Musical Maven
Zach Condon Follows His Muse to E. Europe And France of the ’40s
Zach Condon weaves across the globe, the musical equivalent of a cultural shape-shifter. An exercise in Great Adaptations, Condon’s first album explored the raucous bleating of Balkan-inspired pop with “Gulag Orkestar.” The improbable CD rocketed him to New York’s hottest clubs from the anonymity of his Santa Fe bedroom.
Still too young to drink, he faced the pressures of crafting a second release that proved he was more than just the latest blog sensation to sputter on landing.
It’s been a tsunami ride from scooping Haagen Dazs on the Plaza in the City Different to performing his own songs as Beirut at New York’s famed Knitting Factory — and around the world.
But the indie rock darling is returning to Santa Fe at 7 p.m. Monday for a gig at the Santa Fe Brewing Co. He’s promoting “The Flying Club Cup,” his second CD. Both of his releases have sold about 200,000 copies each worldwide, Ben Goldberg of Ba Da Bing Records, Beirut’s label, said.
At 22, Condon deplores three-chord songs with simplistic melodies. His Gypsy-drenched debut meshed rowdy rhythms with melancholic Eastern European charm, using nerdy instruments like the accordion, the ukelele and a host of horns. The young prodigy recorded the album in his Santa Fe bedroom.
The resulting buzz rocketed him to National Public Radio, the Village Voice, Spin and a galaxy of indie music magazines and blogs.
On the second album, he detoured west, but not all the way back to the United States.
“Flying Club Cup” is a love song to the months Condon, who has been based in Brooklyn, spent in France. He used a stripped-down ukelele, French horns, accordion, organ and drums for a less bombastic aural palette of waltzes, marches and dirges. The title came from an old photograph of hot air balloons taking flight mere steps from the Eiffel Tower.
“It’s one of the first color photographs ever taken,” he said.
He says he was inspired by French music (especially Jacques Brel), film, culture and language. Each song is intended to evoke a different French city. If the first album sounded like street corner gypsies, the second conjures another outdated genre: 1940s French chanson.
“I don’t mean to sound like such a cultural tourist, but it happens sometimes,” he explained.
Condon grew entranced by Brel’s “ability to dramatize everything so well — the way he told a story was epic and the way he sang was epic.”
The new album sees him graduating to loftier if more subdued ambitions.
“It’s the same in essence,” Condon continued. “It’s not like it’s changed into electronica or rock. It’s not the complex, fast arrangements. It’s laid back and takes its time.”
Although he recorded the first album in his bedroom at his parents’ Santa Fe house, “Flying Club Cup” came to life in an Albuquerque recording studio, thanks to the help of Jeremy Barnes from Albuquerque’s A Hawk and A Hacksaw.
Born in Albuquerque, Condon attended Santa Fe High School until he dropped out his junior year. He wasn’t lazy or flunking out — he was a 4.0 student. He dropped in and out of school — including the University of New Mexico and Santa Fe Community College — numerous times, then fled to Europe and New York to pursue the musical ideas that couldn’t contain him within New Mexico.
“I don’t know if it was just being under-stimulated or just adolescence,” he said, “the idea that I could do so much more with my life.”
His parents were concerned, but decided to let him “get it out of his system,” even as the high school sent them threatening letters warning of potential police action. Dropping out wasn’t part of the family program.
“We all have degrees,” Condon’s father, Glenn Condon, said. “We struggled and struggled with him, and we finally gave in. He just stopped going to classes.”
They knew Zach was different from the start. He took guitar lessons for three years before switching to the horn.
“When he sat down and started playing the piano without a day’s lesson, that sort of knocked me off my feet,” his father said.
“He showed very early signs of wanting to be the loudest voice in the choir. This was at 2,” Glenn continued. “He would pick up stuff very easily. The teacher said nobody at 10 years old is playing at this level. By high school, they wanted him to do marching band and he got very upset. I think it was just too nerdy.”
Instead, the precocious teen convinced some friends to form a jazz band. He was composing by the time he was “14 or 15.”
His musical education started with the ’60s rock of his parents: the Beach Boys, Van Morrison and Motown.
Before taking off on his New York and European adventures, he played gigs at both Warehouse 21 — Santa Fe’s teen performance center that is building a new facility on the Railyard — and the College of Santa Fe.
“I performed there a couple of times,” Condon said of the teen club. “It was at the very, very beginning. It was quite karaoke — electronic synth-pop.”
But he says he soon grew bored with the same three chords and turned to horns, while his peers pounded to hip-hop and bad rock. He had been studying the trumpet since he was 11.
“I guess in some respect, part of it might have been a bit reactionary,” he said of his musical rebellion. “Music from around the world is more interesting for me.”
His parents listened to the first album coalesce through the bedroom door.
“We heard it in bits and pieces, so obviously, he was tracking himself,” Glenn said. “I thought, ‘My God, what are you doing? This will never sell.’ ’’
Glenn says he knew his son had made it when an appearance at Austin’s South By Southwest ignited considerable Internet chatter.
“All of a sudden, his name started being splashed across the larger blogs,” he said.
Condon has already begun preliminary work on his next CD by recording with a small village funeral band in Oaxaca, Mexico.
“It’s very naive, simple dirge music,” he said. “The thing of it is, it’s so simple, it really catches you.”
Today when he takes the train in New York, people sometimes do a double take. In Santa Fe, the only people who recognize him are old friends.
If you go
WHAT: Beirut, with The Brunettes, a New Zealand indie pop group, opening
WHEN: 7 p.m. Monday
WHERE: Santa Fe Brewing Co., 35 Fire Place Road
HOW MUCH: $20 advance/$25 door
CONTACT: 988-1234 or TicketsSantaFe.org
