Beirut - The Flying Club Cup

Many years ago I was in a Facebook group that made mixtapes for strangers. I loved the idea and had a great time making mix cds, posting them to people I'd never met and getting cds back from them. One of the first, if not the first, was a cd from a girl in America called Melia (who I think ran the group). It was an interesting mix of things - a few bands I knew well (Modest Mouse, Broken Social Scene, The Blood Brothers), a lot of names I'd heard of but never really heard and a handful of complete unknowns. The highlight of the whole cd was track 3 - Elephant Gun by Beirut, an artist from the "complete unknown" category.

I received that cd in July 2007 and in February 2008 I found this album in Spillers (during the Tuesday-record-from-Spillers year). It had come out in Autumn of 2007 but I guess they hadn't had it in stock, or I simply hadn't seen it until that February. I remember there being a description stuck to the sleeve, but I can't recall what it said. Between whatever Spillers had written and the strength of Elephant Gun I figured I should definitely buy it.

The Flying Club Cup is musically very different to almost everything in my collection, but the things that make the songs so awesome feel so familiar from genres I know well. Songs like A Sunday Smile, Cliquot and Cherbourg feel like great indie songs transported to some distant place (and even time). It's quite a skill to invoke such reactions.

I later picked up the first and third Beirut releases (the former including Elephant Gun and the latter being the split EP with his other band/alias Realpeople) both in Spillers. I then kind of drifted away from his music for a bit; I'm not sure why. At the end of last year I decided I should give his new album No No No a try and enjoyed it - whatever it was that had put me off had clearly passed.

For the playlist for the dinner at my wedding my (now-)wife and I were aiming for an upbeat, lively and continental feel (which doesn't include very much of my record collection). We found a few good songs and bands (Calexico, The Cat Empire, Mariachi El Bronx) but were struggling. Some connection fired in the back of my mind and I remembered Beirut. I played some songs to Vicky and she thought it was great. In the end, I think the bulk of the songs for the meal came from the first two Beirut albums.

I always loved making mixtapes; if just one of the 20 songs became the other person's new favourite song, even if just for a little while then it feels like a success. I remember getting a message back from one girl I'd sent a mixtape to in the Facebook group who had become a huge fan of Chuck Ragan after I included California Burritos (a song I've put on nearly every mixtape since I heard it); it was a great feeling. I like that music I got into because of a song a stranger sent me made it into my wedding day - I doubt Melia will ever get the same warm feeling I got, since she'll probably never read this, but I'm very grateful that she sent me that song.

Format: 12"
Tracks: 13
Cost: £13 new
Bought: Spillers
When: 19/02/08
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Pixies - Wave of Mutilation

I've always had a strange relationship with Pixies. It started back when I was at college - my friend Guy was shocked that I'd never listened to the band so lent me two of their albums, Surfer Rosa and Trompe Le Monde. I listened to them but just didn't get it - the songs felt scrappy and inconsistent and it just wasn't doing anything for me at the time. I got a similar feeling from them to the one I got from Sonic Youth, who also had the ability to write incredible songs but surround them with weird, strange songs (Wish Fulfilment vs the rest of Dirty, for example). At the time I chalked it up to them being what I called a "guitarist's band", along with Sonic Youth (partly because Guy played the guitar and really liked both bands); I assumed that if you played the guitar you got a lot more out of the band. I have no idea if that was true or not.

Over the years I kept finding that people whose music taste I really respected had a lot of love for Pixies - there was no denying that a lot of people had a lot of time for them. Some years later I ended up going to Southside Festival in Germany where Pixies were playing (with the classic line-up). I was mostly there because Faith No More were playing one of their first reunion shows (and it was incredible) and because Nine Inch Nails were doing their "last ever" tour and I wanted to see them one last time (and they were also great). As an aside, I also really enjoyed seeing Moby (unexpectedly), The Mars Volta and German band Die Arzte (who, apparently, every teenager in Germany is a fan of for at least a a short while - I've never seen a crowd go so mad for a band. It was quite the spectacle). Anyway, I was hugely impressed by how great Pixies were live. In that setting the songs worked perfectly, even the strange ones I can't get into on record. Of course the hits were huge, but I remember really enjoying the whole thing, far more than I ever expected.

Fast forward another six years and I finally buy some music by the band (I actually have a couple of Frank Black solo cds, but they don't count) in the form of their best-of LP. It seemed like the right starting point, although given that I've not since bought any more of their music, it might also be the end point. Even when listening to a collection of their best songs, I still get those same feelings I had ~15 years ago - there's something unpleasantly raw and jarring (qualities I usually enjoy) to a lot of the songs. What I can now see that I couldn't back then is that amongst those sounds, there are truly excellent moments and some huge hits. Monkey Gone to Heaven is a great example, overall the song doesn't do much for me, but when Frank sings "then devil is 6 / then the devil is 6" I'm floored every time. It almost goes without saying that songs like Caribou, Debaser, Here Comes Your Man and Where is My Mind? (which I think I heard for the first time as the ending to Fight Club) are all huge songs. A lot of the rest just doesn't grab me.

I'm very aware that sometime you have to be in the right time and place to appreciate certain music. 17 years old and at college, it turns out, wasn't the time or the place for me to be getting into Pixies or Sonic Youth. In all honesty, I'm not sure I've reached that point yet. Maybe I'll just never really get those bands. What I will say about the Pixies though, is that on the 21st of June in 2009, for an hour I was absolutely amazed by them and their music and really felt like I got it. It's a shame that that feeling has passed, but I'm glad I had it for a short while.

Format: Double 12", gatefold sleeve
Tracks: 23
Cost: £17 new
Bought: Truck Store, Oxford
When: 04/03/15
Colour: Orange
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Turbonegro - Party Animals

I remember reading some scathing reviews of Turbonegro's post-Apocalypse Dudes albums. When I got into the band, they'd already released Scandinavian Leather and Party Animals and I just accepted them as Turbonegro albums; I wasn't aware of all the break-ups and reunions and line-up changes. Moreover, City of Satan was one of my favourite Turbonegro songs. I wasn't sure why I knew it, but I remember hearing on someone's stereo at Roskilde, but being reasonably sure it was Turbonegro and thinking it was great. Drinking in the sun in Denmark is definitely improved by Turbonegro.

The rest of the album has some great Turbonegro moments too - All My Friends Are Dead is a great intro (I once saw The Arteries cover it, which worked very well) and Wasted Again, Babylon Forever and Final Warning are all really enjoyable. If You See Kaye is one of those annoying songs that makes you just want to skip it, but they can't all be winners - it's a classic mistake to have a joke as a chorus, but it wears very thin very quickly when you hear it 8 times in one song. There's definitely something different on these later albums to the earlier material that I can't quite put my finger on; the ideas seem simpler and less exciting, but the strings and arrangements and production makes them seem bigger. In fact, it's almost like they were trying to be taken more seriously by having the high-production values, but no one listens to Turbonegro to hear a serious band. I'd certainly agree it's not the finest example of the band's work, but it's still enjoyable.

I picked this LP up in HMV in Basingstoke along with the excellent I'll Sleep When You're Dead by El-P. Both were very pleasant surprises to find in a chain record shop in a large shopping centre (which, at the time, had just a few boxes of records). On top of that, it was only a tenner, which was already something of a bargain for a new LP. Included in the package is a "cut out and play party animals" kit, featuring the band members in ridiculous costumes, which is exactly the level of seriousness I want from a Turbonegro LP.

Format: 12", gatefold sleeve, picture sleeve, insert
Tracks: 12
Cost: £10 new
Bought: HMV Basingstoke
When: 01/07/07
Colour: Clear
Etching: none
mp3s: no