Camper Van Beethoven
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THE REVIEW

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.