get to toe steppin

the pixies - mr. grieves
tv on the radio - mr. grieves


I'd imagine there's a lot of pressure being the white musician in an otherwise all-black hipster music superpower like TV On The Radio. Does he stand a chance of catching a groupie when he's up against four supercool black dudes? And if the band wants to go to a club after the show, do they go to a white club or a black club? And if you want to pretend there's no such thing as white clubs and black clubs, you should visit Broad Ripple.

Alright, I'm just being stupid... The tracks (or track) I've posted today is The Pixies "Mr. Grieves" in original and cover versions (as performed accapella by TV On The Radio). Does the white guy sing on accapella track? Does he have enough "swing"? Can you tell I grew up in the middle of a corn field?

I'm sure that when the band decided to cover "Mr. Grieves" that the white guy had second thoughts. Because if you fuck it up, there's a good chance that Frank Black is going to try to eat you. Frank Black is like a lion, so you know that if he's going to hunt down and kill a member of TV On The Radio, he's going to start with the smallest and weakest member... and if you looked at the picture above, I think it's obvious who that is.

I'm sure there are good things about being the white guy in TV On The Radio. If the band is ever donated a box of shorts, he can get away with wearing the shortest pair. And he can go around starting fights with white people, secure in the knowledge that no white guy is going to go after a guy rolling with a posse of black dudes. And he can probably get them cabs.