In the ever growing list of: how is this legal, shut up shut up and enjoy it music Web sites, we now have muxtape.com. You can upload 12 mp3′s and share music. Here’s mine:

sexy music

I hope Andy makes one for artists at festivals we’re going to soon -Z.T.

Here’s the Shpeal: After the initial artist listing with monsters like (in order of my favorites): Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine, The Raconteurs, Kanye West, MGMT, The Black Keys, Gnarls Barkley, Wilco, Lupe Fiasco, NIN, Bloc Party and Girl Talk I was psyched!

Then on the full list, I was a little disappointed to find a long list of people I’ve never heard of. But I guess that’s a good thing. New music is kind of the best thing ever. I mean, I know a bunch of these, just no one that’s giving me the old shpilkis…

Broken Social Scene, Flogging Molly, Mark Ronson, Cat Power, the National, G. Love & Special Sauce, Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings, Explosions in the Sky, Brand New, Gogol Bordello, Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks. Dierks Bentley, Okkervil River, Amadou & Mariam, Blues Traveler, John Butler Trio, CSS, Battles, Jamie Lidell, Butch Walker, Mates of State, Spank Rock, Brazilian Girls, Chromeo, Duffy, the Kills, Rogue Wave, the Go! Team, Mason Jennings, the Gutter Twins, Yeasayer, Grizzly Bear…etc.

Here’s the Full list as reported by the Chicago Tribune.

Andy, anyone on this list giving you Shpilkis?

This has to be the first time I’ve ever seen a band play literally every song they know. I can happily report that Vampire Weekend closed their sold-out tour* by going over my estimated 48 minute show time … by a whopping five minutes.**

Good news: Vampire Weekend is already working on a new album and the two songs they played off it are possibly even better than the album. It’s rare for new songs to be met with the same admiration as tried and true favorites***, but the new songs (which sound even more Graceland -esque than the album) rocked hard and were met lovingly. It’s worth noting that keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij was utilized more for his guitar and back-up vocals than keyboard on the new songs.

A bizzare opening set from Yacht, a poor man’s Of Montreal, featuring no instruments, just a wildly dancing and singing man- woman duo and their macbook was unconvincing at first, but won me over eventually. Somewhere between them going eight rows deep into the crowd to sing and their opening up for an impromptu Q and A I bought into it. Overall, I don’t think I’d ever listen to them, but it was an interesting show to say the least.

It was easily 80 degrees inside the Metro tonight, and not really b/c it was a dance party. It was more of your typical indie-rock human bobble head night.

Vampire Weekend kicked off at 10:20 with album opener “Mansford Roof.” I was hopeful they’d just play the whole album in order, though I didn’t complain when they strayed from album order, playing my favorite song, “Campus,” next. The crowd (far more couples and, far fewer indie/preppy kids than expected) all belted the line “Is your bed made? Is your sweater on?!” without being prompted by lead singer Ezra Koenig.

Koenig did lead us on a call and response later to echo “Blake’s got a new face” (made me sad my buddy Blake didn’t end up coming for the show.

I think it would feel eery to chant that line if it was your name.

Vampire met my exceptionally high expectations, filled me up with 53 minutes of pure pop-rock head bobbing delightfulness and left me wishing they hadn’t sold out of t-shirts earlier in the tour. After about 40 minutes I looked at a friend and we noted they had played everything except “Oxford Comma” and “Walcott,” which they promptly played.

I’m glad Koenig has a sense of humor about having so few songs. He said, “We played some new stuff. Otherwise it would be really short. He introduced the encore of “Walcott” by saying, “This is the last song we have in our repertoire.”

What a lovely repertoire it is, though.

by Zack

*Utah didn’t sell out. Silly Utah.
**Before the encore they played exactly 48 minutes. They played three new songs, one more than I knew they had. I was so close!
***It’s gotten so bad, even Michael Stipe has to promise to keep new ones short and practically apologizes for not playing hits.

I stayed up until 3 a.m. writing this. I totally ruined my sleep schedule this week.

As excited as I am for Vampire Weekend tonight, I have a feeling it’s going to be the shortest concert I’ve ever been to. Let’s look at the facts: They have one 11-song album totaling 34:13, a b-side and one untitled song. That’s it.

According to a show review in the Idaho Statesman, they played a 45 minute set last Sunday. The good news is that I won’t end up wishing they’d played my favorite song and I’ll get home at a decent hour (when did I become an old man?)

I’m putting the over under at 48 minutes from first note played until the last vibration of sound rattles the audience’s horn rimmed glasses.

The official list comes out Monday, but here’s a leaked list of initial artists at Lolla. We knew Radiohead and NIN, but among new additions, I’m most excited for Rage Against the Machine. I may finally get my crowd surfing itch scratched. I can’t wait to finally see Girl Talk and welcome back The Raconteurs, Gnarls and Kanye, who all put on fantastic shows at Lolla ’06.

Initial line-up:

Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against the Machine, The Raconteurs, Wilco, Kanye West, Gnarls Barkley, The Black Keys, Broken Social Scene, G. Love & Special Sauce, Blues Traveler,
Bloc Party, Cat Power, Girl Talk, Kid Sister, Office, The Cool Kids, Battles, The Go! Team, Jamie Lidell, Grizzly Bear, MGMT, Lupe Fiasco

I came across an interesting blog that predicted the entire weekend’s shows and mapped it out. Unfortunately this is just a dream list, but it’s fun to play what if…

Zack and I are trying to save the goods for the mag. I figured I would share my favorite part from my interview with Jeff Austin yesterday, since it isn’t relative to the festival season preview anyways.