Day 4: TV on the Radio is a band that is very very good

February 4, 2022: Day 4

TV on the Radio: Dancing Cops and Gods

Person: TV on the Radio 
Media: Golden Age

Dear Reader,

Maybe something simple, today.

I'm working on a longer piece for this weekend about Adia Victoria and how it relates loving white men; specifically about how I've never gotten THE FUCK over a guy who broke my heart 4 years ago. 

That'll be my last musician, I promise, and then I'll move on to non-musical Black folk who've impacted my life and I think you need to hear about.

It's funny, eh? All the pieces about Black people who've influenced my sense of Black identity turn into stories about whiteness. 

I'm aware of all this. I, too, have the virus, as Jeremy O. Harris would put it; half-man & half-demon.

In that way, and that way in particular, this project already feels like a failure, at least in so much as it is project celebrating Blackness during History Month; that it's maybe more about whiteness than it is about Blackness.

I'm sorry about that. 

Genuinely, I am. 

I guess counter positives are the way my brain works.

Ultimately, tho, I think the direction, if this writing even has any sort of trajectory, is one of moving from anxiety, pain, and trauma towards joy.

Maybe that's a  segue between my feelings and this band and piece of media.

TV on the Radio (TVotR) dropped 'Golden Age' in summer of 2008; the summer before my freshman year of college. The album it was on, Dear Science, dropped the week I started at WBRU, the college radio station I worked at.

For the bulk of the time I've listened to TVotR, they were just another alt-rock band of their era. Ya know? Like not terribly special within the corpus of the music I was listening to at the time and not making anything I understood to be unique.

It took me a LONG ass time to move past their singles and dig in deep into their LPs; treating them as independent creative works worthy of praise and consideration on their own.  I think in part it's because I connect Kyp Malone's voice a LOT more than I connect with Tunde Adibimpe's; they're co-lead singers for TVotR, although Tunde's voice is WAAAYYYY more present.

It's not hurt by the fact that I have a MEGA crush on Kyp.


He's cute, right?

Yesterday I spoke about the ahistorical universal perspective that whiteness entitles someone. Hennessy Youngman says it best here (Start at 0:50):

I enjoyed TVotR without considering their relationship to race, not because it isn't a part of their music, but because it wasn't contextualized, at least for me at the time, with how I listened to them.

And that's probably why the music video is sooo damn interesting.  Here's a band that is, in fact, very Black (with the obvious exception of David Sitek) presenting a truly absurdist depiction of police. Treated as back up dancers to the band who are on journey to transcend their humanity to become gods; through music, obviously.

At one point two of the officers shoot Care Bear style rainbows and hearts from their chests. This is strange, imho.

I really love TVotR.  Something about their sound links with a sort of joyous and borrowed nostalgia. I'm not sure I need any other reason to like a band.

I can just... vibe with them.  And I think you should, too.

Not sure I have much more for you today. I'm just, spent; actually did some reflecting on all this and, can I be extra real with you? 

I have no idea what I'm doing.

I think it's mostly nerve wracking that I'm going to start writing about people I know now. 

It feels like a decent into madness.

Thanks for joining me on that journey.

Sincerely,

Ian


PS: I'mma throw out a couple more indie/alt Black artists in case y'all are curious or need some homework:

  1. serpentwithfeet's EP DEACON's Grove is excellent. The LP is out, too, but the EP is tighter in my opinion.
  2. I have NO IDEA why I have this EP in my collection, but Josiah Bell's P.S. I still Love You is GORGEOUS. [SIDE NOTE: I try to link either YouTube music, cause it's easy, or Bandcamp, because it pays the artists well, but I couldn't find his stuff on Bandcamp, so I gave y'all the TIDAL link. It's on Spotify(ick) and Apple Music(meh), too.]
  3. There's also Channel Tres. Everything about Channel Tres is funky-AF. Maybe start with Controller? [Personal Connection, my lil' brother in my fraternity, Dan Rome, is his saxophonist.]
  4. I CANNOT believe I didn't mention them when I was writing about Punk, but Skatune Network is FUCKING AWESOME. If you wanna support Queer Black musicians, that's where it's at! Their Youtube channel is pure gold! Sign up for their Patreon, too! Here are some of my favorite covers that they do:
  5. Sinkane's Life & Living'It LP, is EXCELLENT. The track 'Won't Follow,' breaks my heart and I love it for that. I'll pop the Tiny Desk performance here:

Location: Michigan, USA

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