If you didn’t see Stephen Colbert‘s interview with Vampire Weekend last night, click on the video below immediately.

I just about died when Colbert served VW drummer Chris Tomson by saying he appeared to have the same hygiene practices of Twilight‘s Robert Pattinson and later when he schooled the whole band by breaking out “The Elements of Style” to debate the merits of the Oxford comma.

(I for one am a believer in its usage.)

They also played their latest single, “Holiday”:

Binki Shapiro of Little Joy has gotten a TON of top-notch musicians, artists, and celebrities to contribute custom made artwork and items for her Crafts for a Cause auction. All proceeds will be donated to Artists for Peace and Justice, a charitable organization started by filmmaker Paul Haggis.

The online auction will begin on March 15th, but for now you can check on Binki’s Tumblr blog for the event which features teaser shots of some of the goods that will be for sale. Contributers are a who’s who of popular indie rock and mainstream musicians (Daft Punk, The Strokes, Norah Jones, No Doubt, Conor Oberst, Jenny Lewis, Shirley Manson of Garbage, Mark Ronson, Adam Green, SIA, Grizzly Bear, Vampire Weekend, Fleet Foxes, just to name a few!!!) and film celebs (Spike Jonze, Natalie Portman).

Photo of Fab Moretti and Nick Valensi with the signed bag from The Strokes from the Crafts for a Cause site

You’ll find hand-drawn artwork, signed canvas bags, designed t-shirts, embellished guitars, and much more.

Sounds like an amazing collection of artists helping out for a great cause. Don’t forget — March 15th the auction starts online!

Here’s a video of SIA creating the wallet she donated:

SIA for Crafts For A Cause! from binki shapiro on Vimeo.

Plenty more info on the Crafts for a Cause website or on Binki Shapiro’s Twitter

Here’s a report from our special correspondent Sarah B from the December 2nd 9:30 Vampire Weekend show at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C.:

How can I describe the vibe of the classic DC crowd at the 9:30 on Tuesday night during Vampire Weekends second consecutive sold out show? Polite. They displayed their good upbringing by cheering and clapping at the appropriate times (but not too much or too loud) asking nicely and for an encore, singing along when it was requested and bobbing their heads coolly when asked to by frontman Koenig to do so during a new song, unnamed but breathtaking. In between all that, the vibe was…reserved. DC has a hard time relaxing. The last song, “Walcott,” got the biggest rise out of them.

The bands energy more than made up for the conservative crowd. Lovely and uncomplicated, clever and hard to classify, Vampire Weekend’s sound and lyrics create collages of random images–more like experimental film than anything else. It’s not surprising two of the four have dabbled in that medium.

They worked their way through the album, inserting the aforementioned new beauty, and a better- than-the-original Fleetwood Mac cover. This, of course, slightly lost on the youthful crowd. An enlightening moment came right before they launched into “M79.” Koenig asked us if anyone knew Jackson Crowter (stumped silence from the underwhelmed crowd). He went on to explain he was just a kid who rode the bus with keyboardist Batmanglij. That’s it. No complicated story. So nice. Just another random image in the collage…

The much-talked about John Hughes-inspired video for Vampire Weekend‘s song “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” has been revealed on their MySpace page. There’s also a nod to “Thriller” in the second act of the video, with the band turning into a goth-y, Cure-loving looking band. (Probably a not so subtle mocking of VW’s perpetual preppiness as played up in the press.)

The resounding verdict? A big ol’ “HUH?”

Watch for yourself:
Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa

I liked the last video where they ripped off/made fun of Wes Anderson better, but still… can’t someone pitch more original ideas to these guys? This novelty video shiz is getting old real fast.

My friend Mark just started this awesome website called Trendrr.com, which allows you to track and graph all sorts of different data, then slice, dice, and compare your findings at will. Want to track record sales of “Consolers of the Lonely” against the frequency of “internet downloading” on Google News? Just punch in the appropriate keywords and start tracking.

Ever since joining the site I’ve spent hours creating, searching, and viewing my own and other people’s graphs. It sure does make for some fascinating findings. Take for example, my recent comparison of sweater sales on eBay vs blog posts about Vampire Weekend:

Not only is eternally preppy overwear on a greater upswing than Vampire Weekend, it seems like VW might even benefit from the increased awareness of knitted pull-overs in the form of more blog posts. Are the two really related? The world may never know, but it sure is fun finding what other keywords might be tangentially linked to the band.

The boys from NYC hit the big time with a performance on this weekend’s Saturday Night Live, hosted by Amy Adams. They played their MTV TRL hit, “A-Punk” as well as “M79″. Video below:

“A-Punk”

“M79″

Outro

The skit where Amy Poehler does Christian from Project Runway was hilarious! (Tranny! Hot Mess! Fiiiieeerrrce!) Amy Adams does a GREAT Heidi Klum.

I couldn’t help but be bemused by the most recent commercials for the Amy Adams/Vampire Weekend episode of Saturday Night Live happening this weekend.

NBC are now airing ads featuring the four New York band members standing behind Amy and an SNL cast member, but instead of watching Amy Adams, who is usually the person talking in almost all the promos, my eyes start gravitating toward VW drummer Chris Tomson. It’s not his dashing good looks that are drawing me in, it’s his completely hilarious barely suppressed goofy grin. I DARE YOU TO LOOK AWAY!

I wonder how many times they had to shoot those promos before the director gave up screaming, “SMILE WITH YOUR EYES, NOT WITH YOUR MOUTH!”

The video example above is by FAR the least of Chris’ grinning crimes. The worst offender? The one where Amy Adams explains that she does not endorse vampires, but werewolves are fine.

Woah nelly! Was anyone watching Wilco trying out their new songs playing songs off their latest album, Sky Blue Sky, (which some people have described “Hate It Here” in particular as sounding like “house band music”) last night on SNL?

Relive the horror of the first song (vid via Stereogum):

Also, download MP3s of the performance here.

Oh, if anyone can find a good screen cap of Tweedy wearing that white and red nudie suit during “Walken”, I’d love to put it next to a photo of Jack White for a good ol’ “Who Wore It Better?” contest. This image is not big enough.

Did anyone else’s jaw drop when they saw that Vampire Weekend is going to be the musical guest on next weekend’s Saturday Night Live? (Guest host is Amy Adams.)

New York City homies Vampire Weekend are quickly becoming as ubiquitous as MacBook Air commercials–currently gracing the cover of the music magazine for the “blawg-rockers”, SPIN and now they are featured in the new issue of Nylon magazine:

(Bigger photo on Vorrasi.com.)

The shots were taken at Tom & Jerry’s bar in the East Village by TMA friend Vorrasi. We were lucky enough to be on hand for the shoot. Here’s a behind-the-scenes shot:

VW are currently in the UK, but according to their MySpace blog post, have canceled their shows in Manchester and Glasgow due to illness. They are back in the States starting March 8th with a show at St. Augustine, FL.

Last time I saw hometown heroes Vampire Weekend at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in September of 2007, the positive hype was high, uber Anonymous blog readers had already begun to revolt, and their album hadn’t even come out yet.

Fast forward to last Wednesday night, January 30th–the boys were back in town, playing the second night of their record release shows. The levels of backlash had multiplied 10-fold on every blog (including your mom’s)–I wasn’t even aware there could be backlash to the backlash of the backlash that was backlashed against. The crowd was Manhattanites, which automatically means that at least 10% of the audience will be uninterested in the music at any given time.

So how did the band do?

They seemed a bit more confident, a bit more commanding than the last time I saw them, despite the fact that the audience wasn’t nearly as crazed as the Williamsburg show. Lead singer Ezra stated after the first song, “that was better than last night.”

Any way you slice it, Vampire Weekend’s songs are upbeat, poppy, and very very catchy and very very enjoyable. Even though the crowd was a bit subdued, they were far from complacent, making the effort to bop up and down during songs like “Walcott” and “Campus.”

Unlike former “It” bands like The Strokes and Arctic Monkeys, when VW blast through their handful of known songs, many of which audience members knew from their EP, singles, and previous live shows, their set does not seem brief in any way. I think it has something to do with the varied sounds and pacing of their songs, which bodes well for their future.

Whereas The Strokes were lauded for their first album, Is This It, they were often panned for having songs that sounded similar–all fast-paced, straightforward rock songs. I don’t think anyone should accuse Vampire Weekend of being boring in their songwriting–yes, the lyrical content is quite preppy and white bread, but melodically their songs are more adventurous and interesting than some of the bands they have been compared to.

I continue to look forward to what they do in the future. Naysayers be damned, this kids just might make it.

For more thoughts on the show head over to the Village Voice