Camper Van Beethoven

   
Artist: Camper Van Beethoven

   Genre(s): 
Rock: Pop-Rock
   

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Discography:


   
 Camper Vantiquities

   Year: 2004   
Tracks: 16


   
 Key Lime Pie

   Year: 1989   
Tracks: 14


   
 Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart

   Year: 1988   
Tracks: 14


   
 Telephone Free Landslide Victory

   Year: 1985   
Tracks: 17

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At the time of their 1985 debut, Camper Van Beethoven's merging of punk, folks, ska, and world musics was truly a revelation. Self-described as "surrealist absurdist folk," the isthmus formed in Santa Cruz, CA, after singer/songwriter David Lowery of Redlands, CA, with his dry sense of humour and valley-boy voice (sometimes broken for a simulated English accent), and boyhood friends Chris Molla and Chris Pedersen disbanded Box o' Laffs. Victor Krummenacher was added on bass and before long they were joined by Greg Lisher (guitar) and Jonathan Segel (violins, keyboards, mandolin). It was Segel's violin that would show to be the band's hallmark at a time when alternative rock had yet to be invented, and indie john Rock was placid timid of roots euphony or traditional elements.


The 1985 re-release of their debut, Telephone Free Landslide Victory, made the Top Ten in the 1986 Village Voice Pazz and Jop Poll, as did their second album, II & III, and Motor home Van Beethoven, both released in 1986. On II & III, they went for a purer indie john Rock sound with touches of nation, as evidenced in their "Sad Lovers Waltz" and their underwrite of Sonic Youth's "I Love Her All the Time." The band deftly switched modes from punk to ska to rock on interchange takes, but by this time Molla had left the folding. The third base album, bewilderingly coroneted Camper Van Beethoven, continued the meander, just outstanding tracks like "Joe Stalin's Cadillac" were in the more straight-ahead indie rock vein. However, the band would consistently blow people's minds by tossing about things like a reverent variant of Pink Floyd's "Interstellar Overdrive." For its Virgin Records debut, concurrent with the label's U.S. re-launch in 1988, the ring took a more serious mainsheet on Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart, and the grouping that had erst been confined to blue budgets and small studio facilities stretched forbidden possibly a little excessively sharply.


For Key Lime Pie, Camper Van Beethoven's terminal release in 1989, the band took it as far as it could go. Morgan Fichter had replaced Segel by this clip. Krummenacher, Pedersen, and Lisher continued to play together in what began as a face figure in 1985, Monks of Doom, which turned into a full-time job for them, with four albums and an EP to their credit. Though no longer working as the Monks, the terzetto, along with Segel and Camper touring guitar player David Immergluck, go on to play together in various formations. Jonathan Segel released terzetto albums as Hieronymous Firebrain from 1990-1994 and deuce with Jack & Jill for the Magnetic label. Krummenacher released a solo record, Out in the Heat, too for Magnetic, and continues to work with members of Tarnation in Lava. Immergluck and Fichter go on to enlistment and make for roger Sessions with bands of considerable renown (Reckoning Crows and Natalie Merchant severally, among others); Lowery took some time off in front forming Cracker, simply didn't mix with his former bandmates until reuniting with Krummenacher and Segel in recent 1999 to assemble the flaky rarities collecting Camper Van Beethoven Is Dead: Long Live Camper Van Beethoven.


In 2002, the ring released a CD that had been recorded on a escapade bet on in 1987: a song-for-song cover adaptation of Fleetwood Mac's Tusk album. Meanwhile, the original members had restfully reunited and begun make on a new batch of songs. They surfaced in 2004 with Young Roman Times, a john Rock opera that told the narrative of a Texas teen world Health Organization joined the military and then left to fall in an anti-government militia.