I’ll admit that I don’t normally visit Stereogum.  It’s a great source of musical information, but it’s freaking overwhelming.  There’s a positive avalanche of content, most of which makes me feel like a bad person for having not listened to the Vampire Weekend album yet, refusing to buy into the National’s hypefest, and for my irrational hatred of Sigur Rós.  However I do subscribe to their newsletter and will float over there when something catches my eye (in this case their extensive Bonaroo coverage).  One article lead to another lead to me finding this video that I really want to watch but can’t because my computer at work (where I am) is not capable of showing moving things with sound.  So I thought I’d do the generous thing and, instead of filing it away (that is, losing it) somewhere in my email, I’d recycle the information and share it with you fine people.

The reasons that I think this video is interesting enough to save for later are these: I’m sure I should like Vampire Weekend, but I don’t yet; I’m baffled that people still acknowledge Andrew W.K.; and I grew up on Tom Petty.  These things come together with VW, a few days after their set at Bonaroo, playing Summerstage in New York (an event put on by Mr. Wilkes-Kier).  Having only one full album, well, here’s what Stereogum told me:

“Sometimes our sets are on the short side,” Ezra told the crowd. “We played at Bonnaroo where sometimes people play for five hours, and we just edged over one hour, and we were very proud of ourselves. We felt like we had to do something special and we were just in Florida so we thought we would play a song by probably the greatest human being who ever came out of Gainesville, Florida. Some people deride this guy, say that he’s like frat rock or whatever, but he’s a true fucking poet.”

I fully approve, and hope you’re looking forward to this video as much as I am.

Also: Tour Dates!

Jun 21 2008 Popped! Music Festival - Drexel University - Philadelphia, PA
Jun 24 2008 Hove Festival - Arendal, Norway
Jun 25 2008 Accelerator - Stockholm, Sweden
Jun 27-28 2008 Glastonbury Festival - Glastonbury, UK
Jun 29 2008 The Eden Project - Cornwall, UK
Jul 1 2008 Tivoli - Utrecht, Holland
Jul 3 2008 Werchter Festival - Werchter, Belgium
Jul 4 2008 Solidays Festival - Paris, France
Jul 5 2008 Les Eurockeennes Festival - Belfort, France
Jul 6 2008 Main Square Festival - Roubaix, France
Jul 7 2008 Montreaux Jazz Fest / Miles Davis Hall - Montreaux, Switzerland
Jul 8 2008 Turin Spaziale Festival - Turin, Italy
Jul 10 2008 Alive Festival - Lisbon, Portugal
Jul 12 2008 Oxegen Festival - Naas, Ireland
Jul 13 2008 T in the Park - Kinross, Scotland
Jul 19 2008 Pitchfork Festival @ Union Park - Chicago, IL
Jul 20 2008 Rogers Picnic - Toronto, Canada
Jul 25 2008 Capital Hill Block Party - Seattle, WA
Jul 27 2008 Pemberton Festival - Pemberton, BC
Jul 29 2008 Pipeline Cafe - Honolulu, HI
Aug 3 2008 Splendour in the Grass Festival - Byron, New Zealand
Aug 4 2008 Metro - Sydney, Australia
Aug 6 2008 Prince of Wales - Melbourne, Australia
Aug 7 2008 Prince of Wales - Melbourne, Australia
Aug 9 2008 Summer Sonic - Tokyo - Tokyo, Japan
Aug 10 2008 Summer Sonic - Osaka - Osaka, Japan
Aug 22 2008 Reading Festival - Reading, UK
Aug 23 2008 Leeds Festival - Leeds, UK
Sep 13 2008 Monolith Festival - Red Rocks Denver, Colorado
Sep 17 2008 the Wiltern - Los Angeles, CA
Sep 18 2008 the Wiltern - Los Angeles, CA
Sep 23 2008 Rialto - Tucson, AZ
Sep 24 2008 Marquee Theatre - Tempe, AZ
Sep 27 2008 Austin City Limits - Zilker Park Austin, TX

Last night, in the space of maybe 30 minutes, I had four people (including a man on the radio) tell me about the new Weezer video, “Pork and Beans”.  Dave picked up his laptop & watched it, asked if I had.  Deven says he saw it on Boing Boing.  Taryn texts me and tells me it’s got the “Shoes” guy.  Then Corey O’Brien plays the song and invites us to go to YouTube right now and check out the video.  After that, I got the idea and watched it as soon as I was at a computer with speakers.  Then, this morning, my dad called to tell me there’s a new Weezer video.  And now I bring it to you, though it’s fairly obvious that I don’t have to.  I’m sure you already know.  Or know somebody who knows and is all, “OMG it’s got the Numa Numa Guys/Diet Coke & Mentos thing/that “Chocolate Rain” weirdo/K-Fed/that dreamboat Scott Shriner!”  And now you’ve heard it from your friendly neighbourhood spider-blog.

P.S. I’m a little embarrassed at how many of these I knew.  And also how many I now know because I looked things up on Wikipedia afterwards.