The Heavy On David Letterman, 01.18.10

With the latest kerfuffle going on between Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien (personally, I’m with CoCo), I’ve been reminded of some of the other late night hosts who are caught up in this. Poor Jimmy Fallon hasn’t said a whole lot about it, because his job is also at stake: if Leno were to take back the 11 35 time slot, and O’Brien 12 05, then Fallon would probably be out of a job entirely. Craig Ferguson is pretty damn hilarious, and I was surprised to learn that most of his show is unscripted – at least, the monologue and interviews are. And Jimmy Kimmel, who I saw back in ’04 and was somewhat impressed with, made me laugh the hardest when he did an entire show as Jay Leno. However, I’ve been getting the most enjoyment out of watching David Letterman rip into Leno and side with O’Brien. Letterman, as you’ll recall, was caught up in a similar situation at the start of the 90s, when he was promised The Tonight Show upon Johnny Carson’s retirement; Leno swooped in and stole it from him, and Letterman, for the most part, remained quiet about Leno – until now.

But. That’s not the point of this post, of course. While flipping through the channels last night, I happened to catch the musical performance on Letterman by an English group called The Heavy. They’re not an up-and-coming band, having released their first few singles and debut album, Great Vengeance and Furious Fire, in 2007, and was given Spin magazine’s Best Discovery award from the 2008 South By Southwest Festival. But their performance of ‘How You Like Me Now?’, from their second album The House That Dirt Built, released this past October, on Letterman’s show last night got me hooked. It even hooked Letterman, who, as you can see in the video, is visibly impressed and asks that they do an encore. Their energy is infectious, and their hooks are memorable. My recommendation is that you go out and invest in this band, because they’re probably going to do big things.