Vampire Weekend - Father of the Bride

It makes Rostam Batmanglij's departure more understandable, when he talked about having his work "stand on its own."

Like the implication it needs to be recognized outfront and on its own instead of potentially buried or uncredited altogether.

I thought Modern Vampires made clear that in the studio Koenig and (before he skedaddled) Batmanglij did most of the playing and programming.

Rostam’s solo stuff is great - on par with any of the VW stuff but a little more sonically adventurous. His new singles are getting me excited for the new LP.

No way -- the lyrics and singing aren't halfway as interesting.

Yeah from what I know his work has the former guitarist from a famous band gone solo syndrom : the music can be interesting but the vocal/lyrical side is weak...

I dig it.

This song I've never heard before came up on Spotify, and I assumed it was a song by Vampire Weekend, specifically, from this album, that I didn't know. But it's not, it's a song by the Jerry Garcia band from 1978!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YZEEQdpPzg

haha, nice

Yeah they were sort of open about the Jerry Garcia influence on this album and even played a lick from china cat sunflower on their cover of Post Malone’s sunflower - and they also played bits of their own song “sunflower” in it.

Iirc some Vampire Weekend members even played with The Grateful Dead in a concert tribute to Jerry Garcia.

Yeah, and I remember reading an interview with Ezra where he said this album was musically inspired specifically by the Jerry Garcia Band rather than the Grateful Dead. This makes total sense after hearing "Rubin and Cherise"

Whoa, so I was actually right! I thought maybe this was one of those things where it sounded identical to me but it was some idiosyncratic thing about my ear/brain.

Yep

“Father of the Bride” isn’t total dad-rock; it’s got weird beats and processed synth sounds and samples of tracks by Hans Zimmer and the Japanese electronic musician Haruomi Hosono — evidence of the “adaptability” that led promoter Craig Nyman to book Vampire Weekend as one of the few rock acts (alongside Post Malone and Billie Eilish) at September’s Life Is Beautiful festival in Las Vegas.

But pay close attention to “Stranger” — especially the little instrumental section after the second verse — and you’ll catch an undeniable whiff of the Jerry Garcia Band.

“And I’m talking JGB, not the Dead,” Koenig said. “That’s an important distinction.”

https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/ct-ent-vampire-weekend-feature-0507-story.html

Gotta assume that's influence from his Time Crisis co-host (who has a Grateful Dead tribute band)

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/grateful-dead-phish-vampire-weekend-members-on-jerry-garcia-tribute-177078/

It was the drummer Chris Tomson in 2012.