With barely a month to go before the 53rd Grammy Awards, Last.fm weighs on alt-rock outfit Vampire Weekend’s chances to snag the Best Alternative Music Album honors against The Black Keys, Arcade Fire, Band of Horses and Broken Bells.

On the basis of airplay, Last.fm Trends describes the band’s chances as fair due to equal airplays of cuts from both their first and second albums. The band received the Grammy nod for their sophomore release “Contra” but so far, only one track from the album, “Cousins”, is getting ample airplay. But the band should have nothing to worry about though, with fans constantly including them and their tracks in their “scrobble” list at Last.fm and their successful gig at the KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas event last year, the overall impact towards their familiarity is favorable and does increase their chances of bagging the award.

But if the past is any indication, most alt-rock acts who were nominated in the same category went home with the honor after years of being in the business. Take Phoenix, the White Stripes or Radiohead for example who all won the award in the past but not for their debut or second albums, but for their fourth, sixth and seventh, respectively. An exception to the trend though is Gnarls Barkley who emerged as 2007’s winner in the same category for their debut release “St. Elsewhere”, so the chances of VW going home with it are – for lack of words – 50/50.

Find out if Vampire Weekend does go home with the Grammy when the 53rd Grammy Awards airs over at CBS on February 13 at 8 PM.

After a year of controversy surrounding their album cover and busy moths of touring, the young New Yorkers of Vampire Weekend will be capping the year with a Grammy nod for their sophomore set “Contra” which also garnered an Album of the Year citation from website Consequence of Sound, and a holiday treat for their fans, as they end the year with a new digital EP.

Recorded last fall at the Avatar Studios in New York City, the rockers did a session work which spawned six tracks, “Holiday”, “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa”, “Cousins”, “A-Punk” and their rendition of the Springsteen classic “I’m Going Down” and another cover, this time from The Honeycombs, “Have I the Right”.

The session set will hit the online market exclusively via iTunes on December 21 and will cost their fans $5.94, but I’m sure it’s no biggie for Vampire Weekend followers as it could be the best holiday gift the band could give them.

Phoenix, Vampire Weekend and LCD Soundsystem are some of the acts appearing on a new album for charity to help those who have been affected by the Gulf Coast oil spill.

On November 30 “Gasoline Rainbows” is being released through iTunes.  The set will also feature Surfer Blood, the National and Damien Rice.  “The Connoisseur Of Great Excuse” is a new song that has been contributed by Rice.

All profits from the album will be going to support the charity Global Green USA in their efforts for restoring the Gulf Coast as well as to help prevent environmental catastrophes from happening in the future after the oil spill from this year.

With their second album just eight months old in stores, indie rock act Vampire Weekend sees no rest in sight as they sink their teeth onto new material for their follow-up to “Contra”.

“We’ve all started to think quite seriously about the next album. We need to take more time, but we’ve started to have these conversations. It’s something I think about every day and that’s true of all the guys”, vocalist Ezra Koenig said in a released statement.

Whereas “Contra” was written as a tribute to the classic video game of the same title, the as-of-yet to be titled third album’s direction is yet to be described as well, even by the guys themselves, “it’s exciting to think where we’re going to head next because it’s still mysterious”, Koenig added.

It’s clear that the boys will take as much time as necessary to thoroughly select the songs that would make the cut for the new album, just as they did in their sophomore release.  And when we say ‘thoroughly select’, it is a combination of clever songwriting and clever confidence, as Koenig puts it, “we have the belief that if a song is good enough on the album, it’s good enough to be a single.”

And “Holiday”, the third single to be released from their current set is a proof of that.

Indie rock outfit Vampire Weekend and their record label, XL, are faced with a lawsuit contesting that the portrait of a blonde-haired woman in a yellow Ralph Lauren polo shirt that appears on the cover of the band’s third album, Contra, was used illegally.

Not that the photo was used without formal permission, there actually is a release form for the said photo but model Ann Kirsten Kennis, whose face appears on the photo, says that the release papers were falsified, or at least her signature was.

According to Kennis, the photograph traces back to 24 years ago when she was still working as a model for various clothing brands in New York. Now she is demanding for an amount of not less than $2 million for damages from the band, the recording label and photographer Tod Brody for the illegal use of the photograph which according to the former model resulted in “recognition and buzz for the “Contra” album, thus increasing sales and profits”.

The complaint was filed by Kennis’ legal team yesterday in a court in Los Angeles.   Both camps have refused to give a comment about the issue.

The story for the Austin City Limits Festival this year is some old and some new. The festival will take place in Austin, Texas at Zilker Park on October 8-10. Headlining sets from Phish, LCD Soundsystem, M.I.A., Muse and the Eagles will be featured.

Also included in the roster of 130 acts are some of the same performers from the Lollapalozza in Chicago, including Gaslight Anthem, Beach House, Yeasayer, Broken Bells, the National, Sonic Youth, Monsters of Folk, Band of Horses, Norah Jones, Vampire Weekend, Spoon, the Flaming Lips and the Strokes.

The roster this year is eclectic, ranging from Austin favorites like Robert Earl Keen, singer-songwriter, and Deadmau5, techno superstar, to Goglo Bordello, gypsy punks, the Black Keys, blues duo, Temper Trap, soul revivalists, and Devendra Banhart, freak folkie. Three day passes, according to organizers, sold out for the event even before there was an announcement of the lineup. On Tuesday May 18 single day tickets will be going on sale for $85.

Other acts included on the bill this year are Constellations, Very Best, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, Morning Benders, Foals, Mayer Hawthorne, Mountain Goats, Miike Snow, Manchester Orchestra, Richard Thompson, Robert Randolph & the Family Band, Ozomatli, Soft Pack, Pete Yorn, Lucero, Local Natives, Blues Traveler, Ryan Bingham & the Dead Horses, Girls, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, The Man, Portugal, the XX, Matt & Kim, Sword, Rebelution and Slightly Stoopid.

This fall Vampire Weekend, the indie kings, will be hitting the road on a tour of North America. The band has also recruited a couple notable friends who will tag along: Dum Dum Girls and Beach House.

The trek of 13 dates will be kicking off in Vancouver, BC on August 28. The bands will be visiting cities like New York, Boston, Toronto and Chicago. In New York, the hometown, Vampire Weekend will be headlining a Radio City Music Hall three night stand. On September 26, the tour will conclude with a show in Los Angeles at Hollywood Bowl.

So far this year has been a big one for all three bands. “Contra,” the new album from Vampire Weekend, hit the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s chart. The Dum Dum girls were a big hit at SXSW this year, while Beach House released “Teen Dream,” their break out album.

We knew already that Muse was going to be on the soundtrack “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.” However on May 12, we discovered who was going to join them, although very slowly.

The MySpace Music folks, taking a page from Bonnarro’s playbook, made the decision to reveal each artist’s name and songs individually from the album. Every 30 minutes a new name was unveiled. Hopefully you don’t have anything planned for seven to eight hours, as 15 spots will be revealed.

At the time this was written, seven songs and acts have been unveiled. The list includes Vampire Weekend (they will be contributing “Jonathan Low”), Beck (in a duet on “Let’s Get Lost” with the group Bat for Lashes. Atlantic Records hasn’t said whether it’s a Elliot Smith song or old jazz standard cover). The Bravery will be performing “Ours,” Metric, in the opening spot on album, will offer “Eclipse (All Your),” and Dead Weather contributes “Rolling in on a Burning Tree.”

Other songs and artists that have been confirmed include “Heavy in Your Arms” from Florence and the Machine, Akron, Ohio on “Chop and Change” by the Black Keys, and “Atlas” by Fanfarlo, the pop act from London.

The first single from the soundtrack “Eclipse” is “Neutron Star Collision (Love Is Forever)” from Muse. Last week it was unveiled on the official site of Stephenie Meyer, author of “Twilight.” On May 17, the single will be heading to radio. The soundtrack “Eclipse” will be released on June 8 to stores. That’s probably right around when MySpace will finally finish revealing all of the artists appearing on it.

Here’s to Morningside Heights, cable-knit sweaters and blogs. Vampire Weekend, the band made up of graduates from Columbia University, started their climb into indie rock fame well before releasing any albums. They have now reached the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s album chart with “Contra,” their second album.

According to data from Nielsen SoundScan, the album “Contra,” which was issues last week, sold 124,000 copies. It easily beat out the No. 2 album “I Dreamed a Dream” by Susan Boyle with sales of 77,000 copies. “Animal” by Ke$sha fell from No. 1 to No. 3 with sales of 67,000 units. Lady Gaga, who recently has had to cancel several concerts due to dehydration and exhaustion, made an appearance on Friday on Oprah Winfrey and occupies two Top 10 positions this week. At No. 4 is “The Fame” with 64,000 copies sold. “The Fame Monster,” the companion mini album, climbed four spots into the No. 6 position with sales of 36,000 copies.

There were no other new major releases. The remaineder of the Top 10 consists of already familiar titles. At No. 5 is “Element of Freedom” by Alicia Keys. No. 7 is “Stronger With Each Tear” by Mary J. Blige. At No. 8 is “Fearless” from Taylor Swift. No. 9 is the “Alvin and the Chipmunks: the Squeakquel” soundtrack. Rounding out the top 10 is “E.N.D.” from the Black Eyed Peas.

We already knew that Ezra Koenig, Vampire Weekend‘s frontman, was a gyro man. That’s probably one of the reasons why the cover for Vampire Weekend’s Contra hitting stores on January 12 looks a lot like a Kronos gyro ad.

However to just dismiss the image that appears on front cover of the album- blond, vacant eyed girl dressed in a Polo shirt- being only a knock off sells it too short. Ever since September when Vampire Weekend unveiled the Contra album art, there has been constant speculation about it. Fans were wondering who the girl was. Then there were the critics who picked her pretty pastel shirt and vacant stare apart, looking for the political and symbolic meaning behind it. Meanwhile the Vampire Weekend guys were just sitting back and laughing.

Koenig said, we know where that photo comes from. However we’re not being specific. No, we don’t know the girl or anything like that. It is a picture from 1983. However 2006 was the latest album cover. They look like both kind of inhabit the same kind of world. We found the image very striking when we saw it. It’s the look she has on her face, not her hair color or her Polo shirt. Her face it what makes the photo interesting.

For me, a nice portrait is something that is infinitely fascinating, particularly when there is an ambiguous look. People read a lot of things into that, Koenig continued. Immediately we were struck by it. All of us had our individual interpretations of her. We felt the the image fit the theme of our album. It makes a lot of sense to me on our first album there’s an inanimate object. This one has the face of a person on it.

Although Vampire Weekend may not be revealing exactly where they found the image for the cover of Contra, it doesn’t mean they don’t enjoy all the discussion the photo has caused. It’s kind of a logical extension of Contra’s central theme which is conflict, both cultural and social.

Koenig, referring to the cover said, people say it’s haunting. One person told me it was porn-like. Lots of people have asked us if Polo is sponsoring the album. It kind of like one of those Rorschach tests. People get mad when there is a white blond girl wearing a Polo shirt. That kind of makes you realize just how much you imagine things about someone you don’t know based on just a couple signifiers.