Hot Sh!t: Vampire Weekend - "Giving Up The Guns"

Let me get something out of the way right up-front...

...I fucking HATE Vampire Weekend. I really, really do.

As a matter of fact, I don't just hate them...I hate everything ABOUT them, as well as everything they stand for. From their floppy, collegiate-lad haircuts, to their inch-deep "sincerity," to their tendency to mistake blandness for ambiguity, they've found a myriad of ways to piss me right the hell off on a regular basis. Shit, I even hate their stupid, trendy little name. As a matter of fact, I've pretty much wanted to punch each of them in the throat since the very first time I saw them.

And when was that? Well, if I remember it right...it was on Saturday Night Live. They were the musical guest a few months back, at a time when they still weren't really on my radar yet. At least, not in any meaningful way. All I knew about them was that they were gaining popularity, and threatening to transition from Pitchfork-worshiped indie darlings into a full-blown underground sleeper hit. So, like all new music that makes its way to me via various media, I figured I'd gave them a fair shot. So I cleared my mind, turned up the sound, and opened my ears.

And I was almost immediately sorry I had.

For those who haven't heard them, I'll try to describe their sound, as it presented itself to me that fateful night:

Imagine, if you will, that you are a fancy Caucasian man with french cuffs and a crisp trouser-pleat. Also, you have a group of friends much like yourself: spoiled, unmotivated, bored with life, and demanding as all get out. Idle-rich little bourgeois trust-fund pieces of shit, the lot of you. And, you're all from CONNECTICUT to boot. You're also pretty sure that one of those guys is most likely mildly retarded, but you can never seem to remember which one. Hell, might even be YOU, for all you know. Doesn't really matter.

You all sorta play instruments (because your parents have been forcing you all to take various lessons of all kinds since you could walk), but this is really more of an on-paper sort o' deal. Usually, you all just sit around, smoke weed, and play video games.

Oh, and you LOOK exactly as deliciously punchable as all this, by the way.

However, one day, you get it into your head that you want to bring everyone together, and form a band!

So you start throwing it together, all half-ass and slapdash. No sense killing yourself, right? After all, you go to war with the band you have, even though it may not exactly be the band you want. Sure, the lead guitarist is really more of a mediocre cellist in truth, but that's okay. A lot of the tunings are relatively similar, and therefore mostly carry over. And hey, the tuning is a LOT similar between electric bass and upright, so the bassist will be just fine. And, well...a drummer is a drummer is a drummer, so no worries there, either. And you're the tallest one, so you get to sing! This'll be GREAT for our development as people!

And what actual SONGS shall you play? Glad you asked! Pass the hat, and everyone take a scrap, upon which is written a different genre. You each draw one, and whatever fate decides, that's what you'll do! Once you each have one, just throw a shitload of hyphens in between them, and then verbally explain to each other in as vague of terms as possible what your sound ought to be based on a limited grasp of the genres you wind up with.

All right...Whadda you got? "Imagine merry sea shanties mixed with fifties Afro-Cuban lounge music, except also new wave reggae!" AWESOME! Let's wind it up, tie a couple of pastel-colored, cable-knit douchebag sweaters around our necks, and ROCK!

(For the bold: See how much of THIS you can sit through, in case you'd rather experience the end result for yourself:)



Meh. Just...meh.

So, as I sat there and watched them for the first time, my overwhelming reaction was, "What in the holy living fuck is this even supposed to BE?!?" And it's not that I don't enjoy challenging music that can't be easily pigeonholed. But preciously twee, insubstantial little bounce-ditties sighed out by a bunch of douchelords in wing-tip golf shoes and polos? Guys who not only look like they still live at home, but who also refer to their parents as "Mumsy" and "Daddums" as they ask for the salt to be passed through clenched teeth? I think I'll fucking PASS, my friend.

"Behold - The CASIO!"

So, that's what I did - passed. Next!

Sadly, pass or not...as much as I would have LIKED to have never again seen Vampire Weekend after that, they were the proverbial bad penny what kept on turnin' up. In the intervening months, these here dainty dweeblets just got more and more inexplicably popular as I continued to try to ignore them. So duckin' them got progressively harder. And the occasions where I DID find myself exposed to them (and couldn't flinch away from their photographs or reflexively change the station fast enough), my initial assessment of their bizarro style was reinforced.

These guys are just plain odd...And not in an entertaining "Weird Al" Yankovic style, a geeky They Might be Giants style, or even in a charismatic Lady GaGa style. On the contrary, they seemed to be constructed entirely out of tweed, inaccessability, and condescension, scientifically-enhanced to be a mix of as many different incompatible elements as possible. Sort of like a motor-oil and duck-feather smoothie, blended with coffee grounds and mustard, then served in a chipped gravy tureen that's been soaking in bum urine for a week.

So, I officially filed them under: "I Don't Get It," and moved on with my life.

"Wait, if you're headed off into the sunset, can we come, too?"

Or, so I thought. Which brings us back up to this past weekend.

Last Saturday, I'm watching SNL again. Zach Galifinakis is hosting, and he's pretty funny and kinda unpredictable. The show seems to be cooking along just fine. But then, tragedy strikes. At one point, a commercial ends, and he introduces the musical guest.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome....Vampire Weekend!"

"Oh fuck," I think to myself. "It's those Docker-douches again. *(Heavy sigh.)* Fine. I'm STILL willing to give them the benefit of at least a couple of bars as a chance to redeem themselves. But so help me, if they start singing about sweaters, or the sea? I'm hitting the fast-forward button on this bitch faster than a greased burrito." And I swear to Henry Rollins I am not shitting you that I literally had that exact verbatim thought.

"Awww. Why won't you WUV us...?"

The song ("Cousins") starts. And, I shit you not, the VERY FIRST LINE of it is, "You found a sweater on the ocean floor." GAAAH! I think I may have actually retched from shock and disgust. I hit the FF> button on my DVR remote so hard, I'm pretty sure I sprained my skin. That'll teach me to tempt fate by envisioning worst-case scenarios in advance.

But then...something happened that was both awesome and infuriating in equal balance.

A little further along in the show, I had gotten up to take a leak (not yet the awesome, nor the infuriating part). Then, as I was coming back down the stairs and making my way over to the couch, I heard Zach Galifinakis say, "Once again...Vampire Weekend!" At this, I instinctively doubled my speed and lunged for the remote, so as not to have to be subjected to so much as another measure of one of their unique bastardpieces of avant-garbáge. And wouldn't you know it? The little bastard squirted out of my still-wet hands (from the sink, you freak...not the piss), and down into the inky abyss 'twixt the sofa cushions it went.

"Tee-hee! Good luck!"

"Well, shit!" I blurted as I began to spelunk for it, cursing my misfortune. But...it was at that point that the awesome/infuriating thing happened.

See, their second song was good. REALLY good, actually. Stopped me in my tracks. And, as the introductory measures flew by, it seemed to be getting even better. So, thrown a bit by the band's sudden, unprecedented failure to suck, I temporarily abandoned my search-and-rescue mission for the remote, sat back, and did the unthinkable: I listened to a Vampire Weekend song all the way through.

And this is what I heard:



Yup...Out of nowhere and apropos of nothing, Vampire Weekend had all at once decided to hit on every cylinder. This performance of "Giving Up the Guns" is a multi-layered sundae of pure, candy-coated confection. The arrangement is a loving hómage to everything I like about sunny, mid-eighties synth-pop, while still managing to not sound dated. The instrumentation is precise, energetic and well-rehearsed without being mechanical. And lyrically, it's fantastic.

(History lesson: the words borrow heavy inspiration from a deliberately-regressive period in pre-war Japanese history, one where the natives made the conscious decision to excise encroaching colonialism, and return to more traditionally-feudal ways [literally, "giving up the guns" in favor of returning to swords]. Via deft symbolism, the band has paralleled aspects of this movement in order to convey the singer's similar wish to go back to a simpler time in his OWN life...one when things weren't so confusing. And it did so in a way that wasn't ham-fisted or pretentious.)

In short...Who the hell WERE these guys, and what had they done with Dracula's Holiday?

As I watched and listened to it play out, I don't think I closed my mouth for the whole five minutes. To say that I was pleasantly surprised would have been understatement on par with, "Hitler was sorta crabby." It's just so rare when a song hits me like that, especially thanks to a band I more or less actively hate on.

However, when it was over? I was in a weird spot. I mean...here was a band I had LONG ago dismissed as being little but fringe novelty. Passable-at-best if you're into that sort of thing, but nowhere near my personal cuppa, eh? But now, they had just spent a healthy couple of minutes completely and pleasantly shocking the shit out of me, and doing so by demonstrating a depth of skill and meaning, the likes of which I would scarcely have thought them capable. A least, not based on their track record with me to that point.

"Boo-yah, motherfuckers! HOOO-AH!

And thus: I find myself perched pointily upon the horns of dilemma. How can I honestly detest a band capable of creating such a careful, well-crafted number as this? And yet, I feel I must in light of the fact that the sum total of everything else I've ever heard from them sounded like Muzak coming out of a country-club men's shitter. How DARE they defy my expectations after having worked so hard to reinforce those same expectations prior to this? Who in the hell do they think they are? Where do they get off?

And...Whatever was I to do?

Eventually, pragmatism will always out. And that's why I've decided...I'm still not a fan of these turbo-'tards. Nope, not remotely. And that's okay. However, I reserve the right to really, really dig that individual song. So I really have no choice but to keep the chip firmly adhered to my shoulder-surface. I guess I can make it easier by telling myself that I'm doing it out of resentment; resentment based on the fact that that a band I loathe happens to be the one that does the song, rather than someone GOOD whom I actually enjoy. Thus, I'll hate them even more because they are capable of doing a really stellar tune once in a while, but seemingly choose not to. Obviously, I'm not going to try to hide the fact that this is over-rationalization at its worst. Even so, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Y'know...It's hard work being an atheist hipster asshole a lot of days. But anything worth doing is worth doing correctly, I always say.