NBC Studios NYC

I’m sitting in the band room at Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Jim’s crashed out on the sofa, his arms across his stomach like he’s steeling himself against a potential assault. This might have something to do with the time I punched him in the stomach while he was sleeping. He needn’t worry about that. Me rifling through his wallet? That’s a whole ‘nother story.

Jeepers–what a hectic weekend. Times sure have changed since we put out our last record. Back then we’d do our advance press and interviews before the tour and then go out and play the shows. This time we’re doing a lot of that stuff the day of and then playing a couple hours later. It’s a little more tiring but it keeps you from worrying about f’ing up the show.

Last night was an epic win. (Look, I know this phrase has probably already fallen out of favor with most of you but I’m going to use it for the rest of my days for no other reason than I decided against the Ms. Pac-Man/Kitt calf tattoo and opted for “Epic Win” above a picture of Urkel standing triumphantly over a beaten up Darth Vader.) Great crowd and great support in the way of Wild Nothing and comedian Todd Barry. Mountain Goat John Darnielle even bopped onstage to sing “Digging for Something” with us.

We decided to throw caution to the wind and play the Misfits classic “Horror Business” as the first encore. We’d only ever played the song once before and that was over ten years ago (Halloween 1997 at the 9:30 club –we even dressed up as the Misfits that night). To make matters crazier we asked Todd Barry to play drums, the vocal duties falling to me. I can’t and won’t watch this but perhaps you will. It may possibly be apparent that I’d never sung it (or any other song) in public before.

Ok, so here we are about to play on late night TV. This will be the first time Superchunk’s done something like this since appearing on Late Night with Conan O’Brien during his inaugural season. Man, that was a long time ago, so long ago that, if memory serves, John Wilkes Booth was the other guest. This is possibly slightly less traumatic for me in that I’ve gotten to play here a couple times this year with Aimee Mann and the Mountain Goats. Speaking of, we’re excited to have Mr. Darnielle singing with us today (that’s JD on backing vocals on the recorded version of “Digging for Something”). Having him with us makes it more of a party, partly because of the cocaine he brought with him. I made that up. Again, there is no cocaine.

Alright –please send us all of your non-clam energy.

Filed Under: Tour Diary by jon | September 20, 2010

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