Vampire Weekend - It's Paul Simon for the Young Folk

I had a busy week a bit ago with a few trips to the Fox Theater, an outing to Red Rocks to see Death Cab, Modest Mouse and Rapid Eye Movement (although REM acted more like lethargic blinks of rigomortis settling in) and a surprise visit on the street with a former member of Sonia Dada (remember them?). I’ve been hard at work this week finishing up the initial soundtrack line-up for a movie I’m supervising and of course completing my regular routine at my work place. It seems that 2-3 times a day I hear the same song from one of my two co-workers’ desks as they listen to numerous indie and pop streams that we produce. Each time the song comes on I start drumming my fingers on the desk and singing “Hey hey hey hey” without even thinking about it.

Vampire Weekend - A-Punk

Vampire Weekend is a young band from the New York area and has been seeing a ton of press lately. I first received their scrambled and un-mastered album almost a year ago and I immediately took a liking to it although I had no clue what the songs were titled as they coded them in satirical titles to keep anyone from releasing it publicly. I heard influences of Paul Simon (Graceland, Songs of the Capeman), Talking Heads, and then some full-on indie rock that New York City seems to produce so much of. Their self-titled debut album was recently released on XL Recordings and has been selling off the shelves at my local independent music store.

They’re young, so I guessed they must have dropped out of school a bit back to already be involved in such a composed group. All Vampire Weekend members actually met at Columbia University and self-produced their first self-titled album (released off of XL Recordings) AFTER graduation. They got their name from a film they produced that “told the story of a boy named Walcott charged by an elder to dispatch a vampiric horde in Cape Cod and escape…” - Wiki article (so we know it’s true) Weird? Yes. But, when you see the song titles from their first album, you’ll see “Wolcott,” “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” and a well-penned song about the arguable use of a comma when writing – “Oxford Comma.” This isn’t too far off from their roots – they were in a band called L’Homme Run, specializing in comedic-rap. They were my first pick “to break” in 2008 in our yearly album guesses here at work and they haven’t let me down yet. Their schedule is full of festivals of all sizes and they recently have been making the SNL, magazine, blog and Late Show circuit.

You won’t see Paul Simon dancing with Chevy Chase and you won’t see the 80s style of Talking Heads and Byrne’s spastic movements . You will see one of my favorite videos** of the year with their lead singer, Ezra, coming up to the front to sing to you, and only you