MP3: TV on the Radio on AOL's Interface

Another Friday, another AOL Interface session. Another fantastic band, another lousy excuse for an interview. Seriously, don't they have seminars or something to coach these people? Even if it means drowning the world in a couple thousand fewer JOIN AOL NOW DAMMIT discs next month, it's worth it. Then again, the whole thing does kinda reek of rote, seminar-style training, so perhaps that's just the problem.

Irate ranting aside, if you can look past all the attendant muckery, you have a frequently charming, humorous, and insightful TV on the Radio (here represented by Tunde Adebimpe, Kyp Malone, and Dave Sitek) spinning some blah questions into quotable gold. We learn that Return to Cookie Mountain was the "least dumb-sounding" album name the band came up with (narrowly edging out, among others, Stu-Stu-Studio-- we kid you not), how whoever leaked the early version of the record made a "dick move", and why TVotR have no qualms about selling their music for advertisements. There's also chatter about Voltron, cassingles, and "pumpkin porn", whatever the hell that is. Can't decide which is more annoying, though: the interviewer's forced, nervous asides or Dave Sitek.

But first, get your lighters ready, because TV on the Radio begin the Interface plunge by performing some "stripped-down" and "mind-numbingly beautiful" renditions of Cookie Mountain classics "Wash the Day" and "Province", as well as the Young Liars EP's title track. In the end it is, after all, all about the music.