CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

Dave Sitek

American musician and producer (born 1972)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 21, 2026
Entity authorityQ3017392 ↗
Source-derived summary

David Andrew Sitek (born September 6, 1972) is an American musician and record producer, known for his work with his band TV on the Radio and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. He has also worked with Liars, Foals, Celebration, Little Dragon, Wavves, Beady Eye, and Weezer, and produced free jazz-influenced remixes of songs by artists such as Beck and Nine Inch Nails, and has contributed a solo track to the Red Hot Organization Dark Was the Night charity compilation. He is also a photographer and painter.

In April 2008, Sitek was named number one in NME's Future 50 list of the most forward thinking people in music today.

In 2009, Sitek contributed a cover of "With a Girl Like You" to the AIDS benefit album, Dark Was the Night, produced by the Red Hot Organization.

A solo album from Sitek under the moniker Maximum Balloon was released on September 21, 2010, on Interscope with individual songs released as singles commencing June 15, 2010. The record includes contributions by many guests including David Byrne, Tunde Adebimpe, and Karen O.

Early life

Born in 1972, Sitek grew up in Columbia, Maryland, together with his brothers. His mother worked in public education with a degree in child psychology and, according to Sitek, "was pretty good about letting me and my brothers explore things. So much so that [she] let me start a hardcore band and practice in our house when I was 14". Sitek developed an interest in music at an early age influenced by his "aunt Paula [who] sneaked out of the house [to see] Jimi Hendrix in the 1960s, and was really into Talking Heads and Blondie".

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Dave Sitek” is american musician and producer (born 1972). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Dave, Sitek and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1972, 2008, 2009, 2010—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1972-09-06. For this dossier, Dave, Sitek and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american musician and producer (born 1972)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3017392. VIAF identifies the subject as 88519119. The Library of Congress control number is no2009076562. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1972, 2008, 2009 and 2010.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Dave Sitek”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Dave Sitek primary sources, Dave Sitek archive and Dave research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Dave Sitek”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Dave Sitek” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.