Vampire Weekend; Arctic Monkeys of 2008?

i think the thing with the nat'l drummer is everyone was like waaaaah borring indie music and then they were in that dumb sf-j article. the counterpoint to that was hey actually this guy's a pretty good drummer who does interesting parts which means he's well on his way to being overrated.

indie rock does have some great drummers though, like Glenn Kotche from Wilco

lol

hey look it's Mr. Que

indie rock has some great drum machines, like the one The xx use.

Steve Gadd could whip these boys into shape

still reeling at RS deciding a Silence Of The Lambs pinwheel is the way to sell "late nights with dave pirner"

Witty headline: "Scott Weiland busted: Bad Brains, Morphine, Bjork."

fwiw, it's not just the "chops" of the rhythm section that i think is off with vw, it's their whole rhythmic approach -- their relationship to rhythm, including the way it's mixed in their songs, which manages to seem both kind of shy and kind of bored at the same time. like, they're afraid to really push anything, but also maintaining a certain amount of indie distance from it all. (or what signifies as "indie distance" to me.) which is a big difference between them and talking heads or paul simon or whatever other influences you want to cite. i still think the easiest way to hear this is to contrast the original "cape cod" with the very best's mix of it -- the rhythm on the very best track is just amped way up, and solidifies the groove that the original song just sort of waves at. a lot of vw's stuff feels like toe-tapping music to me, while the stuff they're drawing on is ass-shaking music.

xpost:
i'm not much of a wilco fan, but glenn kotche really does have a pretty serious rep as a drummer. (check out video here.

glenn kotche is a great rock drummer for sure

a lot of vw's stuff feels like toe-tapping music to me, while the stuff they're drawing on is ass-shaking music.

I don't like vw but I also don't see any reason why 'ass-shaking music' is on a higher plane than 'toe-tapping music'.

En pointe music

xp yeah it's a lame point and basically a personalized take on the boring "it just makes me want to listen to their influences, not them" trope

I don't think musicians have ever had a bigger duty to add to do something interesting with their influences than they do right now, though. If you have a cool record collection but can't make a record that communicates much more than that you have a cool record collection, you're better off just being a blogger or something.

that seems like a really weird expectation for how "influence" works in music but ok.

sorry, just jumping on a soapbox

it's cool and i'd be happy to discuss, like, why people form bands and write songs but maybe not on this thread.

It seems strange to criticise VW for not being ass-shaking just because they take certain African elements. It annoys me when people compare them to afrobeat rather than highlife - they're interested in African music's melodies, not its groove. And they're obviously playing to their strengths, ie their brilliant arranger and melody-writer rather than their so-so drummer. It doesn't make sense to mention the African influences without also acknowledging the ultra-WASPy string quartet that's just as important on several tracks. I like the uptightness, the lack of abandon, the cultural distance, which seems more honest to me than if they tried to be Afrika 70.

They write songs because they can, and form bands because they want to play them.

xpost

They write songs because they can, and form bands because they want to play them.

What, no sex and drugs?

They did it all for the nookie, the nookie

I don't like vw but I also don't see any reason why 'ass-shaking music' is on a higher plane than 'toe-tapping music'.

that is of course a matter of taste. but when a band is getting credit for their beats and their grooves, as vw does from at least some people, it's fair game to talk about whether they measure up.

. It annoys me when people compare them to afrobeat rather than highlife - they're interested in African music's melodies, not its groove.

waht. highlife has great grooves. anyway, their melodies seem as facile as their grooves to me.

that is of course a matter of taste. but when a band is getting credit for their beats and their grooves, as vw does from at least some people, it's fair game to talk about whether they measure up.

OK what?! who is crediting them for their grooves?

Sure, highlife has grooves as well, but that's not the element they're chiefly interested in. It's the guitar sound more than anything. Whereas with afrobeat, once you take the groove away there's very little left.

yeah if you're listening to this band for "grooves" you should be listening to another band -- the principal musician in the band (rostam) writes string arrangements all the time & started a whole new side project for (ostensibly) "ass-shaking" music. i think it's besides the point, to say the least.

The side project? Yes.

Another take:

http://barthel.tumblr.com/post/359183688/agh-you-guys-you-guys

c'mon their melodies are so slight and insubstantial - like a bunch of jon brion practice runs

xp so the guy is mad because other people don't like a band he likes

c'mon their melodies are so slight and insubstantial - like a bunch of jon brion practice runs

NYAH NYAH NYAH

love mike b but if he's saying that the haters are making him enjoy VW less then that is sort of the point, round of applause for us

somebody call geir

Like all other musicians, Costello is at his best when he makes intelligent and sophisticated pop music, directed towards an adult, highly educated audience, and doesn't try to "rock" too much.

― Tied Up In Geir (Geir Hongro), Friday, January 29, 2010 4:13 PM

not quite lex he's saying that seeing the band successfully troll people makes him like them less. which means he'd be no friend of mine.

the whole "you're all having the wool pulled over your eyes but I'm not!" thing is really grating

scottpl is otm in this thread; people are mad at VW for turning the mirror onto them

― you want it to be some dude, but it's the other dude (dyao), Friday, January 29, 2010 4:50 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lmao

will say, listening to Contra again, that the "drummer sucks" issue really is a lot less of one than on the first album - really having a hard time believing only one song has a drum machine.

a lot of it sounds like they had programmed stuff and then he could just play along to it. where did you hear only one song had a drum machine?

is it "Diplomat's Son"?

I read something which implied "White Sky" was the only track using a drum machine on the new album, which surprised me. The rhythms sound fine to me. They're an attraction, even.

― Tim F, Friday, January 29, 2010 12:49 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

OK what?! who is crediting them for their grooves?

fair enough, "groove" is an overstated way of putting it. but their lite-rhythmic explorations are pretty key to their whole style and sound, and i'm assuming that people who like them like their rhythms. (i admit that's just a guess, since i don't like them so i don't know -- maybe people like them despite their rhythms.) and while most of the discussion about all that seems to get hung up on whether they have the "right" to "appropriate" those rhythms etc., which is mostly a lot of nonsense afaic, the salient question to me is whether they do it well or do anything very interesting or engaging with their appropriations.

and fwiw i saw a live "unplugged" clip of them the other day and it confirmed for me that ezra's a pretty good guitarist. he's really the rhythmic center of the band.

(i admit that's just a guess, since i don't like them so i don't know -- maybe people like them despite their rhythms.) and while most of the discussion about all that seems to get hung up on whether they have the "right" to "appropriate" those rhythms etc., which is mostly a lot of nonsense afaic, the salient question to me is whether they do it well or do anything very interesting or engaging with their appropriations.

i think a lot of people on this thread are saying that the rhythms are pretty secondary to them--not to mention that even tho the "right to appropriate" discussion is kind of vague about which specific elements are being appropriated, itd be pretty hard to argue that contra (which as ppl are pointing out is mostly programmed) is going for "african" rhythms. the big "african" thing i get out of VW is the highlife-ish guitars, which sound more stolen from paul simon than from "africa"

No Max didn't you hear that Africa has an exclusive licence with respect to use of the following types of rhythms in the specific artistic field of "indie rock":

- dancehall beat
- Hounds of Love faux-tribal
- schaffel
- 4X4

wonder if they'll try to rock more next time or if mitchell froom will produce

all i'm saying re: appropriation is that it doesn't bother me one way or another, wherever it's from. the wimpiness and whining do. but hey that's just me. i eventually found a bright eyes album i liked ok, maybe that'll happen with vw too.

wimpiness!!!!

your wimpiness and whining bother me tipsy mothra

http://www.sportressofblogitude.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/wimpy-from-popeye.jpg

i will gladly pay you tuesday for a highlife groove today.

Alice Cooper, having worn eyeliner onstage for decades now, remembers when bands used to rock. I'm sorry, when bands used to rawk. Occasionally, grandpa Cooper stops whittling in the toolshed long enough to walk outside and hear some new music. These were the thoughts he expressed to Noisecreep.com when he heard Vampire Weekend.

I do get a little annoyed that it seems like a lot of bands that come out now that I read, "The greatest band that I've ever heard." And I see them and I go, "There's absolutely no testosterone in this band." I heard the title Vampire Weekend and I thought, "Oh, man, that's gonna be great. I gotta see it." And there are these guys with little Gap T-shirts on and they're singing about I don't know what, it was so light I couldn't listen to it. And I'm going, "What happened to the balls in rock 'n' roll? Why are American bands so wimpy?"

I'm getting a lot of bands that are kind of going, "Oh, the summer in the rain and aren't lightning bugs wonderful?" And I'm going, "What kind of drug are you on?" I think if you asked Ozzy, Iggy and all the other people that come from our generation, we're kind of hoping the young guys step it up a little bit when it comes to being guys.