Jay Leno

Memorable TV Performace: Chris Cornell on The Tonight Show w/ Jay Leno 2006

Back in 2006, Chris Cornell wrote a song for the film Casino Royale. Since this was to be a new beginning for the James Bond franchise (and it’s a great film too), the film’s producers wanted to reflect this new direction of James Bond with a “strong male singer.” Well, they definitely got that with Chris Cornell. The end result is “You Know My Name.” One of the intriguing things about this song is that during the making of it, Ken Andrews of Failure was asked to help out. Chris would wind up doing some vocals with Ken behind the board. Which is a totally awesome thing all on it’s own. I still to this day wonder what Audioslave or even Chris’s solo album would sound like if Ken was the producer and or mixer. When you watch this performance check out who is playing guitar and doing backing vocals!

Chris Cornell- You Know My Name (Live on The Tonight Show w/ Jay Leno- 2006):

Memorable TV Performances: The Smashing Pumpkins on The Tonight Show

Smashing Pumpkins

Way back in the year 2000, The Smashing Pumpkins, released the second part of their (then) swan song, Machina II: The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music. This album never fully got the proper release and instead released for free on the internet on September 5, 2000. Plans for a standard physical release, bundled with the first part Machina I: The Machines of God,  was supposed to happen in 2013 but was postponed due to legal setbacks. In a recent Q&A on Instagram, Billy Corgan revealed that all legal issues had been resolved. The two albums are said to be remastered and released as one in 2020. That being said, The Smashing Pumpkins did do some promotion for the album back in 2000 with a very memorable performance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, which also ended up being the band’s final television appearance until their 2007 revival.

The Smashing Pumpkins- Cash Car Star (on Tonight Show with Jay Leno):