The Vanity Set is an

indie rock Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand in the early to mid-1980s. Although the term was originally used to describe rock music released through independent reco ...

group of mostly second-generation

Greek-Americans Greek Americans ( ''Ellinoamerikanoí'' ''Ellinoamerikánoi'' ) are Americans of full or partial Greeks, Greek ancestry. There is an estimate of 1.2 million Americans of full or partial Greek ancestry. According to the US census, 264,066 p ...

formed in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

in 2000. Led by Jim Sclavunos, the drummer/percussionist with

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are a Rock music, rock band formed in Melbourne in 1983 by lead vocalist Nick Cave, multi-instrumentalist Mick Harvey and German guitarist-vocalist Blixa Bargeld. The band has featured international personnel throug ...

, they describe their music as a blend of "low art, high sass and raw bluster." Their music includes the sounds of

rebetiko Rebetiko (, ), plural rebetika ( ), occasionally transliterated as rembetiko or rebetico, is a term used to designate previously disparate kinds of urban Greek music which in the 1930s went through a process of musical syncretism and develope ...

, " psycho-billy guitar, creepy keys, raucous tuba, mellifluous theremin." By 2022, Sclavunos told an interviewer for

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming and culture website, bimonthly magazine, and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a "Rock music, rock inkie", the ''NME'' would be ...

that the project was done. He also said in 2021 that he had a set of unfinished Vanity Set material that he was working on releasing.

Current members

* Jim Sclavunos - lead vocals * Peter Mavrogeorgis - guitar,

bouzouki The bouzouki (, also ; ; alt. pl. ''bouzoukia'', , from Greek , from Turkish ) is a musical instrument popular in West Asia (Syria, Iraq), Europe and Balkans (Greece, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey). It is a member of the long-necked lute fam ...

* David Morton - keyboards, clarinet * Tam Ui - drums * Sasha Kazachkov - bass * Jennifer Carey - tuba & dead-bird-in-bag wrangler * Jaiko Suzuki - percussion

Previous members

* Meredith Yayanos - violin,

theremin The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone, etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named aft ...

* David Berger -

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

* David Clifford - drums * Brian Emrich - bass, synthesizer, ondioline

Discography

*''The Vanity Set'' (2000) *''Little Stabs of Happiness'' (2003) *''The Big Bang'' (7" single, 2005)

References

External links

Official website (archived in 2011 on Internet Archive)
Indie rock musical groups from New York (state) Greek-American culture in New York City Musical groups established in 2000 {{US-indie-rock-band-stub