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Rating: The 1985 marked the debut of a peculiar band from San Francisco, Camper Van Beethoven. Their musical offering was one of the most evocative of the era. In times of hardcore, noise, and thrash metal, CVB surprised everyone with a kaleidoscope of ethnic styles, borrowed from cultures around the world and blended into deliciously colorful cocktails.
The operation is akin to what had just been accomplished by the Minutemen in Los Angeles: concentrating miniature pieces with an abundance of stylistic hints, organized into cohesive, albeit sometimes paradoxical, structures. However, what the Minutemen did with only three instruments (bass/guitar/drums) and primarily funk and jazz tricks, CVB achieved with an expanded instrumentation and drawing from the vast folk heritage worldwide. The extreme heterogeneity of their sound palette was balanced by the use of certain constants, which, repeated across different tracks, helped make their debut album paradoxically unified: the ska rhythm of the guitar, the beach accordion, and J. Segel's violin.
The CVB melting pot spares no one: Mexico (the calypso of “Border Ska”), Spain (the flamenco of “Yanqui Go Home”), Greece (the rebetika of “Payed Vacation”), Russia (“Vladivostock” and “Balalaika Gap”), Italy (the tarantella of “Skinhead Stomp”), Bohemia (the polka of “Tina”), China (the ballet of “Mao reminisces”), and, of course, the U.S.A. (the country of “Where the Hell is Bill”) seamlessly become part of this extravagant ensemble's globalized DNA, a worthy heir to the few who in the past proposed such a transgressive approach to musical tradition, like the little-known 'Holy Modal Rounders' in the crazy '60s.
Predictable, but obligatory, is to mention Frank Zappa among the inspirations for CVB. The band's freak spirit from Frisco goes hand in hand with the “punk” attitude, infusing irreverence into the entire operation (especially in the lyrics), manifesting particularly in two instances: “Wasted,” which recalls the bold stride of The Fall and concludes with the most raucous violin solo in history, and the irresistible “Club Med Sucks,” which begins at the wild pace of a quadrille, descends into vicious Stooges-style garage-rock, and culminates in a defiant hardcore outburst à la Adolescents. Although “The day that Lassie went to the moon” ties back to the feverish progressions of Velvet Underground, what prevails is the language of folk-rock, which carves its path in the Byrdsian refrain of “Oh No!,” the dreamy arpeggios of “I don’t see you,” the immediate “Take the skinheads bowling” (filled with typical west-coast choruses), and in the closing anthem, the heartfelt, resigned, bittersweet ballad “Ambiguity Song.” The only dark, unsettling moment of the album is “9 of disks,” the most abstract track, with a string section creating an atonal harmonic texture.
A pleasant, entertaining, and intelligent record that draws from tradition without falling into the trap of mere revivalism.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
03 Wasted (01:59)
I was so wasted
I was a surfer
I had a skateboard
I was so heavy and I lived on the strand
I was a dumb shit
And I was a fuck-up
I was so napped out I was out of my head
I was so wasted
I was a hippie
And I was a burn-out
I was so wasted I was out of my head
I was a punker
I had a mohawk
I was so gnarly and I drove my dad's car
11 Tina (01:37)
i know cant wait 2 see my name in lights no ones going stop me you'll see i will go far tina tina i was a gilr and i wonder what my life would beee ...u be saying my name ...what's my name The above is on a lot of websites, but the official website has this for the lyrics for Tina: Oh Tina, Tina sing-a-lel-uv-a-tyia wa-cha wa-cha wa-cha Oh Tina, Tina sing-a-lel-uv-a-tyia wa-cha wa-cha wa-cha (...and this is exactly how the song sounds! I have NO idea where those other 'lyrics' came from.)
12 Take the Skinheads Bowling (02:32)
Every day, I wake up and pray to Jah
And he increases 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
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