Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen Conan eroticize a sponge while washing his new desk and driving a car off a cliff in promos that are meant to psych us up for the November 8th death of Jay Leno. We’ve also watched a blimp fly over Philadelphia for a while, which was cool because trying to get your blimp fix from a fat cat just isn’t the same. But we still don’t know too many concrete details yet, like what Conan’s set looks like or who his first guest will be. We did, however, just learn that the band will officially be Jimmy Vivino and the Basic Cable Band.
Clearly, while we were busy fawning over LaBamba in the popular sketch, “In the Year 3000,” Jimmy Vivino was associate directing the music, arranging, guitaring and vocalizing for both Late Night with Conan O’Brien and The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, and otherwise running around making people sign their names in blood that on Conan’s next show, the band would be in his name. Under his reign is Scott Healy on keyboard, Mike Merrit on bass, Mark Pender on trumpet, Richie “LaBamba” Rosenberg on trombone, and James Wormworth on drums. (You’ll remember that whenever Max Weinberg was sluttin’ it up with Bruce Springsteen and acting upon the sexual deviance that Conan so frequently referenced, Wormworth would sub for him and he’d play the drums in his bare feet quite innocently. But unlike Max, Vivino sounds like the kind of guy who hates pictures of weimaraners in human clothing, which means Wormworth’s barefoot preference might be nixed. But if there’s ever a place for indisposed drumming to exist that’s not Matthew McConaughey‘s house, it’s on basic cable.
So congrats to the new band! We anxiously await your mini-concerts and you’re scripted interactions with Conan about Kanye West and his devious invention of the carbon dioxide-producing tree. The research for which, no doubt, Jimmy Vivino has funded.