Not only do we have Vampire Weekend down the road at Bowery Ballroom tonight but we’ve also got the early show AND the late shows booked up at Mercury Lounge.

Paris, France’s very own, The Teenagers, hit the early stage followed by NYC’s very own Jeffrey Lewis & The Jitters for the late show

Oh and if you can’t make it to TheTeenagers tonight, catch them at Hiro on Thurs and Cake Shop AND Studio B on Saturday.

(click on images to purchase tickets)

Don’t forget to cast your votes! "Starlett Johansson" and "Spit at Stars" are up for mtvU rotation!!! Watch them and vote!!!

http://www.mtvu.com/music/freshmen

File under "like woah". 

From a band who has contributed such gems as this and that to the pantheon of franco-super-serio-sexo vids comes an open casting call for The Teenagers next guilty pleasure to be filmed THIS SUNDAY in New York City.

Do you think you’ve got the leg warmers to be an Internet video star?
Is making out with strangers part of your weekly trists at Studio B? 
Do you like tattoos as much as taboos?  
Do you wanna see what it feels like to do "stuff" in front of 300,000 YouTube trolls? 

If so, hit XL up at marketing (at) xlrecordings.com. 

Details from the American Apparel Marketing Team XL Recordings:

CASTING CALL CONTEST

the teenagers

"love no" 

we’re seeking 10 PYT’s to be extras in the next music video for the teenagers!  we need 5 young ladies and 5 young men that can spend a whole day eating ice cream, roller skating and making out on camera with good looking strangers.  must be 18-24 and in the new york area as you’ll need to provide your own transportation to a secret location in greenpoint, brooklyn on sunday february 3rd.  please send your name, age, home address and a contact phone number, plus a recent picture for consideration.  winners will be called, so if you don’t hear from us it’s because we already filled all the spots.  good luck, we can’t wait to hear from you!!!

send it to marketing (at) xlrecordings.com

love

XL xxx

(humorous photo blatantly lifted from The Onion)

I’ve been waiting for someone to up this commercial to YouTube.  Compare and contrast for yourself.

Link via Catbirdseat, but Dave Martin gets the props for first pointing out its greatness.

Watch The Freshman on mtvU this Monday, Jan 28 to watch the Jack Penate "Spit at Stars" and The Teenagers "Starlett Johansson videos. Then go online and vote for your favorite. The winner will get put into regular mtvU rotation!

Voting starts Monday 1/28 at 11am EST and ends Friday 2/1 at 12noon EST! Let the games begin!!!

This Teenagers Flickr slide show has more one fingered salutes than a Freedom Fries rally in Bordeaux.

In anticipation of next week’s release of Vampire Weekend’s debut album, we’re kicking off a multi-part series called "All About The Kids?".

The back story?  Well, more often than not in a Beggars Group marketing meeting, we’ll say "this music is all about the young people" and proceed to make baby Ts and jock Dan Zanes’ booking agent for an opening slot.  And being the vacuous marketing people that we sometimes often are, we leave such assumptions unchecked and untested.

So, over the next two weeks we’ll be testing our assumptions about Vampire Weekend by employing various scientifically questionable methods ranging from an 11 month old’s dance meter (as seen below) to a series of album reviews written by 5th graders at a Brooklyn public school. 

So, our first test is young Ella and her visceral reaction to the A-Punk video that is taking MTV by storm.  You decide.

This is no joke, although it is rife with the stuntitude that you would expect from a band that has brought us one of the greatest publicity stunts of all time.

But this is for real.  The band will be taking requests via this little embeddable voting widget.  Just select the show and find the song that you want the band to play, and then vote.  The results are being tracked in real-time – Super Tuesday style – and will be fed to the band as they course around the US in support of Hey Venus (in stores today FYI).

Share it by copying and pasting this code into your web site, blog or social networking profile, etc.

<embed pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer" src="http://www.beggarsgroupusa.com/superfurrywidget/sfa_widget.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowScriptAccess="never" allowFullScreen="false" width="430" height="355"></embed>

Now that you are officially excited

Get more psyched!!

Our friends at Daytrotter are helping us celebration the release of Jeffrey’s 12 Crass Songs with a Bookery feature on the site this week. Listen to Jeff read from The History of the Russian Revolution.

Stay tuned for a DT live session later this Spring but for the time being you can visit a tune from the new album.

Listen to End Result

Be sure not to miss Jeffrey Lewis on tour in February with the Mountain Goats and then Super Furry Animals.