CONAN O’BRIEN – AND
THEY CALL ME MAD? (THIRD MAN RECORDS)
“And They Call Me
Mad?” is a statement that I often find myself uttering out loud. Alas in the act of making such an external
comment crazy is all that compounds being explicitly received. You can’t win. Conan O’Brien knows that from his experience
dealing with Jay Leno. He has however survived and become a cooler
cat for it. And now he is releasing
records with Jack White.
Sporting an uneasy
expression on the sleeve O’Brien delivers an echoey monologue that sounds like
the kind of thing a Simpsons writer
would author. In other words it reminds me of Dana Gould. That and the kind classic recorded passage Carl Reiner or even Bob Newhart might come up with.
O’Brien’s voice sounds
strange. Perhaps due to contractual
obligations it is best that it is not easily recognised by lawyers and
accountants alike. View from an artistic
perspective, this is a performer fully immersing himself in character, in his
creation. It’s a classic style, a
classic device.
“And They Call Me
Mad?” is a one-sided conversation with a Frankenstein style
lunatic. One voice is attempting to
convince two minds all housed in the same skull. You can’t help but relate his statements of
reanimation relate to his own career. As
he builds “Benjamin” he proceeds to persuade his monster to kill hostile
invaders outside his castle. In camp
fashion he directs it like a filmmaker, a Hollywood
The tables turn on the
flipside for O’Brien as interviewer becomes interviewee as Jack White quizzes
him from the control room in grill fashion.
Who else would use an analogue recording studio for an interrogation scene? After running through various fresh nicknames
for Conan we get a genuine “how are you?” as O’Brien discusses/addresses life
post-Tonight Show having gone on the road.
In a moment of satisfaction he does an impression of rapper Ludacris that sounds quite
like Jay Leno except not for legal reasons.
There also maybe a confession of murder.
He has never been more on point.
As he states that he does not like jokes and holds no empathy for other
humans it all turns quite confessional.
Jack White hosts quite the church in Nashville
Spoken word
instructional just might be my new favourite genre.
Thesaurus moment: sly.
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