― Mr. Que, Friday, 16 March 2007 20:03 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 16 March 2007 20:04 (seventeen years ago) link
― Pye Poudre, Friday, 16 March 2007 20:34 (seventeen years ago) link
― souldesqueeze, Sunday, 18 March 2007 04:11 (seventeen years ago) link
― Tim Ellison, Sunday, 18 March 2007 05:51 (seventeen years ago) link
― sleeve, Sunday, 18 March 2007 17:17 (seventeen years ago) link
― clotpoll, Monday, 19 March 2007 10:08 (seventeen years ago) link
― killa bee, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 02:18 (seventeen years ago) link
― killa bee, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 02:25 (seventeen years ago) link
― killa bee, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 02:32 (seventeen years ago) link
― killa bee, Tuesday, 20 March 2007 02:42 (seventeen years ago) link
― Jazzbo, Friday, 27 April 2007 13:07 (sixteen years ago) link
these guys just seem to have been totally forgotten. namechecked constantly in the late 80s, i haven't heard them invoked--except almost accidentally--in many years.
― amateurist, Saturday, 24 October 2009 05:58 (fourteen years ago) link
In 1993, the band Sublime's singer and songwriter Bradley Nowell covered the Camper Van Beethoven song entitled "Eye of Fatima." The chord progression of this song was also used in the Sublime song entitled "What Happened." Sublime frequently covered other Camper Van Beethoven songs live, and Camper Van Beethoven eventually returned the favor by covering the Sublime song "Garden Grove" for the 2005 Sublime tribute album Look at All the Love We Found.
Teenage Fanclub's cover of Camper Van Beethoven's 1985 staple "Take the Skinheads Bowling" was used as the title track for the 2002 Michael Moore film Bowling for Columbine. A portion of the original Camper Van Beethoven recording can be heard as an introduction to the DVD release of the film. The song has also been covered by the Manic Street Preachers, and can be found on their B-sides album Lipstick Traces.
― ♪♫(●̲̲̅̅̅̅=̲̲̅̅̅̅●̲̅̅)♪♫ (Steve Shasta), Saturday, 24 October 2009 06:37 (fourteen years ago) link
[I <3 "Eye of Fatima" btw]
We had a pretty good thread about Key Lime Pie here earlier this year.
― Euler, Saturday, 24 October 2009 07:02 (fourteen years ago) link
Is it my imagination or is their catalogue in a serious state of disrepair?
Those Virgin albums really need a remaster/rerelease (preferably with the era B-sides, becuz I'm having a hell of a time finding me the Turquoise Jewelry + 3 EP and I don't think that was ever released except on vinyl anyroad - someone prove me wrong).
― Did you say you were going to mangle the light? (staggerlee), Sunday, 10 January 2010 09:02 (fourteen years ago) link
Second this, but I'm pretty sure that Lowery's relationship with Virgin is in a serious state of disrepair.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMrUHJx0bEU
― no i am not seXy for wanyone else but myself. (kingkongvsgodzilla), Sunday, 10 January 2010 10:57 (fourteen years ago) link
there are no B-sides on that, it was a promo-only 12" (xp)
http://www.discogs.com/Camper-Van-Beethoven-Eye-Of-Fatima-Turquoise-Jewelry/release/1086892
I would also love to see nice reissue packages for the 2 Virgin LPs.
― sleeve, Sunday, 10 January 2010 16:52 (fourteen years ago) link
A serious state? Nah. If anything the Pitch-A-Tent stuff has been reissued too much (with different bonus tracks and confusing running orders to boot) . The Virgin stuff - my CDs sound fine, I think, and various esoteric tracks and alt-versions have appeared on comps. Though with this band, it's always hard to tell what material was contemporaneous and what was recorded recently or re-recorded. I mean, "Tusk" was presented as a "lost" album but was (and is clearly) relatively recent in vintage. Those other odds and sods collections and round-ups are equally mysterious in provenance.
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 10 January 2010 18:30 (fourteen years ago) link
Josh, your post illustrates exactly what I mean. The stuff is very ill-curated. I know the band thrives on creating a "fun" sense of mystery and confusion around itself, which is all part of their whole aesthetic, but I do think they'd be well served by a set that issued all the available music (including comp tracks) in one uniform set.
I realize the Virgin relationship is shattered - even worse than XTC's. But what doth it profit a Branson to sit on OOP records? Key Lime Pie still sounds pretty good, I agree, but OBRS has always sounded like ass on CD and really needs a beefing-up.
***
Xpost sleeve I was talking about this one:http://www.the-van.com/discog/result.php?detail=tracks&id=37Camper Van Beethoven: Turquoise Jewelry
Format: EPFirst released: 1988 (USA)Media: 12in. vinylLabel(s): Virgin Records (PR2471)Performing artists: Chris Pedersen, David Lowery, Greg Lisher, Jonathan Segel, Victor Krummenacher
Notes:Promotional release
1. Turquoise Jewelry 2. Waka 3. Love Is A Weed 4. Harmony In My Head 5. Wade In The Water
I saw it once in a record store circa its release - don't know why I didn't buy it, same reason I didn't buy the "Take the Skinheads Bowling" EP - a bang-for-buck issue I think. The "Skinheads" B-sides eventually resurfaced on the Pitch-a-Tent reissues as bonus tracks (though they really would have been better as a new rarities comp along with the rest of the bonus tracks - this is what the digital age is good for; nobody had to buy the reissues with "lost" tracks interpolated, just the single cuts).
BUT
Where is CVB is Dead"? New Roman Times? Again: those stellar Virgin albums have been out of print so long it seems like they never existed. And the Virgin-era B-sides! It's tough to spread the gospel when all you've got is half a stone tablet.
― Did you say you were going to mangle the light? (staggerlee), Sunday, 10 January 2010 19:47 (fourteen years ago) link
oh yeah, I had totally forgotten about that Buzzcocks cover! now I remember...
― sleeve, Sunday, 10 January 2010 20:00 (fourteen years ago) link
That is so weird. Why is "CVB is Dead" OOP? Or "New Roman Times?" Strange. "OBRS" and "Key Lime Pie" are both in print, though.
http://www.amazon.com/Beloved-Revolutionary-Sweetheart-Camper-Beethoven/dp/B000000WGD/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1263160065&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Key-Lime-Pie-Camper-Beethoven/dp/B000000WGZ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1263160045&sr=1-1
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 10 January 2010 21:48 (fourteen years ago) link
Oh, waow. I didn't realize. That's kind of cool. They're not available thru iTunes - is this a Virgin thing, I wonder? *lies on his side, eating grapes, too lazy to check*
― Did you say you were going to mangle the light? (staggerlee), Sunday, 10 January 2010 21:56 (fourteen years ago) link
this band takes me to a good place
― bien-pensant vibe (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 8 February 2011 22:10 (thirteen years ago) link
a few years ago I chatted at the SF Eagle with Victor Krummenacher, now a handsome gray-haired gay guy.
― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 8 February 2011 22:13 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah he's the one who works for the Guardian, iirc?
― bien-pensant vibe (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 8 February 2011 22:21 (thirteen years ago) link
I sold a pile of crap back to the record store two weeks ago and got enough credit to pick up a used copy of Cigarettes & Carrot Juice. Most of it I'd had on vinyl or old tapes so I've been rocking these discs in the car, also putting me in a good place.
Also: did not realize until this morning that there are some 200+ live shows of theirs on the Live Music Archive on archive.org. You can pretty much follow their II+III tour all the way through.
― city worker, Tuesday, 8 February 2011 22:21 (thirteen years ago) link
I'll skip over the stuff everybody knows and say that "New Roman Times" (the song, not the whole album) is great. I didn't even realize they'd made an album in the '00s until I found it at a dollar store a few months ago.
― clemenza, Wednesday, 9 February 2011 02:20 (thirteen years ago) link
Got really excited about that archive.org thing, but the show I saw them do in '87 (I think) wasn't there. Rats. I recall a bunch of Zeppelin covers, and it was probably one of the top 10 shows I've seen. II+III was one of a handful of albums I've run into in my life where I pretty much locked myself in a room and played it nonstop for about a week...
― dlp9001, Wednesday, 9 February 2011 02:58 (thirteen years ago) link
I once told David Lowery that Camper Van Beethoven is so good I had everything they ever did on my iPod. "Even 'Tusk'" he asked, incredulously. No, I conceded. Not "Tusk."
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 9 February 2011 03:09 (thirteen years ago) link
the show I saw them do in '87 (I think) wasn't there. Rats. I recall a bunch of Zeppelin covers, and it was probably one of the top 10 shows I've seen.
I saw them in November '87 and yeah it was top ten material. I have a decent soundboard cassette boot that I still haven't gotten around to ripping. The Led Zep action can be found on the Camper Vantiquities CD as 'SP 37957 Medley".
― sleeve, Wednesday, 9 February 2011 04:28 (thirteen years ago) link
I saw em on the reunion tour in Philly and just as they started Tusk Lowery complained that someone from the crowd had sprayed mace in his face (?!). They left and didn't come back...
― broom air, Monday, 11 July 2011 13:33 (twelve years ago) link
Lowery's letter regarding the incident: http://pwblogger.com/articles/5098/columns--letters
― David Allah Coal (sexyDancer), Monday, 11 July 2011 13:50 (twelve years ago) link
I missed that -- thanks!
― broom air, Monday, 11 July 2011 17:18 (twelve years ago) link
New CVB coming! "La Costa Perdida." First listen reveals it to me as perhaps the dope-iest, most psych-y thing they've done since the self-titled third disc.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 10 November 2012 17:36 (eleven years ago) link
http://www.429records.com/sites/429records/429details/d_campervanbeethoven.asp
― timellison, Wednesday, 23 January 2013 23:41 (eleven years ago) link
Artists that just touch you so many times over the course of your life.
― timellison, Thursday, 24 January 2013 05:18 (eleven years ago) link
Interesting! I'll have to check this out. I couldn't get into the last one, but hey! It's been eight years. Could be an anything. They were my absolute favorite band when I was in high school which was after they had broken up and the albums were a real passion in the ass to track down.
― how's life, Thursday, 24 January 2013 11:09 (eleven years ago) link
pain in the ass
New one's really not so hot .Not terrible, but the last one I'd ever reach for, I think. Pretty casual affair.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 24 January 2013 14:09 (eleven years ago) link
I think Ronald Reagan was the "12th man" of this team.
― how's life, Thursday, 24 January 2013 14:18 (eleven years ago) link
"Sad Lovers Waltz" is a great song.
― to each his own but (Eazy), Thursday, 24 January 2013 14:32 (eleven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8tJF6VEi9o
― to each his own but (Eazy), Thursday, 24 January 2013 14:35 (eleven years ago) link
Got the new "My Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart" and "Key Lime Pie" reissues today. Packed with bonus stuff, and the liner notes are absolutely ace.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 24 January 2014 22:16 (ten years ago) link
ooh what are the Key Lime Pie extras? love that album so much
― Ayn Rand Akbar (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 24 January 2014 22:27 (ten years ago) link
CD version1. “Opening Theme”2. “Jack Ruby”3. “Sweethearts”4. “When I Win The Lottery”5. “(I Was Born In A) Laundromat”6. “Borderline”7. “The Light From A Cake”8. “June”9. “All Her Favorite Fruit”10. “Interlude”11. “Flowers”12. “The Humid Press Of Days”13. “Pictures Of Matchstick Men”14. “Come On Darkness”Bonus tracks:15. “Closing Theme (aka Guitar Hero)”16. “(I Was Born In A) Laundromat” (Edit)17. “Country 2″ (Demo)18. “Good Guys & Bad Guys” (Live)19. “Wasted” (Live)20. “Take The Skinheads Bowling” (Live)21. “Before I Met You” (Live)22. “L’aguardiente” (Soho Natural Session)23. “(I Don’t Wanna Go To The) Lincoln Shrine” (Soho Natural Session)
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 24 January 2014 22:46 (ten years ago) link
nice
― sleeve, Friday, 24 January 2014 22:55 (ten years ago) link
crispy derson
― CANONICAL artists, etc., etc. (contenderizer), Friday, 24 January 2014 22:56 (ten years ago) link
These guys have been my favourite "new-to-me" discovery this year. When I Win the Lottery is my most played song of 2020 according to Apple Music.
― triggercut, Tuesday, 24 November 2020 15:10 (three years ago) link
There's not a stinker in the catalog all the way up to their breakup. The only challenge is navigating the various Pitch-a-Tent reissues, since there are so many different track lists and bonus cuts.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 24 November 2020 15:16 (three years ago) link
Is there worthwhile stuff on the bonus tracks? I've got everything they put out and when they reissued those I didn't bother. But it itches at me that there's more stuff out there that I haven't heard.
I like everything up to La Costa Perdida.
― Cow_Art, Wednesday, 25 November 2020 15:58 (three years ago) link
Oh, belatedly, yeah, there are all sorts of good nuggets hidden in there. Lotta goofs, medleys, covers, different versions. The reissue sequencing is indeed a mess, though.
I just came across this great profile of the band in Rolling Stone in 1988:
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/camper-van-beethovens-notes-from-the-underground-82927/
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 2 January 2021 14:39 (three years ago) link