TV On The Radio: Broadcasting Loud and Clear in Nine Types of Light

On the evening of August 17, TV On The Radio performed to their seemingly loftiest height. With buzz steadily growing around blogs and social networks about a special event in the works, a large crowd had already formed by the time the Williamsburg based band climbed to the top of a billboard in Soho. Rising up the scaffolding stairs slowly and methodically, the band paused for a group huddle, before hurtling through a searing yet poised four-song set. It was just the latest act of a well-oiled machine set on permanent steamroll.

After a tumultuous time stuck in Los Angeles recording their latest effort Nine Types of Light, a long, world-spanning tour that began in April in support of the record, and above all, the tragic loss of their friend and band mate Gerard Smith to lung cancer several gigs into the tour, the remaining four members of the group continue to staunchly power forward. By the time this is published, they will have performed a giant homecoming show on the Williamsburg Waterfront, one of many dates they have planned for a tour that resumed in late August and seems to be endlessly extending, with new gigs added almost weekly. If delving this acutely into the distractions of work during a personal tragedy is TV On The Radio’s form of therapy, the band might as well have written the clinical guidelines for such treatment.

It’s all part of the maturation process of a band that already felt like a ripe and gradated adult experience. Speaking of about their latest effort to Rolling Stone before its official release, guitarist/singer Kyp Malone commented that “this record is a little more mature, I think,” his band mates Jaleel Bunton and Tunde Adebimpe chiming in and likening it to a worn-in t-shirt with a “faded logo” and a “great personality.”

And while the band’s music has always felt like a grown-up dialogue since its first important musical statement, the “Young Liars” ep, came out in 2003, “Nine Types of Light” has an abundance of aged warmth and disconcerting calm on it.  Still rife with cataclysmic fore-shadowing and dystopian divination, there are fewer violent, even adolescent, outburts, a sign of an at times gloomy but always stolid acceptance of the fate our collective future holds. “Oh Dance!, Don’t stop! Oh do the no future, do the no future shock,” Adebimpe sings on “No Future Shock.”

During a surprise club performance at Music Hall of Williamsburg on April 12, the day before TVOTR’s much larger headlining spot at Radio City Music Hall, lead singer Adebimpe opined about the negative effects of the band’s est coast sequestration. That theme plays out on the album, especially on songs like “Forgotten” and “No Future Shock,” but in an eerie parallel, there are feelings of loss and remembrance throughout much of the record as well.  Looking back at the album, it often reads like a scary premonition of Smith’s passing. A long time Williamsburg resident, Smith was beloved by his band mates and the local community alike. Well before he joined TVOTR, Gerry (as he was affectionately called by friends) was a neighborhood legend, busking in the subway and becoming a regular at local staples like Pies and Thighs, Marlow & Sons, Verb Café (where he actually worked for several years), Saltie (where the owners were so fond of him they sent him goodie bags throughout his illness), Diner, and many others. His appetite was renowned. Jessica Dell, his partner and mother of his son Julian, related how Smith would make a four course feast at Egg a morning ritual after taking his son to school. “People would look on in shock as he neatly ate an entire plate of Pancakes, followed by Oatmeal, an Omelet and a [glass of] fresh squeezed grapefruit juice,” Dell said.

Originally a classically trained guitarist and talented pianist and cellist, he became the bassist of TVOTR in 2005 after Adebimpe was enthralled by one of his subway performances and asked him to join the group. He was a vibrant figure, often taking the lead in interviews, and was always adding humor and humility to the darker elements of the band’s work and existence. Most importantly, Smith was “someone who pushed people to realize their talent,” Dell said. He produced and engineered music for local musicians like Shannon Funchess of Light Asylum and band Midnight Masses, collaborated with Angel Deradoorian, singer from The Dirty Projectors, and also composed the soundtrack for the film “The Lottery.” His local status was cemented even further during a memorial concert held at Union Pool, one of TVOTR’s most notorious hangouts.

Strangely, the band has yet to fully discuss any circumstances surrounding the passing of Smith. Other than a several sentence statement put out through TVOTR’s label Interscope immediately following Smith’s death, there’s been a strange moratorium on it. No tributes, recollections, or primal release has been seen or heard publicly (the band declined the WG’s request to comment on his death).

It’s hard to say whether it’s the intense lingering pain of such a catastrophic loss or the insistence of TVOTR’s major label to shy away from discussions of such a tragedy, but either way, the band has chosen to deal with Smith’s death on its own terms. The lasting eulogy has instead been through the band’s increasingly indelible live performances that since last April’s Music Hall show have consistently soared in intensity and fervor. Where as in earlier times seeing the band perform at its highest level wasn’t always a sure bet, now it’s become the norm. Analogously, it seems like rather than musing on the past, TVOTR would prefer to narrate its own beautifully volatile version of what is yet to come.