Ear on TV: Week of 11.02.09: Pixies

The Pixies are celebrating the 20th anniversary of the release of the classic 1989 album, Doolittle, with a massive tour featuring a stunning visual production. The US tour kicks off on Wednesday in Hollywood, and the band will put their production on display on The Tonight Show stage on Friday night, While many wonder when the alt-rock legends will record something new, the band seems fully content to coast on their elevated past, which isn't a bad thing. If they can't create new songs that fit in the canon, then it's best to just leave it be.

Meanwhile, now that the dust has settled from the 2009 version of Beatles mania (special edition CD reissues and video games), the time is right to for Yoko Ono to get some of her due. John Lennon's widow is an avant-garde icon, but you'd hardly know it given how much grief she's been given over the years for her love of John Lennon. "The woman who broke up the Beatles," is an the unfair accusation that time hasn't seemed to erase yet, but maybe this is the year to make it right.

Now at 76 years old, Ono has released what might be her most realized work of art, in the album Between My Head and the Sky, which also finds her working under the name Plastic Ono Band for the first time since 1973's Feeling the Space, a band so Feeling Spacenamed by John Lennon. The suggestion to work as Plastic Ono Band again fittingly came from son Sean Lennon, who wrote, produced and played most the instruments on the album. The mother-son team was joined by Japan's Cornelius (Keigo Oyamada), jazz cellist Erik Friedlander and Cibo Matto's Yuka Honda in the studio, and there's no reason to think that we won't see most or all of them on stage Thursday night for Ono's appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

Another album celebrating it's 20th anniversary this week is Nirvana's Bleach, which gets the Deluxe edition treatment this week from Sub Pop. Since there's sadly no Kurt Cobain to pimp the product on the talk show circuit, we'll have to settle for a couple films further up the dial, the first being the FUSE presentation of the amazing Nirvana Live at Reading on Monday (also seeing release on CD/DVD this week), and the final one being the documentary Kurt Cobain About a Son getting another showing on Sundance.

Elsewhere, check out a special performance from the cast of Glee for It's On with Alexa Chung (MTV), performing a song from the soundtrack (Glee: The Music Volume 1), which sees its release this week.

Playlist: Picks for the week
Monday, November 2
ABC: Jimmy Kimmel Live: Cobra Starship (REPEAT)
FUEL: The Daily Habit: Peter, Bjorn & John
MTV: It's On With Alexa Chung: Weezer
NBC: The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien: Tegan & Sara
NBC: Late Night With Jimmy Fallon: Say Anything
NBC: Last Call With Carson Daly: Arctic Monkeys (REPEAT)
Tuesday, November 3
ABC: Jimmy Kimmel Live: White Rabbits
MTV: It's On With Alexa Chung: Glee Cast
NBC: Last Call With Carson Daly: La Roux
Wednesday, November 4
ABC: Jimmy Kimmel Live: Ghostface Killa
FUEL: The Daily Habit: Nebula
NBC: The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien: The Bravery
NBC: Late Night With Jimmy Fallon: Monsters of Folk
NBC: Last Call With Carson Daly: Alice Cooper
Thursday, November 5>
ABC: Jimmy Kimmel Live: Florence & the Machine
FUEL: The Daily Habit: Brother Ali
NBC: Late Night With Jimmy Fallon: Yoko Ono with Sean Lennon, The Roots
NBC: Last Call With Carson Daly: Matisyahu
SYFY: Stargate Universe: Janelle Monae
Friday, November 6
CBS: Late Show With David Letterman: Ralph Stanley
CBS: Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson: Regina Spektor
FUEL: The Daily Habit: Raekwon
NBC: The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien: The Pixies
NBC: Last Call With Carson Daly: Peaches
SUNDANCE: Kurt Cobain About a Son: Nirvana
Saturday, November 7
PBS: Austin City Limits: Elvis Costello, Band of Heathens