Kim Deal and Kim Gordon have a lot in common. In the '80s and '90s, both of them played bass and sometimes sang in iconic noisy underground rock bands from the Eastern seaboard. At different points, they both left their bands behind, and they stand today as the coolest members of those respective bands. Last year, both of them released excellent solo albums. Also, you may have noticed that they're both named Kim. On Wednesday night, both Kims performed, separately and together, on John Mulaney's newly launched live Netflix show Everybody's Live. It was a trip.
Everybody's Live is an outgrowth of Everybody's In LA, the live Netflix show that John Mulaney did last year, and it's a shaggy and relatively experimental take on the late-night talk-show format. Last week, the show debuted, and it showed us things like Joan Baez dancing to Cypress Hill, who performed "Hits From The Bong" with an orchestra. Last night's episode of Everybody's Live was dedicated to the idea of cruise ships, and most of it was devoted to call-in cruise stories and to reactions from Mulaney, Richard Kind, Ben Stiller, Quinta Brunson, Nick Kroll, and a cruise expert. Also, Mulaney did a comedy bit with '90s rap star Silkk The Shocker -- something about saluting No Limit Soldiers for their service. Richard Kind handed Silkk a folded-up No Limit flag. And then there were those two Kims.
The late-night show has a well-established format, and the musical performances always end the show. That's not really what happened last night. Instead, Mulaney did his opening monologue and threw directly to Kim Gordon, who performed "Bye Bye," the jagged and Playboi Carti-eseque single from her 2024 album The Collective, while wearing a "Gulf Of Mexico" sweatshirt. Then Mulaney and Kind did a comedy bit and threw directly to Kim Deal, who played "Nobody Loves You More," the soft and tingly title track from her own 2024 solo album. This was all pretty disorienting! It didn't seem to follow any logic! I liked watching it!
But then the episode did end with a musical performance, and it brought the two Kims together. In 1995, Kim Gordon's band Sonic Youth released "Little Trouble Girl," a strange and ominous duet from Gordon and Kim Deal. At the end of the show, Deal and Gordon performed "Little Trouble Girl" — the two of them standing side-by-side on little stage risers and radiating the timeless cool that both of them have embodied for a long, long time.
Check out videos of the performances, and Sonic Youth's original "Little Trouble Girl" clip, below.
The Collective is out now on Matador, and Nobody Loves You More is out now on 4AD. Read our We've Got A File On You interview with Kim Gordon here and our recent Kim Deal feature here.
