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Vampire Weekend and Grizzly Bear On Austin City Limits!

Posted on October 26, 2013 at 8:10 PM

People in the U.S. can catch both Vampire Weekend and Grizzly Bear on Austin City Limits (PBS) tonight. (Unfortunately it's pre-empted in my market and won't be on until next Saturday.)


 

Readers of this site know that I wouldn't like a band just because they have gay members, but both of these bands do. Rostam Batmanglij (far left in the photo) of Vampy Weeks and lead singer Ed Droste of Grizzly Bear are both gay. Droste married his boyfriend of many years in 2011. Although VW lead singer Ezra Koenig (2nd from left) is straight I still have a bit of a thing for him.


 

Both bands are interesting, though it took me awhile to warm up to Vampire Weekend. At first they were just too quirky, almost gimmicky, and lacking in soul. But they've gotten better and their style has grown on me. Their music also sounds terrific on a high end audio system.

 

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1 Comment

Reply The_Fixer
4:33 AM on November 4, 2013 
I missed this, but as sure as the sun rises and sets, our local PBS affiliate will rerun this. I'll have to keep my eye out for this when they do.

I haven't been listening to Grizzly Bear much, and I don't know why. I remember they had a great video out a couple of years ago, saw that and liked it. Probably because I have a friend who specializes in listening to off-the-beaten path music, and I've been listening to a lot of his collection lately.


Vampire Weekend is a very special band. They have a sound that I can instantly identify whenever I hear it, they're one of my favorites. And you're right, it seems that it takes more than one listen to really appreciate them.

In prior days, bands like these would often go unnoticed by most people. The Internet has made it so much easier to discover artists that you wouldn't dream of hearing back in the "dark days" , when large record companies called all of the shots. We even hear some of this music on mainstream radio stations, something that never happened in the past.

On a side note, isn't it great that Ed Droste and Rotsam Banmanglij are both out and this has not affected their fan base? They're listened to because of their talents, nobody even mentions their sexuality (other than us, but we pay attention to that sort of thing!)

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