Dubbed the World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band, they invaded America, its TV screens, and changed it all. It's an episode that would maybe even make Ed Sullivan proud. It's THE ROLLING STONES week!

Joining the show is iconic drummer and the King of rock and roll weirdness, Jon Wurster (Shannon/Narducy & Friends, The Mountain Goats, ex-Superchunk)! Jon and the guys watch a pod-record 8 performances from 1964 to 1978, tracking the ever-changing styles and looks of this quite popular band! The group’s first ever live TV performance comes on a British sketch comedy show hosted by Arthur Haynes. The Stones morph across 5 drama-filled Ed Sullivan performances with screaming girls, censorship, and Brian Jones getting progressively weirder. A 1972 clip from Beat Club shows the band at the height of its power. And a big 1978 comeback is captured in a supremely messy SNL performance.

Check out Jon on tour with Michael Shannon/Jason Narducy & Friends doing REM's Fables of the Reconstruction and much more right now!

Want to watch along with us? Check out the links below for the performances discussed this week!

I Wanna Be Your Man/You Better Move On (8:37 mark), 2/7/1964 on The Arthur Haynes Show

Around and Around/Time is on My Side, 10/25/1964 on The Ed Sullivan Show

Satisfaction/As Tears Go By/19th Nervous Breakdown, 2/13/1966 on The Ed Sullivan Show

Paint it Black/Lady Jane/Have you Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow? (22:42 mark), 9/11/1966 on The Ed Sullivan Show

Ruby Tuesday/Lets Spend the Night Together (32:12 mark), 1/15/1967 on The Ed Sullivan Show

Gimme Shelter/Love in Vain/Honky Tonk Woman, 11/23/1969 on The Ed Sullivan Show

Jam Session/Tumbling Dice/Shake Your Hips/Loving Cup, May 1972 on Beat Club

Beast of Burden/Respectable/Shattered, 10/7/1978 on Saturday Night Live

CHILL! This rap-rock-metal-funk-reggae outfit was dominating the modern rock charts before the term nu-metal was coined. Armed with positivity, a turntable, and marijuana enthusiasm, they carried a mid 90s nation mourning the end of grunge. It's 311 week!

We come clean up top about our varying levels of adoration for the band 311 before talking about them for 2 hours. The loveable lads from Omaha make their TV debut with "Down" on Conan, and then proceed to play it again and again for the next six years. Josh Freese fills in for Chad Sexton on Recovery in Australia amid the Transistor era. "Amber" and "Love Song" give us some pop reggae chart topping goodness on Carson Daly and Leno. And Jon has a panic attack trying to explain Nick Hexum owning a private island while doubting that any band could be this nice.

Want to watch along with us? Check out the links below for the performances discussed this week!

Down, 8/23/1996 on Late Night with Conan O'Brien

Down/Beautiful Disaster/What Was I Thinking, 1/24/1998 on Recovery (Australia)

Amber/Down, 3/13/02 on Last Call with Carson Daly

Creatures (For a While), 7/18/2003 on The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn

Love Song, 6/11/2004 on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

Don't Tread on Me, 8/5/2005 on Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Hey You/It's Alright, 6/9/2009 on Jimmy Kimmel Live!

His live TV debut on SNL has gone down as maybe the most famous moment in late night music history. But the decades that followed were just as surprising, rebellious, and at times baffling. It's ELVIS COSTELLO week!

Joining the show is comedian, actor, and Elvis Costello historian Connor Ratliff (Dead Eyes, Tiny Dinos, The George Lucas Talk Show)! Connor does his best to walk the guys through the overwhelming twists and turns of Elvis' 50 year career. We of course begin with Elvis and the Attractions act of rebellion on SNL in 1977. Joan Rivers has Elvis on The Tonight Show in 1984 and lots of tissues are involved. The 90s bring collaborations with string quartets and Burt Bacharach, plus a very public feud with bassist Bruce Thomas that plays out on late night. And we end with Elvis as the elder statesman fronting The Roots on Fallon in 2009.

Want to watch along with us? Check out the links below for the performances discussed this week!

Watching the Detectives/Radio Radio, 12/17/1977 on Saturday Night Live

I Hope You're Happy Now/Peace in Our Time, 12/12/1984 on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (Joan Rivers guest hosting)

Taking My Life in Your Hands/Jacksons, Monk, and Rowe with The Brodsky Quartet, 3/16/1993 on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

You Bowed Down, 8/26/1996 on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

I Still Have That Other Girl with Burt Bacharach (4:25 mark), 9/29/1998 on The Late Show with David Letterman

45, 9/29/1999 on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

High Fidelity/(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea with The Roots, 11/20/2009 on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

We're following up Christmas day with the second most famous resurrection story of all time. Except this California band rose not just once, but twice from the ashes. It's RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS week!

The clips this week surprisingly begin all the way back in 1984, with the first iteration of the band performing with the energy of 8th graders on Thicke of the Night. Clips on Arsenio and Letterman show the transformation from Hillel Slovak and Jack Irons to John Frusciante and Chad Smith. John bombs Under the Bridge on SNL in 1992 and Anthony Kiedis is not pleased. One of the biggest comeback records of all time is on display with Grandmaster Flash on The Chris Rock Show. And the Billboard Game this week forces us to examine the mind blowing chart domination of Taylor Swift.

Want to watch along with us? Check out the links below for the performances discussed this week!

True Men Don't Kill Coyotes/Get Up and Jump, 3/16/1984 on Thicke of the Night

Fight Like a Brave/Organic Anti-Beat Box Band, 9/29/1987 on The Arsenio Hall Show

Higher Ground, 3/30/1990 on Late Night with David Letterman

Stone Cold Bush/Under the Bridge, 2/22/1992 on Saturday Night Live

Aeroplane, 2/13/1996 on The Late Show with David Letterman

Around the World, 9/24/1999 on The Chris Rock Show

Dani California/Snow ((Hey Oh))/Interview/By the Way, 11/21/2006 on Later...with Jools Holland

Pounding robotic trance desert stoner rock. Is that enough adjectives to describe what is maybe the last great mainstream hard rock band of the 21st century? We find more to use. It's QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE week!

For a band often described as "The Josh Homme Project", we find ways to discuss the careers of way too many musicians on the show this week. Early clips on Conan and Kilborn capture the short-lived magical chemistry of Homme and bassist Nick Olivieri. Our biggest cheat clip ever on the show brings us to the Werchter, Belgium rock festival in 2002 featuring Dave Grohl and Mark Lanegan. Homme surrounds himself with a shifting cast of band members across the 2000s, including a one-song appearance by Will Ferrell. And we discuss the outsized influence and legacy of QOTSA in the dying landscape of modern mainstream rock music.

Want to watch along with us? Check out the links below for the performances discussed this week!

The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret, 11/14/2000 on Late Night with Conan O'Brien

Song for the Dead, 6/29/2002 on MTV2 Rock Werchter

No One Knows, 2/20/2003 on The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn

Little Sister/In My Head, 5/14/2005 on Saturday Night Live

3s & 7s/Sick Sick Sick, 5/11/2007 on Transmission UK

I Sat By the Ocean/If I Had a Tail/Interview/My God is the Sun, 5/14/2013 on Later...with Jools Holland

Emotion Sickness, 12/14/2023 on Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Remembered as schmaltzy elevator music, this sister-brother duo dominated the charts for much of the 1970s. Driven by the one-of-a-kind voice of Karen Carpenter and the orchestration of brother Dick, they epitomize the former power of television monoculture and the murky arc of cultural memory. It's THE CARPENTERS week!

Almost unlike any other group covered on the show, the clips this week are bountiful, explanatory, and filled with medleys. A recent viral clip of Karen ripping it up on drums on Your All American College Show in 1968 kicks off the podcast this week. The Carpenters play a medley of Burt Bacharach covers for skeptical injured vets at the height of the Vietnam War. Karen steps out front for the first time in 1973 on Johnny Carson. The Carpenters' first of many TV specials in 1976 is both illuminating and extremely silly. And we discuss the tragic demise of Karen and the mark left by her across culture.

Want to watch along with us? Check out the links below for the performances discussed this week!

Dancing in the Street, 8/31/1968 on Your All-American College Show

(They Long to Be) Close to You/Knowing When to Leave/Making It Easy on Yourself/(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me/I'll Never Fall in Love Again/Walk on By/Do You Know the Way to San Jose?, 11/8/1970 on The Ed Sullivan Show

Superstar/Rainy Days and Monday/Goodbye to Love/Mr. Guder, 11/6/1973 on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson

The Carpenters' First Television Special, 12/8/1976

Please Mr. Postman/Merry Christmas, Darling/I Need To Be In Love/Christmas Medley, 12/24/1978 on Bruce Forsyth's Big Night

(Want You) Back in my Life Again, 11/2/1981 on The Merv Griffin Show

Garage Rock. Indie Sleaze. Electronic Dance Pop. This Brooklyn trio has done it all across a surprisingly long career, out lasting almost all of their early 2000s NYC contemporaries. It's YEAH YEAH YEAHS week!

Joining the show this week is Boston-based musician Matt Ozelius! As drummers for him in recent years, Matt weighs in on the great debate over who is better behind the kit-Jon or Alex-before diving into the theatrical TV appearances of Karen O and co! The Yeah Yeah Yeahs are on Letterman a lot, and unfortunately Dave is a weird creep for over a decade. A garden-themed performance of "Maps" on the MTV Movie Awards is equally pretty and impressive. A broadway choir backs up the band in 2013, and Karen sings on top of molten lava nine years later on Kimmel.

Want to watch along with us? Check out the links below for the performances discussed this week!

Date with the Night, 6/26/2003 on The Late Show with David Letterman

Maps, 6/5/2004 on The MTV Movie Awards

Gold Lion, 3/29/2006 on The Late Show with David Letterman

Down Boy, 7/26/2007 on The Late Show with David Letterman

Zero, 4/14/2009 on The Late Show with David Letterman

Sacrilege, 4/5/2013 on The Late Show with David Letterman

Burning, 9/29/2022 on Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Inarguably the biggest and most successful band of the grunge era, they persisted while others could not. They fought the man at every turn, did it their way, and are an undeniable live juggernaut. It's PEARL JAM week!

Joining the show as our second-ever returning guest is show promoter and pod-favorite Ryan Agate aka Ryan the Terrible! Back to back performances on SNL capture the big early moments of Pearl Jam, including a super rare 3-song stint a week after the death of Kurt Cobain. David Letterman can't get Black out of his head, has the band on his show multiple times, and ultimately inducts them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Jeff Ament wears lots of hats. And Ryan and the guys somehow watch multiple movies and tv series during the record.

Want to watch along with us? Check out the links below for the performances discussed this week!

Alive/Porch, 4/11/1992 on Saturday Night Live

Not For You/Rearviewmirror/Daughter, 4/16/1994 on Saturday Night Live

Hail Hail, 9/20/1996 on The Late Show with David Letterman

Wishlist, 5/1/1998 on The Late Show with David Letterman

World Wide Suicide/Severed Hand/Alive, 5/6/2006 on Later...with Jools Holland

Alive/Given to Fly/Better Man/Rockin' in the Free World, 4/7/2017 on The Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony