Beirut

Zachary Francis Condon was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico on February 13, 1986.
He was influenced by his famous jazz playing father, and his travels to Europe.
He played trumpet in a jazz band as a teenager and started producing his own music at age 15, at 16 dropped out of school and moved to Eastern Europe, where started as a solo artist with his first (unofficial) album "The Joys of Losing Weight", which he produced under the name "Realpeople", this album has more of a techno feel and was never released but it can be available through downloads online.

Zach recorded the bulk of the material used for Gulag Orkestar (1st official Beirut album, released on May 9, 2006) by himself in his bedroom, going into the studio to finish the album with the assistance of Jeremy Barnes (Neutral Milk Hotel, A Hawk and a Hacksaw) and Heather Trost (A Hawk and a Hacksaw), who became early members of the indie folkband band along with some friends that Zachary recruited to play the music live for their first shows in New York...this is how Beirut was born.

Their first official music video was for the song "Elephant Gun". The second video was for the song "Postcards from Italy" both of them are my favorite tunes of this great band album.






Beirut's second album, The Flying Club Cup, was recorded largely at a makeshift studio in Albuquerque and completed at Arcade Fire's studio in Quebec and released on October 2007. The music on the album has a big French influence and the reviews are quite good.





Zachary plays a rotary valve flugelhorn and the ukulele as his main instruments. He bought the ukulele as a joke stage prop, but found he liked the sound and was able to play it despite a wrist injury that inhibited him from playing guitar.He also plays the trumpet, euphonium, mandolin, accordion, various keyboard instruments, and a modified conch shell that appears on The Flying Club Cup.
In late July of 2010, Zach married Kristianna Smith, a photographer from New Mexico. If you want to check some of her work click "Here"