Earlier this week the Walkmen headlined Bowery Ballroom a few times and Fox News New York realized it was prime opportunity to conduct an awkward interview and have a “local” band perform on a blindingly bright stage. You can check it here because the vid isn’t embeddable, watching Walkmen melancholy collide with newscaster enthusiasm is a treat. It’s moments like this that you realize how amazing the brain of a newscaster really is. If you’re interviewing the Walkmen on television you might take a second to familiarize yourself with the new album they’re promoting and ask a question that would evoke more than a one word answer. That’s probably what you or I would do because we like things other than ourselves but for a blond spazzy news anchor it’s not the case. Instead they opt to ask questions that usually occur on a mismatched blind date delivered with clunky faux-energy from a vapid stare that screams “Fucking kill me, I am completely devoid of any thoughts more complex than ‘does my hair look ok?”‘. It’s kind of awesome
So yes back to the Walkmen’s new album You & I which you can purchase for $5.00 on Amie Street. You can feel good about your purchase because you didn’t steal the record like I did and you’re donating money to a good cause :
“All donations go to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in honor of Luca Vasallo, a friend to the band and a current patient who is seven months old and doing a great job fighting a very difficult disease,” said Peter Bauer of The Walkmen. “This is a very good organization that certainly deserves the attention.”
After cutting and pasting that I kind of felt like a shit bag so I decided I would legitmately buy the album. It’s a good cause and it’s nice to see a band realize that their music isn’t this precious commodity that can only retail for $17.99 so they can fund extravagant lunches for record executives and never get paid their royalties. But upon going to the site the record was $8.98 and there was no mention of any dontations so I guess I missed the boat. I’ll investigate because the Walkmen kind of made me feel like I stole quarters from a donation jar at Dunkin Donuts or something.
The album is a nice nod back to what the Walkmen do best which is play a unique brand of guitar based music that pulls from a huge canon of influences shaping a sound which is somber, aggressive, atmospheric, new and old all at once. It’s incredibly uncool to praise the Walkmen as they were part of that post 9/11 New York boom where even the Liars (yeah the Liars) inked major label deals and the sound of affordable Williamsburg Lofts was going to be the soundtrack to the new America. I’m fairly sure all this yielded was that super annoying Yeah Yeah Yeah’s song where Karen O’Shit cries in the video and sounds like Gwen Stefani with herpes…oh and the cut out bins were robust with the next-big thing so Marvelous 3 and Dishwalla got some company from their cousins in Brooklyn.
The Walkmen are much different, they got a little too Dylan and a little too ambitious with the horns on their last album A Hundred Miles Off but they’ve always managed to have their own shimmery sound that hits on something real. Live they successfully fuse the control and command of the all-American rock band with the urgency of classic American hardcore. Hamilton isn’t doing flips like HR but the first time I heard The Rat live I knew this wasn’t a bunch of douches up there trying to fellate themselves, they really meant what they were doing and had an energy that said more than “Hey we’re cute guys in cute clothes and we’ll hit on your girlfriend while you’re taking a piss because we’re amazing!”.
Maybe the reason the Walkmen aren’t cool is because they are a very personal band, many of the songs sound like scotch-soaked tales of disappointment swapped between old friends. The vintage equipment and gentle tape hiss that marks all the Walkmen’s recordings conjures up that tragic tone of a depressing Christmas Album with that unnerving skip during the Little Drummer Boy or a trapped housewife drinking alone out of a thick glass on stained couch in 1950-something. The Walkmen revived private school cool, not Vampire WEAK-end, by showing up on stage looking hungover from a wedding, in wrinkled suits with a faint scent of booze on their breath. Unfortunately the Walkmen’s story has already been told and all they now do is make solid records while Vampire Weekend are newer, cuter, and so damn quirky plus they TOTALLY dig world music and Ivy League schools, the perfect soundtrack to a new boring wine and cheese party christening a Brooklyn Condo.
*My apologies for the Roman Catholic analogies my Jewish Brothers and Sisters, Parochial School wormed Christ into my brain and I can’t shake it.
TAGS: Fox News, indie rock, Vampire Weekend, Walkmen
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August 20th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Cmon man, this interview was lame because the walkmen wanted it to be lame. It wouldn’t have killed them to answer questions that all the housewives watching were already wondering. I’m pretty sure this Diet Jeannie Zelasco chick has better things to do than bone up on indie rock. Too bad not all interviewers can be stereogum bloggers. (OK it was pretty hilarious to ask if Paul Shafer was the keyboardist’s biggest inspiration.)
August 20th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
I hold journalism in the highest regard, from human interest pieces about talking cats to interviews with blog rock bands. I am offended that Diet Jeannie didn’t get ski’ed up on a tuesday, hit Darkroom and get finger banged by a dude who used to be in some band in order to ask hard hitting questions. I guess she doesn’t take things as seriously as I do.
August 20th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Seeing them play The Rat for the first time opening for Yo La at N6TH was one of the best moments of my life.
August 20th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
quietest, lamest song(s?) ive ever heard on air. i had to skip ahead to make sure they weren’t just doing a really quiet part in the beginning. his voice isn’t a good enough instrument to just wail over a pussy beat and some light keying/picking on national television.
October 4th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Jesus christ that was painful to watch. I’ve witnessed many social situations comparable to this and every time i ask myself “why didn’t they just try a little bit harder to make this a little less awkward?”