blogpost#6

I have been struggling with this essay and finally after a few drafts chose to write about Beirut. Here's a link to an interview with Zach Condon, the leader of Beirut. http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2007/09/beiruts_zach_condon_shares_his_worldly.html


I finally settled with Beirut's EP, Lon Gisland to talk about in my essay. This five song album came out before their debut, "Gulag Orkestar" and shows the very beginnings of Beirut's work coming into play. The article above is mainly focusing on Beirut's latest album, "The Flying Cup Club". The article's main meat is an interview with Zach Condon, the ukulele player and singer from Beirut. There is a bit of an abstract before the interview that talks about him going to New York from his life in Santa Fe, New Mexico. As for his music, he talks about living in Brooklyn and how unsettling it is, compared to Paris. Beirut’s music is something you would never expect to come out of Santa Fe or New York. He talks about the music he grew up with, The Beach Boys, Bruce Springsteen, The Beatles, but the guilty pleasure he finds in French pop music and European House music that really inspires him. Eventually these European influences pulled together to make the sounds on the new album “The Flying Cup Club”. He talks about arrangements in orchestras and how he has incorporated them into his own band, producing the sound that we hear today. As for the website, New York Entertainment, the thing is littered with ads and things that distract from the meat of the interview running along the sides and shining poppy ads. The top of the article shows a shot of Zach Condon playing his usual ukulele and plainly describes him. The actual interview though is very much an open-ended one, with some basic questions and his responses are reported in a very conversational way, obviously he wasn’t taking anything too seriously, but at the same time you can gain a lot of insight on his music just from the few sentences he blurts out. You can tell he isn’t stuck in one place, he’s very open to experimentation and new things. The picture in the article isn’t all that powerful, just a candid from a show in what looks like a small venue- but at the same time the fact that it isn’t staged and that it is a random snapshot says a lot. Zach Condon is an ordinary looking short haired white guy- but he’s plucking a tiny guitar that most people don’t recognize. The picture alone would make you wonder what it is exactly he’s doing, what kind of weird thing he is creating. Beirut’s music is definitely a different breed than any other American music out there today.