A music post: Vampire Weekend and A Killer Ass

So I just returned from seeing Vampire Weekend at the Bottletree. They played with the Walkmen, who I didn't stay for, not because I don't like them, but because this is the first ten minutes I've spent at home since 7:56 this morning.

Anyway, Vampire Weekend: They're good. I like the record a lot, but I was even more impressed with their live show. It's fun music that they obviously enjoy playing, grinning throughout, and they perform their songs with such ease that it comes off as effortless. Vampire Weekend is the musical equivalent of that person everyone knows and everyone likes because he or she is witty and easy to be around. Needless to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. However, I didn't enjoy having someone's mystery beverage spilled on my shoes. The woman behind me decided to sneak a Solo cup filled with something clear (thankfully) into the show in her purse, danced, and then emptied its contents on me. I guess that's one of the hazards of live music.

Before you continue reading, here are two of my favorites from the Vampire Weekend record. (And if you are reading this on Facebook, you'll need to go to the original post on blogger in order to see the embedded songs.)

This first song, "Campus," according to the liner notes, was written by the keyboard player, Rostam Batmanglij, who I learned from Pitchfork is a Kate Bush fan, which always wins points in my book. Also,(and this is shallow, and I apologize) I want to nominate him for the cutest man in indie rock award, whoever it is that gives that out. Stereogum maybe.

This song, which you have probably heard, is another good one. "A-Punk." It has a Mellotron on the chorus, which I'm always a sucker for.


Finally, in personal music news, I have turned my room into a mini-DIY studio with my new M-Audio MIDI controller and equipment that I've borrowed from my roommate, Jenny, so I've been composing more on the computer, which is new for me. I'm hoping it will, along with the new instruments I've purchased in the past few months (an autoharp and an out-of-tune accordion), help me expand my songwriting abilities. As it is, I spent the majority of this weekend recording a new song in lieu of doing my taxes or reading the Lyotard I was supposed to. Anyway this song is the result. It's called "A Killer Ass Can Only Take You So Far." It's pretty self-explanatory. I think I need to work on the vocals some more, but this will do for now. Let me know what you think.



I would post the lyrics, but this post is already way too long, and I will be surprised if you made it this far.