When Kim Gordon, co-founder of Sonic Youth, and Kim Deal, original bassist for The Pixies and founder of The Breeders, performed Little Trouble Girl, a song that the pair co-wrote, on Netflix’s Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney, it was the first time that the pair had ever performed it live together.

Gordon has said the song, which was released on Sonic Youth’s iconic 1995 LP Washing Machine, was about “wanting to be seen for who you really are”, which is an apt metaphor for one of Mulaney’s key roles on his gonzo talk show: eclectic music nerd.

Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney has breathed new life into the music-on-late-night-television experience, with artists as diverse as Philadelphia punks Mannequin Pussy, Metz reuniting for a “Christmas” episode, The Velvet Underground’s John Cale performing with Maggie Rogers, rising shoegaze popstar Yeule and Olympia feminists Sleater-Kinney playing on the same show as Bone Thugs-n-Harmony.

“As I’ve said many times before, this show is the best showcase for live music in entertainment,” Mulaney said on Everybody’s Live.

This comes as the number of opportunities for musicians and bands on late-night television has shrunk over the last ten years.

Last year, Late Night with Seth Meyers, which previously helped promote new bands such as Turnstile and The Linda Lindas, lost its 8G band, which was led by Fred Armisen, and with it a slew of pop prospects.

The number of musical performances on late-night dropped from around 800 between 2011 and 2013 to closer to 200 in 2023, according to a report from music publication Consequence of Sound. This was not helped either by the writers and actors strikes but more strikingly as a result of the loss of The Late Late Show with James Corden and Conan as well as The Late Show putting on fewer bands under Stephen Colbert than under noted Foo Fighters fan David Letterman since he took over in 2015.

Mulaney has helped at least put some more focus on music on television with the first season of Everybody’s Live, as well as its precursor Everybody’s Live in LA. He recently told Rolling Stone that “there’s no part of the show and there’s no part of the week that’s as exciting as when we first rehearse music”.

Kevin O’Donnell, who previously worked at music publications including Spin and Rolling Stone as well as in music partnership roles at Twitter and Amazon, is Everybody’s Live’s music booker, working closely with Mulaney. The pair made sure to start the process of booking artists early, giving them better options.

Mulaney was clearly jazzed to bring together Cale and Rogers, a collaboration that was not unlike one found on Night Music, a show that he has regularly referenced when discussing his own talk show:

Speaking on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast, Mulaney said that he was trying for Everybody’s Live to be like the David Sanborn and Jools Holland-hosted show that ran for two seasons between 1988 and 1990 with SNL’s Hal Willner as music co-ordinator.

Night Music featured artists such as The Pixies, Sonic Youth and Red Hot Chili Peppers as well as pairing the likes of Marianne Faithfull with Dizzy Gillespie, Bootsy Collins and Loudon Wainwright III and Sonny Rollins with Leonard Cohen.

Mulaney isn’t the only music-loving late-night host, though. Jon Stewart, just over a year back on The Daily Show, recently got nostalgic about the music bookings on his ‘90s MTV late-night talk show The Jon Stewart Show.

Bands on that show included Blind Melon, Megadeth, Sunny Day Real Estate, Danzig and Guided By Voices. There was a memorable 1995 performance from Minutemen’s Mike Watt, who was backed by Nirvana’s Dave Grohl and Pat Smear, a former member of The Germs, and Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, as well as a two-song set from Marilyn Manson, which saw the controversial goth rocker burn what appeared to be a bible (it turned out to be a lunchbox).

Bruce Gillmer, who now exec produces the MTV European Music Awards, was the music booker for The Jon Stewart Show, while Beth McCarthy-Miller, who directed Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged performance, was the show’s director.

Stewart recently told The Bill Simmons Podcast that the live performances were his favorite part of the show. “The music was so good and such an important part of it. We were able to sneak in Guided By Voices and Bad Religion and bands that were not quite mainstream, but really great,” he said.

The Daily Show occasionally has musical performances, with recent artists including the likes of Jason Isbell and Vampire Weekend as well as newer artists including The Linda Lindas and Julien Baker & Torres.

However, it’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel Live! that are the main purveyors of popstars and punks in the late-night hours.

Earlier this year, Fallon had Australian punks Amyl and the Sniffers on as well as breakout artists including Lola Young, Gigi Perez and Sombr complimenting bigger artists such as Shakira and The Weeknd.

Kimmel recently had on rising alt-rocker MJ Lenderman on in February (interesting side note: one of JKL’s music bookers is former sElf bassist Mac Burrus).

Colbert has also had some noticeably interesting artists on The Late Show recently including Lenderman’s old band Wednesday. He’s also been promoting more punks than usual with the first ever performance from riot grrrl pioneers Bikini Kill last year, and a rollicking performance from Santa Cruz’s Scowl in April.