‘The Village Voice’ delights in The Mountain Goats on ‘Colbert’
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I don’t know why it makes me smile so to read people’s accounts of their Colbert Report visits, whether they’re from fans, bloggers or even the guests. I guess it just pleases me to know that people enjoyed themselves enough to want to share the experience … and possibly, if you’re The Village Voice, to gloat just a wee bit that they were there. (And no, I’m not envious. Not at all.)
What You Didn’t See on Last Night’s Colbert Report: A Mountain Goats-Colbert Duet
By Zach Baron
Wednesday, Oct. 7 2009 @ 11:21AM. . .
Colbert can be seen waiting out the commercial break between the conversation and the band’s performance of “Psalms 40:2,” frantically studying a sheet of paper, the contents of which he’s clearly trying to memorize.
This turns out be preparation not for a joke or a bit but for “This Year.” What he’s doing during the commercial break and even during some of “Psalms” is trying to nail down the lyrics. Because, it emerges, he’s convinced the band–or vice versa, who knows–to allow him to guest on the song. And thus we are treated to the world’s first and likely only collaboration between Stephen Colbert and the Mountain Goats, live, in front of 100 or so people, Colbert and Darnielle alternating bars, harmonizing on the chorus, and generally living out in real time a kind of mutual rock fantasy camp dream. Some lyrics are flubbed, and in the aftermath Colbert looks like a guy who would desperately like to get a second try-out, but he’s got to move: he directs some anguished looks at his watch and then, a few minutes later, at a car idling outside, before getting in and leaving. The cameras were rolling, but it doesn’t look like Comedy Central broadcast it–maybe cause the take wasn’t perfect, or maybe because this one was for the personal scrapbook and for whoever else happened to be in the room. We’ll just go ahead and pretend like we’re sad that the rest of you weren’t.
I don’t know about you, but I’d *love* to see that duet turn up as a ColbertNation “Exclusive” (hint hint, Comedy Central) …
In the meantime, don’t miss Stephen’s interview with John Darnielle:
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| John Darnielle | ||||
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EDITED TO ADD: I just noticed some pretty cool photos from rehearsals of The Colbert Report, with Stephen and The Mountain Goats. I particularly like the ones from the rehearsals of “The Year” — you can see the energy in them. Check them out here at Flickr user Lalitree’s photostream.
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7 Comments
October 7th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Oh – I’d love to see that as well!
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October 7th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Me, too!
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October 7th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Me three!
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October 7th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
Oh how I long to see that. You know, I’d never heard of The Mountain Goats before their performance, but they’re really great. I listened to a bunch of their songs at work today, and the whole stream of the new album. I even stumbled across “This Year” before reading the bit about Stephen singing it, and it’s resonating particularly well for me, too. I’ll definitely be getting at least the new album, probably more.
I really appreciate the selection of their musical guests – it’s always something interesting, always good.
(BTW, I got my Movits! CD from Comedy Central, and it’s also really good. My 3 year old son loves it, and is always asking to hear the “clapping song”)
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October 7th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
John Darnielle & Stephen Colbert – separated at birth? ;)
They seem to totally “get” each other.
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October 8th, 2009 at 7:14 am
Sorry. This is about the Oct 7 performance, although, for the recors, I love the Mountain Goats. After about ten error messages, I think I have succeeded in making some important corrections to Matthew 26 on the Conservapedia Bible project. Check it out. http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Matthew_20-28_(Translated)&action=edit§ion=6
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October 8th, 2009 at 7:39 am
Sorry. I was wrong about managing to change the conservapedia Bible. I suspect the conservapedia people have disabled edits for the time being. I had made Stephen the bridegroom in the foolish virgins story, changed a few things in the judgement day story (“This is Tip of the hat wag of the finger” “I was sick and you told me I had a pre-existing condition”) and made him the ultra talented servant in the parable of the talents.
I plan to check back every day using different usernames, because I think we should do everything in our power to scupper this APPALLING project.
I think I will try changing Simon/Peter to Stephen/Peter. That way I will only have to change the early references… Any other ideas? They haven’t got the Old Testament up yet, so it’s just New Testament.
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