Indie darlings TV on the Radio to perform

Marcella Veneziale Contributing Editor

Lauren Sutherland Senior Editor

When David Sitek and Tunde Adebimpe formed TV on the Radio in 2001, they were lumped together with just about every other indie rock set coming out of Brooklyn. Although they have recorded several albums and EPs—OK Calculator; Young Liars EP; Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes— they have distinguished themselves from the pack with their latest offering, Return to Cookie Mountain.

Vassar College Entertainment (ViCE) is sponsoring the concert, and has high hopes for a successful event. ViCE President Jeremy Robinson-Leon ’07 said, “This is the last show of [TV on the Radio’s] American tour, which is a big deal because they are flying in many record executives to see it.”

Robinson-Leon also spoke about how ViCE decides which bands to book for large campus events. “We really look to create balance in our ViCE line-up,” he said. “We had a big hip-hop show in the fall, so we were looking for an act that was more indie rock, accessible to a large number of people and not just the musically-savvy.” He noted that hip-hop and indie rock shows tend to draw the biggest crowds.

ViCE Music Chair Paris Smith ’07 described the TV on the Radio as “really diverse, both musically and as a group. They are multi-dimensional [and] they incorporate techno, layered vocals that are almost spiritual-sounding…an epic sound.”

It has taken TV on the Radio a few years since their inception to gain a significant fan following. But Smith says that they “[have] been creating a buzz on campus for the last few years.” Initially, the group shied away from committing to a single sound. Their first recordings experimented, meandered, and played with different notions of genre. In the year of the group’s founding, the press was hailing garage-rock purveyors like The Strokes and The White Stripes. TV on the Radio get riled up, too, but cannot be classified as a rock group.

The group has finally received the attention that it rightfully deserves for Return to Cookie Mountain. Today it counts five members: In addition to multi-instrumentalist Sitek and lead singer Adebimpe, singer and guitarist Kypy Malone, drummer Jaleel Bunton, and bassist Gerard Smith fill out the ranks. Pitchfork.com said in a July 5, 2006 review that the album has “an incredible pull.” It doesn’t hurt that pop icon David Bowie makes an appearance, as do Blonde Redhead’s Kazu Makino and Celebration’s Katrina Ford.

Return to Cookie Mountain—TV on the Radio’s second LP—became an instant favorit of the public and the press in late 2006, riding a wave of anticipation caused by a leaked version of Cookie Mountain that swept across the Internet. Arriving just in time for publications’ year-end lists, the album scored top honors by the likes of Spin (who named it their top album of 2006) Pitchfork Media and Stylus Magazine, among many others.

“I Was a Lover” stands out as a highlight on the already highlight-heavy Cookie Mountain. The group gives the song time to develop. What evolves is poignant, even mournful, and Adebimpe sings in falsetto, “…running on empty, bourbon and God…and it’s been even longer since our plastic priest class had a goddamned thing to say / I was a lover before this war.” The fuzzy melody loops, causes confusion, and compounds the song’s sadness.

Touch and Go Records has represented the group since 2003’s Young Liars EP. The label claims some of music’s most influential groups today on its roster, from !!! to CocoRosie, Nina Nastasia to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, whose Grammy-nominated album Fever to Tell featured Sitek’s fiery production.

Based on ticket sales, it seems that the concert will be a success for ViCE. Smith said that she hadn’t anticipated “how popular they would turn out to be off-campus…all of the 100 off-campus tickets have already been sold.” Smith also echoed how popular TV on the Radio has become: “We probably won’t get to hang out with them much, but I’d settle for a hello.”

British garage-revival trio The Noisettes will be opening for TV on the Radio. The group released their debut album, What’s the Time, Mr. Wolf? in the United States on April 17, 2007. They have toured extensively in the U.S. and the U.K. with the likes of Babyshambles and Bloc Party. The Noisettes are also active members of Love Music Hate Racism, a group of musicians organized in 2002 in response to the rising power of the Nazi British National Party.

TV on the Radio and The Noisettes will perform in the Students’ Building on April 21 at 8 p.m.

—Additional reporting by Mike Newmark and Mally Anderson, Arts Editors