telephone free landslide victory

Camper Van Beethoven went to the moon and came home for lunch with this absurd ambiguous amalgamation of bowling skinhead stomp and breathtaking border ska. The group formed at the University of California in Santa Cruz with David Lowery, Chris Molla, and Victor Krummenacher with a revolving cast of characters under the moniker Camper Van Beethoven and the Border Patrol. 

 Lowery reveals: "We had the name before we had any songs. David McDaniel was one of the founding members of the band. He was my funny, quirky friend, very devout Christian who spent most of his life as a minister. He also had this crazy stand-up comedy persona that he did where he would say these jokes that had all the reason and rhyme of jokes, but they didn’t really make any sense. He would do some foreign Borat-type accent and say, ‘My country is so small every time we change a tire, everybody laughs!’ I mean, it doesn’t make any sense. And he had this rhyme and reason that was his sense of humor — this whole series of never ending things that sounded like they could be jokes but they deconstructed and destroyed themselves in the process. That’s where Camper Van Beethoven came from...We thought ska sounded like that, at least the ska that we were listening to back in the early punk-rock days when ska and punk-rock were all mixed together. We would just use those scales and those kind of melodies but we were also really influenced by surf-bands, but we just didn’t play surf beats, but that’s what we were into. But we just put ska and punk rock, and sort of put punk beats and rhythms into the song. Surf music was obsessed with the sound of other cultures."

'Telephone Free Landslide Victory' was recorded during January and February of 1985 at Sámurai Sound Studio in Davis, California. The sessions were engineered by Dave Gill and featured David Lowery on lead vocals, rhythm guitar, and drums; Jonathan Segel on violin, mandolin, keyboards, guitar, backing vocals, and noise; Chris Molla on guitar, backing vocals, and drums; Victor Krummenacher on bass and backing vocals; Greg Lisher on guitar; and Anthony Guess on drums.

Lowery elucidates: "We’re playing with words. There’s a good story that goes with that title. There was this band back in the 60s that we idolized called The Kaleidoscope. One of their classic albums, Beacon From Mars, was actually supposed to be called Bacon From Mars. But apparently it went to the printing plant and somebody just figured it was a misspelling or a typo or couldn’t read the handwriting, and they changed it to Beacon From Mars. Strange parallel: Telephone Free Landslide Victory was originally called Telephone Tree Landslide Victory. But when we sent it to to Bruce Licher to print the cover, he misread our handwriting and thought it was Telephone Free Landslide Victory. We were like, ‘No, it’s Telephone TREE Landslide Victory!’ And he was like, ‘Oh, shit!’ But he’d already hand-printed fifteen hundred covers. And the we were like, ‘Wait, that’s better!’"

'Telephone Free Landslide Victory' was initially released on the band's own Independent Projects label and sold over sixty thousand copies. It charted at number thirty on the UK indie album chart.

Krummenacher considers: "Rarely do I listen to my own stuff, but when I do listen to it… you know, I guess they say “lightning in a bottle” is the way to describe certain things that just kind of happen that are unexpected and spontaneous and very real. I think that record is a really good example of something that nobody anticipated being anything other than what it was. We were just making a record for a friend. We did it in four days – two days of recording and two days of mixing. It’s 17 songs or something. It’s basically about everything we were playing at the time. We just threw it in there, and had no clue that it would become this culty kind of thing that people like R.E.M. would be interested in, and basically it secured us a place...You know, Camper was a joke band. Camper was the band that played at parties. We all had serious bands that we were trying to play with at the time. I think we were serious about making the record, we thought we were a pretty cool, interesting, weird garage band. But I don’t think we thought it would be what it was. Which is good – there were no expectations going into it. I think that’s when the best stuff is made, when you just don’t have an expectation. Expectation is really kind of the enemy of rock ‘n’ roll. Once you get too thinky about things it’s just not good."

Lowery expounds: "The first Camper Van Beethoven record is all bouncy and poppy, like when you were 18 and you smoked pot, it actually made you sort of energetic, and then like when you were like 35 and you smoked pot and you went to sleep."







http://campervanbeethoven.com/ 

"Take the Skinheads Bowling" became a college radio sensation and went to number eight on the UK indie chart.
Lowery: "I just got this idea that I thought a lot of great songs really didn’t mean anything; it was kind of just cool, the way the words went together, and that that should be celebrated. So, I was really carefully trying to make it so that each line didn’t really seem like it had anything to do with the line before it."
Krummenacher: "It’s funny, when I listen to it now, there’s a huge bass mistake at the end. It’s really, really loose. I had no clue that it would be a hit in Britain. Or that it would ultimately allow me to buy my house because when Michael Moore bought it for “Bowling for Columbine.” That was a big deal for a lot of us."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKfMlQ7KWFE

Every day, I get up and pray to Jah

And he decreases the number of clocks by exactly one

Everybody's comin' home for lunch these days

Last night there were skinheads on my lawn

Take the skinheads bowling

Take them bowling

Take the skinheads bowling

Take them bowling

Some people say that bowling alleys got big lanes

Some people say that bowling alleys all look the same

There's not a line that goes here that rhymes with anything

I has a dream last night, but I forget what it was

I had a dream last night about you, my friend

I had a dream--I wanted to sleep next to plastic

I had a dream--I wanted to lick your knees

I had a dream--it was about nothing

"The Day That Lassie Went to the Moon"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-hmqY2Md4I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU4Ns2oWAUM




"Ambiguity Song"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6DcKeVbGCk

'Telephone Free Landslide Victory'
full album:

http://campervanbeethoven.com/album/31422/telephone-free-landslide-victory-1985

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4471FF305ADCC27E




Side one
"Border Ska" - 2:50
"The Day That Lassie Went to the Moon" - 3:14
"Wasted" - 1:59 (Greg Ginn, Keith Morris)
"Yanqui Go Home" - 2:41
"Oh No!" - 1:54
"9 of Disks" - 2:36
"Payed Vacation: Greece" - 1:52
"Where The Hell is Bill?" - 2:06

Side two
"Vladivostock" - 2:22
"Skinhead Stomp" - 1:48
"Tina" - 1:37
"Take The Skinheads Bowling" - 2:32
"Mao Reminisces About His Days in Southern China" - 1:59
"I Don't See You" - 2:23
"Balalaika Gap" - 2:13
"Opi Rides Again - Club Med Sucks" - 3:55
"Ambiguity Song" - 2:29

key lime pie

 Camper Van Beethoven crossed over the bitter borderline for the tension release of this mysterious matchstick collapse.  The band had successfully made the transition to the majors with their previous album 'Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart'; but from the onset, the sessions for 'Key Lime Pie' were fraught with division.  

David Lowery remembers:    "First, we basically kicked Jonathan [Segel] out of the band because we got to the point where we didn’t feel like we could function with him in the band. He just made a lot of ultimatums, and there was literally no way the band could function. So he was asked to leave, and then Victor and Greg had the Monks of Doom prog-rock project, and I was heading in another direction. And when Key Lime Pie came out, that didn’t get great reviews, so I think in a lot of ways it seemed like we’d made a wrong turn. If we’d been clearly successful on that album, I think we could have got past our differences, but it didn’t seem like we were successful. So I think it was really easy for everybody to split apart. The record label wanted me to continue on as Camper Van Beethoven and I refused to do it. I just started a different project."



Jonathan Segel:   "I was in the band from 1983 through the tour for Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart and the demos for Key Lime Pie...It was weird, because I wrote some of the songs and played on the demos, but I didn’t record with them. I didn’t actually hear it until months after it came out, and I was shocked because, for one thing, the production and songwriting on that record is astounding. It was the best Camper Van Beethoven album ever.   Funnily enough, we had actually recorded a version of “Pictures Of Matchstick Men” during Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart, but we didn’t want our first single on a major label to be a cover."

Greg Lisher:    "Before then, we had never been able to afford to put much attention towards making a record. It was always kind of a dream of mine to make a record where we had a producer and could afford to pay attention to the details. It was a real exciting time for all of us; we learned a lot from Dennis [Herring, who produced Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart and Key Lime Pie] that sort of paved the way for how I think about music...Back when we made those records, we would write the songs as a band, which is different to how we do it now. David [Lowery] would come in with the chords and the lyrics, and we’d just write our own parts. Then, we’d go into a rehearsal space with Dennis, and he’d adjust things like tempo and arrangements and stuff like that. There was a lot more pre-production work than we had done before, so we all had a really good idea of what we were doing. To me, that makes a big difference when you’re making a record...I never worried about [selling out] personally, but I remember overhearing other people talking about it once and a while. You’d hear something about how we sold out and stuff. I never really understood that. Our goals were the same: we wanted to make a great record, and now we had more resources to make that happen. Who wouldn’t want that? I guess because we started out as this indie band, people held us to this standard as a result, but I never saw things like that."

 'Key Lime Pie'  was produced by Dennis Herring and features Tim Steelbone Cook on pedal steel;  Morgan Fichter on violin and vocals;  Garth Hudson on organ and talking;   Victor Krummenacher on bass and vocals;  Don Lax on fiddle and strings;   Greg Lisher on guitar and vocals;  David Lowery on guitar, harmonica, keyboards, and vocals;  Chris Pedersen on percussion, drums, and vocals;  and Hammer Smith on harmonica;  with Davey Faragher, Mary O'Neil, and Wally Sound on background vocals.   

Lowery: "The two that are the most coherent are “Key Lime Pie” and the first one [“Telephone Free Landslide Victory”]. They just have something that runs through them that kind of stays the same the whole time, in a good way. “Key Lime Pie” is all about the mood and the sonic darker-ness and sparseness, and the first Camper Van Beethoven record is all bouncy and poppy, like when you were 18 and you smoked pot, it actually made you sort of energetic, and then like when you were like 35 and you smoked pot and you went to sleep."

Krummenacher: "In a lot of ways I really like the third record [“Camper Van Beethoven”]. It’s the bridge between the great spontaneity that was the first record and the kind of sophomore weirdness that was the second record [“II and III”], and it’s refined and it’s organic and it’s really pretty psychedelic, and we were really pretty psychedelic at the time, and it’s got this feel to it that I really like. I also really like “Key Lime Pie” all the way through because it’s just a really coherent, really well-executed piece. I like the production on it. I like the songs. I like the tone. And the first record, I still am amazed that we actually pulled that thing off in two days or whatever it took for us to do."






www.campervanbeethoven.com



http://www.the-van.co.uk/

"Pictures of Matchstick Men" went to number one on the US alternative singles chart.  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAkcSd5l9Qg





"Sweethearts"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLt4e-l4DxQ





"Come on Darkness" 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvyLXndLiXE







 'Key Lime Pie' 
full album:  

https://myspace.com/campervanbeethoven/music/album/key-lime-pie-10872714

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=ALBTKoXRg38BD5BFHK6ObK9kRcoD88QFy_








All songs written by Krummenacher/Lisher/Lowery/Pedersen, except where noted.

"Opening Theme" – 2:21
"Jack Ruby" – 5:22
"Sweethearts" – 4:45
"When I Win the Lottery" – 3:38
"(I Was Born in a) Laundromat" – 3:43
"Borderline" – 3:48
"The Light from a Cake" – 2:43
"June" – 4:24
"All Her Favorite Fruit" – 5:14
"Interlude" – 1:03
"Flowers" (Curkendall/Hart/Lowery) – 2:58
"The Humid Press of Days" – 2:44
"Pictures of Matchstick Men" (Rossi) – 4:08
"Come on Darkness" – 3:14




lyrics
http://mrl.nyu.edu/~hertzman/cvb/albums/klp/

our beloved revolutionary sweetheart

Camper Van Beethoven graduated from the underground and polished their eclectic sound for this irresistible iconoclastic insurrection.  After releasing three celebrated albums of surreal indie folk  ('Telephone Free Landslide Victory', 'Camper Van Beethoven II & III', and their eponymous third album) on Pitch-A-Tent Records, the group signed to Virgin Records.  At the same time, founding member Chris Molla left the band.  

David Lowery explains the evolution of their sound:   "We did the first Camper album not knowing [’60s West coast psychedelic band] Kaleidoscope and then the second album is discovering Kaleidoscope, and if you know that fact, you can completely hear it. That’s where the sort of ’60s hippie violin/gypsy craziness mixes with the punk rock gypsy/ska craziness. Yeah, Kaleidoscope turned out to be an influence on us. I didn’t really know anything about Eastern European, klezmer, Balkan music, or any of that stuff. The idea of Camper Van Beethoven was like what the surf bands did … like, 'Oh, well this is our idea of what Ali Baba sounds like', where they played it on surf guitars. So this was like, 'Well this is our idea of what Eastern European music sounds like, we’re gonna play, like, fake Eastern European music.'  The whole point was getting it wrong and creating something new."

After years of producing themselves, they hired  Dennis Herring, who had only produced one album at that point, to helm their first sessions in an a professional studio with David Lowery on lead vocals and rhythm guitar; Jonathan Segel on violin, mandolin, keyboards, guitar, and backing vocals; Victor Krummenacher on bass and backing vocals; Greg Lisher on lead guitar; and Chris Pedersen on drums.  Lowery says:    "Dennis was like a session musician at the time. He played on the Flashdance soundtrack and stuff. He was trying to get out of all that - get into indie rock, alternative. He would come see us at shows and knew all these label people. He had lined himself up and I liked him and trusted him. He knew our vision and he knew the Hollywood ways...would let us go off on our tangents and then would bring us back. We needed that...We never had that 'we don't like the commercial stuff' attitude. We liked Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, The Stones, The Beatles. We wanted to be Pink Floyd. In the big studio, we had access to all that stuff. Let's use it."

Herring recalls:   "I really came at that record like a fan, and as a fan.  I wanted to hear the Camper record that sounded like they'd coalesced everything they did into their trip, and into one record. I felt like the record should try to include everything they were doing stylistically, and that I had to make that work, sound and arrangement-wise."

Segel says:  "David Lee Roth was in the next room when we were recording basics. I was hoping for a high quality recording but very dry. Unfortunately, Dennis Herring and I had a lot of arguments about that. I can't even listen to it now. I felt like, and still feel like, Dennis Herring is a fraud as a producer. I feel like he's a gleaner. He epitomizes what a Hollywood production is to me. He's an engineer, and he's a great engineer but he's a man without aesthetics. His entire aesthetics are gleaned from what he's picked up from people around him that did things that were good and interesting. He stole a lot of ideas from me - the last time I saw him he told me that."

'Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart' only made it to number one hundred and twenty-four on the Billboard album chart; but it received considerable airplay on college and the fledgling alternative radio of the time.  









www.campervanbeethoven.com









"Eye of Fatima (Part One)" - 2:37
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51PP8TwXrxE






"She Divines Water" - 3:53
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPRYnBs6x4M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCL9k-PImqU



"One of These Days" 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxYnuOa-fPQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN6llVRvbFI








"Waka" 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLscPFqxfB0










"Never Go Back" 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dwRDC_aIU4









"Life Is Grand" 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZLbnQ81uyc


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VDuKC1TkZo








'Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart'
full album:



All songs written by Camper Van Beethoven (David Lowery, Jonathan Segel, Greg Lisher, Victor Krummenacher, Chris Pedersen), except as shown.

Side one
"Eye of Fatima (Part One)" - 2:37
"Eye of Fatima (Part Two)" - 2:15
"O Death" (Traditional) - 3:06
"She Divines Water" - 3:53
"Devil Song" - 1:56
"One of These Days" - 3:27
"Turquoise Jewelry" - 3:07
Side two
"Waka" - 2:45
"Change Your Mind" - 3:02
"My Path Belated" - 2:35
"Never Go Back" - 3:25
"The Fool" - 2:36
"Tania" - 3:46
"Life Is Grand" - 3:23

camper van beethovan

Santa Cruz' indie stalwarts took all of their divergent musical influences, threw them in a blender, and coalesced them into a swirling psychedelic stew for their eponymous third (after 'Telephone Free Landslide Victory'  and 'Camper Van Beethovan II&III') album. 'Camper Van Beethovan' is a collection of sixteen separate tracks that blend and transition into each other and even take dramatic stylistic turns of their own. Nothing seems to be off limits: punk, country, raga, gypsy, psychedelic, heavy metal, and the blues are all in the mix as the happy Campers increase their array of instruments and tape manipulations to further their social commentary and cultural parodies. It became their last album on indie label Pitch-A-Tent Records.






www.campervanbeethoven.com

The reggaefied folk of 'Good Guys And Bad Guys' is a cold war comedy.

"So just get high while the radio's on..."

'Camper Van Beethovan'
full album:




All tracks by Camper Van Beethoven

Side one
"Good Guys and Bad Guys" – 3:54
"Joe Stalin's Cadillac" – 2:32
"Five Sticks" – 1:37
"Lulu Land" (Paul MacKinney) – 2:40
"Une Fois" – 1:24
"We Saw Jerry's Daughter" – 2:10
"Surprise Truck" – 3:27
"Stairway to Heavan" – 2:29
Side two
"The History of Utah" – 2:51
"Still Wishing to Course" – 3:50
"We Love You" – 2:03
"Hoe Yourself Down" – 1:49
"Peace & Love" – 2:37
"Folly" – 1:56
"Interstellar Overdrive" (Syd Barrett, Roger Waters, Richard Wright, Nick Mason) – 7:44

"Shut Us Down" – 1:25

camper van beethovan II & III

California indie-wunderkinds sidestep the sophomore slump with this eclectic low-fi gem. Compiled from two separate sessions recorded amidst a changing lineup where several members filled in on drums. The band expanded their musical palate from their debut Telephone Free Landslide Victory with new musical styles and brought in more diverse instrumentation. Pedal steel guitar, mandolin, and sitar add genuine depth to their sound. Over nineteen tracks they move from country western to raga to bluegrass to psychedelia to hardcore, often within the same song.





http://campervanbeethoven.com/



lyrics

http://mrl.nyu.edu/~hertzman/cvb/albums/ii.iii/

http://www.the-van.co.uk/songs/index.php?artist=Camper+Van+Beethoven

An 'Abundance' of gypsy delight.

'Sad Lover's Waltz' is timeless and beautiful.

'I Love Her All The Time' is a cover of the Sonic Youth song.

'Down And Out'

The Beatlesque tape manipulations of 'Circles' will get stuck in your head.

'ZZ Top Goes To Egypt' is one of the best song titles ever.

Cattle (Reversed)'

full album:



All tracks composed by Camper Van Beethoven; except where indicated


Side one
"Abundance" - 1:53
"Cowboys from Hollywood" - 1:43
"Sad Lovers Waltz" - 4:03
"Turtlehead" - 1:16
"I Love Her All the Time" (Sonic Youth) - 2:16
"No Flies on Us" - 1:46
"Down and Out" - 1:35
"No Krugerrands for David" - 2:32
"(Don't You Go To) Goleta" - 1:21
"4 Year Plan" - 1:49
Side two
"(We're A) Bad Trip" - 2:32
"Circles" - 2:52
"Dust Pan" - 1:54
"Sometimes" - 2:37
"Chain of Circumstance" - 2:27
"ZZ Top Goes to Egypt" - 3:07
"Cattle (Reversed)" - 2:50
"Form Another Stone" - 2:09
"No More Bullshit" - 3:08