Bostonist last saw Camper Van Beethoven in 1990, across the Schuylkill in West Philly. We didn't realize then that the band was about to go on a 12 year hiatus. Having missed the last two CVB reunion shows, Bostonist couldn't wait to see the original line up back at it last Friday night at the Middle East.
And back at it they are. The band members began working together in 2000 to put out a rarities/experimental remix album (Camper Van Beethoven is Dead, Long Live Camper Van Beethoven), followed by the hilarious Tusk cover album in 2002. After playing several reunion shows, the band officially reformed in 2004, releasing the brilliant New Roman Times.
Set in a semi-fictional U.S. at war in the Middle East a few years after a 9-11 style attack, New Roman Times chronicles a disaffected soldier who loses a foot in the war and is sent home to a California wracked by civil unrest. In a Pynchon/David Foster Wallace inspired twist, the soldier ends up working for a quasi-governmental, quasi-corporate militia, TexSecurIntelliCorp, which is "maintaining law and order." Eventually disillusioned with his role supporting the fascists, the former soldier joins a resistance movement in Texas. As the album ends, he is planning a suicide bombing mission, bringing the story full circle. Ah, Bostonist just loves light, cheery pop music.
At last week's Middle East show, CVB played a few songs from New Roman Times. With its diverse array of styles, the band's most recent album provides a good introduction to CVB's blend of indie rock, Eastern European folk and dance music, alt. country, klezmer, and ska. There’s even a bit of funky dance rock. Oh, and good ol' '60s psychedelica (the Beatlesque "That Gum You Like is Back In Style" sounds like a cross between XTC's Lemons and Oranges and Spiritualized's Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space).
But most of the crowd, from the indie kids to the thirty and forty somethings who were "there the first time," really wanted to hear the classic CVB '80s material. And the band obliged, playing "The Day Lassie Went to the Moon," "Club Med Sucks," "O Death," and, of course, "Take the Skinheads Bowling" (Teenage Fanclub's cover of which was used as the title track for Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine). And speaking of covers, the band played "Pictures of Matchstick Men," but not, to Bostonist's disappointment, Ringo Starr's "Photograph." They also didn't play the hilarious "Where the Hell's Bill?," despite (or maybe in spite and because of) a few fans' semi-obnoxious, repeated requests.
CVB also played crowd favorite "Tania," "our beloved revolutionary sweetheart," from the album of the same name. "Tania" explores the public's fascination with the media spectacle surrounding Patty Hearst's kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army ("Don't be sad, my beloved Tania / they say your father never liked Steven Weed anyway / hired a detective to follow him around").
The band's first three albums were released on independent labels in the mid 1980's (long before anybody used the term "indie rock"), and many fans recoiled when CVB signed to Virgin in 1988 to release Revolutionary Sweetheart. And yet, the band's first major label release gave up nothing in terms of experimental, genre bending eclecticism, and suffered little from the major label's higher production values (even if OBRS was a tad bit more accessible than CVB's earlier work).
Oh, and as for that eclecticism, Bostonist feels compelled to share the band's own description of its music as "surrealist absurdist folk," that "effortlessly combine(s) an iconoclastic, irony-laced lyrical stance with a free-spirited eclecticism that encompasses a dizzying array of stylistic influences, from punk to folk to psychedelia to all manner of world music." Uh, yeah. What they said. The band's second and final major label release, 1989's Key Lime Pie, suffered from the departure of violinist Jonathan Segel. When the band split up the following year, vocalist/guitarist David Lowery went on to form alt. rock darling band Cracker (which will be recording a new album soon, as Lowery informed Bostonist after the show).
Bostonist is awfully glad CVB is alive and well and back at it. "Long Live Camper Van Beethoven!"
Review and photos contributed by Matt Durutti. More of Matt’s CVB concert photos may be viewed here.
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