No matter which shade of the ‘black rainbow’ spectrum you find yourself in, we can all agree that these guys aren’t phoning it in.

Let’s do it for local hip hop, regional pride and the Department of Motor Vehicles.

“You make music and you put it out there and it becomes not yours anymore. You give it out. You give it to people to do what they want with it, you know, and it’s always just an amazing thing to me that my music resonates with people.”

Their new music capitalizes on the best of what they already had. That is to say, it is more rocking than ever, richer, more layered. The guitar sections are shredders. It all seems more honed.

For as inane as that music is, as stupid and unnecessary as the Dead Milkmen were, they struck a deep, serious chord in the teflon age of Ronald Reagan for me in a way that Fugazi and Bad Brains never did.

As misunderstood as it is, real hip hop music is love. And a real hip hop show is a family reunion with people you’ve never met.

It was kind of like a Pandora station gone live. Three bands (Counting Crows, Augustana, and NOTAR) letting lose together on stage, singing their hits, covering their favorites, and mashing together familiar songs in new ways.

Duritz talks about “August and Everything After,” dealing with mental illness, and what to expect at nTelos tomorrow night.

Three fans give their take on the Interpol show.

“It’s like selling your record player,” I heard the kid behind me tell his friend, “for a day’s work.”