On this final day of the year, we've got the second installment of our Interface Best Of 2008. Vol. 2 includes our favorites from Passion Pit, Jay Reatard, the Night Marchers, Jamie Lidell, Alkaline Trio with Tegan Quin and Nada Surf. Get Vol. 1 here if you missed it.

The Interface will return with a bang in 2009. Stay tuned for Glasvegas, Rival Schools, Deerhoof and plenty more.

As 2008 comes to a close, we're looking back at our favorite Interface performances of the year. For you, that means two podcasts-worth of highlights. For us, it meant a whole lot of tough choices.

This week, the first set delivers standout performances from MGMT, Adele, the Hold Steady, Sharon Jones, Drive-By Truckers and Cut Copy. Next week's edition includes goodness from Passion Pit, Jay Reatard, the Night Marchers, Jamie Lidell, Alkaline Trio with Tegan Quin and Nada Surf.

Consider this our holiday gift to you, and if you've been a good little boy or girl, maybe you'll be able to enjoy these performances on your shiny new iPhone. But if you've been naughty, you can just watch them all right here. Enjoy!

English songwriter and guitarist Neil Halstead made a name for himself in the early '90s as a founding member of the ambient pop band Slowdive, and later with his indie-folk trio Mojave 3. Eventually, he broke out on his own and found the perfect home at Brushfire Records, alongside artists like Jack Johnson and Mason Jennings.

"Mojave and Slowdive, you kind of get different things out of it," Halstead told Spinner. "With Slowdive it was just really loud guitars and had kind of a different feel being onstage, with that kind of noise."

On his latest solo release, 'Oh! Mighty Engine,' Halstead establishes his own unique voice as a songwriter -- but don't expect a carbon copy of all the other indie artists currently making noise on music blogs. "You know, stuff like MGMT I really love, but to be honest, I"m not really ... I don't really follow the kind of new music too much," he insists. "For me, you just kind of do the music that you're into and if people like it, they like it." And we think you will.

Check Neil Halstead's studio performance and full interview on the Interface after the jump.

School of Seven Bells -- an indie supergroup of sorts featuring Secret Machines' Benjamin Curtis and twin vocalists Alejandra and Claudia Deheza from On! Air! Library! -- owe their existence to Interpol. "We met in 2004," Alejandra tells Spinner. "Both of our bands were on tour with Interpol, and we started talking about music."

"Alejandra had the idea for the name and the concept, and I was really excited about it," Curtis added. "Then three years later it actually happened."

The band recently released their spacey debut, 'Alpinisms,' and toured with fellow indie beloved Blonde Redhead. "They've done this so well from the beginning and they're so open to new bands," Alejandra says of Blonde Redhead. "They're kind of like our big brother band."

Check out the Bells' intimate studio performance on the Interface after the jump.

The Menahan Street Band got their name on the grid thanks to Jay-Z, who being famously sampled by Jay-Z in his own 'Roc Boys,' long before the band was able to crank out a full-length album.

As the sample laced through Jay-Z's 'American Gangster' tune was raging across the globe, the Latin-tinged soul super group, which features members of Budos Band, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings and Antibalas, was packed into Tommy 'TNT' Brenneck's Brooklyn apartment (on, well, Menahan Street), cranking away at what would become 'Make the Road by Walking.'

"We wanted to sound a lot different than [on] the first record," Cold War Kids vocalist Nathan Willett tells Spinner of their latest record, 'Loyalty Loyalty,' the follow-up to 2006's 'Robbers and Cowards.' "It's a darker sounding, rounder sounding ... it's a little more serious of an album. More refined, grittier, dirtier, slower and faster."

Don't think that "dark" sounds are born of complete despair. Try something as simple as equipment problems, as found on the first single, 'Something Is Not Right With Me.' "Microphones were falling all over the place and [Nate] was trying to get his chord around a microphone stand, and he just said, 'Something's not right with me,'" bassist Mike Maust says. "I was like, 'That's a great thing there.'"

When MGMT performed on the Interface, they supplied some wise and valuable advice for concertgoers everywhere: Have fun and get excited!

The Brooklyn-based band, formerly known as the Management, has evolved from unknown indie rock act to earning spots on hit TV series ('Gossip Girl') and movies ('Sex Drive,' 'How to Lose Friends and Alienate People').

We took MGMT's advice to heart: We're excited about their '70s-inspired turn in our studio. Download the Interface video podcast and you'll be excited, too.

Musical troupe Margot and the Nuclear So and So's recently stopped by the Interface for a scaled back performance, reducing the players from the normal eight down to three. It was a unique take on a typically chaotic show, particularly in support of their latest simultaneously released albums, 'Animal!' and 'Not Animal!'

"'Animal!' is our record that we made with the songs that we wanted to put on the new record," frontman Richard Edwards tells Spinner of the difference between 'Animal!' and 'Not Animal!'"We recorded all songs for both records in Chicago and Indianapolis, and turned in 'Animal!' and [the label] didn't like it. So 'Animal!' is our record, and 'Not Animal' is their record."

We'll let the music do the talking.

Passion Pit started merely as a guy, a computer and an impending Valentine's Day gift. You see, Michael Angelakos wrote the 'Chunk of Change' EP for his girlfriend as a belated V-Day gift, and later took his heartfelt collection to his friends and classmates at Emerson College. Add to that an interest from Frenchkiss records, a backing live band and voila -- a new indie buzz band with a full-on dance rock explosion.

"To make it clear, [Passion Pit] is not the porn film," keyboardist Ayad Al Adhamy exclaims while chuckling at the thought. "It's just where kids would go and make out ... the drive in, movie theater," Angelakas chimes.

Before heading out on tour with the acclaimed Yelle, the guys stopped by the Interface to share their Moog enthusiasm, nerves about the upcoming election and four hot tracks. Catch it all after the jump.

To say Memphis punk Jay Reatard is prolific would be an understatement. In his decade-long career, Reatard has unleashed more than sixty releases, his most recent being a series of 7" singles for Matador Records. Reatard's Black Flag meets the Soft Boys approach to making hook-laden, lo-fi rambunctious punk has positioned him near the forefront of DIY music.

"I've always done tons of singles," Reatard tells Spinner. "It's kind of been the most prominent format in my career. I've probably done 18-19 full-length records, and probably 40 or 50 singles. It just made sense when I was going to work with then out the door leading up to the first album. When I was talking to a few major labels, they said they were going to market me as the next Kurt Cobain. I was supposed to be the guy that's going to kill emo. I'm not inspired to do that."

With that expansive catalog, Reatard admits to having trouble keeping up with his own discography. "I don't collect records," he says. "I used to. I just don't have the time anymore. More recently, I've been trying to collect my own records because I don't own a lot of my own discography. I get eBay bidding orders from people over my own records. It's pretty funny."

Watch Reatard belt out three tunes on the Interface after the jump.