The Camper Van Beethoven Albums Poll

Ah, Garth Hudson is "Interlude".

http://www.davidlowerymusic.com/300-songs-blog/blog/59-stairway-to-heavan-sic-in-praise-of-half-baked-ideas-and-unfinished-things-the-importance-of-not-being-earnest

Come on Darkness is a better album closer than Closing Theme.

s/t is my favorite with Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart a close second

when the debut came out, it was really an unexpected curveball in indiedom

hey you can be a great musician in a more or less traditional way and not have to reinvent your instrument or be confrontational, self-conscious about your limitations

This is so totally key to how great they were!

Nice to see the love on this thread

if any of you haven't heard Lowery's wtf interview w/Maron from last year, you should check it out.

Loved his story about a fan telling him that he had a dream that their next album was going to be called Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart and Lowry was all like "whoa no way! well, guess what, buddy!"

I got snippy with Lowery in a certain rock critic's FB thread last week; this thread is making me regret it, for a second.

I bought TFLV cause Michael Stipe said it was his fave thing that year in some year end review. Paths to new music were a bit different back then... Loved the vibe. Lots of worthy albums but gonna have to vote for the first.

Vampire Can Mating Oven!

― droit au butt (Euler), Thursday, October 8, 2015 12:43 PM (Yesterday)

This is likewise my favorite CVB release, but I guess since it's only an EP I can't vote for it here. Instead, I'll go with TFLS.

er, TFLV.

http://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/photo.goodreads.com/books/1393978395i/20900876._UY475_SS475_.jpg

I love all of them unabashedly save Tusk (which doesn't/shouldn't count). "Key Lime Pie" is perfect, "Sweetheart" a great transition, of the original sound/batch I'd say first or II/II. Third is my least fave, I suppose. Love Vantiquities as much as the albums. Could go "Vampire Can Mating Oven" for "Seven Languages" alone.

One of my fave old school Xgau takes:

Some believe "Take the Skinheads Bowling" makes these pranksters a one-joke band, but there are loads of jokes in that song alone, most of which they don't bother to tell--for instance, do you bowl with the skinheads or with the skinheads' heads? So count them a seventeen-joke band, one for each cut, including instrumentals.

David Lowery is on the record as a big fan of the Glands which makes him cool in my book.

went back and did a quick run through of the albums, and voted OBRS. I have a vague sense that KLP is better, but the sequencing on OBRS is so amazing that when I listen to it even a filler track like 'The Fool' doesn't sound out of place.

II & II, narrowly over debut

OBRS is one of the great '80s jumps to major label. CVB totally an underrated component of the '80s indie scene.

"KLP" also one of the best sounding albums of all time. Lowery told me once that credit goes to the engineer, Csaba Petocz, this Euro guy working in Nashville. Looks like from that era he'd worked with everyone from Metallica to Vince Gill.

what kind of indie ppl are you? oh

?

i just thought KLP onward was signif less adventurous, no big deal to disappointing, at the time

ie another cleaned up sellout

that's crazy

I mean maybe not about the onward part but KLP is a highwater mark

Well, they def. lose their shambling scuzz and goofiness, but they're really well put together records all the same. And I do think they're highwater marks, unlike "Warehouse" or "Tim" et al. More along the lines of a "Perfect from Now On" step up and over. Just a bit tighter and sharper, if less "fun"/subversive.

This doesn't have to be an either/or. I appreciate the ramshackle first 3 (released in 18 months basically), and when it worked it had an amazing lo-fi charm, but there are a lot more 'Turtlehead's than, uh, 'Skinhead's.
and I don't smoke pot anymore, so I tend to go back to the more polished later work.

hmmm i never smoked and preferred the scuzz

Don't/never smoked, but CVB sure as hell did! Love the scuzz and mystery of the first three and EPs and odds n ends, love the polished stuff equally. Even love the Monks of Doom. Chris Pederson - Crispy Dersen - is one of my favorite drummers.

Agree that II & III and CVB are head and shoulders above the rest. A group of true originals, though.

Crispy's work on OBRS, in particular, is crazy good. I've spent entire spins of that record just listening to the hi-hat. OBRS is one of the best-arranged albums in rock. Too bad the engineering stinks & it sounds all tinny. Still I think it's my pick.

p sure i saw their first nyc gig (Folk City, '85) and my reaction was "cute hippies"

Yeah OBRS is super punchy and condensed. Mesa Boogie

Xpost Want to say the remastered OBRS sounded better.

Yeah, the recent Omnivore reissue sounds good, esp on vinyl. But I still kinda wish it was a little less slicked-up. Still in my top 5 records of all time, probs (but that placement is floated by how great all the surrounding records are, too)

(not to discount the first 2 albums, cuz they're great alzo)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Even love the Monks of Doom.

Yes!

I saw Victor Krummenacher play at the SF Eagle maybe a dozen years ago; he was a teen jailbait cutie in '85.

http://hys2d3ayt6x6b7ts22ypg68p.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/CVB-with-Morgan.jpg

II & III has "(Don't You Go To) Goleta" which was very important to a younger me

Also "(We're a) Bad Trip." And "Sometimes."

Goleta was an early favorite of mine, but I didn't understand it at ALL.

learned me how to say La Jolla

Goleta was an early favorite of mine, but I didn't understand it at ALL

UC Santa Cruz fight song ie all the other UC campuses suck

Yeah, I picked that up eventually.

"Sad Lovers Waltz" (II/III) ftw

I was in high school from 93-97, so when they were inactive, yet they were probably my favourite band. I love all of their original records so much but voted for KLP because of so many songs that personally brought the teenage me from someone who appreciated novelty and humour to someone who saw beauty in art: the aforementioned 'June' especially, but 'Sweethearts' and 'Come on Darkness' kill me to this day.

I listen to them still a good bit and find inspiration across all of them. 'Form Another Stone' on II&III is an amazing deep cut, it's like the most wicked psych jam they ever did. OBRS sounds big and 80s but has some stunning fucking songs.

Speaking of Crispy Dersen, interesting factoid: as far as I can tell, "Key Lime Pie" is one of the very, very few rock albums to feature no ride cymbal. Lots of weird fills and china crashes and stuff, but no ride, as best I can tell.

Another, more high profile example? "Back in Black!"

I think Throwing Muses generally shunned ride cymbals, at least on their early records

Might be true for sort of high strung tribal stuff like early Cure, too. Though CVB by that late stage is more conventional than both, which makes it absence more conspicuous.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I love Monks of Doom too. "Meridian" was my favourite album in 11th grade and I still listen to it occasionally, and it holds up fairly well though maybe that's nostalgia.

It’s actually pretty astonishing how productive they were during their few years together the first time. Five LPs, an EP, enough outtakes and B-sides to make a whole other LP, not to mention 2 Monks of Doom records and 3 albums of Camper Van Chadbourne stuff, was all written & recorded between ‘84 and ‘89.

"We're All Wasted and We're Wasting All Your Time" features backwards stuff from "Devil Song" and "Take the Skinheads Bowling."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-kguFNwwko

It's on that "Camper Van Beethoven Is Dead. Long Live Camper Van Beethoven" comp, which is itself pretty confusing, since some of it is old and some of it is new, but it's not always clear which is which. For example, this track features parts of "Devil Song" backwards, but "Devil Song" didn't show up until "Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart." But this "Wasted" mishmash also appears on the reissue of "Telephone Free Landslide Victory." So who knows.