Beirut

[Julie]

BEIRUT: an Excellent recent band with a very unique sound!

Part of a review in Yale Daily News:

Accordions and trombones in hand, Beirut introduced the world to a new sub-sub-genre: American gypsy folk pop.

Beirut is among the new species of “bands” that are nothing more than one guy who hires other people to tour and record, a la Dashboard Confessional, Bright Eyes, The Rocket Summer etc.

Beirut is the moniker for Zach Condon of Sante Fe, N.M. — a twenty-one-year-old troubadour who dropped out of high school at the age of 16 in order to travel around Eastern Europe.It was there that he discovered the Balkan gypsy music that would come to define his own sound. What he has created manages to be both nostalgic and innovative at the same time.

A typical track of Beirut might contain recorded public service announcements from an airport lobby, accordions, bells, bouncing trombones and arcade-like bleeps and beeps. Horns saturate the album like an omnipresent mariachi band from a dusty spaghetti western. It sounds like a traveling circus.


Their site looks pretty cool if you're interested.

Some of their songs:

 

[Aktivator]

Love Zach and his band Beirut. I actually saw there first real performance.

Zach of Beirut-5/10/06


Very unique band and mix of gypsy music meets circus meet indie rock in the form of Neutral Milk Hotel(the drummer from NMH is who got Zach a record contract).

You never know who they are going to have on stage with them or what instruments they are going to play. Here they are playing a song with a trumpet, tuba, violin and accordian:


lastly they are friends with a bunch of guys from Arcade Fire, here they are playing with 22 musicians(including members of Arcade Fire) on stage at the same time (I love how Own Pallett(of Final Fantasy and Arcade Fire) is staring at my camera.)

 

[LG]

Nice thread Julez, and great pictures as usual AK.

I like these kind of bands, Cosmic has even got me to listen to Gogol Bordello, a gypsy band from Europe doing similar music.

 

[Aktivator]

Nice thread Julez, and great pictures as usual AK.

I like these kind of bands, Cosmic has even got me to listen to Gogol Bordello, a gypsy band from Europe doing similar music.

You know while Gogol Bordello are a gypsy band like Beriut I don't consider them to be similair at all. I prefer Beirut but still like Gogol Bordello.

 

[LG]

Similar only that they are both "Gypsy" influenced bands AK, that was my point.

 

[Aktivator]

Similar only that they are both "Gypsy" influenced bands AK, that was my point.

 

[Julie]

Great pics , AK, and thanks, LG!

I'll have to look into that band you mentioned, because I really like that gypsy influence, I hadn't heard anything like it!

And I'm jealous, AK, you saw their first performace I haven't seen them perform at all..YET!

I was really surprised when I saw how young he was, I imagined him to be older by his voice.

 

[Aktivator]

Great pics , AK, and thanks, LG!

I'll have to look into that band you mentioned, because I really like that gypsy influence, I hadn't heard anything like it!

And I'm jealous, AK, you saw their first performace I haven't seen them perform at all..YET!

I was really surprised when I saw how young he was, I imagined him to be older by his voice.

thanks!
Actually the first performance wasn't very good his ukelele's were out of tune and they didn't know what they were doing. However, I've seen them plenty since including a few awesome shows.

Yeah Zack is real young and have such a baby face. I don't know him but have heard he is a little bit of a brat.

 

[LG]

Here's the link to Cosmic's Gogol Bordello thread Julez.

http://www.classicrockforums.com/forum/f41/gogol-bordello-3586/

 

[Julie]

@ LG: Thanks, man

@ Aktivator: Yeah he seems like a little brat, actually.. A bit arrogant with the clapping in the vids I posted here, as if he's saying: I owwwwn this band, I control them, you know?

Yeah it's really hard to get that many instruments perfectly together, too, so I can imagine they had some missers live. I guess it's either a misser or a huge success