Pitchfork reports that Jona and Claire aka Yacht will be the openers on the Vampire Weekend tour. Jona himself will be joined by Claire L. Evans, who is now a regular touring member of YACHT. (She’s also his partner in creating those excellent MacBook Air envelopes.)

Yacht - So Post Em All

For several years, Portland, Oregon’s Day of Lions was a rotating cast of characters that centered around chief songwriter and leading lady, Gena Gastaldi. In the last year however a steady lineup has finally been set in place with the addition of Gastaldi’s fiancée Charlie Hester (The Parson Red Heads), Anastasia Bennet and husband/wife duo Blake and Nicole Hooper. They’ve made an increasingly known presence for themselves in the burgeoning Portland scene and have played alongside the likes of Keren Ann, The Court and Spark, Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s and Gastaldi’s admitted hero, Maria Taylor.

The addition of these members and instruments has finally brought Day of Lions to what it has been trying to be all along, a collaborative band of friends creating honest folk music. Recorded in the basement of an old church (Artistery Studios) in their home of Southeast Portland, OR, Day of Lions newest release Come Down From the Mountain showcases this change in the band. Past releases put Gastaldi in the spotlight, often arranged with little more than an acoustic guitar and her bitter sweet vocals. Come Down From the Mountain is a full band affair with Hester’s lightly brushed drums, Bennet’s stand up bass lines, Blake Hooper’s thoughtfully finger picked guitar and Nicole Hooper’s airy vocals blending with Hester and Gastaldi’s.

Day of Lions - Omaha

The 2008 Portland Jazz Fest kicks off Friday February 15th.

The fifth annual Portland Jazz Festival, presented by Qwest & The Oregonian A&E, will open with 2007 Pulitzer Prize and Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Ornette Coleman on Friday, February 15, 7:30 PM, at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Tickets are selling fast. The legendary alto saxophonist, whose last Portland appearance was in 1983, will be celebrated through a series of performances, lectures, panel discussions, and workshops under the banner of The Shape of Jazz to Come.

Grab your tickets and then click here for your Portland Jazz Festival Hotel Package