Vampire Weekend

Indeed. Nonetheless, Vampire Weekend has benefited from a fortuitous symmetry between the blogosphere and several other ubiquitous destinations in the online world. "All we had done was put our songs on MySpace or whatever," Tomson points out. "We didn't send demos out, and it wasn't like we had a press person or these promotional people behind us. It was pretty much just the music online and people hearing it and responding to it. It hasn't felt forced or manufactured, really, because it pretty much comes down to people liking the songs and getting in touch with us, e-mailing us, like, 'Hey, you want to come play our city?'"

The band's meteoric ascent in the indie-rock world could also be attributed to the leak of its ten-song demo — which the group had only offered briefly at its shows — on peer-to-peer file-sharing networks. Many artists would consider that an unmitigated disaster, but Tomson and company took it in stride.

"We sold like maybe eighty of these hand-burned things from our computers," he notes. "It's very funny to see someone from, like, Spain post it as a download. I think it's cool; it's kind of what helped us out. When we played our first London show, people were singing along to a lot of songs, so it's like, 'Okay, you guys have downloaded this stuff.' At the point we're at, it can only be positive. You want people to hear about you, and you want to be able to tour and have people come, and if that's the way it happens, that's the way it happens. You know, I hope if people like that stuff, they'd go out and buy the album. You can't really get pissed. It is what it is."

Tomson knows that no matter how much attention Vampire Weekend has generated, to achieve any sort of real, tangible success, he and his mates have to focus on the fundamentals — writing good songs, playing shows and connecting with people.

"Looking at history and talking to friends and stuff, obviously it may have happened a bit quicker for us, getting to a point where we can put out a record and hopefully have a lot of people hear it," he acknowledges. "It has felt, at least to us, very natural in a way, because most of it has been from people responding to the songs.

"When you're touring and you play a bad show to no one, it's like all the blogs in the world don't matter," he concludes. "At the end of the day, you've got to reach people, and people can read anything, but you still want to come and play to people and have them come and hear your music."