Vampire Weekend; Arctic Monkeys of 2008?

Breakup end of month, solo album from lead singer in May, Behind the Music special in June, acoustic roots reunion album in September...

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2008/01/vampire_weekend_backlash.html

I'm ahead of being behind my time.

I thought these were awful on Jools Holland the other night - such a thin, limp sound.

limpcore

i wonder how much vampire weekend owes in student loans. columbia has to be pretty expensive. kudos to them for having the grit to record music while working jobs to pay school off

Does anyone want to go with me to the show in SF on Sunday? You can't smoke.

Oops. I searched for threads and thought this was ILE. My apologies. Please ignore the post above.

They're getting more push from MTV again this week. Between videos in the early morning hours (between 6 a.m. and 8 Eastern time) see them in short clips, riding bikes, singing, and chatting about their fave songs on their album, etc.

http://www.subterraneanblog.com/2008/03/04/mtv-artist-of-the-week-vampire-weekend/

O! I wish I had a television at times.

The best thing in that was the gesture.

http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?id=1582660&vid=213890

John Jay and ButlerStax!

one of those videos features an appearance by an Official Columbia Squirrel (or possibly an Official Columbia Squirrat)

i dont really care about this band but im just dropping in to say jshepard's vv article was awful

kthnxbye

First off, this Friday's FADER radio was one of my favorites ever, because we played all music related to our Africa issue (mostly hiplife from Ghana, lest any deans and/or peens deem it necessary to take my specificity to task and/or publicly renounce our friendship - LO mfin L!). JShep, now working at Fader, on her blog

Vampire Weekend on Saturday Night Live tonight

Good lord, it's like they're constitutionally or contractually unable to do any sort of press more than four blocks from the corner of 114th and Amsterdam.

i think it's like the boy in the plastic bubble...the air would kill them

Actually I think it's more like they've figured out how to use the neighborhood as an image and marketing angle, which -- considering it's in Manhattan -- is kinda something.

Columbia should really give them a kickback on any increase in applications this fall.

Additional public-safety note: Koenig is surely being a little perverse by suggesting that a "late-night picnic in Morningside Park" is a good date idea.

Additional additional note: I'd have given this a 3.2 if I'd known Koenig honestly doesn't use serial commas. Can't we reconvene the PMRC and do something about this nonsense?

These VW dudes seem like the kind-of dorkissimos who wear baggy pleated Eddie Bauer khakis and chunky brown leather moccasins out in public; how they got anywhere is thanks purely to the magic of zeitgeist ... and being incredibly well-connected in aristocratic 2008 NYC.

why would they be worried about how much coal someone said they had? is it a reverse coke ref?

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Burt Stanton.

burt swear off this thread for your own health dude

Nah. Despising mediocrity and American worship of bland non-creativity is my raison d'être. A million brilliant artists and musicians live and die i nothingness, yet here we have ... another pile of oatmeal dogshit people can't shovel into their mouths fast enough.

burt_magill

FFFFF Ffff AAGGGOT BALLZ

12 boxes of frozen Morningstar vegan breakfast burritos fell on my head today, so pardon my uncontrolalble outbursts

They're included in the article on Brooklyn bands in the Sunday March 9th New York Times because, according to the article 3/4 of the band now live in that borough. If you care about sales figures--from that article- LCD Soundsystem 'Sound of Silver' sold 103,000 copies,MGMT 21,000 so far, and Yeasayer 15,000. No numbers for VW, which may get a boost from the Saturday Night Live appearance (I was just awake for "A Punk" whose vocals lacked the spirit of earlier renditions)

after last week, VW had sold 86k. (I don't have soundscan but I saw the figures reported somewhere - same place says MGMT are now up to 26k.)

also, wow, that's a great figure for yeasayer.

Additional public-safety note: Koenig is surely being a little perverse by suggesting that a "late-night picnic in Morningside Park" is a good date idea.

I LOL'd

Columbia should really give them a kickback on any increase in applications this fall.

yes

LOL at them having a fansite called OXFORD COMMA RIDDIM. Jesus.

I found it hard not to wish some form of backalley justice on vampire weekend while watching their snl appearance. can it really be called a backlash when it's just a larger segment of the population discovering that a band is eye-gougingly irritating? even my wife, who loves the arctic monkeys, likes the vampire weekend single, and generally refuses to indulge my curmudgeonly observations, agreed they were insufferable.

this band is shaping up to be a wonderful lightning rod as the economy slides into the floodwaters.

I have no idea what that last sentence is supposed to mean.

Easy harmless target for all his ire, I presume?

I dunno about you, Edward, but, even if people gave a flying fuck about the relationship between the U.S. economy and the background of band members, I like watching (and listening) to people enjoy themselves. You'll probably next advise us to burn our copies of Scott Fitzgerald novels to protest the collapse of the housing boom.

It might provide a cheaper substitute for oil.

guys, even his wife agreed

discovering that a band is eye-gougingly irritating

I wish they were at least mildly irritating. At best, they're as exciting as that wet piece of Wonder Bread I saw on the sidewalk this morning. And the Wonder Bread held my attention longer.

its exciting to learn that gabbneb enjoys a type of music.

No numbers for VW, which may get a boost from the Saturday Night Live appearance

While watching them play "M79" on SNL (I missed the first song), I surmised that they're more likely to get an SNL boost than 90% of the bands that have been on the show in the last 10 years. Overhyped in blogger circles, sure, but this was probably the first time thousands of people had heard of them.

i have watched the snl clips - guy does a weird thing w/his eyes

I was a little surprised at them picking "M79" for the second song, I was thinking that something like "Campus" or "The Kids Don't Stand A Chance" would have been a better choice.

They got to show off the string quartet, though.

I have no idea what that last sentence is supposed to mean.

-- Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Monday, March 10, 2008 10:58 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

just that there hasn't been as perfect a band for both the rock populi and social critics to centralize their hate around for a long time. vw's timing is perfect. they're like the knack for a new millenium.

and to preempt further miscategorization, what irritated me about them wasn't that they were having fun. I like fun, I like seeing people having fun. one of my favorite records is unrest's perfect teeth fer crissakes. and the ivory tower privilege shit doesn't bug me -- note that I am ilm's resident joanna newsom apologist. but there's a smugness and sense of entitlement that comes off vampire weekend like a heat mirage (and that was my perception before I, god help me, read this entire thread).

people can try to reduce this to "they just made a poppy record that people like to dance to" but the bonfire of the vanities stuff these guys trade in is just too delicious to ignore. I'm glad they're around, they make recent flash-in-the-pan whipping dogs like arcade fire and the strokes look positively unassailable.

Right, because ILM hates money.

I have no idea what that last sentence is supposed to mean.

flash-in-the-pan whipping dogs like arcade fire and the strokes

i wouldn't exactly call these bands flash in the pan nor would i assume that vw are gonna have a more successful career than either. i mean af sold almost 100,000 copies in its first week, which i guess vw could and probably will do, but still.

They got to show off the string quartet, though.

Right, I just don't think that songs plays to their strengths.