By: David de Young
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| Camper Van Beethoven - Publicity photo |
Q: Where the Hell is Bill?
A: Maybe he went to see Camper Van Beethoven.
I hope he did, because CBV's current tour comes highly recommended to anyone who's ever even sort of liked the band. For longtime fans, it's a downright requirement. Camper Van's show at First Avenue Tuesday night was damn fine, worth every penny of the 17 dollar admission charge.
There was no opening act. It was eerily quiet inside the bar when I arrived at 8:45 and I wondered what was up. The traditional black marker on 8.5 x 11 typing paper set times lists all said:
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Camper Van Beethoven
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Two sets? Surely not the same show twice? No, not at all. Early on in the show Dave Lowery said something about planning to play 37 songs, and it was just about that many (maybe more) that we were treated to between 9:30 and 12:30 a.m.. Though the first part of the second set lost me for a bit, the show was still solid overall for as long as it was. Camper Van Beethoven is without question a band that gives you your money's worth. Some long time fans who'd seen the band many times agreed that the band was right on, although one remarked that they used to play faster and with a lot more ferocity back in their younger, early days.
Founded in 1983 in the Santa Cruz, CA area, the band released its first album "Telephone Free Landslide Victory" in 1985. After two more albums in 1986, and their Virgin records debut in 1988 ("Our beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart") and a "final" release in 1989 ("Key Lime Pie") the band broke up and didn't begin to re-emerge until the band began re-uniting to tour in 1999. I suggest that all five of the CBV albums are virtually essential, but if you had to pick just one, get the 1985 release to start with. As your second pick it's a toss-up between their Virgin debut (Sweetheart) and "Key Lime Pie."
In between CBV's demise and reformation, of course, you may have noticed that another Dave Lowery fronted band, Cracker, got a lot more chart success than CBV could ever hope for. (Don't tell me you've never heard the song "Low.")
Camper Van set the mood for the night with a nice chatty, conversational tone right from the start. Apparently it's common that the whole band talks a lot, or as at least one heckler shouted out at this show, "you talk too much!" The opened the evening with "All Her Favorite Fruit" from Key Lime Pie, and then went straight into "Oh Death" from Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart. This song prominently features Jonathan Sagel's distinctive fiddle, as do so many CBV songs. (You may note that this song is also featured in a version by John Stanley on the "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" movie Soundtrack)
Lowery made like he was looking for suggestions as to what to play next or trying to figure it out, kind of like they do in the Irish celidh style of making up the set list on the fly. I'm guessing there was actually the framework of a set list though with that many songs played throughout the night. I know that if I had that much playable stuff I'd hardly be able to keep track of it myself.
Let it also be said that for a band that's often all over the place musically, from Ska, to punk, to weird electronic fiddle music, Camper Van Beethoven can really rock when they want to. But somehow they do it in a cool, casual way. It's reassuring to see guys who are surely older than me get down into it and actually blow a lot of younger bands out of the water.
Lowery thanked us all for coming and then joked that the doors had been locked and your cars are impounded. Segal added that they were really the warm-up act for Rod Stewart. The Minnesota governor was mentioned, but I'm not sure they were referring to the old one or the new one. I think it was the bass player who joked that he thought our governor was Garrison Keillor. Banter like this, and jokes about talking too much were a running part of this show. Although Dave Lowery didn't go off on too many far-flung tangents and didn't branch off into downright storytelling and political diatribes in the way that Billy Bragg is prone to do. It was all in fun for the most part and did not detract from the main thing, the music, and those dozens upon dozens of great songs.
The set progressed from the ska/gypsy feel of "Tania" to the Robyn Hitchcock-like "Eye of Fatima" (mentions of body parts and organs in songs always remind me of him), to "Turquoise Jewelry" where Jonathan Segal's violin really defines the sound.
After "Joe Stalin's Cadillac," Lowery asked, "What the fuck's up with Minnesota electing a Republican senator." (I'm glad he said that as I look for any opportunity myself to continue to express my dumbfounded-ness that Norm Coleman actually defeated Walter Mondale in the 2002 election.) A woman standing near me who was a huge CBV fan who had never seen the band before was so happy she cried during "She Divines Water." The cover of "Wasted" by Black Flag was recognized by even the less fanatical CBV fans right from the start. CBV's cover of the Clash's "White Riot" was a sing-along. As was the fun "When Lassie Went to the Moon;" Dave encouraged us all to help with the "Yea yea yea" part especially.
"Pictures of Matchstick" men was as groovy as you might guess it would be. This Status Quo cover which appeared on Key Lime Pie in 1989 was probably the song that got CBV more mainstream exposure than any other song outside of "Take the Skinheads Bowling" and again featuring Segal's prominent fiddle. And then… [ahem, pause, drumroll, etc.]
And then..."Tusk." Yes, the Fleetwood Mac song and the title song of their 2002 Fleetwood Mac cover ALBUM. (Yes, they covered the ENTIRE ALBUM.) Recorded in 1987 but only released last July, if you don't actually go out and buy this album you should at least read a bit of the story behind it at http://www.campervanbeethoven.com/info/tusk.shtml.
Many, many people (pretty much everyone I talked to) commented to me that they thought "Tusk" was too long, clocking in at around 12 minutes. But I'd argue that it was more than just cool as a concept to actually experience this. It was downright crazy and frightening with all this weird computer sampling shit going on and a fiddle that sounded like it was marching you right into hell and these looped recordings of lord only knows what. Dave Lowery did some weird things with his hands over some device that seemed sensitive to heat or movement and was actually manipulating the sound of some of the effects and tape loops. (The USC marching band it was not.) Finally the beat came back to the foreground and we returned from hell before the song ended.
Sound like a good show yet? Well, that was just the first half!
After a 15 minute break the second set seemed to drag a bit at the start. It was nonetheless welcome, and though a few people seemed to trickle out about halfway through (it was a Tuesday and it was already midnight) most of us stuck it out to the end. I'm very glad I did as I got to hear such popular numbers as "Take the Skinheads Bowling "(which I'd argue is far more than just a novelty song) and my favorite CBV song "Where the Hell is Bill?" my favorite perhaps just for that classic line where Lowery speculates wildly about Bill saying that "maybe he went to see the Circle Jerks.". (If you didn't get it before, now you understand the clever but cheesy opening line of my review.)
Lowery continued in his reactionary left-wing remarks during the second half of the show, apparently still not being able to understand why we elected a Republican senator. (I shouted out that, number 1, we didn't do it, and number 2, our senator (Mr. Coleman) used to be a Democrat.) Around this time Lowery was presented with a t-shirt saying "Another skinhead for peace" right off the back of some large-backed fan that was probably pretty damn cold on his way home. And I feel it's my journalistic duty to pass on Lowery's command of "Boycott the Fox Network. They're killing all of us. Fuck them!"
But the specifics of why he would make such a request I'll leave up to you to find out.
More info:
Members:
David Lowery - Vocals/guitar
Victor Krummenacher - bass
Jonathan Segel - Fiddle et al
Greg Lisher - guitar
Kenny Margolis - guitar
Frank Funaro - drums
Official website: http://www.campervanbeethoven.com
A fairly comprehensive bio from the Cracker site:
http://www.crackerweb.f9.co.uk/bio/cvb.htm
Location Info:
First Avenue
Artist Info: Camper Van Beethoven
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