VAMPIRE WEEKEND PLAY THE EL MOCAMBO (464 SPADINA AV) DEC 13. $10 FROM ROTATE THIS, SOUNDSCAPES, TICKETMASTER. DOORS 8PM.
WHO ARE THEY?
A Brooklyn-based quartet of fresh-faced college grads making songs about Central Park bus routes and Oxford commas who’ve piqued the ears of a considerable crowd curious to discover just what the hell “upper west side Soweto” music is all about.
SO WHAT THE HELL IS “UPPER WEST SIDE SOWETO” MUSIC ALL ABOUT?
Incorporating colonial African rhythms into the tense jangle of early Elvis Costello and The Clash, Vampire Weekend have carved out a sound that’s been compared to Graceland-era Paul Simon, but bears the same intrinsic catchiness you’ll remember from the first time you heard The Strokes.
WAIT, VAMPIRE WEEKEND’S NOT A DANZIG SIDE PROJECT?
Despite the playfully ominous moniker, bassist Chris Baio says there have been few misunderstandings. “We get a lot of requests from what seem to be goth kids on MySpace who see ‘vampire’ and friend us,” he explains. “And I know a German website wrote us up as a hardcore band, but no hardcore kids have come to the shows. Hopefully they will.”
LIFE AFTER DORMS
Like an indie-rock version of The Graduate, Vampire Weekend have stepped up from student living into a smothering crowd of clamouring support — complete with ample blog love and major label courtships. With an XL deal for their highly anticipated debut, the guys have even made their first trip across the pond for a few dates with The Shins. “In a lot of ways the day-to-day operations for our band are still pretty similar,” says Baio. “I mean we’re on tour in America right now and we’re in the same mini-van we were in over the summer. It’s just the four of us sort of doing it on our own.”
HEY, THESE SONGS LOOK KINDA FAMILIAR...
With some additional strings, a few new arrangements and a real mastering job, their XL debut’s track list bears a striking resemblance to their fabled Blue CD-R demo. “We’ve been recording it almost as long as we’ve been a band,” Baio explains. “The Blue CD-R was sort of the working version … that’s definitely the heart of the album.” Since XL was happy to let them run with their ideas and guitarist Rostam Batmanglij’s production, they also continued to rely on the helpfulness of friends to finish it off. Says Baio, “We recorded the last two songs in a studio that had just opened and was being run by one of our friends whose bedroom we had recorded the drums in like eight or 10 months before.”
WHEN DID THE NEW YORK TIMES BECOME PITCHFORK?
The hype surrounding Vampire Weekend is not just limited to the blogosphere; even The New York Times hailed their CD-R “one of the year’s most impressive debuts.”
“It’s definitely exciting to get that kind of recognition early on,” says Baio. “But in a way … playing shows where in Denton only 25 people came out, it seems pretty separate from [being the subject of] a high-profile piece. I think things will feel more real when we have an album out, when it’s not just a lot of speculative press.”