On the most recent episode of the his internet radio show Time Crisis, Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig and co-host Jake Longstreth dedicated a nearly 50-minute stretch to a deep dive on Twiddle, specifically their song “Jamflowman.”
Koenig and Longstreth declared their fandom for both Twiddle and the song, while also acknowledging that many in the jam scene have taken “pot shots” at the band, commenting that, “‘Jamflowman’ is a punching bag for a lot of mean spirited people in the jam community.” The pair then dissects the tune, which stretches back to the Burlington-based band’s early days. Koenig, who professed to have interest in the jam scene, admitted he and Longstreth had recently listened to the song on repeat for an over an hour, stating that, “we were laughing at it and with it.”
The crux of the conversation centered around the song’s titular Jamflowman, who they put in context as someone out of a tall tale like Paul Bunyon and John Henry. The duo compared the character to the ones in both Bob Dylan’s “Jokerman” and Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.” They then concoct a fable of an elder fan in the lot talking about the “greatest guitarist in the land” – the Jamflowman. The winding conversation also touched on the Grateful Dead, Phish and Bruce Springsteen, while declaring the song a “gentle rebuke of the jam scene.” Listen to the full episode below, with “Jamflowman” discussion starting around the 20-minute mark:
