A weekly bulletin on musical guests playing late night TV; set your TIVOs or DVRs if you’ve got an early bedtime.

The Late Show with David Letterman, CBS
Monday, August 3: Levon Helm (original air date July 9)
Tuesday, August 4: Kelly Clarkson (July 13)
Thursday, August 6: St. Vincent (pictured, photo by Annie Clark, June 24)
Friday, August 7: Anthony Hamilton (February 11)

The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, NBC
Monday, August 3: Gomez
Tuesday, August 4: All-American Rejects
Thursday, August 6: the Jonas Brothers
Friday, August 7: Flo Rida

Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, CBS
Thursday, August 6: Glasvegas
Friday, August 7: Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, NBC
Monday, August 3: Incubus
Tuesday, August 4: Arctic Monkeys
Friday, August 7: Julian Plenti

Jimmy Kimmel Live, ABC
Tuesday, August 4: the Script
Wednesday, August 5: Miike Snow

Last Call with Carson Daly, NBC
Monday, August 3: Brett Dennen (rerun, April 23)
Tuesday, August 4: White Lies (April 24)
Wednesday, August 5: Lily Allen (May 5)
Thursday, August 6: Ida Maria (June 24)
Friday, August 7: Bobby Ray (May 6)

Saturday Night Live, NBC
Saturday, August 8: Fleet Foxes (rerun, January 17)

For those who missed it, here’s Regina Spektor performing “Laughing With” on Conan last Thursday, from her new album, far.

Kids are freaking great, right? They just keep getting smarter and more clever every generation. Here’s the latest whiz, 5-year-old Wesley, who performs his own unique rendition of Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” at the 2009 Spring Coffee Shop Jam at Columbia City Theater in Seattle. This is not a child being exploited or another chance for fanatical stage parents to put their kid under a spotlight. The clip is from an ongoing event that gives students at Heartwood Guitar Instruction a chance to showcase their abilities. I

I love how he says “twain” instead of “train,” and when he sings, “But I shot a man in Reno / just to watch him die,” it kills me.

A friend of mine sent me a link to this Soul Train clip featuring Kool & the Gang’s “Jungle Boogie.” While the quality of the video isn’t great, the dancing is effing classic. I want to bust moves like this. I do bust moves like this, in my mind.

Minneapolis indie hip-hop duo Atmosphere — made up of rap artist Slug (Sean Daley) and DJ/producer Ant (Anthony Davis), pictured (photo credit Dan Monick) — bring a smart and refreshing change to the bloated bravado found in much of modern hip-hop music. Slug raps in a personal style that often draws from his own experiences, like the uplifting “Sunshine,” about appreciating the sunny days of life and wanting to bottle them in a plastic jar, “Bust it out whenever someone’s actin hard,” or the funky fun, sample-heavy “C’mon” from the duo’s new (and free) EP, Leak at Will, about being aware of where you’re from but not falling prey to its lawless temptations. But he’ll just as soon offer up a story — “The Waitress” from 2008’s When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold, looks at the antagonistic relationship between a waitress and a homeless man as told from his point-of-view, “I wonder when she’ll realize / That she’s the only reason I visit / The only woman in my world that acknowledges my existence.” Eyedea & Abilities and Attracted to Gods provide support for the duo’s Bay area show. Sat., Aug. 1, 8 p.m., State Theatre, St. Petersburg, $21. (Videos after the jump)

“Trying To Find A Balance” from 2003’s Seven’s Travels

Atmosphere – “Guarantees,” from 2009’s When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold

Pennsylvania experimental rock ensemble Black Moth Super Rainbow (pictured, photo by Jae Rumberto) hit retro and modern notes all at once with their day-glo vibrant electro-dance melodies, fizzadelic folk shambles and made-for-space jams. It’s some of the headiest music you’ll find out there right now, but songwriter/frontman/creative conscience Tobacco (real name Tom Fec) doesn’t consider his music psychedelic at all.

“I think everything I do is pop,” he told me a few weeks ago during a phone interview before the second leg of the band’s two-part tour. “I don’t like psychedelic music and I never set out to do it. It just sort of comes out that way. I might be the only person who thinks this, but Eating Us … it seems like a pop album to me.”

Eating Us, his band’s fourth and latest full-length, is not the sort of name that makes me think pop. The black-and-white album cover, with its smeary sad face superimposed onto the back of a hand, doesn’t make me think of pop music, either. And the limited edition “hairy” version of Eating Us (with synthetic hair in its inner sleeve) is probably as far from pop packaging as you can feasibly get. (VIDEOS AFTER THE JUMP)

Tobacco explains his definition of “pop”: songs that get their point across in two or three minutes, that have catchy vocals and instrumentals, that are influenced by experimental techniques used in pop music of the ’60s and ‘70s. “If everyone could just get over the fact that it’s not what they’re used to hearing…” he muses.

But while Black Moth’s music is sticky, glittery and bright like pop, it’s too off-kilter and sonically adventurous to have true mainstream appeal. And the songs have titles like “Fields Are Breathing” and “Born on a Day the Sun Didn’t Rise,” and blotter paper lyrics (“Iron lemonade, wash my friends away / Neon lemonade, eat my face away”) delivered via whispery-warm vocoderfied vocals set against a swirling symphony of synthesized sound. It’s hard to think anything but hallucinatory thoughts when listening.

Surprisingly, Black Moth has toned down the face-melting mania and glitchy noise of their previous three albums. Eating Us is more wistful, dreamy and laid-back than Black Moth has ever sounded. Tobacco admits he made a concentrated effort to steer clear of his really gritty “coming over the speaker system at a public pool” sound. “I thought it would be better to just focus on making the songs as clear as possible, just to see if they could hold up under a more traditional type of treatment.”

The album was recorded at Tarbox Road Studios and marks the first time Black Moth has ventured into a modern recording studio and made a hi-fi album. “Everything I do is normally at home over years,” says Tobacco, who writes the music solo and brings his finished ideas to the band. Eating Us is also the first Black Moth album to feature live drumming instead of drum machine fills as well as in-studio assistance and tracking by Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann.

Bass, drums and a collection of vintage analog synthesizers and keyboards paired with Tobacco’s vocoder-processed vocals help the band achieve their distinctive antique electronica feel. “They are the sound.”

Nothing is sequenced or sampled or pre-recorded in a live setting, and Tobacco admits the band doesn’t really attempt to engage the audience. The visuals projected onto a screen behind the band are created by Tobacco himself and play throughout each performance “to entertain people, and also to distract from the fact that we are sort of just concentrating on what we are doing.”

Black Moth initially evolved from a series of musical projects by Tobacco and his bassist cousin Power Pill Fist (real name Ken Fec). The two played together for several years before teaming up with some other Pittsburgh-area musicians ­— Seven Fields of Aphelion (Maureen Boyle), Father Hummingbird (Seth Ciotti) and IFfernaut (Donna Kyler) — to form Black Moth Super Rainbow in 2003. They put out two albums before getting picked up by Graveface Records in 2005, which were re-released shortly thereafter along with a new EP, Lost, Picking Flowers in the Woods. Black Moth brewed up a fresh electro-rock record with The Octopus Project in 2006, kept the indie buzz going with a successful SXSW debut in 2007, and went on to release a much-lauded candy-coated third full-length, Dandelion Gum, also in 2007, which led to opening slots later that year for Aesop Rock and the Flaming Lips.

Black Moth was mostly quiet in 2008 while Tobacco and Power Pill Fist did the solo thing, though they satiated fans in November with The Drippers EP, a compilation of lost tracks from the Dandelion Gum era among other odds and ends. The fivesome re-converged to record Eating Us in early 2009.

Tobacco has no real plans for any future recordings with Black Moth, and says that after this tour, “I think I just want to do something else for a minute and stop thinking about all this Black Moth stuff.”

Black Moth Super Rainbow w/Serengeti and Polyphonic, Fri., July 31, 9 p.m., Crowbar, Ybor City, $10 (ages 18 & up)

Video, “Born on a Day the Sun Didn’t Rise,” from Eating Us

BMSR

Video, “Sun Lips,” from Dandelion Gum. Out there shit, with rodents.

Black Moth Super Rainbow: Lost, Picking Flowers in the Woods during SXSW 2007 at the Graveface Records Showcase at the Ritz.

Normally, I don’t do video posts. But sometimes I see one that is just so sweet I have to share it with y’all. Such is the new video for Buck 65’s song “The Rebel” off his latest effort, Situation. It was done by animator Benjamin Logsdon and you need to make sure you watch it in HD.

A weekly bulletin on musical guests playing late night TV; set your TIVOs or DVRs if you’ve got an early bedtime.

The Late Show with David Letterman, CBS
Monday, July 27: Dave Matthews Band
Tuesday, July 28: Silversun Pickups
Wednesday, July 29: Elbow (The British alt rockers are currently on tour with Coldplay.)
Thursday, July 30: Cage the Elephant (They don’t have a new album out since their 2008 self-titled debut, but they did play a much-talked-about set at Bonnaroo.)
Friday, July 31: Dave Matthews Band (Two nights of DMB on Letterman. Woo fucking hoo!)

The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, NBC
Monday, July 27: the Fray
Thursday, July 30: Regina Spektor (Check out my review of her new album and two of her new videos here.)
Friday, July 31: Ben Harper & Relentless7

Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, CBS
Monday, July 27: Gavin DeGraw
Wednesday, July 29: Rodney Carrington
Thursday, July 30: Franz Ferdinand

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, NBC
Monday, July 27: Spinal Tap (pictured)
Tuesday, July 28: Sean “Diddy” Combs (Likely promoting his brand and his latest MTV band search show, Making His Band, which premieres on July 27)
Wednesday, July 29: Passion Pit
Thursday, July 30: Jarvis Cocker
Friday, July 31: Jimmy Buffett

Jimmy Kimmel Live, ABC
Monday, July 27: Sean Patrick McGraw (rerun, June 14)
Wednesday, July 29: the Sounds
Thursday, July 30: Jack’s Mannequin
Friday, July 31: Diane Birch

Last Call with Carson Daly, NBC
Monday, July 27: Adele (rerun, April 14)
Tuesday, July 28: the Duke Spirit (April 15)
Wednesday, July 29: Lykke Li (April 16)
Thursday, July 30: Ben Harper & Relentless7
Friday, July 31: Crystal Antlers (April 22)

Saturday Night Live, NBC
Saturday, August 1: Phoenix (rerun, April 4)

For those who missed it, here’s a double-shot of late night tastiness from last week: UK 80’s retro throwback group La Roux performing “Bulletproof” on Jimmy Kimmel Live, and from Late Night with David Letterman, Ginuwine featuring special guest Missy Elliott doing “Get Involved.” Is it me or does it look like Elliot is lip-synching?

Google “gypsy punk” and most of the dozen or so results relate back to Gogol Bordello. Search the band specifically and you’ll find more than a million pages that mention it. While Gogol’s Ukraine-born visionary/composer Eugene Hütz isn’t interested in taking credit for spearheading a whole new movement in American music, his band’s influence is undeniable.

Gogol grew from NYC’s underground music scene, just as much a melting pot as the city itself. Hütz immersed himself in it and assembled a motley crew of talented, multi-ethnic musicians to create his gypsy punk orchestra and make his vision of infusing East-European culture into Western music a reality.

The nine-member band represents seven nationalities all told. Their sound combines gypsy and Slavic music traditions with punk rock, dub reggae, metal, rap and even some funk and grooves, and the lyrics are delivered in English sprinkled with Spanish, Ukrainian and Italian verses. Since 1999, they have released four LPs; the most recent, 2007’s critically acclaimed Super Taranta!, fully launched Gogol into the international spotlight.

Many of Gogol’s songs (including “Wonderlust King, below”) are about living a roving, responsibility-free lifestyle, though various other topics are touched upon, from the absurdly catchy “Start Wearing Purple,” about letting loose and being silly, to “American Wedding,” which pokes fun at our country’s stuffy wedding traditions (“Where is the vodka, where’s marinated herring? / Where is the supply that gonna last three days?”), to the hilarious God vs. Science debate in “Supertheory of Supereverything.”

http://cltampa.com/content/Wonderlust_King.mp3

Everyone contributes vocals to the boisterous, colorful music, like violin virtuoso Sergey Ryabtsev, capable of some of the fastest and most furious fiddle playing I’ve ever witnessed; accordion player Yuri Lemeshev, who also moonlights with the studio band on Late Night with Conan O’Brien; and attractive lady entertainers and pandemonium makers Pamela Jintana Racine and Elizabeth Sun, who alternately sing, dance, and play marching band-style percussion throughout the live shows.

Hütz is the captivating and unpredictable center of it all. He sings lead, plays forceful acoustic guitar, and, usually shirtless with sweat dripping from his thick handlebar mustache, marches back and forth encouraging playful unruliness and leading spirited singalongs. He pilots the vigorous musical spectacle and keeps both his band and the audience as amped-up as he is.

Leilani: So, tell me about the role you play in the band as ringleader. How much of your songwriting goes into what happens on stage?

Eugene: I think it’s quite obvious (laughs robustly) that I write all the songs. (VIDEOS AFTER THE JUMP)

Leilani: You write it and you maestro it?

Eugene: Well of course – that’s my religion. That’s what I do. Since I was 14 years old in my first band, I wrote songs and I wanted to be successful as a leader, in every band that I was ever in, starting in the Ukraine back in 1986, when I was just a crazy kid with a dream.

Leilani: You do have a super vibrant stage persona… Is that just how you always were?

Eugene: Well, what really happened is that in my childhood, I was put into very hardcore long distance running program. And parallel to that I was, of course, a musical fanatic, so when punk rock came to Ukraine, and I got into it, I simply took my abilities of marathon runner on stage, and it didn’t seem to me anything special about it, because running ten miles was quite a normal activity for me. So then, joined with loud amplifiers … (he laughs). You know it escalated a bit more, and people started coming to see it and say “Wow, what a great stage presence.” But for me it was a normal thing I’d done for years, going through adrenaline rush of running so many miles every day, or 5, 6 times a week. So it’s kind of a combination of art and…

Leilani: Endurance?

Eugene: Endurance is the word. You know stamina and endurance is a big part of the warrior mentality we were raised with.

We were obviously raised in the cold war time, and everyone who grew up then was supposed to be a great warrior and soldier, and nevermind that war never started, but the abilities are there. Even though it can be seen in a kind of a, a you know, propagandistic light, this upbringing, but in the same light it is also a profound way of seeing it, because the archetype of a warrior goes much deeper into cultures than its political meaning. It’s a very particular spiritual realm…

Leilani: And that’s the type of thing you draw on when you perform and you write your music?

Eugene: For sure. I mean, from Carl Jung to Krishna Morty to feminists to punk rock, back to Dionysus – you know, there is an archetype of a warrior, and being a warrior doesn’t mean necessarily you need to win and succeed. It’s just a spiritual condition of living a worthwhile life.

Leilani: Is there anything you do to get yourself ready and pumped up for live shows?

Eugene: In the past, yes there was a lot to prepare, because every show was about surviving. It was always so intense and breathtaking ‘til about an hour before …

You know, for years it took me to work out, what is the right mixture of athletic warm-up and alcohol dosage to kind of get into that right frame of mind, but now, after doing some 200 shows a year, I just kind of became professional enough where I don’t need any preparations. Just give me the fucking microphone and I’m ready to go. Like now, I’m ready, where’s this fucking thing, let’s do it, I’m here for rock and roll.

Leilani: I know when I saw you guys at the State Theater [last June] there was one girl in particular who jumped on stage, and you guys had a funny little flirtation going on. Usually people tend to get thrown off stage immediately, but you seem to incorporate it into the show, and you don’t usually see stuff like that.

Eugene: For me, music is a way to feel brotherhood and closeness, so anything that has to do with any kind of social model of behavior that is dragging us down on a daily basis can basically fuck off, in that magical time on stage. And I love building all possible bridges and giving people opportunities to flip out. It’s one of my favorite things to do. I mean, one of my favorite things to do is to craft and to write songs and tell stories, and another thing is to really just flip out basically, and release kind of my unruly energies. But that girl was obviously having a great time, and as much as I can I never let security or somebody ruin it for them.

That’s what music is really all about. Music is a uniter, so anything that has to do with VIP and ropes and barriers is not my way. Sometimes I have to deal with it, and sometimes I’m put behind those barriers, but I do all I can to bring it down.

Leilani: Do you take credit for bringing gypsy punk to a wider audience?

Eugene: I don’t really care about things like that. I’m not from hip-hop world, and I don’t need to beat myself in the chest and say that I invented the fucking hip-hop, or I invented this or that. It’s for me great enough to know that I wrote my own songs, and that those melodies found ways into people’s hearts. So, I know what we did, and I was there when it was happening, and that’s beautiful enough for me. And yes I know that there are kids in San Francisco and skate punk kids down in California who are now listening to gypsy music from Romania, and I know how they got into it, but it’s not really about taking credit for it, it’s just the beauty of it, that it happens.

I don’t really believe in any isolated powers of the individual. I think that cultural tendencies for that were there already just like they were there in the ’60s for the Beatles and for Dylan, and just like they were there in ’70s for punk rock, you know?

It’s just culture, like anything else, goes in certain ways, and it reaches a new plateau were a new injection is necessary, and it usually comes from the outside, and in the late ’90s, it was very obvious that the U.S. was in a musical crisis, big time, and it had to take influences from outside because it was a real, you know, regurgitation bonanza.

Leilani: Do you find that all the travelling you do has helped you to incorporate different cultures and different styles of music into your own? And fueled your creativity?

Eugene: It’s a direct reflection of it. You’re not going to walk out unaffected and I welcome those things. But for me, it’s never about directly kind of taking on the so-called fucking flavor. I don’t care about that. It’s more about like, about actually spending time and becoming part of that culture, and more like telling their stories through your filter, and so of course, all the influence that we take is layered and textured in, but essentially it’s really about just writing your own songs, there is really nothing more vital than that, you know?

Leilani: Are you guys working on a new album right now?

Eugene: Yeah, we just finished a record with Rick Rubin. We’re very excited; it’s going to be fucking bombastic! It’s a very, very energetic record.

Wait ‘til you fucking hear it. It’s going to be exactly what it needs to be.

Leilani: Was Rubin more hands-on than other producers you’ve worked with?

Eugene: We had the most creative time, and a fucking great time, you know what I mean? The studio is a very complicated thing for any band, but really, it was just like our beings opened up to everything that we ever wanted to say.

Leilani: You have a pretty notorious mustache – I’m a mustache connoisseur and I’ve got to say it’s a pretty fantastic mustache. Any plans on ever shaving it, or…

Eugene: See, that’s like the last thing that I ever thought about or cared about … It’s always amazed me that it has any kind of notice whatsoever, or it’s considered to be some kind of fashion statement or anything…

Leilani: Well, it’s just so fabulous!

Eugene: Well … thank you very much, but I’m still going to withdraw back from backing it up by any statements. It’s as simple as like, my father had it, and my grandfather had it, and my great-great-grandfather had it, and I just came back from Ukraine where we headlined a festival, and everybody there had it, as simple as that, the roots.

But, well, you know, if it helps to kill fascism, I’m not going to get in the way of that.

Gogol Bordello plays The Ritz Ybor Monday, July 27, at 7 p.m.; tickets are $23 and are worth every penny.

Gogol Bordello with Madonna at Live Earth, 2007, performing “La Isla Bonita.”

Gogol Bordello performing Not a Crime live on Later with Jools Holland

GOGOL BORDELLO NON STOP FILM TRAILER

Last Thursday, on the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission to land on the Moon, NASA came out with the embarrassing news that it had somehow, over the years, managed to record over America’s most important historical footage of said trip to the Moon’s surface. You know, the famous footage of Neil Armstrong’s “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” the one that all those conspiracy theorists say is faked Wag the Dog style? Yeah, that footage.

(Apparently, in the 1970s and ’80s, NASA had a shortage of tapes, so it erased about 200,000 of them and reused them, including ones documenting the historical event.)

Luckily, NASA’s news came with a Hollywood saves-the-day solution: those crafty preservationists who restored Casablanca are digitally sharpening and cleaning up grainy footage of the moon landing taken from four sources NASA scrounged from around the world. The results are said to be better than what TV viewers witnessed on July 20, 1969, and according to senior NASA engineer Dick Nafzger, “There’s nothing being created; there’s nothing being manufactured.”

In honor of NASA’s royal fuck-up, I’ve made up a playlist of songs dedicated to the moon. There are a great deal more than 10, and some are rather obvious, but headlines are better with nice round numbers … interesting how many of these songs were produced in the ’70s. I guess a mission to the moon will inspire some songs, huh?

“Marquee Moon,” Television, Marquee Moon, 1977

“Moondance,” Van Morrison, Moondance, 1970

“3rd Planet,” Modest Mouse, The Moon and Antarctica, 2000

“Tahitian Moon,” Porno for Pyros, Good God’s Urge, 1996

“Pink Moon,” Nick Drake, Pink Moon, 1971

“The Killing Moon,” Echo & the Bunnymen, Ocean Rain, 1984

“Moonshadow,” Cat Stevens, Teaser and the Firecat, 1971

“Harvest Moon,” Neil Young, Harvest Moon, 1992

“Dark Side of the Moon,” Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon, 1973

“I Wish I Was the Moon,” Neko Case, Blacklisted, 2002

“Blue Moon,” Richard Rodgers/Lorenz Hart, 1934

“Drunk on the Moon,” Tom Waits, The Heart of Saturday Night, 1974

“Bad Moon Rising,” Creedence Clearwater Revival, Green River, 1969

“Man on the Moon,” R.E.M., Automatic for the People, 1992

“Walking on the Moon,” The Police, Reggatta de Blanc, 1979

“Standing on the Moon, ” The Grateful Dead, Built to Last, 1989

“Dancin’ In The Moonlight,” King Harvest, Dancin’ In The Moonlight, 1973

“That’s Amore,” Dean Martin, 1953

“I Don’t Want to Live on the Moon,” by Ernie, in the below version with guest Aaron Neville (originally aired in 1978)

A weekly bulletin on musical guests playing late night TV; set your TIVOs or DVRs if you’ve got an early bedtime.

The Late Show with David Letterman, CBS
Monday, July 20: Spinnerette (the alt rock foursome featuring Brody Dalle and Tony Bevilacqua, both formerly of The Distillers; the band just released their self-titled debut in June)
Tuesday, July 21: the Flatlanders
Wednesday, July 22: Diane Birch
Thursday, July 23: Ginuwine (pictured) with Missy Elliott (They’ll likely perform “Get Involved,” the second single from Ginuwine’s latest album, A Man’s Thoughts. The song also features Timbaland — he produced it — but he’s not scheduled to appear.)
Friday, July 24: Judy Collins

The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, NBC
Monday, July 20: Kate Voegele
Wednesday, July 22: Mat Kearney
Thursday, July 23: Jason Aldean
Friday, July 24: De La Soul

Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, CBS
Monday, July 20: Eric Church

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, NBC
Monday, July 20: Tom Jones
Tuesday, July 21: Jordin Sparks
Wednesday, July 22: Flo Rida
Thursday, July 23: Demi Lovato (pictured), Twisted Sister (not sure who’s performing — maybe both, since 16-year-old actress/songstress Demi Lovato’s new album will have dropped earlier in the week)

Jimmy Kimmel Live, ABC
Monday, July 20: Linkin Park (rerun, June 23)
Wednesday, July 22: Jewel
Thursday, July 23: La Roux

Last Call with Carson Daly, NBC
Monday, July 20: Ben Harper & Relentless7 (rerun, March 27)
Tuesday, July 21: Robin Thicke (March 31)
Wednesday, July 22: Cold War Kids (April 1)
Thursday, July 23: Nico Stai (April 2)
Friday, July 24: the Pains of Being Pure at Heart (Aril 3)

Saturday Night Live, NBC
Saturday, July 25: Duffy (rerun, September 28)

For those who missed Grizzly Bear’s return to David Letterman (a make-up of a previous non-appearance), here’s the Brooklyn indie rock foursome performing “Ready, Able” on the show last Thursday.