When the chariot arrives you'd best enjoy the ride

by Austin L. Ray

Honestly, I feel kind of bad for the people who only know TV on the Radio as “the band who did that one fantastic performance on Letterman.” They’re not wrong, of course. It was spectacular—the kind of thing where you read the top YouTube comment calling it “arguably the greatest live music performance in history,” and the only reasonable response is, “You know what, @windyhillbomber? I can’t argue with you there, brother.”

Fuck it, you got four minutes? Let’s watch it again:

Eighteen years ago almost to the day, frontman Tunde Adebimpe sang at the sky and whipped his hands around like a manic preacher man. Guitarist and vocalist Kyp Malone hacked away at a Gibson SG and bopped and levitated around his part of the stage. Guitarist David Andrew Sitek and late bassist Gerard Smith barely moved in their respective corners, locked in as they were on the vibe. Drummer Jaleel Bunton sat between them, simultaneously holding it all together while propelling it forward, barely able to keep it the whole thing from careening off the rails.

Of course, your eyes linger on Adebimpe, a generational talent when it comes to fronting rock and roll bands, and moreover an example of how to live a life in pursuit of art in all its weird and sometimes rewarding ways. “We’re howlin’ forever,” he shouts over and over toward the end, and it feels like maybe we really are, maybe we really can.

As the fury subsides and the feedback hums, we hear Letterman grunting approvingly as he makes his approach. “Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. Cool. Aw, that was nice. That was great.” And then he delivers an all-timer Dave Band Compliment: “TV on the Radio! That’s all you’re looking for!” I’ve probably watched this clip a hundred times, and I still chuckle when he says it.

Adebimpe reflected on the performance recently, noting that the band went to a bar that evening to watch it and were happy enough with it. What they didn’t realize was that they’d chalked up an artistic milestone. They’d made something they were proud of that resonated with strangers.

“The next day, Kyp and I were on the subway and everyone was staring at us. We got out to the street and, again, everyone was staring at us. Everyone was super complimentary, but it was weird, it was an instant reminder that ‘oh, we were on the TV! We were everywhere.’”

Before there was “Wolf Like Me,” there was “Staring at the Sun.” 

In 2003, I was trying to figure out what it meant to be a music writer at the student newspaper at the University of Missouri-Columbia, a publication called The Maneater, a place with a sign at the front of the newsroom’s office that reads, “where life is a Hall & Oates song.” My young, optimistic ass had decided at some point in the years previous that I wanted to be a journalist—or at least a writer in some fashion—and then after not enjoying the one journalism course I took at Mizzou, I started taking various writing classes and hanging out at newspaper meetings.

Eventually I started writing about music. It was a perhaps unsurprising turn of events for people who knew me—I’d always loved music and I’d always loved writing, so why not put them together? But it seemed foreign and exciting to me in a way not many things had in my early years. I got my first taste through album reviews, then started interviewing artists, then realized anything was possible and would end up helping create an arts magazine for the newspaper, serving as A&E editor, and making lifelong friends along the way.

But this part is supposed to be about “Staring at the Sun.” Interest piqued by the Pitchfork review, I bought the Young Liars EP on CD shortly after it was released during the summer of 2003, and it was instantly in heavy rotation. By the time my arts newspaper squad had reformed in the fall, we were all listening to it, but “Staring at the Sun” was the clear favorite of our gang, the obvious single, as it were. More than two decades later, this shit is still pure poetry as far as I’m concerned:

Note the trees because the
Dirt is temporary
More to mine than fact, face
Name, and monetary
Beat the skins and let the
Loose lips kiss you clean
Quietly pour out like light
Like light, like answering (the sun)

Chatting with one of the newspaper pals recently, trying to remember how we could’ve ever been so young, but also literally just trying to remember what happened over that next year, we decided that we saw TV on the Radio live at least twice in Columbia, Missouri around that time—once headlining at a now-defunct club called Shattered and once opening for The Faint at a bigger venue called The Blue Note.

Seeing them perform really took my fandom over the edge, simply because they are a better live band than 99% of live bands. They reinvent the songs completely, speed them up, slow them down, twist their genres, turn them into something new and unpredictable. If you’re unfamiliar with the band, the “Wolf Like Me” clip above is one version of this phenomena, and I’d suggest this clip of “Young Liars” if you wanna see the other side of it.

Let the Devil In is another must listen:

But in the back pocket of a discarded pair of jeans
Is a priceless ticket to the grandest opening
So when the chariot arrives, you'd best enjoy the ride
'Cause when we get to heaven's gate we're not getting inside

I don’t know why TV on the Radio has taken so much time off from music. Until recently, their last live gig was opening for Pixies and Weezer at Madison Square Garden, and their last album was released 10 years ago. Their latter albums in particular walked a satisfying line—at least to this longtime listener—between unusual art rock and catchy, almost-slick songs that appealed to a broader audience and the lucrative side quests that come with that.

I still remember hearing “DLZ” in a Breaking Bad episode toward the end of season two. This is a band that draws a crowd. A band that Phish covers on the regular. Surely they could’ve kept churning out albums and finding similar success if they wanted to. But making a living making art is about more than just cashing a check sometimes.

While the group’s members have dabbled in various other bands, production roles, and collaborative opportunities, Adebimbe has been the most visible. Before TV on the Radio, he worked as an animator on MTV’s Celebrity Deathmatch, and he’s since followed his muse into comic books, gallery exhibitions, and several television shows and movies, including, most recently, a scene-stealing role in this summer’s Twisters. It’s an inspiring way to live, in my opinion—he’s one of the people I look to for inspiration when I think about how I pay my bills by writing words. 

But I’m increasingly unsure what to tell people who want to make art for a living. After college, I left the midwest in a permanent way for the first time, landing in Atlanta for an internship at a music magazine that would eventually turn into a job. They offered me $24,000 a year to run their website, which is maybe even more bleak to think about today than it was in 2006. I made ends meet by freelancing on the side and working nights and weekends at a record store. It would take me 10 more years—which included a layoff, a rehire, a ton more freelance, and eventually leaving the magazine for a marketing company—to find a way to live off my words, stop doing “just for money” freelance, and put together a constellation of projects that I enjoy doing every day. I’m happy to say that I now have a flexible, creative day job I enjoy and the ability to work on things I care about on the side that don’t make any money. I rarely write about music anymore, which would’ve truly shocked College Austin.

While I’ve never had anyone stare at me on the subway, it has gotten to the point where a couple times a week some kind person in public tells me they follow me on Twitter, asks me if I’m the How I’d Fix Atlanta guy, or wanna know where they can get a good sandwich. It’s always weird when this happens, but I’m starting to get used to it. It’s also always, always an honor to know that some words I wrote somewhere resonated enough with a stranger for them to say something about it to my face. 

If you wanna create stuff for a living, it can be so hard to find the things that pay the bills and the things that give them creative fulfillment, and then try to keep enough of those fulfilling things in the mix so that the balance is right. But maybe that’s the answer we should be giving to people who wanna make art as a job. Do as much of the stuff you love as you possibly can and do as much of the stuff that provides money and security as you have to in order to support the good stuff?

I was thinking about all this when TV on the Radio announced those 10 dates recently, shows that will happen in New York, Los Angeles, and London. Ostensibly a way to promote the 20th anniversary reissue of Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes, they could very well be the warm up for more in 2025—a world tour, maybe even a new album. At the very least, it sounds like we’ll have a solo Adebimpe record at some point soon.

But this could also just be a few guys in their late forties and early fifties looking for a way to pay off their mortgages and continue to be chill art dudes that do what they want as they age. Ain’t nothing wrong with that. There are worse ways to live. As an aging writer who wakes up everyday thankful and surprised that I can write my little words and pay my little bills, I hope to end up there one day as well.

Austin L. Ray is a writer in Atlanta. Follow him on Twitter if you want.