[lhtd]

How great is it that they named their best song “#1”?

[WooL]

Pretty awesome tbh

[scrambledgreggs]

I've been thinking about this song a lot lately

[Jasca]

#1 was the song that got me into Animal Collective. So much going on in that one. Sounds so good live, especially on Conan that one time haha. Anyone know why they chose #1 to play on Conan? Were they intentionally trying to be as jarring as possible? VERY glad they did it, but I feel like Domino or Conan or someone would've stopped it had they known that's what they'd be playing.

[Fovrodi]

Avey and Deak actually gave a lengthy answer to that back in the day

Spoiler: show

stunnarunna: Hey guys, first off id like to say (and i speak for everyone) that i really thought you guys put on a wonderful performance on the conan show. my questions to the band are, How did the experience of being on a national stage go? What made you guys decide to play #1? and also would you play again on a similar show?


obviously you guys are busy, so I understand if the question doesnt get answerd anytime soon.

thanks much!

Avey: actually we are trying to be not so busy...atleast for a few days hehehe. Conan was fun. In terms of playing on the actual show it went really fast as you can imagine but i personally was able to get into it atleast for what it was and did lose myself in it.

We had a party and watched it later on and it seemed to me to be way more mellow and subdued then it was actually playing it but that probably has alot to do with the tv translating the sounds, all the compression and that sort of thing. We were able to dabble with the mix a bit ourselves to make sure it was mixed how we wanted it to be but even after that it still didnt seem exactly right. Oh well. It is what it is and im really happy we played that song and got to play on conan and honestly it was all really surreal. For a minute during the day there was a bit of a freak out cause i guess the show promoter wasnt informed that we were going to play #1 and he told our manager "im going to get fucked for this" or somthing like that and said that though he didnt want to dictate our "art" he thought it wasnt a good tv song. Even though at that point we had submited lyrics and the song etc etc and all the production guys were aware we were doing it and we didnt bring anything else that would have allowed us to play another song. So we thought they were going to cut us but luckily they kept us on. right before we started brian turned to me and said "i cant believe they are letting us do this".

In all honesty had we been givin more time on the show i think we would have played peacebone or somthing a bit more energetic. But as much as we asked we were given a strict time line of four mintutes. There are plenty of bands waiting in line to play on tv so had we said "well we arent doing it unless we can play longer" im sure they would have just said "soorrrryy". Though we did cut the intro to #1 i personally was totally against editing any lyrical part of peacebone or any other song for that matter hence another reason as to why we didnt play those songs. We had also thought about doing a new jam but we would have had to submit it for listening and edited anything to the right time and so it was just too much hastle cause weve been on tour.

For awhile we were going to play derek but after playing both that and #1 live over the past few weeks it just seemed to us that #1 would give people a little bit of a better idea of what we are and we thought it was a better song for TV for obvious reasons i suppose.

Kristin brought up a good point on our way home last night that had we played peacebone or somthing more wild and tried to be very energetic and crazy on stage it might have just looked silly if the sound didnt really punch on TV. She said #1 was a better choice in a way cause we werent trying to be weird or anything up there. We were just playing the song and having a good time and what came out was equally interesting if nothing else.

dave

Deakin:
It was honestly difficult to tell what conan thought. he is (understandably) consumed with quite a lot and does this so much that i imagine it is difficult to always relate to what is going on. he talked to me for a minute up there about what i was running my guitar through. my guitar part on that song is super bassy and not obviously a guitar since i am using a MIDI setup. so he was curious what it would take to get it to sound normal. i guess he is a guitar player himself, he was also wondering if i played in standard tuning (which i don't). i explained how my tunings are things i find on my own based on the samples we create and whatnot. he seemed interested, but it was very brief and ultimately just felt like a way to fill up space until he was sure the credits had finished. not offensively, but efficiently.

really the whole thing was so fast and so surreal that it is difficult to really understand what was going or how anyone took it. although the crew and production staff were really stoked at how different it was. i guess they feel like they get a lot of the same kind of thing in there and this gave them an opportunity to get a little weirder. so....

[Jasca]

Wow, that is a MUCH more thorough explanation than I thought I'd get, but what a great read! Love hearing more about behind-the-scenes stuff with AnCo. With how reserved they can be at times, it's nice to see them open up a bit. Thanks!!

[foxtrot]

great to read those reflections, thanks for sharing!

[Fovrodi]

Glad you appreciated it! And thanks for the bump, inspired me to dig up another account of their early late night performances

wrote:

Television provides its own difficulties for a group accustomed to experimentation, and much more so than in festivals the studio is not filled with partisan fans.

“I think the audience in those TV studios is completely irrelevant,” said Weitz. “The times we’ve played shows like that we’ve never even looked at the audience. They’re told with an applause sign to clap. I think more about what it’s going to translate into on the other side of the TV.”

“It’s the furthest away, especially in the live situation, of what we would do, take one song and play it,” said Portner. “Based on our history of how we feed off of live energy is to get this thing going and going and going, and then you’re put into that situation and it’s like, ‘Okay, guys: 4 ½ minutes. Do it!’”

The regimented time slot of a TV appearance isn’t the only hurdle for the group in using the medium.

“It’s difficult for us because they ask what we’ve got that’s four minutes long, and it’s not much,” said Weitz. “And we give them this one or this one, and they’re like, ‘You can’t play that.’”

In 2009, the group played “Summertime Clothes” on Late Show with David Letterman, a clear reminder that Animal Collective exists on the periphery of the entertainment industry.

In 2009, the group played “Summertime Clothes” on Late Show with David Letterman, a clear reminder that Animal Collective exists on the periphery of the entertainment industry.

“Paul Schaffer was really nice to us and acted like he listens and cared,” said Portner. “And David Letterman just made fun of our record cover.”

Things were even worse two years earlier when the group made its national television debut on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, where they remember switching gears at the last minute and performing “#1.”

“Conan O’Brien we’d heard was a really big music fan, and I’m friendly with the guys in Yeasayer, I’ve known them for forever,” said Weitz. “And they said, ‘He was really psyched to have us on the show, he loved our record.’ And I was like, ‘Really? He talked to us about how the Amtrak went through Baltimore, and that was it.’ We changed the song at the last minute, and I think he got word of it and was pretty bummed.”

Dibb remembered almost no direct communication from the lanky host following their performance.

“He actually didn’t say anything to us at all, but after we played he walked through and as he was shaking my hand, he said to the camera, ‘Baltimore, huh? I went through there on Amtrak once,’” Dibb recalled. “Cool. Nice to meet you.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20170712054 ... ective/P1/

[grocerystore]

These conan stories are conflicting