Using A Sax As A Bong? Why The Hell Not.

If you go to a pawn or second-hand shop in the next few weeks looking for a junker horn, and you notice there’s a shortage of P.O.S. horns to choose from, it might be because of yesterday’s release of Vampire Weekend’s “Diane Young” video. Using an alto sax as a bong, now why hadn’t a band from BC—where the famous BC bud comes from—thought of that before?

When we think of all the ways that saxophone imagery has permeated popular culture, using a sax as a bong is likely a new, and rather creative utilization of our instrument. BTW, does anyone recognize what brand of sax was set aflame for this?

Whatever it is, I’m guessing it suffered a bit of lacquer burn after its video début.

Of course I haven’t mentioned the elephant in the room: This entire video’s setting seems to be a debauched version of Leonardo da Vinci’s depiction of The Last Supper. I’ll let you decide for yourself why the guy sitting in Jesus’ spot at the table is wearing a balaclava, or why he is included in the band’s final frames of the video—since the band is officially only a 4 piece.

You might remember that I originally wrote about this song late last month, when the video of their performance on SNL first came out. At the time it was memorable, because Vampire Weekend brought bass sax player Stefan Zeniuk along when they performed live.

Notwithstanding the video’s use of burning of moss as ersatz marijuana in an alto sax as a bong, we can clearly hear the bass sax holding down the bass line in the recording of “Diane Young”. There are no other saxes present in the recording.