the tinyblog

#03: Beirut - The Flying Club Cup

The music is sort of like Romanian carnival music. There's fiddles, accordians, an elaborate, moody party going on. And then Zach weaves his effortless spell over it all, twisting his voice into songs that make you want to put your arm around your best friends and drink deeply from a dark and musty bottle of booze. It's music to lay in bed to. It's music to howl at the moon to. It's Beirut.

The very young and lovely voiced Zach Condon said about the band name:

One of the reasons I named the band after that city was the fact that it’s seen a lot of conflict. It’s not a political position. I worried about that from the beginning. But it was such a catchy name. I mean, if things go down that are truly horrible, I’ll change it. But not now. It’s still a good analogy for my music. I haven’t been to Beirut, but I imagine it as this chic urban city surrounded by the ancient Muslim world. The place where things collide.

Zach is a really young guy, and you can feel him still finding his footing as a songmaster, but he's getting there. It's almost like he has the passion and showmanship of a young Tom Waits, back when he used to sing, and not just growl. (Have it be noted, I love Tom, growly or otherwise.)

As for the meaning of The Flying Club Cup, I'll leave that to Zach to explain as well:

Back in the early 1900s...there used to be this hot air balloon festival in Paris--[the album's] titled after that and after this very bizarre 1910 photo I found [by Leon Gimpel]. It's one of the first color photos ever made, at the World's Fair, and it...shows all these ancient hot air balloons about to take off in the middle of Paris. I just thought it was the most surreal image I'd seen in a long time.