Rescued From The Fire: Vampire Weekend’s Chris Baio on Can
An ongoing series in which we ask artists the record they’d risk life and limb to save from a burning inferno
Can - Future Days (United Artists, 1973)
If I could only save one record, it would have to be Future Days by Can. That would definitely be the one I'd reach for on my way out.
I have an uncle, his name is Tom, he's married to my aunt Joanne on my dad's side. He had the most incredible record collection and it's really neat because he has all these great 1970s records and then there's a little gap when he went to law school where there is nothing, and there's a lot of really good 80s records. So a lot of early punk, like '77-'79, for whatever reason is missing. But he had every Bowie record, every Can record and things like that. And one year on Christmas he said, "you know, I haven't listened to any of these records in years" – and he knew I felt very passionate about music. He said, "Take whatever you want, the only thing is that you can not resell any of them." I really admired that. But so I got so many records, like African records and things like that. I got the first six Can records from him. I guess the first time I heard Can was Tago Mago but it really just sort of blew my mind in terms of the influences that they were using and the approach they took to music. And what I love about Future Days is that it's such a great late night record, like having friends over the apartment and just putting that record on at 2 am, it's a really reliably chill record to listen to.
