Essay Time: Camper Van Beethoven.

My Favorite Band. By Grant Balfour.

My favorite band is Camper Van Beethoven. I think they are really, really good.

They made music in the 1980s, and now they are making music again. This makes me very happy. Like, stupid happy.

Why does this make me so happy? I am glad you asked. Here are some of the reasons why….

_{(Note: all these mp3s are available for free from the Camper Van Beethoven website. You just have to find the “More” area and then keep hitting “Refresh” to find these and a whole lot more.)}

Telephone Free Landslide Victory (1984):

The Day Lassie Went to the Moon.

Yanqui Go Home.

II & III (1986)

Sad Lover’s Waltz

Telephone Free Landslide Victory was their first album. The big hit was “Take the Skinheads Bowling” – a song so laden with mid-80s cultural references (mod-ska dancing, skateboarding to the Circle Jerks) and so full of a goofy, joyful punker-than-thou attitude, it was tailor-made for that era’s college radio fans. This was the same scene that made REM into a supergroup, but CVB was still a little too “weird” to pack arenas. They were from California, and it showed. You could kind of tell that when REM would go home and listen to The Byrds, the boys from Camper would go home and listen to Captain Beefheart… if you even knew who Captain Beefheart was. And in the days before “world music” had its own racks in the record store, the whole ethnic ska thing was considered a little odd, too. But, as the track from II & III shows, they were obviously more than just a novelty act. I got my first Camper Van Beethoven record from an avid REM fan who didn’t know exactly what to do with it.

Camper Van Beethoven/”Led Zep Zoso” (1986):

The History of Utah.

This was that album. I took it from the REM fan mainly because there was a cover of “Interstellar Overdrive” on it, and I was in love with Syd Barrett. But for me, the standout track was “The History of Utah,” which is sort of a folk song about Mormonism, and sort of Western rockabilly, and sort of a dream about UFOs and teenage friends. After I’d listened to this song three times, I was hooked. The Pink Floyd cover was good, too… but this was good in a whole different way. Was it folk rock? Was it psychedelia? What WAS it?

Then, two years after the first time I heard this song, CVB had a record put out on Virgin. You could actually find them in the mall. A couple years later, grunge hit, and suddenly “alternative” music came with its own strict set of guidelines. But for a while, that window was way open.

Camper Van Beethoven is Dead, Long Live Camper Van Beethoven (2000):

Klondike

This is the track that later became “The Fool” on that major label breakthrough, 1988’s Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart. That instrumental version launches side two with a punch-in-the-guts, brass band waltz. But this melancholy version has lyrics, weariness, a violin, telemetry beeps, and a minimal, scratchy loop track holding it all together. Actually, the whole CVB is Dead… album is a bit like this – sort of the leavings off the table after the band finished eating. It’s probably a mark of something about the band that this was the second helping of leftovers, after violinist Jonathan Segel released the Camper Vantiquities outtakes and singles album in 1993.

Tusk (1987/2002):

Tusk

So, after their “dark” sixth album, 1989’s Key Lime Pie, was released and got MTV play (making it their best seller), the band broke up. David Lowery went on to form Cracker, Jonathan Segel formed Hieronymous Firebrain (and played with Sparklehorse, Granfalloon Bus and a bunch of other bands), and the rest of the band joined David Immergluck in The Monks of Doom. Usual story, really.. except within a couple years, Immergluck went on tour with Counting Crows, and then ex-CVB personnel started showing up on stage at Cracker shows.

And then, last year, Camper Van Beethoven issued a comeback album. Greatest hits? All new songs? Nope. It’s a track-for-track cover of Fleetwod Mac’s Tusk. Most of it was recorded in 1987, during a ski retreat when they were supposed to be writing the songs for Our Beloved…. The tapes got put away, damaged, rediscovered and then messed with. At least one song does Electrelane one better by replacing Stevie Nicks with a speech synthesizer. The thing is, the band obviously loves the source material. They just love playing with music more.

They’re out on tour now.

If you get a chance, go see ‘em.