Dan Snaith of Caribou was kind enough to be the third installment of the My First Time series. If you haven’t heard last year’s Andorra, do yourself a favor and seek that one out. It makes for great turning-into-springtime driving music.

MP3: Caribou - Eli

My First Time …with Caribou

First record you bought
Eagles’ Greatest II. A little known album, but it has it’s moments.

First record that changed your life
Emerson, Lake and Palmer - Tarkus. I borrowed this off my piano teacher who was feeding me all the good prog sh*t at the time. I listened it into the ground and had dreams of elevated keyboard solos in obscure time signatures.

First concert you attended
Can’t remember who played but I ended up in a holding cell in a police station terrified for the first and last time in my life at the end of that night (for reasons) that involved a hockey goalie stick, urine, the car not starting at the right time and my parents having to come and pick us up from the cop shop at 4am.

First time playing live
Some sh*tty high school battle of the bands.

First tour
In the first days of our first tour we ended up playing to a completely empty room (not even any staff), nearly sh*tting out the window of a moving car, getting one of our heads kicked in by a skinhead bouncer in Dresden and considering calling all touring plans off indefinitely. Things have tamed down considerably since then.

First instrument you learned and/or first piece of equipment you loved
Piano. Still nothing beats it.

First band you were a part of
Kaptain Hairdo as a frustrated prog rock keyboardist with curly red mullet in a Sonic Youth / Redd Kross pastiche band.

First time getting press and/or being interviewed
It was for some UK website — I can’t remember what — made infinitely worse by having my friend sitting their watching and I completely froze. Shortly afterwards I became aware that I would only ever be asked questions from a pool of about 20 thereafter and relaxed considerably.

First song you wrote and/or recorded
It was a sixteen minute long midi prog jam of carefully constructed minor arpeggios and phasered drum machines. Not a million miles away from what I’ve done in the intervening years.

First awesome thing that happened solely because you were in a band
Being flown to Paris to DJ in a French castle surrounded by aristocratic families, then in a lesbian bar and then in a terrence conran restaurant in the space of 24 hours.

First reactions from your family when you played them your music
Indifference.

First musical obsession (band, song, singer, genre or otherwise)
Back to Emerson, Lake and Palmer.