Editorial Reviews Band Members: David Lowery; Jonathan Segel; Victor Krummenacher; Greg Lisher; Chris Molla; Morgan Fichter; David Immergluck.
Music Review:
Music Review
Hersant: Der Wanderer/Choral Works
Let the Music Flow: The Best of 1963-1979
newreleasebooks.com Music: 10 [Import] [Original recording remastered]
About the Artist
At the time of their 1985 debut, Camper Van Beethoven's merging of punk, folk, ska and world musics was truly a revelation. Self-described as "surrealist absurdist folk," the band formed in Santa Cruz, CA after singer-songwriter David Lowery of Redlands, CA, with his dry humor and valley-boy voice (sometimes confused for a faux English accent), and boyhood friends Chris Molla and Chris Pedersen disbanded Box of Laffs. Victor Krummenacher was added on bass and soon they were joined by Greg Lisher (guitar) and Jonathan Segel (violins, keyboards, mandolin). It was Segel's violin that would prove to be the band's hallmark at a time when alternative rock had yet to be invented, and indie-rock was still shy of roots music or traditional instruments. The 1985 re-release of their debut Telephone Free Landslide Victory made the Top Ten in the 1986 Village Voice annual Pazz and Jop Poll, as did their second album, II & III, and Camper Van Beethoven, both released in 1986. On II & III, they went for a purer indie-rock sound with touches of country, as evidenced in their "Sad Lovers Waltz" and their cover of Sonic Youth's "I Love Her All The Time." The band deftly switched modes from punk to ska to rock on alternate takes, but by this time Molla had left the fold. The third album, confusingly titled Camper Van Beethoven, continued the thread, but the outstanding tracks, like "Joe Stalin's Cadillac," were all in the more straight-ahead indie-rock vein. However, the band would consistently blow people's minds by tossing around things like a reverent version of Pink Floyd's "Interstellar Overdrive." For their Virgin Records debut, subsequent with the label's U.S. re-launch in 1988, the band took a more serious tack for Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart, and the band who had once been confined to low budgets and small studio facilities stretched out perhaps a little too aggressively. For Key Lime Pie, the band's final release in 1989, they took it as far as it could go.
Album Description
Camper Van Beethoven Is Dead, Long Live Camper Van Beethoven began as a simple discussion between the ex-members about how to put out a CD of Camper Van Beethoven oddities without it sounding like a hodgepodge of well...leftovers. There were many interesting live tracks, radio broadcasts, audience tapes, a few unreleased demos, a couple rarities, and a bunch of half-finished songs. Fortunately in the 10 years since Camper Van Beethoven disbanded, digital technologies have revolutionized the way recordings are made. It was resolved that they would essentially sample themselves. The performance became the act of assembling, manipulating, and editing all of this into a CD (done by Victor Krummenacher, David Lowery, and Jonathan Segel Dec. 5-8, 1999, at Sound of Music Richmond, VA). And after all, wasn't this in keeping with the spirit of Camper Van Beethoven? Perhaps if the band were formed today this is how they would have made music anyway.