Frat Attack

Photo by Alex John Beck

It has always blown my mind how the US college basketball teams manage to get crowds of squillions of people and have like their own trading cards and stuff. My college football team found it hard getting the coach to turn up to matches. But I guess it’s partly just indicative of the amount of megabucks that’s pumped into the Ivy League college system. The Yanks really care about their posh schools. And I guess it pays off too, because the American college basketball players are practically superhuman. By far the best player on my uni football team was a Scottish guy called Les who had a brief spell as a substitute for SFL third division minnows East Stirling. But what then of the Ivy League musical output? While everyone knows Britain’s universities have pumped out countless massive bands, but less has been made of the US equivalent. Surely America’s young brainiacs share some common musical ground in between seminars and keggers? Well it turns out that yes, they do, and that common musical ground is Paul Simon’s Graceland and Hispanic pop. Such are the key influences that set Vampire Weekend—three of Columbia Uni’s finest—apart from the rest of the drab indie rock flock. Vice: What is it with Graceland? Ezra Koening: My parents were obsessed with it and it trickled down, I guess. Mine too. They were white middle-class lefties who were all about the whole anti-apartheid, free Nelson Mandela vibe in the 80s and early-90s. I remember there was a sizeable period of my life when there were only two car stereo choices. It was that and Tracy Chapman. Yeah. There’s certainly that political element there too. We’re generally talking about people who came of age in the 60s, that first wave of counter-culture. The thing I really like about that album though is that there’s really legit African musicians playing on it. It’s not the equivalent of Pat Boon covering rock’n’roll songs in the 50s and making really cheesy versions. Paul Simon was actually collaborating with the real deal. The only thing a little bit cheesy about it is maybe Paul Simon’s songwriting. I think the idea behind the album is amazing. How was it being an Ivy League band? I mean, it’s a little different for us because Columbia is actually in the city so doesn’t have quite the same old boys’ network and traditions of the others. But there’s no escaping the fact that we cut our musical teeth at frat parties in front of drunken students, and it was fun. I remember there was one particularly rowdy keg party that really kicked off. There was this one guy we vaguely knew down the front for literally our entire set going totally insane. The next day we were all together walking through campus and we bumped into the guy. I was like, “Good party last night, eh?” and he goes, “What? You guys were playing at that party? Shit, I missed your set.” That was the point when I realised we needed to get some proper gigs. JAIMIE HODGSON