Fred Armisen – Bandwidth http://bandwidth.wamu.org WAMU 88.5's New Music Site Tue, 02 Oct 2018 15:23:36 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.5.2 D.C. Rocker Mary Timony Joins Seth Meyers’ Late-Night Band (Temporarily) http://bandwidth.wamu.org/mary-timony-joins-seth-meyers-late-night-band-temporarily/ http://bandwidth.wamu.org/mary-timony-joins-seth-meyers-late-night-band-temporarily/#respond Fri, 29 Jul 2016 21:19:29 +0000 http://bandwidth.wamu.org/?p=67263 D.C. musician Mary Timony already has a sterling rock ‘n’ roll résumé — with her bands Ex Hex, Wild Flag and Helium, the guitar virtuoso has played festivals and roomy clubs all over the world. But next week Timony dives into an even more glamorous gig: She’s temporarily joining The 8G Band, the in-house group for Late Night with Seth Meyers.

Timony will be replacing guitar slayer Marnie Stern on the late-night TV show, hosted by Meyers, formerly of Saturday Night Live. She appears on the show Monday through Thursday (Aug. 1-4).

Asked how she landed the gig, Timony says she goes way back with some members of The 8G Band. She met bandleader Fred Armisen through his Portlandia co-star Carrie Brownstein — Timony’s former bandmate in Wild Flag — and she knows members Seth Jabour and Eli Janney from their mutual years in D.C. (Fun fact: Timony says she met Janney as a teenager, when they played in a “modern music” workshop funded by Marion Barry’s summer youth employment program.)

Timony has to learn eight new songs before the show tapes in New York on Monday. The band plays covers to warm up the audience behind the scenes, she says, but they write new material every day — usually 30-second mini-songs to perform during the show. “I have a big learning curve to go through,” says Timony, who also teaches guitar.

This will mark Timony’s first time playing in a TV house band, but it’s not her first time on the late-night circuit: Ex Hex played Meyers’ show a couple years back, and Wild Flag played The Late Show with David Letterman and Late Night With Jimmy Fallon in 2011 and 2012, respectively.

Timony says she’ll return to the show later this year, too — she plans to replace Stern for much of October and November.

Late Night With Seth Meyers airs weeknights on NBC at 12:35 a.m.

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Fred Armisen To Appear At Red Onion Records In D.C. http://bandwidth.wamu.org/fred-armisen-to-appear-at-red-onion-records-in-d-c/ http://bandwidth.wamu.org/fred-armisen-to-appear-at-red-onion-records-in-d-c/#respond Tue, 10 Nov 2015 17:17:03 +0000 http://bandwidth.wamu.org/?p=58144 This post has been updated.

Last month, Portlandia co-creator Fred Armisen reportedly sang the praises of D.C. label Dischord Records during a taping of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour. A few years back, he dropped references to D.C.’s punk scene on Portlandia.

Now the ex-Saturday Night Live cast member is showing once more that his love for the nation’s capital is true: The actor is scheduled to appear Friday at Red Onion Records in D.C.

According to Red Onion’s Facebook event, store staff have “no idea” what Armisen plans to do during his lunchtime appearance, “but it will be interesting.”

Drag City Records, which organized the event, doesn’t know exactly what Armisen has in mind, either. But label rep Kathryn Wilson says the actor’s D.C. appearance might resemble what he did in October at Santa Cruz shop Streetlight Records: songs from his fake soft-rock band The Blue Jean Committee (from Documentary Now) as well as other phony ensembles he’s invented in the past.

Wilson says Armisen will probably wind up doing a “super-minimal” set with either an acoustic or electric guitar at the U Street shop.

Red Onion owner Josh Harkavy says Drag City pitched him the Armisen in-store show last week. “I responded ‘heck yeah’ as quickly as possible,” he says.

Top image via YouTube.

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