Conan’s late night house band has gone through a couple names in recent years. The Max Weinberg 7 stuck for a whole 16 years during Conan’s tenure at Late Night with Conan O’Brien. The Tonight Show Band didn’t last nearly as long for reasons you should be aware of. And it then changed to The Legally Prohibited Band this year when Conan brought the band with him on The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour. Today the house band gets a brand new name that will hopefully stick for years to come: The Basic Cable Band. It’s got a nice ring to it, huh? As we already know, drummer Max Weinberg has left the band and guitarist Jimmy Vivino will take over as band leader. He will be joined by returning band members Scott Healy (keyboards), Mike Merritt (bass), Mark Pender (trumpet), Richie “LaBamba” Rosenberg (trombone), Jerry Vivino (saxophone, woodwinds, and vocals), and James Wormworth (drums).
Yesterday it was announced on the TeamCoCo blog that the fans will have the power to decide the TBS late night show’s very first guest. Potential guests include Tom from MySpace, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Jack Nicholson, Pope Bendict XVI, Vladimir Putin, REO Speedwagon, Hassanal Bolkiah (The Sultan of Brunei), Thomas Pynchon, Gerhard Ertl, Arlene Wagner, and the full cast of the live-action “Fat Albert” movie (not including Kenan Thompson). Click here and get your vote on! You are restricted to one vote per day, but you can vote as many times as you want and for how ever many people you want. Take heed of this disclaimer, though: “None of these people have actually been booked on our show. For one reason or another, we haven’t contacted any of these people – In fact, we’re kind of hoping that, if someone on this poll starts getting a lot of votes, these folks will actually feel a bit guilty and will agree to be our first guest!!”
Conan premieres November 8 at 11PM on TBS.
