair amount of, you know, like the James Browns of the world. Elton John did the show. Yes. I remember feeling. He did a single, and then the rep actually asked me, like, what do you want to do as a second song? A request.

I said, would he do Border Song? And he did it alone on piano. That's amazing. Yeah, no, it was awesome. Beautiful. You know, Bow he do Border Song? And he did it alone on piano. That's amazing. Yeah, no, it was awesome. Beautiful. You know, Bowie, of course, was. Yeah, Bowie was on the show a bunch. David Bowie, that was always exciting.

That's one of my favorite things is that David Bowie liked us enough to keep coming back and doing comedy. Yes. And, you know, when he passed away, we had. He had a great sense of humor. We had that montage that was just killer, you know when he passed away we had a great sense of humor we had that montage that was just killer you know uh yeah yeah yeah from his interviews which was great yeah he did we used to do a bit with celebrities who were on the show so many of the comedy pitches were like uh this guy's already gonna be here they're trapped like rats and we're gonna make them do comedy for us i remember one there's a writer greg cohen and i had this idea and a lot of times writers pitch things for musical acts they love so we you know we love david bowie like you know who didn't but the idea was david bowie

years before he went into music was in a comedy team with Baltimore Oriole baseball manager, Earl Weaver, who was kind of this legendarily cranky, you know, kicking the dirt at umpire manager. And we thought, oh my God,

if we could get the two of them, I don't know how we thought this would ever happen. In what universe? Like we, David Bowie, if you say yes, all we have to do is fly you to baltimore i mean it didn't even make sense and i remember we kept repitching it to you like any word and we'd be like we knew bowie we thought bowie was the easier get we're like well we we'll get bowie on board and then we'll use Bowie as leverage with baseball manager Earl Weaver.

I hope that Jim never pitched that to Bowie. I'm sure I did. I'm sure I did. On ones that I was excited about or felt had a better shot, I would be, here's a great idea from the writers. The other version would be, the writers have asked me to forward this. I'm contractually obligated. You're right. I remember this one got done because it was funny. But remember when we had, it was a bit where we had the Max Weinberg 7 distracting Hootie and the Blowfish.

Yes. During their performance. And one of the beats was Max squeezing a teat and it's squirting milk on Darius Rucker's face. What? And they said yes. It was called The Band is Jealous. The Band is Jealous. The Band is Jealous. And it was the idea that Max and the guys are jealous of all the musical guests that come on because they have to sit there and watch. So, yeah.

So, we do pre-tapes. Like you're saying, we had a live milk cow in the studio with Max getting down and pulling up a teat And squeezing it And then you'd cut to Darius Rucker Getting blasted in the face with milk I don't remember if it was Darius Or one of the other guys in the band But it was someone One of the blowfish

Got blasted with fresh milk Wow Homogenized Chilled milk It was totally I mean one of the best music comedy and and bits ever on conan was slip nuts yes yes which took over a year oh the tribute album to slip yes i should just explain what slip nuts is if people don't know is what i think it was one of those last minute we're sitting in the the

writer's room and you know there's a board with all the guests and sometimes we look at the guests for the week and think of ideas for that and slip not the band was going to be on probably the next night and uh i don't know who came up with the idea, but it was John Glazer. Stack. Andy Blitz and Brian Stack, three hilarious writer-performers at the time. They pitched this bit called, oh, Conan made a mistake. He double booked Slipknot with the comedy troupe Slip Nuts. And then they wrote a little act which lasted 15 seconds, which was them singing a song, We're the Slip Nuts.

And then one of them falls down and they go, oh, and they throw peanuts on the floor. We're slipping on nuts. Right. We're slipping on nuts. And then someone falls down and goes, look, he fell down. And he goes, I slipped on a nut. And that was it. That was their whole act.

And Conan would keep rebooking them and they kept doing the same act so you know and conan would get that fake frustration but anyway andy blitz i think came to you and pitched after they had been on a few times hey can we get real musical acts to do a tribute to that slipknot song yeah and the way we went about it, which was great, was that when a band was in-house, like you're saying, that's when we would pitch. Yeah, that's when we would really, we didn't try to go out and shoot them in other places. It was while they were there and on the stage, you know, all set to go. Right. And over the course of, I'd say more than a year, even, Debbie Wonder was the music production coordinator at that time. Right. So I would book the bands and hand them off to her and she dealt with, you know, all of

the production. So, and I was living in Nashville for part of this time at Conan and commuting one week a month. So she did a lot of the, I have to give her credit. You, you were a pandemic pioneer years before. I was a pioneer. Yes. Pre-Zoom. Sorry. So, yeah, you kind of hand off.

Yeah. So between us, we booked all of these artists over the course of a year or so. And the result was, it was awesome. I mean, it was really funny. And you had big names. You had, like, Coldplay. Yeah. Patti Smith did it. I know. Wow. John You had Coldplay. Yeah. Patti Smith did it.

I know. Wow. John Mayer did it. Yeah, yeah. Los Lobos. Steve Winwood. Yeah, Los Lobos. Yeah.

It's unbelievable. And I remember how painstaking it was to put that together, you know, because I think a lot of acts said no. Yes. Believe it or not. Believe it or not, some acts weren't gonna sing the tribute song you know anytime you're booking a thing with multiple right artists or as soon as you get one or two you have to have somebody to start you know what is i can't believe cold cold play i thought i kind of the height of cold play i mean cold plays another one going just going back to like

their first tv appearance in the States was, you know, they did Yellow on our show. Wow. Oh, really? Yes. Yeah, John Mayer's another one. Yeah, we had a good run of first TV appearances. John Mayer loves comedy. Like, he would always say yes

if you pitched a comedy bit to him. I was saying that, you know, the music on the show got some notice and it became a bigger thing in the industry eventually to the point where we were offered the opportunity to make an album of Conan music performances. Yeah. Wow. Bowie was on there. Bjork. That was called Live from 6A. It was. Which was in the studio. Yeah. That was great. I remember that came out. There was a big party for it. Was there a lot of politicking and stuff for what songs would go on that album?

Like, I can't even imagine. We just went out to a ton of people. And yes, it was not easy, but the sound on the show was great. People were fans of Conan. And David Bowie said yes. That, again, opened up, kind of greased the skids for other people. And a great chance to re-pitch Bowie said yes. Yeah. That again opened up the, kind of greased the skids for other people. And a great chance to re-pitch Bowie Weaver. Exactly.

What an opportunity for you in so many ways. Bonus track, yes. Right, of course. Well, you mentioned the great sound. I remember the night U2 was on the show. And I think they played four songs. And Bono did the year 2000 and they were great.

That's right. But I remember I was editing something that night and was in the hallway at like 10 30 at night. And they, they stayed three or four hours after the taping to remix or re-engineer all of their songs for the show and i i was kind of blown away by that yeah yep they were uh right up until we delivered it for air you know it was right up against the deadline uh but but they were super involved yeah yeah that was that was impressive you know just to see that attention to detail. Yeah. I was thinking about that show and the Neil Young week, which, believe it or not, Neil Young did the show for a full week.

Right. Every night for a week. Those were weeks apart in 2005. And it made me think that and the White Stripes week, things like that. We were open to, like, we were not an automatic no. I think, you know, in their marketing meetings, they probably have these ideas all the time. Go to Letterman and see if they'll do a full week.

Go and do it. And like, we were the show that would be like, okay. Yeah. That's a whole week. We don't have to book. Jim Pitt is enthusiastically nodding his head yes. Is it true that the White Stripes' last live performance was on our show? Yes.

Wow. Our final late night show. Right. They were our last guest before we moved to California. Yep, and that was the last time they performed together. And they broke up after that, yeah. I was trying to think when I was preparing for this. I was thinking of like so many of the stories, of course, are about things that went great. And then there were some moments that were, do you remember when the band Goldfinger was

on? Yes. And the guy, that's this clip. We didn't post it, but it's on, you can see it on YouTube. So the song is over, right? And Conan goes over, like he'd always walk across over to the band and say, hey, that was great. And kind of shake hands with the band members while they go out to commercial. And something, what happened at that?

Well, he was super enthusiastic. I think it was the drummer. Yeah. Came around and gave Conan a big hug. And Conan's playing along. You know, he's having fun with him. And the guy lifts him up. And Conan's playing along. He's having fun with him. And the guy lifts him up and Conan goes over his shoulder. This is obviously a big guy.

Right. Falls onto the stage on his head. Oh, my God. We were horrified. But he jumps up right away and says, I'm OK. Right. I mean, literally, before we even went to commercial, it was clear that he was OK.

But it was scary. How often did the guests themselves want to perform again after? Because you taped the performance and then, you know, would they ever come to you and be like, we really got to do that again? Yes. Yeah, I remember instances of that. Yeah, yeah. Jeff was not in favor of shooting again, usually. And so it had to be. Got a reservation. Yeah, i want to get conan out of there and i get it you know i just wanted to rap and get the crew out and

it's costing us money and all that i i totally get it but it had to be you know a string breaks or an amp breaks or because the band sometimes would or maybe they were off key or something but if it was something imperceptible to us, we would. Sorry, guys. Yeah, yeah. And Rowie, who was Rowie Hershkowitz, who became the new Debbie Wonder when she left. Yes. Yeah, he would be the one dealing with that, usually.

Right. Oh, I see. That's good. It's good to have a buffer. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Well, you were in Nashville.

I could. a buffer yes yeah yeah yes well you were in nashville even if you were upstairs it'd be like a gym's working today from nashville it's funny because when i was not on site which was you know a fair amount of the time there was no you couldn't watch the show on zoom and i didn't have we didn't have the technology to for me to watch it while it was happening. Right. So I would just sort of at 5.20 central time, I would wait for Debbie or Roey to say, all good. If Jeff was going to text or call or email, that was when it was going to happen. Or after the post-mortem, after the post-show meeting.

Uh-huh. There was one time I booked this band, the Polyphonic spree yeah who were great it was like 12 people it was 16 and 16 people wow that sort of their shtick was that they were a cult and they all wore white robes and i had forgotten to mention that part to conan or jen in advance of the booking after the and and they the band they were in character all afternoon basically you know so 16 people and i kind of love that so jeff which totally made sense was like you got to give us a heads up on you you booked a cult guilty

no more improv yeah mike when you mentioned youtube being there late it reminds me of the uh remember the blackout yes there was a blackout and i i think that i remember the band that was on that night there was a blackout moments before we were about to take the show yeah and so conan did an impromptu like 12 minute show. Yeah. Why? What happened in your. No, I think it was the Dandy. The Dandy Warhols. And they ended up. It's funny because, you know, New York was pretty much it was shut down.

Right. We had some fun up in the office for a while after the show. Right. You and myself and a few other people. We had a couple of drinks. Right. And then we went out looking to find a place that was open. Anyway, did that they went out but they couldn't get back to their hotel so they came back used their pass and they slept in the dressing room that day right i know that's true

because like i lived in brooklyn i was like i can't i there was no way for me to get home and they said well we have a hotel room for you. And I walked to the hotel room around 11 o'clock. And they're like, yes, we have a room for you on the 28th floor. And I was like, great. And they said, so there's the staircase. And I'm like, I'm going to sleep in the office. Like, I have an office. So I went back to 30 Rock.

And there was kind of dim light on the sixth floor where our studio was, generator light. So I went into the band dressing room and I was like, oh my God, there's all this food still here, these couch. So I went to bed in the band dressing room and at like two in the morning, these five guys burst into the room. I was like, motherfucker, what's going on? This is our hotel room.

That's how I got to meet the Dandy Warhols. They were great cuddlers. So I also had jotted down when I was preparing. Yeah. And not disasters, but in the early days, the lead guest booking was challenging. And there were some people that we had to give music slots to if we wanted to get them as guests. So for instance, like Sandra Bernhardt,

we had to let her sing a song. Oh, wow. That's great. Roger Clinton, which I don't know where that came from, but he performed on the show. Bill Clinton's brother, Roger. I forgot he was a musician. He was.

Yeah. Yeah. So the idea was if we ever wanted to get. I think it would be the same show, you know? Right. And these two are, well, Sybil Shepard, Kathleen Turner, they all sang on the show. Oh, wow.

Katie Segal. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow. Oh, man wow. Katie Segal. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow. Oh, man. I didn't know. Yeah. Yeah.

You broke them. You broke them first. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. But it was sort of like the compromise. The other great compromise stories.

I think you'll remember this. One day I get a call from a guy named John Henry Williams. And I know the name. He's williams's son you know baseball legends right one of the greatest players of all best hitter of all time right former boss boston red sox corks conan you know grew up in the shadow of fenway park basically and he was managing a band and he said he put it right out there and said if you book this band i can get my dad to do the show oh wow and uh and uh so i asked conan and you know i had heard i listened to the band and it's i mean conan was like they'd have to be like how bad can they be and and we ended up booking him ted williams did the show and uh that's amazing

yeah yeah yeah i don't think that's the thing that occurs to people i'm sure you had to deal with that too you probably can't even talk about but there are probably like record labels where they're like oh you want our big we'll give you this yeah act you've got a book sure book this person they kind of dangle them, right? Book the executive's daughter. Yeah. Right. It's a power game.

It is. Like, the more powerful the show got, all of a sudden that balance probably shifted. Yeah. And then you were the one kind of like, well, you know, we'll see. I will say that it's usually not as cut and dried as that. It's more. Right. You take care of them on their developing artists, and then when the big one, you know, as opposed to saying, listen, if you want this, you got to do these, you know.

Right. At least that's not how I operated. Right, right. You know? Yeah. And speaking of developing artists, like, would you go back in New York? Like, would you go out? Yeah, or in Nashville.

How would you investigate new acts? Like, did you have a system or would you go to clubs or what would you do? It was pretty random. I went to clubs. I went out a lot. I mean, I still do. Yeah, living in New York, went out all the time. And Nashville, too.

I mean, everyone came through Nashville at some point. So when I was living there. It's a great way to get free drinks. Jim Pitts here. I'm the booker. Yeah. That is exciting, though. You know, kind of like you never know.

I mean, if you're truly seeing someone you didn't know anything about. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. It makes a difference. It really does. Yeah. And I always had to remind myself, like if I was getting complacent, it's also like,

sometimes you go home and like to crank it up, to go out and see something that starts at 10 or 11. Oh my God. You know, it's, well, that's true. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. LA's not, I'm stunned it at like my, my son's in a band and I, I'm just like, Oh, what time are you playing? You know, midnight. He just like, oh, what time are you playing?

You know, midnight. He's like, no, 7.30 to 7.50. I'm like, oh, okay, we're in L.A. How reasonable. I love a 7.30 showcase or whatever. Right. Yeah, it's the best. Yeah.

How often would you see an act that you hadn't heard of that you were like, oh, I'm interested in booking these people? Probably more often at something like South by Southwest, where there were so many bands playing, so many artists. Going out to see them in New York or here in Nashville, it was always, they had always been pitched, and I'd probably listened to them already. Right. At something like a festival, or like Bonnaroo, but South by, because it's like, that's the whole, was the whole point of South by was to showcase artists, you know?

Right, right. And so I'd come back from there often with a list of people I hadn't seen before. Like, oh, I'd like to, you know, we should, we should book them. You know? I can't tell you how many times someone would recommend an act, or I'd get into listening to some music, and I'm like, wow, they're great. And then I'd Google them, and you would book them on the show like two years before.

I was like, wow, okay. But then it was great. I'd watch a clip of them on Conan, and I was like, ah, I was there, and I was just oblivious. I was oblivious to it. And now I'm a giant fan. I'm like, I wasn't aware of the riches.

Damn you pit. I could be sure that a band was going to then be like on KCRW if they had been booked on our show. Right, right, right. Exactly. One other thing I should mention as far as especially those early

years when we would have some of these people on the band the house band and max was the band you know the band leader but jimmy would do the charts and they would recreate you know they would have we i remember when we had duane eddie on they would accompany these artists oh right that happened a lot and they would recreate the the sound perfect beautifully you know i remember when dwayne eddie was on he did his big hit uh rebel rouser that you know that song uh yeah it's it's just a instrumental. Now I know it. We can edit that out, right? No, no. Loop it. It's already looped. Yeah. Sorry. So go ahead. I remember in rehearsal, they start, you know, so Max and Jimmy, you know, our band was on stage and they went into it. And I would say after a few bars, like you could tell

he was like stunned at how good it sounded. Like he turned around because they had recreated. Like the horn players did these backing vocals. And it was just so perfectly done that. Wow. Like those guys were such a valuable tool for moments like that as far as music booking. I'm really glad you brought that up because I. Yeah, me too.

That happened a lot where they would accompany or back up acts. How would that happen? Would you, would they be aware that we had this

great house band or was it something you always offered as kind of an option? We offered it as an option. Right.

It's sort of, you know, it's on the menu. If you need, if they don't have a band or if they're only going to be in town by themselves right we just let people know we've got these great musicians and they're available so um right there were some funny moments i mean max ended up playing drums with um death from above 1979 was the band's name and it was i don't know if he knew what he was getting into but he's

keeping up with them and he's wearing a jacket and he's having to play so fast that the jacket starts falling off his sleeve like shimmying out of the jacket but he was great i mean he he hung in and it was a great performance but but sometimes, you know, sometimes they needed Max. Sometimes they needed just the horn. Sometimes they needed Mike Merritt or Scott or, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or a lot of times, wouldn't they just kind of do backup singing too, right? Because they were all great singers. Yeah.

Well, there is, should we talk about Disturbed? Oh, yeah. The most watched Conan clip of all time is a musical act. Right. Yes. Yeah. And it was Disturbed doing a cover of Sound of Silence. Yes. Yeah. Which, how did that come about?

So, they had actually been on, the funny thing is, that song is unlike anything else that Disturbed does, you know, as you would think by the name. The antithetical. They had to rethink their whole act. Content, I guess. They had been on the show before and they had a new album and their publicist pitched it to me and she said said now here's what but here's what they want to do and the label will pay for it which was probably the most important part they wanted a 16 piece string section oh wow okay because they have this cover that they want to do and so you know that took some back and forth to sort out and it's a big production we actually shot that once in a while we would pre-tape music

and that was a case where we we pre-taped music in the morning right and ran it like a week later or something and once it posted it was just insane it was and it was a great performance and very sort of compelling and it caught on on. Look at that cello player. She's knocking it out of the park. Also, an undeniably great song, which helps. I mean, if they were to start doing their new single with a 16-piece string section, it wouldn't. But it kind of had that like Mannheim steamroller appeal you know just this orchestral thing and it's nuts every once in a while i go back and peek at this at the tally at the numbers that's how it has so

many views jim pitt it's all jim trying to see if in my notes if i jotted out down anything else that i wanted to make sure I brought up. Yeah. Wilco is another just great band. They were. So within the first year, we had Uncle Tupelo on, which was Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar. Oh, OK. They split up.

I think it was heading in this direction anyway. But the Conan appearance actually led to the, that's when the shit hit the fan because oh the songs were either jeff tweedy songs or jay ferrar songs and they went with a jeff tweedy song and it it was you know it caused a lot of strife and they ended up splitting up and then into wilco and sunvolt both of whom we had on many times but wilco you know i love their legacy with conan you know they've been on so many times and they're such a great band right but but yeah so we are an appearance on our show did lead to uh to the to the split up yeah and that for you that's like a stock splitting. It's like, now I have two bands to book.

This is fantastic. Double the talent, yeah. Let's drive more bands apart. Another great name from those early years, I think it was 95, was Jewel. Yeah. She made her debut, just went on there and played acoustic guitar.

And the funny thing after that was that the next morning our receptionist took a call from sean penn who called the main number and i wanted to know who was that girl on the show last night and uh and it actually helped propel her like to a whole nother level of celebrity and and you know that. That's so great. This is Sean Penn, by the way. Right. In fairness, he called like five times. He was a real pest. That masturbating bear. I must have his number.

Yes. I would gauge part of the success of the booking by Conan's reaction when he went over. And you could tell, you know, after you work with him for a while, you could tell, you know, he's courteous to everyone. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And one of my favorite performances ever on the show was the first time My Morning Jacket was on. Oh, I love that. And they did the song One Big Holiday.

Ah. My Morning Jacket was on. Oh, I love that. And they did the song One Big Holiday. Oh. And it ends with this big sort of almost like skinnered like guitar rave up. And I just remember when Conan went over, of course, he didn't know who they were before. Right. But him being so blown away. And you could just, it came through the TV. It was exciting, you know? Yeah. Yeah, when he would get to be

surprised by somebody and seeing them for the and that was always rewarding to me yes it always made me feel great like yeah you know you're just reminding me of another show that was a big musical event in my memory which was the last night of the tonight show oh which i haven't thought about in for all sorts of reasons in a long time. Yeah. But there were many musical guests on that show. There were. And cameos, I think. Wasn't there like almost a super band at the end?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, the music guest first was Neil Young. Right. Which he was, you know, you remember that the team,

it was the birth of the Team Coco movement, and people were so behind Conan in the Leno situation, the Tonight Show situation, and Neil was one of them. And we were trying to find someone appropriate to do that last show. And we had all this money to spend. So we kicked into a private jet for him neil's in australia he was not a problem he was in hawaii oh is that true oh wow oh my god that's fantastic so neil young flies in and here was an it was another elton john kind of border song situation

i pitched to elliot roberts his late manager in my initial email to him. I said, what if Neil came on and sang long, may you run? And, uh, and Elliot is, you know, I don't know if you really paid attention. The Conan story gets bigger and bigger in the, you know, Elliot calls me back a few days later. He said, you know, I think Neilil may do this he may want to do long may you run i suggested it damn it i want my acknowledgement so the rest of the show was actually pretty truncated that night because we had so much music at the end you know we had a full music act and then right he had to cut off conan's goodbye so uh i think steve carell did the exit interview thing and hanks was on and then yeah anyway neil young is playing long may you run and this is at the end of a very emotional i'm standing next to jeff ross like bawling my eyes out it was pretty emotional um yeah it was

but then so right after that we go to commercial and we come back and i don't remember honestly sweene's where the idea came from but will ferrell put to get we put together a super group right i think it had it kind of came together quickly yes to perform free bird right and so we started going out to people with will doing the vocals you know what could have been just our band but we ended ended up with Billy Gibbons, Beck, Ben Harper, Will's wife, who didn't sing, gave birth the next day. Oh, my God. Oh, wow.

She was on the set next to him. She was holding it in, that whole performance. I've got to get through this. Oh, God damn, this song is so long. I may not make it. that whole performance i've got to get through this oh god damn this song is so long it was like yeah i may not make it but mrs van zandt look or ronnie van zandt's old lady look i guess but uh yeah so i did free bird and conan joined them right so it was our band with all those special guests and i don't even i don't know if i'm missing anyone but i think that was it but it was wow it was quite a rave up yeah

that was great the perfect send-off yeah i have to tell this story about i was in a club in nashville the exit in one night there to see a band and a guy came up to me and i had met him before i had met him when he was on the show but he said you know i was on the show the first year you guys were on my with my band the band didn't even exist anymore but he said i just have to thank you like you'll never know how much that meant like to my life and validating me to my family you know that that i serious like my career choice that i mean that kind of thing not like right right you know and think, and I ultimately heard that from a few different people, like just getting that gratitude, that gratitude and just showing like, look, what I've been doing isn't a waste of time. It's real. You know, I'm on this TV show.

Now I can go become an accountant. Yeah, exactly. Now I can go become an accountant. Yeah, exactly. Now I can quit. But I just always found that story, that moment really touched me because I thought, yeah, you know, we've booked thousands of people and every one of them, a

large percentage of them was never heard from again. And this was a huge deal in their life, you know. Yeah. This was fantastic. Thank you so much, Jim. Oh, I'm happy to do it. This was fantastic. I love talking. Thank you so much, Jim. Oh, I'm happy to do it.

This was great. I love talking. I'm so proud of the, of the Conan legacy and, and everything we did there as a whole show, you know, the music wise, especially for myself.

Right. And, and it's, it's one that people are very fond of. And, um, yes. Well,

thanks you guys. I really appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Jim. And that was Jim Pitt, our very talented music booker. Yeah, it was great to catch up with him. It was great. He has that encyclopedic memory of all those guests over the years, all those great musical guests.

I know. And he actually told us, so if you go to the Team Coco Spotify account, there are year-by-year playlists of the Conan musical guests across the shows. So if you really want to get in there, you could spend many, many hours listening to playlists of all the musical guests. Or you could space it out over 28 years and track it. Just one a night. Yeah. That's an amazing resource. So that's a cool way to also see like, oh, you know, when certain bands were kind of kicking in. Yeah. Or other one hit wonders who we never heard from again. Few of those as well. Yeah. And we have a, let's do a listener question. Yeah. It's so nice to's do a listener question. Yeah.

It's so nice to be back with listener questions. This one says, hey, Mike and Jesse, I can't tell you just how thrilled I am to hear that you're back. I was bummed out thinking that the episode with Max might have been the last. Me too. You see, my father passed away recently, and geeking out on back episodes of Inside Conan really helped me during this tough time. I can probably recite verbatim the episodes with Smigel, Stack, and McCann. So you can imagine how overjoyed I was to discover that season three dropped unexpectedly on the 22nd because his service was the very next day.

Oh no. Oh man. Knowing that the show is back helped to keep a smile on my face while grieving. That is so nice. Oh, that's really nice. Thank you. We don't deserve that. No. On a lighter note, I also have two questions for the both of you. Uh-oh. Do you remember the very first content

you wrote that made it to air with Conan? And do you remember the very first big laugh and or applause break that came from something you wrote? I really appreciate

that he distinguished between having content on the show and getting a laugh. Yeah. Yes. That is someone who has a true understanding of how harrowing the job can be sometimes. This is from Jeff in Ewing, New Jersey.

He says, P.S. We like you. Yeah, thank you, Jeff. That was very sweet. Thank you, Jeff. It was extremely sweet. We like you and I'm sorry about your father. Sorry about your pappy. Do you remember the first laugh or?

I do. You know, I think I got some little joke on the first day I was there, a piece I did with Jonathan Groff. We were both hired the same day. The first piece I remember, you know, and getting a big laugh was a few weeks later.

It was the OJ trial was going on. That's how long ago this was. And, you know, and getting a big laugh was a few weeks later, it was the OJ trial was going on. That's how long ago this was. And, you know, it was just all anyone was talking about on TV on different channels. So I did a piece about how all the different channels were trying to cash in on the OJ trial. So I did the weather channel covering it. Oh, yeah. You know, in addition to Court TV. And then I did PBS's coverage. And for that, I had the painter Bob Ross. The jurors were anonymous. So it was him imagining, you know, make your jurors look any way you want. You know, they're your jurors. You can put this face on this one. Happy little accident. And Robert Smigel played Bob Ross and he did it perfect. He's such a great impressionist. He did a really great job

Yes, and I always remember that that got a really big Laugh when he came on and that made me very happy. So I always remember that laugh. Oh, that's great How about you? Well, I don't know about the first joke I got on the show. Right. But I did pitch a desk piece that ended up running for a long time called BuzzFeed's Running Out of Lists. Yes. That was like 17 plates that could be bowls. Right. It was just like weird.

And they kind of just became non sequiturs. Yes. But everyone would write those. And we had accompanying graphics, which was fun for me to put together. Yes. And you would write, you always amazed me because you would Conan, like, by the way, feel free to like hang out in each graphic because there's funny lines in there if you want to go for extra little laughs, which he started doing, which was great. Yeah, that was, and then it was like pressure because I was like, oh, I gotta, now I gotta add a joke to every one. Right. started working there and to come up with a refillable desk piece, like something we called a joke bucket where you could do the piece once a month and always come up with new jokes for it.

That was like such a big score for a writer on a late night show. And you did it right away. Well, I was so glad. I was so relieved because I think I'd been there for a few weeks before I pitched that and hadn't gotten anything on yet. Right. And then that happened and I was like, oh, thank God. I know. I can relax until tomorrow. No, and then, of course, you mentioned the negative of that.

It's like, then you have to keep running it. Right. And, you know, the fifth time you're like, oh, not this again. I know. Right. But it was fine. I always loved anything that other writers could contribute jokes for it just felt like oh these are you know other people's

jokes were always making me laugh harder than my my jokes would make me laugh yes that's why they call them joke buckets because it was literally like everyone you know send in your jokes and yeah and you know when we get to like some jokes in. 15 of them. I don't know if we've talked about this. We'd always go in and rehearse with more beats than we would. Like normally we'd do like, I don't know, 9 to 12 maybe on the show. Yeah. And so we'd go in with like, what, 15 to 20? Yes.

You wanted wiggle room to cut. Right. So that Conan could make some decisions out there too. Yes. That was a learning curve. Like early on, we normally do 12 beats and we're rehearsing 13 beats. Oh, yeah. And he would bristle immediately, like, just like, oh, okay, fine.

Didn't have time to write more. Right. You didn't have time to like, all right, I guess you thought this is all we need. This is the perfect batch. And you're just like, oh God, no. One thing that you taught me about was how to put, because as the writer of one of those joke buckets, you'd also have to put them together in an order. You have to pick an order. That's such an art. And I don't know if I ever really fully figured it out,

but it's almost like putting an order together of songs on an album or something, where it's like, you need to start out really strong, but you don't want, you save the best one for last. Yes. But then you also don't want to have jokes that are too similar in the middle. You don't want it to drag.

So it's kind of, there's a real method. And your favorite ones that you know all the writers will like in rehearsal are usually not going to be crowd favorites right you put those kind of in the middle so because you don't want to put you don't put the weird ones too early because the you want to get the crowd on board like you want it the piece to be doing well before you go off into the into crazy land yeah right and then if there's anything sexual it's like that's probably gonna go at the end because people are gonna go oh exactly yeah and always you wanted joke number three was usually

you want an anchor like that should be a really strong joke too oh my god there's so many times where the third beat would get nothing and it's just like, oh no. We're done for. Yeah. And Conan would just, he'd look up, just stare at the camera like, oh, I can't believe I have to keep going. I have 15 more beats of this. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Well, Jeff, thank you so much. It's awesome to hear from all of you. Thank you, Jeff, thank you so much. It's awesome to hear from all of you. Thank you, Jeff. If you are out there and have a question for us, you can email us at insideconanpod at gmail.com.

Or leave us a voicemail. We get some choice voicemails at 323-209-5303. Yeah, and if you want to link to that Spotify playlist of all the Conan musical guests, that is in our show notes. All right, and that's it for us this week. We'll see you next week. I don't know what would keep me away. Wild horses. We like you.

Inside Conan, an important Hollywood podcast, is hosted by Mike Sweeney and me, Jesse Gaskell. Produced by Sean Doherty. Our production coordinator is Lisa Byrne. Executive produced by Joanna Solotaroff, Adam Sachs, and Jeff Ross at Team Coco. Engineered and mixed by Will Becton.

Our talent bookers are Gina Batista and Paula Davis. Thanks to Jimmy Vivino for our theme music and interstitials. And Mixed by Will Becton. Our talent bookers are Gina Batista and Paula Davis. Thanks to Jimmy Vivino for our theme music and interstitials. You can rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts. And of course, please subscribe and tell a friend to listen to Inside Conan on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you like best. It's the Conan Show. Put on your hat. It's the Conan Show. Put on your hat.

It's the Conan Show. Try on some spats. You're gonna have a laugh. Give birth to a calf. It's Conan! This has been a Team Coco production.