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And praise always be to this camper that lightly roamed among the most diverse sounds, somehow managing to hold everything together.
The amalgam, the glue was the formula: “Surrealistic absurdist folk,” a kind of sparkling good energy, a quirk that guaranteed the unexpected.
And then, come on, that corporate name!!!
The corporate name is no small matter: nomen omen, as they say. And if you say Camper Van Beethoven, it's a half epiphany.
Like that time when Ian thought of Joy Division or Lou and John found a little book called Velvet Underground...
You know when a name (a sound!!!) not only rolls off the tongue well but sums up a certain poetics most precisely? Well, that's the case with our Camper.
That name brings to mind something disheveled and crazy. And their first album “Telephone free landslide victory” is exactly that...
Imagine a limping ska rhythm arm in arm with some folk trifles. Or a kind of parody of ethnic music.
As if the Kocani orchestra were playing with toy instruments. Or a playful jukebox randomly shooting a series of musical postcards sent from a whimsical fantasy world. Things like Tex-Mex offals, Eastern Europe fragments, Levantine memories, balalaikas, syrtaki....
A madness, yes, but deliberately of little consequence and in absolute lightness. The small dream of a rock band turning into a sparkling little orchestra.
With the addition of zero point one of a Zappa-like spirit, like Frank who, getting out of bed on the right foot, whistles while making coffee.
And so far these are instrumental tracks...
Then there are the songs: quick and lively stuff between folk, psychedelic punk, and more ska, all marked by the leanness of sounds. After all, back then everyone was on a diet.
There remain quite funny titles to mention: poor Lassie the dog escaped to the moon, bewildered skinheads inexplicably ending up bowling, Mao's memories of his days in southern China.
Then with this “II & III” things change. If the delightful peculiarity of jumping from one topic to another (and from one topic back again) remained unchanged, the sound became something else, and from being thin and lean, it gained a lot of weight.
More flesh, in short, more blood, more sweat. The roots soul relies on a mischievous imp, the little orchestra numbers lose that air of jest and everything doubles in energy. No more dieting, oh no, here one bursts with health.
Not only that, to the already vast arsenal, a hilarious laughing garage, luminous wave shards, dives into sixties psychedelia, and exercises in crooked country are added. The more, the merrier.
Sure, the impression might be that of a somewhat confused sampler, a fiery jumble, but dispersive. However, our guys had a couple of great virtues: they managed, though they always mangled a bit, to never really mangle, and above all, they didn't take themselves too seriously. After all, how can a little orchestra take itself seriously?
Trallallá...
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