Dartmouth’s football team gave up their ranking as 7th in the Ivy League, allowing Columbia to move up a spot. (Spec)

City officials report that Brookfield Properties abandoned their efforts to clean up Zuccotti Park yesterday, as Occupy Wall Street protesters held their ground and resisted evacuation efforts. (ABC News)

Google will shut down its attempt at a social networking site, Google Buzz, after it took much criticism for weak privacy settings. (Huffington Post)

Sean Parker and Mark Zuckerberg were involved in a drunken screaming fight outside a West Hollywood club and almost came to blows until they both stormed off in anger. (Gawker)

President Obama has decided to send 100 military advisers to Central Africa to help regional forces combat the Lord’s Resistance Army— a terrorist renegade group, after much pressure from human rights activists. (NY Times)

Resistance via Wikimedia Commons

Last year's CMJ Music Marathon

The entire lineup of CU Records has been slated for a showcase at the CMJ Music Marathon! This Saturday, Night Eyes, MJWaterFire, Jake Snider, Tara Priya, and Life Size Maps will be performing at 7 p.m. at the Charleston. Give your midterm-addled brain a break and head down to Brooklyn to check them out for just $8 and a ride on the L train.

Image via Wikimedia Commons

In the Bronx, as part of a gun buyback program, people got cash for turning in their guns… even BB guns. (Gothamist)

In Manhattan, there are so many transgender name change requests that its Civil Court could be one of the nation’s leading name-changing institutions. How topical! (NYT)

In Stuyvesant Town, all is not well. (NYT)

In Manhattanville, Columbia’s expansion plans could be improved by including more private-sector jobs. (Spec)

In Columbia itself, a brand new undergraduate publication is released: the Journal of South Asian Studies.

Also, we’ve received word that Vampire Weekend’s music video for “Cousins” just showed up on iTunes as a free download, so get it while you can.

The world’s best known former Ruggles inhabitants, Vampire Weekend, released their new album Contra yesterday. The album has received positive reviews so far, including a shockingly high 8.6 from notoriously picky Pitchfork Media. The band was recently interviewed for a Wall Street Journal music blog, Speakeasy. The band talked about books and wore cardigans.

VW also discussed their temporary move to California, and about Columbia’s reputation. Said frontman Ezra Koenig: “I feel like Columbia is a very different place than Princeton or Harvard, but to a lot of people writing about our band it might as well be George W. Bush at Yale in the ’60s. So it doesn’t always pay to be nuanced.”

Koenig even held forth on on Murakami’s Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: “I felt like the central theme was identity.” Uh huh…maybe he took Interpretation of Culture, too!

Horchata is really good, apparently. Or so you might think after listening to the newest single from Columbia alums Vampire Weekend, off their second album Contra. Word on the street is that the album (dropping in January 2010) is the heavy favorite for “most formulaic Stuff White People Like Post of the Year.”

Bwog has only ever imbibed Horchata-flavored mixers, but if the taste of Horchata doesn’t remind you of when the weather was nice, the song also contains plenty of references to beaches, sandals, and palm trees to aid you in your quest for summer nostalgia.

Listen below (track via Vampire Weekend’s website)

Bacchanal is upon us, and the week’s most eagerly-anticipated festivity has come and gone.  All Bwog can hear now is the obnoxiously soothing tooting of a zampoña from the street fair on the East side of Broadway.  But only moments ago, Talib Kweli asked us “who here listens to hip hop music?”  And, after a little coaxing and some repetition, the mass of predominantly white fist-pumping students said, “yeeaaaaaah.”  Regardless, the beats were thick (like the crowd), everyone sweated and screamed, and there was much rejoicing.

Of course, several moments before Kweli took the stage was, well, Bwog’s run out of snappy monikers, and all we can say is: Vampire Weekend!  Returning!  Triumphantly.  Since the Bacchanal staff were chucking plastic wayfarers into the crowd, anyone tall enough to snatch one could instantly gain some hipster cred as they bopped along to “A-Punk” or “Bryn.”  Onstage banter consisted of reminiscing from Ezra–”we played this song at our first concert…memories…”–and offstage banter was mostly Barnard girls and imported NYU kids singing along like their lives depended on it.  Nary a boat-shoe in sight, but there are pictures (more to come once cameras charge) after the jump. Read more…

Grab your pitchforks, music fans: Bacchanal members tell Bwog that Vampire Weekend dropped out of the concert early last night. No word yet on the actual reasoning behind the cancellation, although we strongly suspect that last Tuesday’s events have something to do with it. More updates coming shortly.

UPDATE (12:57 p.m.): Sources confirm that Vampire Weekend dropped out due to “contract issues,” rather than (less interesting) reasons such as a scheduling conflict.

UPDATE (1:08 p.m.): According to a forwarded email from Bacchanal organizers, the band, which is in the middle of recording a new album (tenatively named “Cedilla Gorilla”), balked at the security breach, and despite offers of additional incentive J. Crew gift cards, band representatives confirmed the band would drop out of the gig. When asked how such a strict clause got into the contract, Bacchanal planner Benny Shaffer blamed it on “a stray Oxford comma. I thought they didn’t give a fuck about those!” However, Bwog’s been told that a replacement group has already been confirmed, and we expect to have the name shortly.

UPDATE (1:22 p.m.): Bacchanal organizers will announce Thursday that the bluegrass group Hootenanny Hollers — best known for their chart-topping album “Backporch Pickin’,” — will play the spring festivities. Rising stars in the bluegrass community, the Hollers are also known for being one of the few bands left in the industry that still use cast-iron washtubs. Their downhome style has also earned recognition from trade magazine Waterjug, which placed them on its list of “Bands Guaranteed to Get Your Foot Tapping in 2009.”

 - JCD & JYH

Late-breaking news for music fans: Talib Kweli will be part of this year’s Bacchanal. A tipster noted earlier today that his website listed a show at Columbia on April 18th, and Bacchanal board members confirmed this evening that the MC will be one of the artists. No word was forthcoming, though, on who the other artist or artists might be.

UPDATE (1:20 AM): Spectacle reports that the other half of the bill is Morningside’s own Vampire Weekend. However, Bacchanal organizers refused to confirm the story, telling Bwog that “Spec posted without receiving confirmation from the Bacchanal Concert Committee, which could pose problems for security and clauses in the contract.”

UPDATE (1:35 AM): According to a Bacchanal representative, the Vampire Weekend announcement was only supposed to occur two weeks prior to the event, as there are security concerns about non-students flooding the campus. Bacchanal is, of course, contractually obligated to respect that two-week maximum, which is why Bacchanal refused to confirm to the Spectator. 

UPDATE (12:10 PM): The post has been taken down, but the headline still shows up on Spec‘s homepage.

(N.B.: Bwog’s received permission from Bacchanal to report this information.)

- JCD, KER & JNW

Finally, documented proof that Columbia can turn out attractive people. Page Six Magazine has named Vampire Weekend singer Ezra Koenig one of New York’s 50 Hottest Bachelors. Koenig beat out another Columbia affiliate, Keith Gessen, by several spots, but ranks lower than Devendra Banhart, presumably for failing to meet some sort of facial hair quota.

Regardless, you now have something to brag about besides the same old alum in the Oval Office, etc. Mail a copy to everyone you knew in high school!

Tipster Dhruv Vasishtha noticed a Columbia reunion of sorts at MTVu’s Woodie Awards–the very same Woodie awards that featured members of the CU debate team–as your favorite bands Vampire Weekend and Chromeo performed “The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance” together. It sounded a bit like Graceland but it felt like “Roar, Lion, Roar.”

Do like music and stuff? Well if you do, you’re in luck cause this week CMJ Music Marathon returns to NYC.  The marathon features over 1,000 bands almost all with peculiar names.

Columbians probably have a slightly distorted perspective on the difficulty of making it in today’s music world due to the providential success of musicians like the guys from Vampire Weekend and Chromeo, AKA Associate Professor David Macklovitch.

But for roughly 1,100 lucky, relatively talented up-and-comers, this week offers a beacon of hope.  Starting today, October 21st, the CMJ Music Marathon returns to New York City for its 28th Season and will host hundreds of concerts all over the city featuring names you definitely know (or should know) and names you definitely don’t. The concert series will run through Saturday, but if you’re interested in seeing the bigger names you’d better plan on going out sooner than the weekend.

The week’s highlights and some of Bwog’s faves include:

Read more…

One commenter has pointed Bwog in the direction of Vampire Weekend‘s latest concert video/interview with Pitckfork.tv, which takes place in the ADP house. The band characterizes their ADP shows as some of their most memorable: ADP is “not really a rock club, and there’s something I like about that,” says keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij. Bedecked in obligatory sweaters and polos, the band chronicles their creation story for the camera: VW was born on February 6th, 2006 in singer Ezra Koenig’s dorm room. You can watch the video in its entirety below. 

For careful listeners, the best soundtrack on campus is the rotation of Vampire Weekend, Radiohead and other indie darlings at Cafe 212. Bwog cultural correspondent Merrell Hambleton sits down with the man behind the mix.

I find Café 212 manager Robert Bell working to hang up two small bulletin boards. “I’m actually doing something with the music,” he says. “The music” he’s referring to is precisely the reason for our meeting—Bell, tall with longish brown hair, dark framed glasses, and a neatly trimmed chinstrap, has earned a reputation in his year at Columbia for playing some non-traditional Muzak. In fact, its not Muzak at all, it’s actually, well, good. If you’re haunted by memories of 212′s old soundtrack, you’ll likely be pleased to hear the likes of Radiohead, Cat Power or the of-late-ubiquitous Vampire Weekend while you wait in the sandwich line.

So what prompted Bell to buck the trend of non-descript instrumental world music and hit-or-miss pop (read: Ferris Booth)? The Virginia native moved to New York (Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, to be specific) in 2004, where he first “got excited by working with food” while working at an Au Bon Pain branch.  But chain stores don’t offer a whole lot of flexibility. According to Bell, “One thing that really bothered me… was they had this Frank Sinatra thing going on. They had it very carefully orchestrated, so in Hong Kong they had an Au Bon Pain that was also playing Frank Sinatra at 8 AM.”

Read more…

Vampire Weekend not worth the $10 you didn’t pay for their CD on iTunes

Breaking: Super Bowl more popular, lucrative than environmentalism  

No asterisk for the vowel?  

It’s a walk-off!

CC’s got Obama, GS has about what you’d expect

The cookbook that Americans…er, New Yorkers…er, diet-conscious

East Harlemites can’t get enough of!

Columbia’s current favorite sons, Vampire Weekend, seem to be doing pretty well for themselves lately. With their full-length album coming out in three days and two sold-out shows at Bowery Ballroom kicking off a national tour next week. “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” was Rolling Stone‘s 67th best song of the year, and a snarky Pitchfork review can’t be more than two weeks in coming, considering the backlash that we’ve seen — without an album even having been released!

On the local front, Columbian Jared Hecht passed along his interview with the group, over at Jambands. The phrase “Upper West Side Soweto” appears more than once.

(If you still haven’t heard VW, there are some pretty good free samples on Daytrotter.)