duggup

Vampire Weekend is an indie-rock band from New York, not exactly a unique characteristic, there are hundreds of bands from New York. So what makes them stick out?

First up the lyrics, there’s tons of them, this is probably because the band memebers met while they were at Columbia University and wrote the songs in between exams and lectures. Second the way they mashup their influences; they’ve we got contemporary American indie-rock, Western classical music, a touch of ska and South African traditional music. Sort of Jaluka meets Madness via Paul Simon’s Graceland.

You can’t really tell what comes from where, they’re borrowing from Afro-pop, just as Talking Heads did on it’s later albums(and nearly all the other bands I can think of did in the Eighties). “A-Punk” blends ska and woodwinds, while “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” drips African dance music. Seriously head over to their MySpace site www.myspace.com/vampireweekend and have a listen to “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” it’s full of indie-rock grooves from the drums and bass, cheesy keyboards and jangly african guitar. I love it.

Oh and don’t miss “M79“, a killer arrangement, possibly a bit too clever and a real keeper. (How much is a bigger MP3 player?)

Websites at www.myspace.com/vampireweekend and www.vampireweekend.com/

NPR’s World Cafe‚ has a 20 minute spot with the band and NPR also has their set from the 2008 SXSW performance. It’s fabulous

thatch is fascinated by guitars, music, guitars, production, silly noises, guitars and used to be a musician. Did I mention the thing about the guitars?
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