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.

“Contra,” Vampire Weekend’s second album, won’t be hitting the stores until Tuesday. However it is streaming already on their website. This is a great time to unveil their “MTV Unplugged” set featuring the preppy quartet in their best stripped-down version- their music that is, not their attire.

“Unplugged” was filmed in July in New York. That was when Vampire Weekend was still finishing up with “Contra.” The segment features the band on a handful of songs that appear on their new album: “Cousins,” “Run,” and “White Sky” at a time when these songs were still young, along with three of their better known hit songs: “M79,” “Oxford Comma,” and “A-Punk.”

Backed up with a six piece woodwind and strings ensemble, these songs take on an entirely new life. Adding trilling strings to “Cousins” gives the drums and barrel rolling guitars an added urgency. “Oxford Comma” builds up now to a crescendo of chamber pop, while “A-Punk” is floating in flutes.

For a band well known for electric influences of pogoing keyboards and jittery guitar lines, Vampire Weekend surprisingly appears to be comfortable in a world that is unplugged, The acoustic of Ezra Koenig is shiny and bright as a wired guitar. Rostam Batmanglij doesn’t miss a beat when he swaps his keyboard out in place of an upright piano.

Starting next week Vampire Weekend will be out on the road to support “Contra.” They have sold out New York and Los Angeles shows. The following month they have a full European and U.K. schedule. During March and April the band will be back in the States to perform a run of shows. On Saturday MTV is airing their “Unplugged” performance. Starting on Monday AMTV will start airing unplugged “Cousins.”

This winter Vampire Weekend, indie rock band, will be spending more time on the East as well as West Coast in support of their upcoming album “Contra.”

The trek of nine dates will kick off in Portland, OR on December 10. This will be followed by four consecutive shows in California and Washington. The quartet based out of New York after the holidays will be returning with a gig on January 12 in Los Angeles. Next they will have a run of three nights in New York City in three different venues.

The sophomore album for Vampire Weekend, “Contra,” is set to be released on January 12. According to the MySpace page for the band, the upcoming set will contain 10 tracks. “Horchata,” the first single from the new album, can currently be downloaded for free from the band’s website.

The new album is a follow up to the band’s self-entitle debut of 2008. During the first week it was released, the album sold 27,000 copies and made its debut on Billboard’s 200 album chart at No. 17.

Vampire Weekend early last year appeared on Spin Magazine’s cover. It was the first band to do that before having a debut album released.

Indie-rockers Vampire Weekend have put the finishing touches on their latest effort “Contra,” and are set to take on a West Coast tour in November to celebrate the album release. The tour will be an ode to California as they start in Long Beach on November 2 and wind their way to Lomita on November 14. Ezra Koenig and VW drew heavy inspiration from California as they spent time recording “Contra” there. Prior to taking on this 8-date California excursion, Vampire Weekend will be performing in Toronto on October 8.

“Contra” will hit store shelves on January 12, containing 10 tracks. The band has already released “Horchata” which is a free download off their website. “Contra” marks the follow up to their stunning debut disk which opened at number 17 on the Billboard album charts.

2009 Vampire Weekend Tour Dates
October 2009
8 – Toronto, Ontario – The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern

November 2009
2 – Long Beach, CA – The Art Theater
5 – Pioneertown, CA – Pappy and Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace
7 – Lafayette, CA – Town Hall Theatre
8 – Santa Cruz, CA – The Catalyst
9 – Visalia, CA – The Cellar Door
10 – San Luis Obispo, CA – Downtown Brewing Company
12 – Bakersfield, CA – Chencho’s
14 – Lomita, CA – VFW Hall

On February 3 the Tibet House 19th Annual Benefit Concert is being held at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

The concert is directed by Philip Glass, Artistic Director for Tibet House, and will feature Vampire Weekend of New York, The National from Brooklyn and Patti Smith, rock icon, along with her daughter Jesse Smith. Concerts in the past have also featured a similar talent mix ranging across genres and eras from Emmylou Harris, to Sigur Ros, to Paul Simon and David Bowie among others.

Following the performance a fund raising reception will be held with the honorary chairpersons and event performers. Reception tickets include premium seating for the performance. More information can be found at the website for the event.

Tibet House US each year shares annual concert proceeds with some other charitable organizations. The recipients this year are Myositis Support Group’s Karin Berg Fun, Farm Aid, and Tibetan Community of New York and New Jersey, a local Tibetan group.

The Tibet House Benefit Concert will commemorate the Monlam Prayer Festival. It is held traditionally during the Tibetan New Year. At the festival, large amounts of pilgrims, citizens and monks come from all over Tibet to pray for prosperity and world peace.

Tibet House US was founded in 1987 as a non-profit organization at His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s request. It is a center for an endangered Tibetan culture’s presentation and preservation.

Vampire Weekend, the indie rockers, have fleshed their fall headlining run out. It leads up to two late September appearances at outdoor musical festivals.

The New York afrobeat-influenced band, who are setting to finish up the current summer leg of their tour in Honolulu on July 29, will be kicking their fall outing off in Portland, OR on September 5. The fall trek includes shows in Los Angeles on September 17 and 18 for a two night stand as well as an appearance at Treasure Island Music Festival in San Francisco on September 21.

The tour will wrap up on September 27 with a Austin City Limits Festival appearance in Austin, TX.

In January the greatly anticipated Vampire Weekend self-titled debut was released. First week sales were over 27,000 units. The album debuted on Billboard’s 200 album chart at No. 17. Vampire Weekend’s debut received lots of hype pre-release over the internet as well as by word of mouth. The band earlier in the year appeared on Spin Magazine’s cover. They were the first group to ever do so without having their debut released yet.

Ezra Koenig, the band’s lead singer said earlier this year in a NME.com interview, there were some tracks that we had for such a long time that we knew already how they would sound. All we needed to do was remix and tighten things up a bit.

We even recorded some of the album’s stuff a year ago in New Jersey, in a barn belonging to our drummer’s parents. So the drums are really echoey.

This summer Vampire Weekend, the indie rockers influenced by Afrobeat, will continue supporting their debut album. They will have a run of festival appearances as well as headlining gigs.

Later this week the New Yorkers are going to be mounting a short headlining show run. On June 7 they will kick things off in Orlando, FL. The group will be heading overseas in late June for the season of summer festivals and have various European appearances.

The band will return home in July for a full slate of festival commitments in the US. Highlighting the run will be a July 19 appearance at Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago. In August the band will have another run overseas, and then return home for a short fall US trek.

The entire overseas schedule for the band is listed on their website.

The highly anticipated Vampire Weekend self-entitled debut had a January release. During its first week over 27,000 copies were sold, and they debuted in the No. 17 position on Billboard’s 200 album chart. There was a lot of pre-release hype for the album on the internet as well as via word of mouth. Earlier in the year, Vampire Weekend became the first band to be photographed for Spin Magazine’s cover before a debut album had been released.

Lead singer for the band, Ezra Koenig said, a lot of the music we recorded ourselves in several different places. We had a good setup in our friend’s basement for recording drums. A lot of the recording was done in our apartments.

Some stuff we even recorded nearly a year ago, he added. It was at the parents’ house of our drummer in New Jersey in their barn. It gave us an echoey drum sound.