CMJ ‘07: Vampire Weekend Take A Bite Out Of Cake Shop
October 17, 2007 - Cake Shop, New York, NY
Another day at CMJ, another band playing a venue probably too small for it. Wednesday afternoon it was Vampire Weekend playing the small basement space at the Lower East Side’s Cake Shop. This is one of two low-key daytime shows this week for VW, a band that has recently (as a support act) graced the stages of such major NYC rock venues as Bowery Ballroom and Webster Hall, and that has been the subject of persistent chatter online and in print for the past nine months or more.
When I interviewed the top-sider-wearing, Afropop- and ska-lovin’ Columbia grads at their rehearsal space earlier this week, they said they figured it was best to avoid any high-profile gigs during CMJ week, seeing as their soon-to-be-completed debut album’s release is still a few months off, and the possibility of overkill too early must be considered.
Of course it’s not like people don’t know their music. Vampire Weekend have clearly found an audience — a rather rabid, lyrics-memorizing one at that. Even at this supposedly “industry” show, there were fans singing along with what have already become VW staples — the Soweto-esque “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa,” the driving “A-Punk” (one of my favorites that recalls the best of Madness) and the catchy “Oxford Comma.” Singer and guitarist Ezra Koenig even managed to coax about a 75 percent participation from the CMJ audience on the funny call-and-response tune “One (Blake’s Got a New Face).”
Literate, clever and infectious pretty much sums up the VW catalog to this point, including a jaunty new tune the band played, called “M79,” which Ezra introduced as being “our Bohemian Rhapsody — meaning, it’s over four minutes.” Yeah, Vampire Weekend like to keep things short and sweet, and after less than 40 minutes, they were done. Left us wanting more. And we’ll get it, just in a couple of months.
Opening was VW’s XL Records labelmate, Jack Penate. Those Brits have the busking thing down, I tell you, and in the fine tradition that has strung from Billy Bragg to KT Tunstall, Jack is a singing, stomping, clapping bloke with a guitar, a batch of tight tunes, and a self-effacing sense of humor. Think a more muscular (physically and musically) Jamie T. Only with electric guitar, not acoustic bass.
Penate also apparently finds inspiration in the mundane — we were treated to a tune he said was about “his favorite things,” which included items of clothing; while another, “Torn on the Platform,” is in Jack’s words, “from the most boring story, ever. It’s about me going to get on a train, then I don’t get on it.” Genius stuff. When one woman tried to leave mid-set, Jack offered to play some Smiths if she would stay, busting a few bars of “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now.” Miserable is one thing Jack Penate is not.
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