WORKING METHOD: Lawrence Ball
The electronic music composer brings Pete Townshend’s ‘Method’ to life.
BY ROBERT FULTON

Who guitarist Pete Townshend had a concept.

That statement on its own is not surprising. The British songwriter has penned some of the most ambitious music in rock history, such as the concept albums/rock operas Tommy and Quadrophenia. But what might be his boldest concept was the never-completed Lifehouse project.

Lifehouse was to be the album that followed Tommy. Set in the future, the story involved a world that was falling apart, and rock music didn’t exist. While Lifehouse never came to fruition – though it spawned such classics as “Baba O’Riley,” “Behind Blue Eyes” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again” – an outgrowth from the project was the Lifehouse Method. Townsend envisioned a future where people could input personal data into a machine to create an individual musical portrait. The intro to “Baba O’Riley” is an example of what this might sound like.

Sound far fetched?

Enter Lawrence Ball.

In 2007, Ball, an English composer, math tutor and founder of the Planet Tree Music Festival, along with Townshend and programmer Dave Snowdown, created a website called The Lifehouse Method. Active for 15 months, more than 10,000 unique works were created on-line by users having their data translated into music.

From this experiment came Ball’s own two-disc album Method Music (in stores this week), which he composed and recorded in parallel to the Lifehouse Method website, though he didn’t tap any of the users’ creations. The first disc – Imaginary Sitters – is a collection of 11, five-minute long tracks using the Lifehouse Method. The second disc, Imaginary Galaxies, expands on this concept with three meditative, ambient 20-minute songs.

BLURT recently spoke by phone with Ball, who was on holiday in Santa Fe. He helped clear up exactly what Method Music and the Lifehouse Method are and what it was like to work with Pete Townsend. And he shared one of his favorite jokes.

BLURT: What exactly is the Lifehouse Method?
LAWRENCE BALL: Pete had an idea 40 years ago now, that there could be a way for someone’s music to be created. You’d basically create the music of the person. There was no Internet then. Everyone thought he was nuts, as often happens to people with foresight. About eight years ago, he asked me, could I do it. So I said yes. It took awhile, but we got the system up on the web that would take a photograph, two sound files and a tapping of a rhythm.

When you say a person’s personal data is translated, what do you mean?
We had different ways we could have made these portraits. In the end we settled with something that’s more like an oracle than a psychological test with a questionnaire. We decided simply to ask people to input some things that were meaningful to them that would act as a personal interface to them, so that the program created a piece of music in a way that was connected to them.

When did you first meet Pete?
Pete and I have a common interest in wonderful California composer Terry Riley. He’s one of the most important composers of the last century. He turned contemporary classical music into something much more approachable. Pete and I both love his music, and I brought Terry over to my music festival in 1998, and approached Pete about sponsoring my festival that year, and he was delighted to do that. After that, Pete and I got to talking, and after five years of talking and discussing various things, he proposed I do this project for him.

Were you a Who fan or a Pete Townshend fan before all this?
Oh yeah. I grew up with the Who, and Pink Floyd and the Soft Machine, and all kinds of other things.

This might be a better question for Pete, but is what resulted what he envisioned?
Yes, he’s very happy with it. There was an email we got back when we first got it online, and we were able to input data and get pieces of music out. After 30 years of waiting, he was just enthralled.

Pete produced Method Music?
He co-produced it. I did some of the production, and his chief engineer Myles Clarke, who’s a brilliant engineer. It’s hard to know where engineering stops and production starts.

What was it like to work with Pete?
Well, he’s very intense. The meetings we had were really long and very exciting. He was very enthusiastic about the whole thing. He’s got a lot of energy. He doesn’t always agree with one. He’s quite tenacious. The experience as a whole was quite wonderful.

What was the role of Dave Snowdon?
He’s a brilliant programmer and computer systems guy, and he knows a lot about how to do things on the Internet. The Lifehouse Method was created with my musical design and his implementation skills. But he also made some very creative suggestions about how we should decide on certain things.

How long did it take to get the album put together?
The album was running in parallel with the portrait system. It took me about 20 months to create the music, and after that another 20 months was spent making the sound quality really, really good. It’s basically the same quality for my album [Pete] expects for the Who of his own music. It’s one of the most ambitious recordings ever made, actually.

On Galaxies, why did you choose to dedicate the songs to Syd Barrett, Hugh Hopper and Gyorgy Ligeti?
They’re people who have been hugely inspirational to me. Ironically, they all passed away during the time I was working on those pieces. As they passed away, I felt I needed to do something to mark my gratitude to them, and that seemed the best way to do it. For me, they all have a very important contribution to contemporary music.

Why was the site taken down? Why not leave it up in perpetuity?
One is cost. The way we had it set up was actually very expensive to run. Another one was Pete felt that it had had a good run and it was time to take it down. It wasn’t new any more. We’re hoping that at some point in the future the site will go up again and Pete will do what he’s been talking about on and off – what we call  a Method Concert, which is where people who’ve had their portrait done come along to a large concert and they hear their own piece made into a song.

Is what you’ve created here something that you can take on the road? Can you perform this? Do you plan to tour?
I have actually performed it. I performed in Austin this summer, and Santa Fe. They’re rather difficult to replicate with musicians or even with backing tracks. What I did was to perform with the album track itself, but to put new layers over it, which were improvised. That was extremely well received. I wasn’t initially convinced   that it could be performed live, but now I’m becoming convinced that it can be. But nothing’s arranged yet. It’s all up in the air at the moment.

Would you like to see this project continue? Would you do another Method Music?
That probably depends on Pete. It wouldn’t have tuned out the way it did were it not for his input, artistic and financial. It was a very ambitious recording, expansive recording. I expect maybe the possibility of doing another Method Music, particularly if this one sells well.

The reception and also to help finance another go at it.
I’ve calculated the relatively small percentage of Who fans that are willing to get as excited about what I do as they are about what Pete and the Who do is probably around 5 or 10 percent. But that’s still a large number of people.

Five to 10 percent of Who fans is a lot of people.
These days they’re getting more Google searches than the Beatles or the Rolling Stones.

One last question. You have a number of jokes on your website. Do you have a favorite?
There are two goats on a rubbish tip, and they’re chewing through pieces of old rubbish, like tires and boots, just old junk, soft junk. One of them comes across a cannister of film, and he gets the plastic strip of the film out of the metal case and starts chewing through the plastic strip, having a great time. The other goat calls across to him and says, “Are you enjoying that film?” And he says, “It’s pretty good, but I really preferred the book.”

http://blurt-online.com/features/view/1073

If Robert Johnson were alive…he’d be stealing licks from this cat.

Feeling the bite of 21st century ennui? Hell with it. Strap in, turn on and tune down with some dark-as-a-black hole Delta blues. With 2012 here, the Mayan calendar coming to a close and Planet X swinging over the horizon, you may as well ride it out with some swamp infested, pass-the-Prozac slide-Dobro guitar.

And there’s no better way to ride out the end times than jamming some Brother Dege tunes – the Deep South’s best kept secret since the Georgia Guidestones. Brother Dege (aka Dege Legg – Louisiana born, swampland mad genius, and also frontman for the Lafayette, LA-based rock band Santeria) is on a strange roll: working in a homeless shelter (file under: “Gnarly Career Moves”), recording the follow up to Folk Songs of the American Longhair in a empty warehouse, and disappearing for days in the backwoods of his native Louisiana.

Brother Dege recently teamed up with Louisiana filmmaker Brian C. Miller Richard for a beautifully pro-shot, mini-epic video for his song “Black is the Night.” Shot at various locations, the video – like some haunted nocturne – is a dark meditation on the spooky breed of loneliness, solitude and isolation that characterizes Louisiana.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW & POST BROTHER DEGE’S NEW “BLACK IS THE NIGHT” VIDEO

It’s a big departure from the cult favorite, grainy, zero-budget videos that populate Brother Dege’s YouTube channel.

In other news, Brother Dege will once again be pulled from his reclusive environs to perform at the 2012 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on May 6th along with other acts that day such as Foo Fighters, Bonnie Raitt, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, as well as fellow Louisiana legends like The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, The Wild Magnolias, Rebirth Brass Band, Kermit Ruffins and many others.

HERE’S WHAT PEOPLE HAVE BEEN SAYING ABOUT BROTHER DEGE:

“[Four Stars] In lesser hands all this might easily sound contrived, but instead it’s genuinely powerful and compelling stuff. ‘The Girl Who Wept Stones’ and ‘Dead & Gone’ might have been ripped from the Son House songbook, though the seven-minute epic ‘House of the Dying Sun’ is the real keeper.” – UNCUT

“Dege Legg is the Robert Johnson of the 21st century.” -  ROOTSVILLE

“Both ancient and modern, like an indie rock cover of something Lomax may have recorded a hundred years ago.” – BLOGCRITICS

“Fans of slide guitar, Southern gothic, or plain old rock & roll attitude need to run, not walk, and check out Brother Dege ASAP. Brother Dege is a case study in how one guy with a steel guitar and minimal accompaniment can out-rock a roomful of electric bombast, given the right songs, the right skills, and the right voice. Brother Dege has‘em all.” – POPMATTERS

“Brother Dege brings the ghosts of kudzu-covered swamp rats to life in your speakers.  Find the darkest spot in your backyard, light some candles and turn it up.” – THE BIG TAKEOVER

“Those willing to step into the Brother Dege abyss will likely reap its rewards.” – OFFBEAT MAGAZINE

BROTHER DEGE – BORN ON THE BIO

Louisiana born and raised Brother Dege is one of the best kept secrets in the Deep South – a writer, musician, artist, and a one-man band, pushing the resonator and slide guitar into the 21st century like some mad lovechild of Robert Johnson and Lou Reed. Mixing the traditional slide playing of the Mississippi Delta Blues masters (Son House, Blind Willie Johnson, Bukka White) with the post-modern expressionism of Sonic Youth, along with some world-class songwriting, Brother Dege’s critically acclaimed songs veer from haunted slide-guitar scapes to raw, Delta blues barn burners that take the listener on a trip into the south’s swampy rural past and the great unknown of the future. His most recent full-length album Folk Songs of the American Longhair was voted one of the top blues and roots albums of 2010 in Europe and the U.S., and his song “Hard Row To Hoe” from this album was also used as the opening theme song for Discovery Channel’s popular show After The Catch last year (click here to view).

RELATED LINKS:
Brother Dege http://degeleggnews.blogspot.com
Director: Brian C. Miller Richard http://www.briancmillerrichard.com
Cinematographer: Natalie Kingston: http://vimeo.com/nataliekingston
Brother Dege YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/santeriaband?feature=mhee
Santeria: http://officialsanteria.com

FOR MEDIA AND INTERVIEW REQUESTS
Tony Bonyata
Pavement PR
p: 262.903.7775
e: bonyata@wi.rr.com
http://www.pavementpr.com

Tune into the nationally syndicated radio show “Nights with Alice Cooper” this Thursday evening (Jan. 26th) when rocknroll’s Prince of Darkness will be spinning Buffalo Killers’ awesome track “Lily of the Valley” from their recent full-length 3 on Alive Records on his show.

The show runs from 7pm-midnight (central) and you can find a station where it will be airing in your area by clicking here.

Tune into one of our favorite radio shows, The Electric Ballroom on WRAT Radio in New Jersey, this Sunday night at 10:45pm (est) where host Keith Roth will be talking with composer and mathematician Lawrence Ball about his new album Method Music and his involvement with producer Pete Townshend on this fascinating effort based on Pete’s longtime “Lifehouse” project.

You can tune into the live audio stream of Lawrence’s segment on the show at around 10:45pm (est) this Sunday, Jan. 22nd here: http://www.wrat.com/listen  But we recommend tuning into the whole show, which starts at 10pm, as Keith & co-host Aimee Kristi spin some of the coolest new underground tunes along with ’70s punk, Alternative, Glam, Stoner Rock and just about everything else that matters.

If you’re in Nashville this Friday (Jan. 20th) be sure to drop by Grimey’s New & Preloved Music in Nashville (1604 8th Ave. South) at 6pm (est) to catch Radio Moscow’s live in-store performance before their Exit/In show later that evening. The Music City’s not gonna know what hit em!

Radio Moscow + Graveyard Live at The Bowery Ballroom

Thursday night was a good evening to be stoned in Manhattan. That is if you were lucky enough to be at the sold out Graveyard and Radio Moscow show taking place at The Bowery Ballroom. The opening night of the month long tour found New York’s stoner rock community out in full force, and the anticipation could be felt from the moment doors opened. Daniel Davies of Year Long Disaster opened the show with his solo band that consisted of CKY’s rhythm section, Jess Margera and Matt Janaitis. The music was enjoyable but nothing particularly impressive or memorable, instead offering a familiar stoner rock sound to help set the mood for the evening while the crowd began filling in.

Radio Moscow took the stage next, mere days after a highly publicized on stage melt down between the trio that involved former drummer Cory Berry hurling Peter Griggs’ guitar right into his head, splitting it wide open in the process. You can read more about the melee and see footage HERE. Griggs was rushed to the hospital to receive stitches, and the band has since reformed with a new bassist and drummer in the wake of the turmoil. Sporting his lengthy new scar, none of this week’s trauma seemed to effect Griggs, as it’s always been clear where the heart and soul of Radio Moscow lies. Having played together for a total of three days, the band blazed through tracks from their latest offering The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz and the stellar Brain Cycles. The band’s music offers blues licks and rhythms delivered at their dirtiest and most raw. Griggs’ guitar work is on a level entirely his own as he soars through riff after riff of explosive blues tinged noise running the length of the fretboard and back again.

Opening with the dissonant “Luckydutch” from their self-titled debut, the band quickly pulled out fan favorite “Broke Down” with its stomping Black Sabbath inspired dirge and distorted blues licks. Think The Black Keys without the studio gloss or J Mascis with an intense interest in stoner blues rather than indie guitar rock and you can begin to imagine the passion and talent Griggs possesses. “Densaflorativa” followed with it’s psychedelic flourishes and squealing solo as the other members joined in on percussion with a seated bongo performance from new bassist Billy Ellsworth. The guitar heroics quickly returned on “The Escape” and “Black Boot,” the later a stomping swampy blues instrumental with stunning slide guitar work that’d make Jimmy Page proud.

The guys continued their onslaught of guitar fury jams with “Deep Blue Sea,” the rowdy hollering “Speed Freak,” and the down home front porch blues of “Creepin,” before ending the set with a blistering extended version of the slow burning “250 Miles”. Griggs used the final hoorah as a chance to blow the minds of anyone in the audience yet to drop their jaws, and he accomplished just that. The song opens with a calm blues lick that explodes and never looks back in the wake of its destruction. This has always been Griggs’ band, and the fact that Radio Moscow sounded as triumphant as they did with only three days of practice for the two new members is a testament to his vision and stunning guitar work.

Graveyard hail from Gothernburg, Sweden and have become one of stoner rock’s greatest hopes over the past few years since releasing their debut album in 2007. The band are as retro as can be, reviving the sound and look of the early 70’s in an intense time-warp fashion. The quartet opened with my personal favorite “Blue Soul,” a smoky blues folk freakout that permeates slowly under the grooving guitar line before picking up with lead vocalist Joakim Nilsson’s pristine howl. His voice takes center stage in the mix, and is hard to deny as it controls the aggressive peaks and soul of their sound. The band played a majority of last year’s Hisingen Blues including “Buying Truth,” “Ain’t Fit To Leave Here,” “Ungrateful Are The Dead,” “Hisingen Blues,” “The Siren” as well as b-side “Granny and Davis”, mixing them with early album highlights “Thin Line,” “Satan’s Finest” and fan favorite “Evil Ways”.

http://www.explodinginsound.com/2012/01/eis-show-review-radio-moscow-graveyard.html

10 Questions with Martha Berner
by Thomas McAleer
Austin Local Music Examiner

Martha Berner is a Chicago based songwriter who combines a modern rock flavor with roots music to fashion her own unique sound.  Last month she released her 2nd album with her band The Significant Others, “Fool’s Fantasy”. Her well received debut album, “This side of yesterday” was released 6 years ago.  Fool’s Fantasy was recorded at Chicago’s premiere digital recording studio Stranded On A Planet with producer & Significant Others’ guitarist Scott Fritz, and was mastered by four-time Grammy Award winner Gavin Lurssen (Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Cat Power, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, etc).  It’s sure to make some top ten lists, as the CD is a pleasure to listen to.  Martha recently answered 10 questions for me.

Who are your songwriting influences?

Everyone and everything I listen to influences my writing, whether for lyrics or rhythms and melodies. Inspiration for songs also comes from reading and journalling. I don’t have one or two specific songwriting heroes. I’m often influenced by whatever I’m digging into at the time.

When and where was your first public performance?

15 years ago. I was working in a restaurant and the hired performer would lend me his guitar and microphone and let me perform later in his set, after my shift. I loved it.

What was the first record or cd you purchased with your own money?

The Black Crowes “Shake Your Money Maker” The first tape I ever owned I won off of a Mars bar. I was about 9 and it was Chicago’s Greatest Hits. Later in my adolescence, I went on a spree of stealing cassette singles from Wal-Mart. They were my prized possessions.

What was the first live concert you attended?

Lollapalooza 1991

Which venue would you most like to play that you haven’t yet/ and which is your favorite venue to play?

My favorite venue is any outdoor venue in he summertime. That being said, playing the Chicago Theater would be pretty fantastic.

What is the best career advice you’ve been given, and by whom?

I’m still waiting for it.

Who are you listening to now?

NPR. Wilco, Bon Iver. Phoenix. Rogue Wave. Black Keys, Vandaveer – in no particular order.

What recordings are available to the public and where can they be purchased?

We just dropped a new album, Fool’s Fantasy, which can be found at just about any digital shop, as well as our website www.marthaberner.com

When and where are you playing next?

Lincoln Hall, Chicago Saturday Feb 4th.

Martha Berner & The Significant Others were just featured on the Chicagoland PBS television show “Live at The Alley” where they performed their songs “Cry” and “Brave” from their new album “Fool’s Fantasy.”

Click on the photo below to watch this great performance….

The Who’s Pete Townshend Produces New Album Based On His Lifehouse Project
Michael Leonard
12.21.2011

Shortly after The Who conceived, produced and recorded their rock opera Tommy, Pete Townshend started work on a follow-up “sci-fi rock opera.” Parts of Townshend’s Lifehouse project have occasionally seen the light of day, but he has now produced a new twist on the tale.

London-based composer and mathematician Lawrence Ball’s forthcoming double CD-set Method Music was not only produced by Townshend, it was also the direct outcome of Townshend’s ongoing Lifehouse project.

Ball says: “Method Music evolved from Pete Townshend’s question to me about generating unique pieces of music from the input of personal characteristics as data, a question related closely to his ongoing project Lifehouse. I wanted to see what the music could sound like prior to designing the proposed system of portraiture, and I created the tracks on Disc One: Imaginary Sitters, as a touchstone towards designing the software which would eventually execute the task itself.”

Townshend’s original Lifehouse story was set in a futuristic world where rock ’n’ roll no longer exists – but a secret concert is staged where audience members enter their personal characteristics into a computer grid.  A unique piece of music – based on the audience member’s personal data – would then be generated.

Some may joke that Townshend foresaw iTunes/Spotify/Last FM playlists 40 years ago.

Townshend’s idea was that this would lead to one “perfect” musical note culminating in mass nirvana: “a kind of celestial cacophony,” according to Townshend. Lawrence Ball’s Method Music album also includes Disc Two: Imaginary Galaxies, that “expand the forms into larger structures with greater permutations, variables, and variety.”

Lawrence Ball’s Method Music, produced by Townshend and Bob Lord, will be released on January 31.
http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/News/The-Who-1221-2011/

Check out the new “House Arrest” commercial for FIAT’s new 500 Abarth car, featuring not only bad-boy Charlie Sheen but also bad-ass rockers HENRY’S FUNERAL SHOE’s new song “Dog Scratched Ear” from their recent Alive Records album “Donkey Jacket”!

Click on the image below to view the video:

Martha Berner and the Significant Others: Fool’s Fantasy
(Pop Rock Records)

The first things you notice on Fool’s Fantasy, the new release from Chicago’s Martha Berner and the Significant Others is how quickly her dusky alto draws you in with an easy, familiar air.

Reminiscent of Natalie Merchant and Margo Timmins, Berner has allied herself with a group of fantastic players to back up her musical dreams with depth and skill. Scott Fritz leads the “Significant Others” as the albums producer and with his tasty guitar, adding just the right amount of twang and burn to be a perfect foil to Berner’s dynamic vocals. As the album unfolds you realize there is more to this than your average alt country record as Will Sprawls adds fine keyboard playing and Tyson Ellert gives clever percussion accompaniment to Berner’s fine folk pop songbook.

Highlights include the infectious “Brave,” the classic country train beat of “Cry,” and the rocking “People Are Crazy.”  Let’s hope it doesn’t take Berner another six years for this fine singer songwriter to make another album now that she has her Significant Others.
http://www.nodepression.com/profiles/blogs/cd-review-martha-berner-and-the-significant-others-fools-fantasy

NEW YORK TIMES (NYC daily) –  Show preview.
Camper Van Beethoven (Saturday) Professional pop-folk-ska split personalities since 1983, this Northern California quintet marks 13 remarkably placid years reunited. Wait for its famous remake of Status Quo’s “Pictures of Matchstick Men,” a no-holds-barred take on one of the best, most succinct riffs in 1960s rock. With Cracker. At 7 p.m., Highline Ballroom, 431 West 16th Street, Chelsea, (212) 414-5994, highlineballroom.com; $22 in advance, $25 at the door. (Anderson)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/arts/music/pop-and-rock-listings-for-jan-13-19.html?_r=1

VILLAGE VOICE (NYC weekly) – NYC “Recommened Events” show preview
David Lowery has been pulling double-duty with his two bands, quirky indie-rock heroes Camper Van Beethoven (“Take the Skinheads Bowling”) and alternative-era MTV darlings Cracker (“Low”), at concerts and in the studio since 1999. Somehow he’s kept it all straight, even putting out a solo album last year, despite the differences between the groups but thanks to a few common threads: his sardonic wit, the groups’ unpredictable solos, and catchy choruses. Tonight he’ll be in be sputtering out his tongue-in-cheek lyrics about Euro-trash girls and other forms of ear candy with both groups.
http://www.voiceplaces.com/cracker-camper-van-beethoven-new-york-3281492-e/

NY DAILY NEWS – Show preview with Cracker file photo.
Cracker & Camper Van Beethoven
Saturday, Jan 14 (2012) 7:00p
at Highline Ballroom, New York, NY
CRACKER
In the mid-’80s in Santa Cruz, California, singer-songwriter David Lowry formed Camper Van Beethoven, and the band’s track “Take the Skinheads Bowling” became an instant college radio staple. When CVB disbanded on tour in Sweden following its second major label release, Lowery formed Cracker with his longtime friend, guitarist Johnny Hickman. Cracker’s emergent sound had less in common with Camper’s exotic excursions and was more in sync with the Kinks and Southern roots music.
Cracker released its self-titled debut on Virgin, and following the No. 1 modern rock hit “Teen Angst (What The World Needs Now),” the band became a minor commercial sensation. The platinum-selling Kerosene Hat (1993) contained the enormous, era-defining hit single “Low,” as well as “Get Off This” and “Eurotrash Girl.” When the dust settled, Cracker found itself with an ever-growing, devoted following both in the Us (where fans refer to themselves as Crumbs) and throughout Europe. Today, the band stays well-connected to yet another generation of fans via internet, many of whom were kids when these alt-rock godfathers were first ruling rock radio. The group’s latest release, Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey (2009), weaves decades of influences into an eerie yet strangely soothing story of escapism, apocalypse, and renewal that is still relevant as ever today.
CAMPER Van BEETHOVEN
At the time of its 1985 debut, Camper Van Beethoven’s merging of punk, folk, ska, and world music was truly a revelation. Self-described as a “surrealist absurdist folk” outfit, the band formed in Santa Cruz, Ca, and the 1985 re-release of its debut, Telephone Free Landslide Victory, made the Top 10 in the 1986 Village Voice Pazz and Jop poll. The group’s next albums, II & III (1986) and Camper Van Beethoven (1986), followed suit. After two major releases on the Virgin label – Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart (1988) and Key Lime Pie (1989), CVP had taken the music as far as it could go and disbanded.
In 2002, CVP reunited for a nationwide tour on what seemed like a whim. The tour must have gone really well, because unexpectedly, the full band trooped into the studio to record a new album, titled New Roman Times – a release that, surprisingly enough, stands with the group’s finest work. A loosely connected semi-rock opera telling the story of a Texas teenager who joins the military after a 9/11-like event, becomes disillusioned, and joins an anti-government militia, the disc is the most explicitly political record of Camper Van Beethoven’s career, resurrecting and amplifying the themes that colored the band’s previous two albums. The album is proof that CVP pulled off an exceptional trick. It not only reunited – it picked up exactly where it left off.
http://events.nydailynews.com/new-york-ny/events/show/216858885-cracker-camper-van-beethoven

THE L MAGAZINE  (NYC free daily)– Brief show preview with Cracker photo.
Cracker, Camper Van Beethoven
Sat., Jan. 14, 6 p.m.; $22, $25 at the door
212-414-5994
Music: Rock, Pop and Hip-Hop
But before getting completely swept up in a year’s worth of here-today-gone-tomorrow buzz bands, let us remember that the songs “Euro-Trash Girl” and “Take the Skinheads Bowling” are about as good as they come.
Highline Ballroom
436 W 16th St., between Ninth and Tenth Aves (map)
Chelsea
212-414-5994
http://www.thelmagazine.com/newyork/cracker-camper-van-beethoven/Event?oid=2202394

TIME OUT NEW YORK  (NYC weekly)– Brief “Must See” positive preview
The weekend’s must-see concerts
SATURDAY
Cracker + Camper Van Beethoven at Highline Ballroom
Tonight David Lowery bounces freely between his ’80s outfit, Camper Van Beethoven, and his more straightforward ’90s band, Cracker.
http://newyork.timeout.com/things-to-do/own-this-city-blog/2479775/the-weekends-must-see-concerts

BROOKLYN  ROCKS (NYC music blog) – NYC show preview with CVB photo.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Camper Van Beethoven Will be Debuting New Material @ Highline Ballroom on Sat., Jan. 14th
DOWNLOAD: Camper Van Beethoven – Live at The Independent, San Francisco, CA 12-28-11
Cracker & Camper Van Beethoven’s annual year-end California trek is underway and the last night of this run of shows is Dec. 29th in Petaluma. After which, Cracker heads further north to Portland on December 30th for a special one-off with bluegrass jam band Leftover Salmon, where the two bands will perform their highly-lauded 2003 album O Cracker, Where Art Thou? together in its entirety.

The following night, Cracker & CVB will be in Chicago for a celebratory New Year’s Eve bash at Chicago’s House Of Blues. Camper Van Beethoven will open, followed by Cracker ringing in the new year, and then Big Head Todd & The Monsters playing into the wee hours.

Then Camper Van Beethoven will start off the year with their own headlining shows in Milwaukee, Madison and Iowa City, before hooking up with Cracker again for shows in St. Louis and Minneapolis. The two bands will then head east for their annual winter run through the Northeast. As David Lowery (frontman for both bands) told the Boston Herald earlier this year,”We always do it in January when it’s really cold and not many bands go up to the Northeast. It started from the fact that it was the only time that was slow for the Camper Van Beethoven guys who have real careers. Then we accidentally figured out nobody else is touring, so it’s seen as this mid-winter cabin-fever kind of party.”

Both Cracker and CVB will be running through their career-spanning canons of hits and fan favorites, while, perhaps even more exciting, Camper Van Beethoven will be performing a handful of new songs slated for their new studio album – their first in over seven years!
http://brooklynrocks.blogspot.com/2011/12/camper-van-beethoven-will-be-debuting.html

NEWSDAY (Long Island, NY weekly) – Simple show listing in their best of the week column “BACKSTAGE PASS: THE LIST”.
CRACKER/CAMPER VAN BEETHOVEN, “Teen Angst.” At HighLine Ballroom Saturday.
http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/music/backstage-pass-1.811987/intro-1-9-12-videos-from-lights-resolve-patent-pending-lemonheads-and-more-1.3438180

DNA INFO (NYC online A&E site)– “Gigs of the Week” show preview
Gigs of the Week
Saturday  January 14
Also tonight: Scratch that late-’80s-early-’90s itch with Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven at The Highline Ballroom. Remember Cracker’s 1992 hit “Teen Angst (What The World Needs Now)”? The common thread between these two bands is singer/guitarist David Lowery. He formed the more straight-ahead rockers Cracker after spending the ’80s leading the self-styled “surrealist absurdist folk” band Camper Van Beethoven.
http://www.dnainfo.com/20120111/manhattan/kaki-king-santigold-girls-play-manhattan

THIS WEEK IN NEW YORK (NYC A&E site) – NYC show preview with Cracker photo.
CRACKER / CAMPER VAN BEETHOVEN
431 West 16th St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Saturday, January 14, $22-$25, 7:00
212-414-5994

In what has become a very welcome annual event, David Lowery will be doing double duty on January 14 as he brings both Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven to the Highline Ballroom. The evening generally begins with a rousing look back at the history of seminal indie rockers CVB, dominated by Lowery’s politically tinged lyrics and Jonathan Segel’s virtuosic violin playing. Expect such favorites as “Take the Skinheads Bowling,” “Eye of Fatima,” and “Joe Stalin’s Cadillac,” along with some cool covers, including the Status Quo’s “Pictures of Matchstick Men,” which was an MTV hit for CVB more than twenty years ago. Then Lowery switches gears for the more amiable, freewheeling Cracker, the Virginia-based band that has scored such hits as “Teen Angst,” “Low,” “Get Off This,” “Turn on Tune in Drop Out with Me,” and one of the great live songs of all time, “Euro-Trash Girl.” Lowery will tell some funny stories, guitarist and cofounder Johnny Hickman will look resplendent, and then the two groups will jam out on an interstellar finale. Nothing but good times, guaranteed.
http://twi-ny.com/blog/2012/01/14/cracker-camper-van-beethoven-2/

LONG ISLAND PRESS (Long Island, NY weekly) – Dave Gil de Rubo confirmed a show preview.

PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER (Philadelphia daily) – Brief show preview.
Cracker
Led by Camper Van Beethoven frontman David Lowery, Cracker’s post-punk, country-tinged songs earned some hits in the early ’90s with ‘Low’ ‘What the World Needs Now’ and ‘Get Off This.’
Also appearing: Camper Van Beethoven
Where:
World Cafe Live
3025 Walnut St.
Philadelphia, PA 19104
http://www.philly.com/philly/calendar/135534358.html

PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY – Stock show preview with Cracker photo.
Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven
A brief rundown of Cracker’s history: Lowery, in the mid-80s, in Santa Cruz, California, formed Camper Van Beethoven, and their “Take the Skinheads Bowling” became an instant college radio staple. When CVB disbanded on tour in Sweden, following their second major label release, Lowery formed Cracker with his longtime friend Johnny Hickman. (The pair had met on the local music scene as teenagers in Redlands, CA.) Cracker’s emergent sound had less in common with Camper’s exotic excursions and was more in synch with the Kinks and Southern roots music. They released their self-titled debut on Virgin, and following the #1 Modern Rock hit “Teen Angst (What The World Needs Now),” the band became a minor commercial sensation (complete with then significant MTV exposure). The platinum-selling Kerosene Hat contained the enormous, era-defining hit single “Low,” as well as “Get Off This,” and “Eurotrash Girl.” When the dust settled, Cracker found themselves with an ever-growing, devoted following both in the U.S. (where fans refer to themselves as Crumbs) and throughout Europe. Today the band stays well connected to yet another generation of fans via internet, many of whom were kids when these alt-rock godfathers were first ruling rock radio.http://tickets.worldcafelive.com/eventperformances.asp?evt=3297
Friday, January 13, 2012
World Cafe Live
3025 Walnut St.
Philadelphia PA 19104
215-222-1400
http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/events/135963311.html

THE ONION / AV CLUB (Philly weekly) – Stock AV Club show preview with Cracker photo.
Cracker
Also Playing: Camper Van Beethoven
Cracker’s David Lowery is getting to the age where it’s customary for modestly famous rockers to drag themselves out on tour looking bitter and bloated. Instead, Lowery and guitarist Johnny Hickman have done basically the opposite lately, touring as a stripped-down (but non-seated) rock duo and preserving the smart-assed songwriting voice Lowery established with Camper Van Beethoven. It helps that the band’s most recent work, including 2009′s Sunshine In The Land Of Milk And Honey, beefs up the setlist with songs that work well alongside the early-’90s stuff, and that they don’t seem to mind playing hits like the not-entirely-characteristic “Low.” After taking most of the ’90s off, CVB reunited in 1999 and has toured periodically with Cracker, giving Lowery fans the chance to hear all their favorites in once convenient place.
World Cafe Live
3025 Walnut St.
Philadelphia PA 19104
215-222-1400
Fri Jan 13
http://www.avclub.com/philadelphia/events/cracker-and-camper-van-beethoven,281399/

BOSTON EXAMINER (Boston online A&E site) – Feature w/ David interview and photo to preview show
Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker at the Middle East, Sunday 1/15/12
Dan Davis
Boston Indie Rock Music Examiner

David Lowery’s two bands, Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, make their annual mid-January visit to the Middle East this Sunday night.

The bands (who share not just Lowery but also drummer Frank Funaro, and have in the past shared bassist Victor Krumenacher) have braved the New England winters and played the Middle East on MLK Day weekend for the past several years. A year ago, they performed an album show, with Camper performing their underrated gem “Key Lime Pie” in its entirety, and Cracker following with their biggest hit album, “Kerosene Hat.”
David Lowery’s two bands, Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, make their annual mid-January visit to the Middle East this Sunday night.

The bands (who share not just Lowery but also drummer Frank Funaro, and have in the past shared bassist Victor Krumenacher) have braved the New England winters and played the Middle East on MLK Day weekend for the past several years. A year ago, they performed an album show, with Camper performing their underrated gem “Key Lime Pie” in its entirety, and Cracker following with their biggest hit album, “Kerosene Hat.”
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This time the both bands will be playing songs from their respective catalogs, and Camper might even have some new material in their set list. Lowery said that the band have written enough songs for an album, their first since their 2004 reunion rock opera “New Roman Times.” Camper has been performing on weekends and recording the new material during the week when able, and Lowery expects the new album to be released later this year.

“Camper has always had an element of prog rock, and with this album, we’re not hiding it,” he said. While known more for their faux-ethnic instrumentals, post-punk attitude and clever songwriting, Camper Van has also been known to cover Pink Floyd’s “Interstellar Overdrive” in concert, so the prog direction isn’t unprecedented.

Lowery released a solo album last year, “The Palace Guards,” and Cracker’s “Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey” came out in 2009. After this year’s new Camper release, Lowery said another Cracker album should be next in line.

Lowery noted that the bands try to play some different songs each time they come back to town, going back over past setlists and making changes to keep the show fresh and surprising. Both bands have deep catalogs of album tracks and indie rock staples to choose from, so it should be interesting to see what they come up with on Sunday.

Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven at the Middle East, Sunday 1/15. 18+ $20 Advance / $22 Day Of Show. Doors at 8pm, Camper Van Beethoven should hit sometime around 9:00, Cracker following at around 11:00.
http://www.examiner.com/indie-rock-music-in-boston/camper-van-beethoven-and-cracker-at-the-middle-east-sunday-1-15-12

BOSTON PHOENIX (Boston weekly) – “Editor’s Pick” show preview Cracker
Cracker + Camper van Beethoven
Jan 15
Middle East Downstairs
David Lowery is going to be pretty busy tonight. He’ll be doing double-duty, playing with both his bands — Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker — at the Middle East. But we suppose he’s used to it by now. Neither the genre-straddling ’80s underground rock vets nor the ’90s alt rockers have released a new album within the last three years, but that only means you’ll be treated to old chestnuts like Camper Van Beethoven’s signature wry hits “Take the Skinheads Bowling” and “Club Med Sucks.” Let’s just hope Lowery has maintained his rock-and-roll stamina after all these years.
http://events.thephoenix.com/Boston/Events/147234-Cracker-Camper-van-Beethoven/

BOSTON MUSIC SPOTLIGHT (Boston A&E site) – Show preview with Cracker photo.
Cracker & Camper Van Beethoven plot co-headlining tour
Boston Music Spotlight, Staff

Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven have revealed plans for their annual co-headlining tour. David Lowery will lead both bands back to Massachusetts for a show at the Middle East Downstairs in Cambridge on Sunday, January 15. Tickets for the show are now on sale through TicketWeb for $20.

Fans can expect both bands to perform career-spanning sets of hits and fan favorites. Camper Van Beethoven will also preview a handful of new songs slated for their new studio album. The new release will be their first in over seven years. Cracker s last studio release was 2009 2s Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey. Lowery, who fronts both Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven, released his first solo album The Palace Guards in February.
http://www.bostonmusicspotlight.com/news-cracker-camper-van-beethoven-plot-co-headlining-tour-massachusetts-concert-january-2012/

THE PATRIOT LEDGER (South Boston daily) – Brief show mention in ‘Upcoming Best” shows
Sunday night has the always interesting two-fer of David Lowery’s most iconoclastic bands, Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven, at the Middle East in Cambridge.
http://www.patriotledger.com/entertainment/x117256880/IN-THE-CLUBS-Parties-shows-and-nightlife

“With the release of the third LP, The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz, Radio Moscow bring their original brand of hard blues rock with a psychedelic tinge and take it to new heights.”  – GHETTOBLASTER MAGAZINE

Alive Records founder Patrick Boissel on his label’s new compilation, Where is Parker Griggs?
by Nick Spacek

This Tuesday, Alive Records releases the compilation Where Is Parker Griggs?, featuring many of the label’s current acts, like Radio Moscow, Buffalo Killers and Black Diamond Heavies. The label is tied into the legendary Bomp! and is celebrating 17 years in existence. Label head and founder Patrick Boissel was kind enough to talk with the Pitch recently via e-mail about the current state of Alive.

The Pitch: How did Alive come to be? I know it’s affiliated with Bomp!, but I’m not quite sure of its origins.

Patrick Boissel: My other half happens to be Suzy Shaw, Greg Shaw’s lifelong partner in the business and now sole owner of the label. I moved to the U.S to be with her and helped out at Bomp! by handling production, distribution, marketing, and many other things for more than ten years. Alive started in 1993 but became a priority for me only after Greg passed away.

Tying into that, what became of Disaster Records?

It folded a while back. Disaster was Duane Peters’ label, we were mostly providing manufacturing, distro and so forth. I think it is still going under a different name, but I’m not sure, we pretty much lost contact with Duane.

The flavor of Alive seems to be tied to that garage-rock aesthetic that Bomp’s always had, but with more of a roots sensibility. How do you see the label?

I see Alive as a rock ’n’ roll label first and foremost, and as you say it is certainly more roots-oriented than Bomp ever was. The influence is also philosophical — being a small independent label gives you the freedom to release what you want, it’s something that you cannot have with a big structure.

Alive is nearly twenty years old. What’s the label gone through in that time?

We have enough stories to write a book. We have worked with cool artists and we’ve met amazing characters over the years, from the sweetest to the wackiest. We have also managed to survive the bankruptcies of various distributors, both domestic and overseas. This is a rewarding business but it can be challenging as well. This said, it has been really great so far. We work hard and we make a living doing what we love, it’s a privilege, as far as I’m concerned.

There’s not a lot of your more well-known acts on Where Is Parker Griggs? Is this new compilation meant to be a look forward at what’s to come, rather than a look back?

Where Is Parker Griggs? is a snapshot of the current roster, it introduces new bands such as Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires, Brian Olive and Henry’s Funeral Shoe, and it showcases current artists who are starting to get some attention, most notably Hacienda, Radio Moscow and Buffalo Killers. It’s a follow-up to Never Give Up On Your Hallucinations, a similar release that features The Black Keys, among others.

What can folks expect?

A lot of unreleased material and a mix of garage rock, psych, punk, deep blues, Tejas garage-pop and rootsy psyouthern soul.

http://www.pitch.com/wayward/archives/2012/01/12/alive-records-founder-patrick-boissel-on-his-labels-new-compilation-where-is-parker-griggs

PETER CASE & PAUL COLLINS REUNITE FOR A SPECIAL FULL-BAND SPRING 2012 TOUR, WHERE THE TWO WILL PERFORMING SONGS FROM THEIR BACK CATALOGS WITH THE NERVES, THE BREAKAWAYS, THE PLIMSOULS AND THE BEAT!

The Plimsouls embodied rock & roll in its purest, undistilled form in the era when post-punk droned and new wave popped. Whether on record or onstage, this foursome unleashed urgent, white-hot performances of expertly constructed songs by frontman Peter Case that effortlessly straddled the perfection of British Invasion pop, the raucous, edgier side of early punk and garage rock, and the foundational elements of maximum R&B and wailing soul.

All of this is documented perfectly in one moment – or one night as the case may be – on the latest Plimsouls live album, Beach Town Confidential.  Recorded at the height of their onstage power at The Golden Bear in Huntington Beach, CA on August 13, 1983, this recording captures Peter Case, Eddie Muñoz, Dave Pahoa and Louie Ramírez ripping through these 16 tracks with a youthful and reckless abandon. Six of these songs have never been recorded before by The Plimsouls (“Making Time,” “Fall On You,” “The Price Of Love,” “Who’s Gonna Break The Ice?,” “Jumpin’ In The Night” and “You Can’t Judge A Book”), plus it also features the only live recordings of “Magic Touch,” “Oldest Story In The World” and “Hobo.”

The Plimsouls’ Beach Town Confidential was produced by Peter Case and mixed by Peter and Andrew Bush. It will be released Feb. 7, 2012 though Alive Naturalsound Records on LTD. Edition Vinyl (w/ mp3 download card), CD and Digital formats. In addition, Alive is also producing an extremely limited run of 200 pink vinyl LPs (w/ download card) exclusive to mail orders only.

FEEL FREE TO DOWNLOAD AND SHARE THE PLIMSOULS’ SONG “MAGIC TOUCH”
http://soundcloud.com/pavement-pr/the-plimsouls-magic-touch

BEACH TOWN CONFIDENTIAL TRACKLISTING:
01. Introduction
02. Shaky City
03. Makin’ Time
04. Zero Hour
05. Hobo
06. Who’s Gonna Break The Ice
07. Fall On You
08. Oldest Story In The World
09. Magic Touch
10. A Million Miles Away
11. Jump, Jive and Harmonize
12. Jumpin’ In The Night
13. Now
14. How Long Will It Take
15. In This Town
16. Price of Love
17. You Can’t Judge a Book

Prior to Peter Case forming The Plimsouls, he was part of two other influential mid-to-late ’70s bands with Paul Collins  – The Nerves and The Breakaways (Paul would later go on to form his own highly-respected group, The Beat). Both Peter and Paul have enjoyed successful solo careers on record and on the road, but this spring they’ll once again be reunited for a very special North American tour. The two frontmen (along with bassist Timm Buechler and drummer Amos Pitsch) will be performing classic numbers by their bands, The Nerves and The Breakaways, as well as material by The Plimsouls and The Beat. For fans of energetic live performances, visceral rock & roll, and raucous, hook-laden songs that draw as much from the golden age of ’60s pop as they do from punk, these shows should prove to be nothing short of nirvana.

PETER CASE AND PAUL COLLINS 2012 TOUR DATES:
Thursday, March 1 Low Down & Dirty Presents at Iron Road Studios, Vancouver BC

Friday, March 2 The Funhouse Seattle WA

Saturday, March 3 The Star Theatre Portland OR

Monday, March 5 Red Devil Lounge San Francisco CA

Wednesday, March 7 The Echo Los Angeles CA

Thursday, March 8 Bar Pink San Diego CA

Friday, March 9 Pappy and Harriet’s Pioneertown TBA CA

Sunday, March 11 Club Congress Tucson AZ

Tuesday, March 13 Rhythm Room Phoenix AZ

Friday, March 16 TBA SXSW Official Showcase Austin TX

Saturday, March 17 Alejandro Escovedo’s Taco Party at Maria’s Taco Express Austin TX

Saturday, March 17 Freddie Steady’s 12 Annual FRONTIER A GO GO AND ROCK & ROLL HOOTENANNY Austin TX 5:30 PM

Sunday, March 18 The Blue Door Oklahoma City OK acoustic duo

Monday, March 19 The Record Bar Kansas City MO

Tuesday, March 20 TBA or Lafayette IN

Thursday, March 22 The New Amsterdam Saint Paul MN

Friday, March 23 TBA Lafayette IN

Saturday, March 24 Shank Hall Milwaukee WI w/ Chuck Prophet

Sunday, March 25 Empty Bottle Chicago IL

Monday, March 26 TBA Cincinnati OH

Tuesday, March 27 Ace of Cups Columbus OH

Wednesday, March 28 Beachland Ballroom Cleveland OH

Friday, March 30 Stage on Herr Harrisburg PA

Saturday, March 31 Bridge Street Live Collinsville CT

Wednesday April 11 TBA NYC NY

Thursday, April 12 Bat Shea’s Public House Troy NY

Friday, April 13 WXPN “Free At Noon” concert

Friday, April 13 TBA Philadelphia PA

Saturday, April 14 TBA Washington DC

Sunday, April 15 TBA Richmond VA

Monday, April 16 TBA Raleigh NC

Wednesday, April 18 Hi-Tone Memphis TN

Thursday, April 19 The High Watt Nashville TN

Friday, April 20 JJ Bohemia’s Chattanooga TN

Saturday, April 21 The Star Bar Atlanta GA

Sunday, April 22 TBA Asheville NC holding

Tuesday, April 24 TBA Jacksonville FL

Wednesday, April, 25 TBA Gainesville FL

Thursday, April 26 TBA Tampa  FL

Friday, April 27 TBA Miami FL

Saturday, April 28 TBA Orlando FL

July 27-July 29 TBA Western CAN

FOR MORE INFO ON PETER CASE:
http://www.petercase.com
http://www.alive-totalenergy.com/x/?page_id=2345

FOR MORE INFO ON PAUL COLLINS
http://www.thepaulcollinsbeat.com
http://www.facebook.com/paulcollinsbeat

FOR MORE INFO ON THE PETER CASE & PAUL COLLINS TOUR:
http://www.facebook.com/peterpaulcaco

FOR BOOKING INQUIRIES:
roggie@rajiworld.com

FOR MORE INFO ON ALIVE RECORDS:
http://www.alive-totalenergy.com

FOR MEDIA AND INTERVIEW REQUESTS:
Tony Bonyata
Pavement PR
p: 262.903.7775
e: bonyata@wi.rr.com
http://www.pavementpr.com

BOSTON PHOENIX (Boston weekly) – “If You Want Blood” news story, with, Ames live video, tour dates and related links.

“Last song with this lineup ever!” Radio Moscow draw blood on stage in Iowa; Cambridge gig still on, but with new dudes

This week in Anton Newcombe-esque epic onstage meltdown news: The former drummer of psychedelic marauders RADIO MOSCOW fucked singer/guitarist Parker Griggs up something gnarly immediately after their tour kickoff Saturday in Iowa. Shit gets real about 35 seconds into this clip when Griggs chucks his guitar in the general direction of the drum kit, prompting disgruntled band mate Cory Berry to hurl the ax back at Griggs’ skull with deadly accuracy.

But all’s well that ends well. According to the exceptionally entertaining press release: Griggs got his forehead sewn back together with 14 stitches, swiftly rounded up a fresh rhythm section (his bassist also quit that night), and didn’t even miss the next scheduled tour stop in Chicago a day later. Catch ‘em at the Middle East Downstairs tomorrow night, opening for Swedish retro-prog outfit Graveyard.

Let’s hope the new Radio Moscow drummer has a gentler disposition than the old one…or, at least, shittier aim.
http://blog.thephoenix.com/BLOGS/onthedownload/archive/2012/01/12/quot-last-song-with-this-lineup-ever-quot-radio-moscow-draw-blood-on-stage-in-iowa-cambridge-gig-still-on.aspx

STYLE WEEKLY (Richmond, VA weekly) – Feature with Parker interview and band photo to preview show

The Big Come Up
Radio Moscow brings the ’60s back to life.

When a band passes off an unsolicited demo to a record label, nine times out of 10 it doesn’t receive even a cursory listen. In the case of the Black Keys, however, mailing the head of Alive Naturalsound Records a rough copy of “The Big Come Up” earned the duo a contract and an official release.

When Radio Moscow frontman Parker Griggs handed the group’s demo to the Black Keys’ merchandise guy, he had no idea that the Keys’ Dan Auerbach was going to pay it forward. After falling for the power trio’s heavy psychedelic blues, Auerbach brought Radio Moscow to Alive Naturalsound and offered to produce its eponymous debut.

“It was all recorded on his vintage ’60s reel-to-reel,” says the Iowa-bred Griggs, on the phone from his current home base in Northern California. “We recorded it pretty quick without much overdubs, so it’s simple and to the point.”

Folks who think Blue Cheer is chronically underrated or that Fleetwood Mac peaked in 1970 with its 24-minute, live version of “Rattlesnake Shake” quickly caught on to the band’s swampy, zigzagging guitar jams, pounding percussion and vocals reminiscent of Cream’s Jack Bruce. Subsequent touring brought Radio Moscow through Richmond a handful of times to perform at the cozy, now-defunct venue Nara Sushi. “(Nara) was usually packed, the crowd was right in front of the band and they got into it,” Griggs says.

To record the follow-up to their second full-length, “Brain Cycles,” Griggs and bassist Zach Anderson moved out to Prairie Sun Recording, a secluded ranch in Cotati, Calif. “The area doesn’t get phone reception or much of anything, so we were out here being loner mountain men trying to make music,” Griggs says. The result was 2011′s wild and grizzled “The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz,” a record that landed on many year-end top 10s. If Jimi Hendrix had stretched the opening feedback on “Foxy Lady” completely over that song’s chunky riffs, waxed the screeching wah-wah, and tossed in harmonica, sonically it would resemble the latest songs from Radio Moscow. “I think the new record is a little more intense, more in your face,” Griggs says.

Currently on tour with like-minded Swedish act Graveyard, Radio Moscow recruited a member of the ’60s psychedelic scene to help flesh out its performances visually. Lance Gordon, as Mad Alchemy, originally projected his liquid light shows onto venues like the Fillmore and Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco. For this tour he’ll be creating a chemical-induced backdrop for Radio Moscow’s sizzling sets of rock ‘n’ roll. Says Griggs, “We’re really going for it.”

Radio Moscow will appear with Graveyard on Jan. 17 at Strange Matter. Doors open at 8 p.m. and tickets cost $12. For information, go to strangematterva.com.
Graveyard, Radio Moscow @ Strange Matter
929 W. Grace St. http://strangematterrva.com
o Tue., Jan. 17, 9 p.m.
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/the-big-come-up/Content?oid=1653534

BLURT (national print and online music magazine) –  “If You Want Blood” news story, with, Ames live video, tour dates and related link.

Radio Moscow Implodes w/Onstage Fight
Frontman Parker Griggs after receiving 14 stitches to the forehead last Saturday night.
By Blurt Staff

Last month we reviewed the mighty Radio Moscow’s recent album The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz (Alive), noting that it “feeds from the teat of late sixties and seventies Nuggets comp forefathers, vocal effects and hallucinogens dripping from the speakers and the psychedelic, heavy, effects-driven guitar of Parker Griggs.”

Apparently all that heaviness and aggression went into overdrive Saturday night at the start of the band’s North American tour when the members had, in the label’s words, “a physical meltdown onstage during their hometown record release show in Ames, IA. With internal friction between the threesome apparently boiling over, the band made it to the final song of their setlist before things came to a head. Literally. The drummer grabbed Griggs’ guitar and, according to Griggs, hurled it as hard as he could at the guitarist, leaving a gaping wound in his forehead and blood everywhere. Griggs was then rushed to the local emergency room, where he received 14 stitches.”

Interestingly, if you check the viewer comments below the video at YouTube, some of the notes were apparently penned by fans who were in attendance and saw the events go down. For example, “BluesPills” wrote, “Nice editing… you left out all the parts where parker was bashing his band on stage on the mic to all the friends and family in the audience. You also left out the the guitar actually hit Cory in the neck, Cory just reacted, there was no time for aim are you serious… oh one more thing… just so its clarified. The night before Parker threw a beer can at a womans face. That woman being The bassists girlfriend. That woman being the singer of Blues Pills.”

Another commenter, “somewhere646,” added, “I think you should post the uncut version from Saturdays second set. Let people hear all the shit parker was saying about the bassist and drummer before he threw the guitar at the drummer. Can tell your friends with Parker. Because everyone else who was there thought Parker was the ass.”

So clearly there is a divergence of opinion here. But that’s none of our business, and besides, Griggs has already put together a new version of the band. According to the record label:

“Needless to say that was the end of this particular incarnation of Radio Moscow (but then Parker always has toured with an ever-changing set of guitarists and drummers in the past, not to mention that he plays all of the instruments on Radio Moscow’s albums).  With only one day before their Chicago show, Griggs enlisted two new musicians into the band – bassist Billy Ellsworth from San Diego and drummer Lonnie Blanton from Salt Lake City, who flew into Chicago yesterday and arrived at the venue just hours before their gig. Radio Moscow is reborn and once again ready to rock the nation… hopefully now with a lot less bloodshed.”

As the tour will continue, Alive is also offering a previously unreleased Radio Moscow track, “The Stranger,” which is featured on Alive’s new various artists sampler Where Is Parker Griggs. Good luck to Radio Moscow, and here’s hoping they make it through the tour. Dates are below.
http://blurt-online.com/news/view/5876/

THE VINYL DISTRICT (online music blog) –  “If You Want Blood” story, with, Ames live video, tour dates and related link.

Radio Moscow’s Psychedelic Soap Opera
By Mike Newman | Published: January 12, 2012
Psychedelic blues rockers, Radio Moscow, start their tour with heavy psych rock Swedes, Graveyard tonight at the Bowery Ballroom with a brand new rhythm section.

The trio was playing a few shows to get warmed up on their drive out to NYC to meet up with Graveyard. And here’s what happened at show number two on January 7th before they made it out of their home state of Iowa…
So, who’s to blame in this psychedelic soap opera?

The next night, Radio Moscow mastermind, Parker Griggs flew out a new bassist and drummer and the band didn’t even miss the show the next night in Cedar Rapids. Below are the Graveyard/Radio Moscow tour dates and be sure to catch the trio on my Beyond Beyond is Beyond show on East Village Radio today from noon to 2pm EST. Maybe I can get to the bottom of the drama!

And be sure to check out the former bassist and drummer other killer band, Blues Pills. One of my favorite new bands!

Thu/Jan-12 New York, NY Bowery Ballroom
Fri/Jan-13 Boston, MA Middle East
Sat/Jan-14 Philadelphia, PA Northstar Bar
Sun/Jan-15 Baltimore, MD Golden West
Mon/Jan-16 Washington, DC DC9
Tue/Jan-17 Richmond, VA Stange Matter
Wed/Jan 18 Charlotte, NC Casbah @ Tremont Music Hall
Thu/Jan-19 Asheville, NC Asheville Music Hall
Fri/Jan-20 Nashville, TN Exit/In
Sat/Jan-21 Atlanta, GA Masquerade – Hell Stage
Sun/Jan-22 Memphis, TN Hi-Tone Café
Mon/Jan-23 Texarkana, TX Dave’s Skate Park (no graveyard)
Tue/Jan-24 Houston, TX Fitzgeralds
Wed/Jan-25 Austin, TX Mohawk
Fri/Jan-27 Tempe, AZ Yucca Tap Room
Sat/Jan-28 Los Angeles, CA Bootleg Bar
Sun/Jan-29 Santa Cruz CA The Catalyst, (no graveyard)
Mon/Jan-30 San Francisco Cafe Du Nord
Tue/Jan-31 Portland, OR Doug Fir Lounge
Wed/Feb-01 Seattle, WA Tractor
http://www.thevinyldistrict.com/newyork/2012/01/radio-moscows-psychedelic-soap-opera/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=radio-moscows-psychedelic-soap-opera

EAST VILLAGE RADIO / BEYOND BEYOND IS BEYOND (NYC RADIO STATION) –  “If You Want Blood” story, with band photo, Ames live video, tour dates, album art and related links.

Radio Moscow Go Beyond Thursday…With a New Lineup

OK, so this WAS Radio Moscow. Led by singer/guitarist Parker Griggs in the center. Drummer Cory Jack Berry (right) and Zack Anderson (left) left the band on January 7th on the second night of their tour after a bit of inter-band violence. Watch the psychedelic soap opera unfold here…
Like psychedelic sands through the hourglass…

So Radio Moscow are slated to play live on Beyond Beyond is Beyond on East Village Radio on Thursday, so we’ll see what goes down. Hopefully they’ll come rock for us. Their new album, The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz on Alive Naturalsound Records, was one of my favorites from 2011.

So tune in the EVR.com on Thursday from noon to 2pm (EST) as Radio Moscow’s new lineup goes BEYOND…

* Radio Moscow on Alive Records
* East Village Radio
* Beyond Beyond is Beyond archives
http://beyondbeyondisbeyond.com/archives/3688

METROMIX DES MOINES (Des Moines, IA online A&E site) –  “If You Want Blood” story with band photo, Ames live video and related links.

Radio Moscow’s Ames show was short, interesting

I didn’t make it up to Radio Moscow’s show at DG’s Tap House in Ames, but it was an important one for the band. Near the end of the set singer/guitarist Parker Griggs threw his guitar at drummer Cory Berry’s kit. In response, Berry threw it back. Into Parkers’ face.

It was captured pretty well for Youtube:
Needless to say, Berry is no longer a part of the band. Bassist Zach Anderson (who is Berry’s step brother) is also gone. Anderson and Berry had been a steady part of the band for several years.

According to Radio Moscow’s website, new members Lonnie Blanton and Billy Ellsworth were flown in last night for a show in Chicago.

So the next time we see Radio Moscow, they’re going to be looking pretty different.
http://desmoines.metromix.com/music/blog_post/radio-moscows-ames-show/2977316/content

LEICESTER BANGS (UK music blog) –  “If You Want Blood” story (from press announcement), with Parker photo and related links.
http://leicesterbangs.blogspot.com/2012/01/if-you-want-blood-radio-moscows-got-it.html

BMAN’S BLUES REPORT (Blues music blog) –  “If you Want Blood” story (from press announcement), with Parker photo, album art and related links.
http://www.bmansbluesreport.com/2012/01/radio-moscows-previous-lineup.html

THE LANTERN (Columbus college weekly) – Feature with Parker interview and band photo to preview show

Radio Moscow hopes to woo American audience in Columbus gig
By Caitlyn Wasmundt

Hoping to overcome one of its biggest obstacles, Radio Moscow members are eager to attract a crowd with their ‘60s-influenced psychedelic blues music.

The band is scheduled to play at Ace of Cups bar at 8 p.m. Tuesday.

Parker Griggs, frontman for Radio Moscow, said the largest challenge the band has had to face is playing the music it loves for this generation.

“There’s not that big of a fan base for our style (of music),” Griggs said.

Radio Moscow’s psychedelic sound is inspired by many influences such as British blues and acid rock, Griggs said.

The band doesn’t follow music trends, Griggs said.

The band, which started out as Griggs’ solo project, has added two members, with drums played by Cory Berry and collaborative songwriting by bassist Zach Anderson.

Griggs said they are now able to put forth a better show for their audience.

“It’s been a lot better to have the real thing (drums) — it’s louder, and it’s better to see,” he said.

Even though the biggest challenge for the band has been gathering a fan base, it has also been one of its greatest achievements.

The members have been able to attract their idols, such as Johnny Ramone of The Ramones, and other musicians from the ‘60s and ‘70s to their music.

“Its cool to know that other psychedelic rockers are digging what we’re doing,” Griggs said.

It’s not only psychedelic rockers of the past who have seen potential in Radio Moscow, but contemporary artists also. Dan Auerbach, of The Black Keys, discovered the band and facilitated a record deal for them from Alive Naturalsound Records.

Since then, Radio Moscow has been compared to The Black Keys, who are also set to perform in Columbus, with a tour stop scheduled for Mar. 4 at the Schottenstein Center.

“Griggs’ vocals are soulful and tastefully gritty, similar to contemporary blues outfit Black Keys,” wrote Dan Rankin, for “Blare Magazine.”

Nathaniel Barbone, a second-year in art, said Jimi Hendrix sound is one thing that attracts him to Radio Moscow’s music. He said he has listened to the band for two years, and is excited to see it live.

“He (Griggs) sounds like Jimi Hendrix, I think. I like that fuzz tone on a guitar, it’s like old school rock ‘n’ roll vintage, but now-a-days,” Barbone said.

Most of Radio Moscow’s inspiration comes from boredom and seclusion. The band members live in the middle of nowhere, and “the songs are inspired by loneliness,” Griggs said.

The show in Columbus will be part of the band’s North American tour promoting its newest album, “The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz.”

Griggs said the set list has yet to be established, but he is expecting a mix from all three of the band’s albums, with some of its newest songs such as, “Little Eyes” along with some of their older works.

Even though Radio Moscow has never played at Ace of Cups, Jeff Kleinman, booking manager for the venue, said he is expecting a pretty large crowd.

After its Ace of Cups debut, Radio Moscow will be joining Swedish band Graveyard .

Griggs said he is looking forward to being paired with a “like-minded band.”

Presale tickets have already sold out for the show. Local musicians, Eye and TK Webb (of Sundown), will be opening acts. Tickets are $10 at the door.
http://www.thelantern.com/a-e/radio-moscow-hopes-to-woo-american-audience-in-columbus-gig-1.2739280

DONE WAITING (online music site) – Positive Staff Pick show preview with band photo

Staff Pick: Radio Moscow at Ace of Cups

Dear Mr. Clapton -

I know that you’ve probably retreated to one of your homes situated in a warmer client. However, if for some reason the warmer-than-usual winter has kept you and your family in Columbus, I’d like to invite you to Ace of Cups on Tuesday night to bear witness to the fuzzy, psychedelic blues sounds of the Iowa (yes, Iowa!) trio Radio Moscow. I know you’ve been seen around town taking in performers that have been influenced by you and I think … no, scratch that, I KNOW that Parker Griggs owes a great deal of gratitude to the likes of you (particularly your work with Cream), Hendrix, and Blue Cheer for inspiring his playing style.

Current Rolling Stone cover boys The Black Keys are also fans of Radio Moscow and BK’s Dan Auerbach signed the band to AliveNaturalsound in 2008 after seeing them perform. If that’s not a ringing endorsement, I don’t know what is.

So, Mr. Clapton, will I see you there on Tuesday night? The show should be over by midnight, so you can get home at a reasonable hour (at least in the world of rock n’ roll where many shows aren’t over until 2am). I bet I can get you on the guest list if you’re so inclined. -Chip

TK Webb (of Sundown) and EYE open the show. Music starts around 9pm. Tickets are $7 in advance, $10 at the door.
http://www.donewaiting.com/2012/01/08/tuesday-radio-moscow-ace-of-cups/

COLUMBUS ALIVE (Columbus, OH weekly) – Day-of-show “ Concert Pick” with band photo

Tuesday concert pick: Radio Moscow at Ace of Cups

Looking to rock this Tuesday? Look no further than Ace of Cups, 2619 N. High St., where Iowa psych-blues slammers Radio Moscow headline a bill also featuring like-minded locals EYE and a solo appearance by Sundown’s TK Webb. For more info, check my staff pick from the most recent issue.
http://www.columbusalive.com/content/blogs/sensory-overload/2012/01/radio-moscow.html

COLUMBUS ALIVE (Columbus, OH weekly) – The A-List Staff Pick show preview

Staff Pick: Radio Moscow at Ace of Cups
By Chris Deville
The Columbus Dispatch

Like Sabbath with soul or Dan Auerbach fronting Cream, Radio Moscow magnificently blazes through the bluesy raunch of heavy metal’s afterbirth. The touring circuit suffers no shortage of back-to-basics psych rock, but few are quite so gnarly as the band that banged out last year’s rock-solid “The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz” on Alive Naturalsound (no relation to this fine publication). Add Eye and TK Webb of Sundown to the equation and you’ve got yourself a rock show of repute.
Ace of Cups
8 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 10
2619 N. High St., North Campus
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/life_and_entertainment/2012/01/05/9a-bits05-g1bfetac-1.html

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH (Columbus, OH daily) – Brief show preview.

Radio Moscow : Throwback sounds are key for the modern Iowa psych-blues trio, whose music has been compared to that of Cream and the Allman Brothers Band.
DOORS OPEN 8 p.m. Tuesday
TICKETS $7
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/life_and_entertainment/2012/01/05/9a-bits05-g1bfetac-1.html

LITTLE VILLAGE (Iowa City weekly) – Positive show preview with video.

FRIDAY
Radio Moscow, Brutus & the Psychedelic Explosions // Gabe’s // 9:00 PM // $10

Radio Moscow continues the weekend’s face melting with some heavy psychedelic blues-rock. What started as a solo project by frontman Parker Griggs, quickly became a full band affair personally endorsed by perhaps the biggest rock band in American right now, The Black Keys. These dudes can shred. Hailing from Story City, IA, Radio Moscow has played SXSW a few times and has released three albums in the past four years. Their latest, The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz was released in October, 2011 and they’ve been touring the world to support it. Iowa City band, Brutus & the Psychedelic Explosions open this one.
http://littlevillagemag.com/weekender/iowa-city-weekender-january-5-7/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=iowa-city-weekender-january-5-7

PRESS-CITIZEN (Iowa City daily) – Brief critics pick show preview.

Play: Events not to miss this week
Radio Moscow
Radio Moscow, Brutus & the Psychedelic Explosions and Johnny Scum will share the stage at 9 p.m. Friday at Gabe’s. The Radio Moscow trio is touring on the heels of its second studio album, “Brain Cycles.” Tickets are $10 through www.icgabes.com.
http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20120105/GOIOWACITY/301050001/Play-Events-not-to-miss-this-week

RAG ON THE ROAD (Spanish music site) – Positive review in Spanish.
http://ragontheroad.blogspot.com/2012/01/radio-moscow-great-escape-of-leslie.html

AMES TRIBUNE (Ames, IA daily) – Positive feature/interview to preview Ames show.

Radio Moscow returns to roots with Ames show
Chad Taylor

Radio Moscow is kind of a big deal. Coming from a state with a “middle-of-nowhere” reputation, Radio Moscow is probably Iowa’s best opportunity to contribute something real to the greater musical landscape.

Trends come and go, but the idea of a bunch of guys getting together in a garage and playing the kind of music that makes the neighbors call the cops — that’s forever. And it’s that idea that’s crystallized in the form of Radio Moscow, more so than any other local product.

There’s no hipster lo-fi. No digital manipulation to muddle the sound or Slipknot-style gimmicks to distract from it. Radio Moscow is rock music as the gods intended: recorded straight to tape and full of dirty amps, manic drums; syrup-thick bass lines and some of the best modern-day guitar hooks this side of Buckethead.

Parker Griggs – the magician responsible for those licks and pride of Story City – is not just a cheap homage to dervishes like Hendrix and Jeff Beck. Rather, he’s a direct descendant, cobbled together from whatever pieces of cosmic cloth were left over from their creation and handed a guitar.

The band plays live as a power trio but are, for all practical intents and purposes, a two man operation. All three of the group’s studio albums have featured bassist Zach Anderson, with Griggs pulling duty on most everything else.

“I write the drum tracks myself,” Griggs said. “The guys we play with live play most of the songs pretty close. But for the albums, there are just some things that I want done a certain way, so I just do them.”

Signed to Alive Natural sound Records by The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach (Auerbach also produced their self-titled debut), Radio Moscow’s production level has been as consistent and unrelenting as their sound, with an album coming out just about every 18 months.

Griggs has no immediate intentions of altering that pace, either.

“Since the album [‘The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz’] came out, I’ve written about another half album worth of songs,” he said. “We’ll finish this tour out, and probably be back in the studio in early 2012.”

Radio Moscow returns to Ames this week for a concert at DG’s Tap House, 127 Main St., Saturday night. The band will also give an interview and perform at KURE 88.5 earlier that afternoon. The concert is the second of five Midwest performances before Radio Moscow begins its U.S. tour with Graveyard.

Event: Radio Moscow, DG’s Tap House, 127 Main St., 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 7, $10
http://amestrib.com/articles/2012/01/04/ames_tribune/news/entertainment/doc4f038e1a21de3661555889.txt

DES MOINES CITYVIEW (Des Moines daily) – Positive feature/interview  with band photo to preview Ames show.

Radio Moscow’s Parker Griggs carries the torch for psychedelic rock
By Michael Swanger

Radio Moscow’s frontman and founder Parker Griggs doesn’t just play stoner rock; he is stoner rock.

The proof is in his wafer-thin frame and long hair, his pot-inspired album artwork, his imprisonment for possession of hash and his unapologetic devotion to classic psychedelic rock and proto-metal blues inspired by Blue Cheer, Jimi Hendrix, Deep Purple and Cream. It is so ingrained in every fiber of his being that one could argue that he arrived on the scene 40 years too late.

Yet before anyone accuses Griggs of being the musical equivalent of an acid flashback, consider the modest success Radio Moscow has earned in its short life during a time when boring, predictable, corporate-backed musicians rule the roost. To be sure, the “new is old philosophy” that applies to retrogressive predecessors like The White Stripes, The Black Keys, Amy Winehouse and Raphael Saadiq applies to Parker.

“When we started, there wasn’t anything like us going on,” said Parker, 27, from his California home. “There’s more of the old school influence starting to pick up now, but there’s still not a lot of it out there.”

When Parker began his musical journey in his parents’ basement in Story City, Iowa, he did so with the encouragement of his father who played guitar and the inspiration of the 1990s grunge and alternative rock movements.

“I got into that and started playing guitar and drums at the same time,” Griggs said. “I liked the rawness of it. It was something I could relate to.”

Griggs began recording under the solo alias Garbage Composal before adding bassist Serana Anderson to form Radio Moscow. The singer/songwriter/guitarist/drummer would pre-record drum tracks for the duo to play along to at shows.

“I recorded the drum tracks because we couldn’t find a drummer to play with us for such a long time,” Griggs said. “There’s not a lot of people to jam with.”

That would change after Griggs moved to Colorado in 2005 and attended a concert by The Black Keys. After the show, he gave the band’s merchandise manager a copy of his demo of instrumental tracks and his phone number. Later that night, The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach called him back to inform him that he dug it and wanted to work with Radio Moscow.

“I was pretty surprised the dude from The Black Keys was calling my phone that night. I’m glad he checked it out,” Griggs said.

Soon afterwards, Auerbach signed Radio Moscow to Alive Naturalsound Records, and Griggs and new bassist Luke McDuff traveled to Auerbach’s home in Akron, Ohio, to record the band’s self-titled debut album that would be released in 2007. Griggs said the experience was enjoyable and informative.

“He’s a pretty no-nonsense guy. We got it done in a few days and he helped me with my vocals, getting me to be more confident to sing,” he said.

That growing confidence can be heard on the band’s 2009 album “Brain Cycles” and 2011’s “The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz.” The latest album features bassist Zach Anderson and Griggs on tunes like the wah-and-phased delirium of “Little Eyes,” the UK blues-rock of “Creepin’” and the Middle Eastern-inspired “Densaflorativa.”

This year might prove to the be the band’s most prolific and newsworthy to date. On Jan. 10, Alive Naturalsound will release a compilation of exclusive tracks from Radio Moscow and their label mates entitled “Where Is Parker Griggs?” to be followed later this year by an album of basement recordings Griggs recorded during his teen years in Iowa.
After concluding a tour next month with Swedish hard rockers Graveyard, Griggs will recruit replacements for Anderson and drummer Cory Berry because “they want to stay in the Midwest, and I want to stay in California.” He will also continue working on new material for an album he hopes to release later this year, while squeezing in a tour of Europe this spring.

“I guess I always wanted to try as hard as I could to make good music. I always wanted it to work out,” he said. CV
Radio Moscow performs Saturday, Jan. 7 at 8 p.m. at DG’s Taphouse in Ames. Admission is $10.
http://www.dmcityview.com/2012/01/05/music/sound.html

THE AUSTIN CUT (Austin, TX weekly) – Brief show preview

Graveyard w/ Radio Moscow
Wed, 01/25/2012 – 6:30pm
Mohawk Outside

Four dudes with long hair and random mustaches usually put on a good show. Graveyard seriously rocks, but still claims to play folk/blues/classic stuff. Radio Moscow is more hair, and more psychedelia. “Psychedelic blues for your soul!”
http://austincut.com/event/2012-01-25/mohawk-outside/graveyard-w-radio-moscow

DES MOINES REGISTER’S THE JUICE (Des Moines daily) – Positive feature/interview  with band photo to preview Ames show.

Radio Moscow back to civilization
The psychedelic blues band has been spending time off the grid
by Erin Randolph

Where is Parker Griggs? The 27-year-old lead singer of psychedelic blues band Radio Moscow may as well be off the grid entirely.

Griggs created Radio Moscow in his hometown of Story City, though it was relocated to Colorado, then back to Iowa, and now to a secluded cabin in an unincorporated area of northern California.

“It’s a strange mix of folks out here,” Griggs said. “It’s quite different.”

It’s the kind of seclusion that hardly exists in the 21st century: no Internet access, spotty phone reception and few neighbors. But it is an ideal practice space and home for a band looking for the freedom to play music on its own terms and disappear for a few months to create a new album. The band is currently on a North American tour in support of its third album, “The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz,” including a stop in Ames at DG’s Tap House on Saturday night.

“The Great Escape of Leslie Magnafuzz” was released in October on Alive Records, the original label of The Black Keys — who helped Radio Moscow get signed after Griggs passed a cassette tape to the band’s merch guy at a show. The album was recorded in a studio north of San Francisco and fed through old tape machines to give it a vintage vibe, referencing genre idols such as Cream and Jimi Hendrix. The songs on the album are the product of the loneliness and eccentricities of the band’s temporary home in remote Rancho Tehama, where the songs were written.

Though Griggs has a difficult time explaining exactly how the isolation of the ranch impacted the sound of the album, he acknowledges the presence of this outside force in the creative process.

“This place is pretty secluded and it’s kind of lonely,” Griggs said. “It’s quite different than most places in America. We can’t really get phone calls or get online. It gave the album sort of a different weirdness than the previous albums because we were so isolated.”

It’s that same isolation that inspired Alive Records to release a compilation called “Where is Parker Griggs?” It’s an apparent acknowledgment of how difficult it is to get a hold of Griggs in his remote locale, not to mention the difficulty of attempting to reach the band while touring extensively in Europe, which Radio Moscow has done multiple times and to bigger fanfare than in its homeland.

“Our shows are twice as big over there as opposed to the average American gig,” Griggs said. “The promotion is better and more people go out to rock and roll shows.”

Though Europe has its own appeal, Griggs is looking forward to returning to Iowa, where his family still resides. Griggs cut his teeth in Ames as a teenager with dyed-blue hair playing drums in a punk rock band. His dad introduced him to British blues rock, and Griggs hasn’t looked back since. When Griggs pulls into town this time, it will be in support of the music that inspires him: blues-meets- garage rock with a psychedelic spin. And if playing that music means living in a remote cabin in Northern California, unreachable to much of the outside world, then so be it.

Radio Moscow
Where: DG’s Tap House, Ames
When: Saturday, 8 p.m.
Cost: $10, at midwestix.com
http://dmjuice.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012301030060

THE AQUARIAN WEEKLY (NYC / NJ weekly) – Positive show preview with band photo.

Radio Moscow: Storm’s Brewin’
—by Roz Smith, January 9, 2012

On Jan. 12, Sweden’s Graveyard and Iowa natives Radio Moscow will be tearing up NYC’s Bowery Ballroom. The psychedelic garage-rock trio is currently touring the country with the Swedes in support of their latest release, The Great Escape Of Leslie Magnafuzz, which is out on Alive Naturalsound Records. Tickets for the Jan. 12 show are $13 in advance and $15 the day of. Doors are at 8 p.m., and the show is 18+. Don’t miss the blues-rock power trio as they show the East Coast what the Dust Bowl has been stirring up.
http://www.theaquarian.com/2012/01/09/radio-moscow-storms-brewin/

EXAMINER: CENTRAL IOWA (online A&E site) – Positive Ames show preview with band photo and related links.

Radio Moscow comes to DG’s Tap House on January 7
Radio Moscow will play a show at DG’s Tap House (127 Main Street, Ames) on Saturday, January 7.  Doors open at 8 pm, and the show starts at 9 pm.  Tickets are $10 and can be purchased online through MidwesTix.  Bright Giant is slated to open.  You must be 21 or older to attend this show.

Radio Moscow is a psychedelic blues rock band that got its start in Story City, Iowa.  Though the band has moved around some and turned over some members, founder Parker Griggs still has the band on the cusp of breaking big.  The band currently features Griggs on vocals and guitar (and also drums when recording) and Zach Anderson on bass.  The band uses a variety of drummers when they tour.  The band is currently on a tour that has them playing nearly every single day in January, and includes dates in 16 different states from coast to coast during the month.
http://www.examiner.com/music-scene-in-des-moines/radio-moscow-comes-to-dg-s-tap-house-on-january-7

ALAN CROSS: A JOURNAL OF MUSICAL THINGS (online music blog) –  “If You Want Blood” story, with Parker photo, Ames live video, and related link.
http://www.alancross.ca/a-journal-of-musical-things/2012/1/11/radio-moscows-bloody-breakup.html

PLUG IN MUSIC (online music site) –  “If You Want Blood” story, with Parker photo, Ames live video, The Stranger mp3, tour dates and related link.
http://www.pluginmusic.com/news/article/radio-moscow-suffer-physical-meltdown-on-stage-during-show

DSM VIBE (online music blog) –  “If You Want Blood” story, with Ames live video.
The break-up and rebirth of Radio Moscow
Posted on January 11, 2012 by dsmvibe
In case you haven’t heard, or were curious about our cryptic tweets from Saturday night’s Radio Moscow/Bright Giant show, the video below should explain everything behind the break-up and rebirth of Radio Moscow.
http://dsmvibe.com/2012/01/11/the-break-up-and-rebirth-of-radio-moscow/

Film At 11: Martha Berner And The Significant Others

Memory and nostalgia seem to be a popular trend in music this past year, and Martha Berner’s video for “Fool’s Fantasy” is no different. Though it may primarily feature Berner and her band performing the song, shots of a film projector are interspliced before it finally casts its home movies upon the band during the crescendo. Granted, “Fool’s Fantasy,” the title track from Berner’s latest LP, may not have the deepest, most symbolic clip ever, but its quaint use of home video superimposed upon the band carries across the song’s message well enough, creating a nice juxtaposition between the image and the strong pipes of Berner. Watch the clip below.

CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW TO VIEW MARTHA BERNER’S NEW “FOOL’S FANTASY” VIDEO ON MAGNET’S “FILM AT 11″

It’s been six years since the release of her well-received debut album …this side of yesterday, but last month marked the return of indie-folk singer/songwriter Martha Berner with her long-awaited full-length follow-up Fool’s Fantasy along with her new band The Significant Others.

The entire album was recorded at Chicago’s premiere digital recording studio Stranded On A Planet with producer & Significant Others’ guitarist Scott Fritz, and was mastered by four-time Grammy Award winner Gavin Lurssen (Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Cat Power, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, etc). While this new material still incorporates the Chicago-based musician’s trademark whiskey-and-honey vocals and thought-provoking subjects that stretch across folk, pop and Americana, Fool’s Fantasy marks Martha’s first true band effort – incorporating elements of Stax soul, insurgent country and the unbridled passion of late ‘60s rock-n-roll.

FEEL FREE TO POST & SHARE MARTHA BERNER & THE SIGNIFICANT OTHERS’ NEW TRACK “BRAVE”
http://soundcloud.com/pavement-pr/martha-berner-brave

“In her long-awaited (six years!) follow-up to her debut album, the Chicago folk-rock singer gathers together a new band (the Significant Others), producer (Scott Fritz, of aforementioned band) and a delightfully twangy, alt-country/bar-rock sound. Fritz contributes tumbling guitar lines that nicely compliment Berner’s vocals, which switch from smoky-sweet to raw and impassioned on a dime—it’s easy to see why the singer’s live performances have been so lauded by critics.” – METROMIX NYC

“There is a certain magic on these twelve tracks….Berner sounds better than ever before.” – ROOTSTIME: BELGIUM

“By keeping their obvious influences diverse, their latest release “Fool’s Fantasy” gives you a taste that is not necessarily heard on the radio, but should be. If you like Americana, this is totally worth checking out.” – ECLECTIBLOGS

“ …reminiscent of the bands Steve Earle put together on all those Twangtrust records. In a sea of “half decent” female singer/songwriters, Martha Berner really stands out.” – WHEN YOU MOTOR AWAY

“A pearl.” – KEYS & CHORDS

“Martha is infinitely talented.”  – MUSIC + MOXIE

“Think Natalie Merchant with fewer adult contemporary leanings or Aimee Mann on a folkier trip. Berner’s voice can thicken and thin like Joni Mitchell’s and it’s unmistakably her greatest asset” - MAGNET

“One of indie’s finest talents.” - TORONTO METRO

“Dramatic, heartfelt and an unusual musical versatility.” – NASHVILLE CITY PAPER

“Undeniable vocal talent fused with country sensibilities. With a burning alt. country feel… well, Dylan would have nodded his approval.” – WHISPERIN & HOLLERIN / UK

“Martha’s live shows are revelatory.” – CHICAGOIST

“Heartfelt and wry acoustic folk-rock, that also showcases some fun detours with a full band, including a retro power-pop number.” – MADISON CAPITAL TIMES

“A moody, experimental album that hits all the right notes; at once wry, melancholy and celebratory of life’s smallest revelatory moments – like grabbing a beer for breakfast.” – OUT MAGAZINE

“When Chicago’s Martha Berner sings that her heart is breaking into ‘ten tiny little pieces’ on the titular track of her four-song Ten Tiny Little Pieces E.P. you can practically feel your own heart breaking along with hers. And just as you’ve used up all the tissues in the house to dry your eyes, Berner puts the sun into “Sunday Morning,” a spirited cover of the Velvet Underground classic. Somewhere between these two numbers Berner elevates the mood on ‘Down and Out in San Francisco’ and eventually breaks through to pop perfection on ‘Wait For Me.’” – CHICAGO FREE PRESS

“While tales of frustration, loss and weary introspection heavily dot Martha Berner’s songs, they don’t overwhelm the Chicago singer’s gentle rootsy delivery. Her lyrics are mature and direct, and her melodies would hold up just fine even without the tasteful string and keyboard accents.” – THE ONION’S AV CLUB

“Sensitive and literate folk-pop.” – GAPERS BLOCK / CHICAGO

“You can’t help but be moved by Berner’s Ten Tiny Little Pieces EP which includes the emotionally charged title track, as well as a compelling cover of The Velvet Underground & Nico’s 1967 pop classic “Sunday Morning.” Still, to see is to believe.” – CITYVIEW / DES MOINES

“Berner’s indie folk-pop benefits from full, well-thought-out arrangements that at times have a George Martin feel. This is a brief EP, but it gives a fair sampling of how Berner uses her burnished contralto to shade a lyric with hope, resignation and sadness.” – ISTHMUS / MADISON

“Phenomenal. Martha has a powerful voice that is at the same time both serene and aggressive. This disc radiates with love.” – ROOTSTIME / BELGIUM

“Berner lashes together the twang of folk/country, the burn of alternative country and the punch of indie rock.” – CINCINNATI CITY BEAT

“Evokes the vocals of Tori Amos and the musical style of Wilco.” – CHICAGO TRIBUNE

“Radio-friendly hooks and melodies…” – ARIZONA DAILY STAR

“…Wilco-esque glow with the sweetly sung vocals of Natalie Merchant and the darker guitars and imagery of the Indigo Girls.” – HEARSAY MAGAZINE

“Americana Folk at its Best.” - TOURING THE INDIES 

“Martha has a great, rich voice that speaks the poetry of angels… haunting, beautiful and powerful.” – READ MAGAZINE

 “…unveils soothing vocals, folk-flavored guitars, and witty songwriting across ten compelling cuts.” – ILLINOIS ENTERTAINER

“Hip and beautiful… influenced by her experiences in travel, stylistically by Natalie Merchant, Bob Dylan and John Lennon.” – WOMENFOLK

FOR MORE INFO ON MARTHA BERNER
http://marthaberner.com
http://www.facebook.com/marthabernermusic?v=app_6917629807

FOR MEDIA AND INTERVIEW REQUESTS
Tony Bonyata
Pavement PR
p: 262.903.7775
e: bonyata@wi.rr.com
http://www.pavementpr.com

EAST BAY EXPRESS (San Francisco weekly)
Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven
When: Wed., Dec. 28, 9 p.m.
Price: $25, $27
In what’s become an annual tradition, David Lowery has decided to lead yet another Cracker/CVB post-holiday California Tour. First with the stylistically quirky Camper Van Beethoven, and later with the more straightforward but no less intriguing Cracker, Lowery has always existed on the margins of the mainstream, with occasional bouts of commercial success allowing his bands to continue touring and recording. The evening’s set lists will reflect the amount of plate-spinning Lowery has engaged in since CVB played its first show back in 1983. Not only can attendees expect to hear Eighties alt-rock gems (“Take the Skinheads Bowling,” “Where the Hell is Bill”) and twangier latter-day radio hits (“Get Off This,” “Euro-Trash Girl”), but Lowery will also be trotting out CVB’s first batch of new material in seven years. With eclecticism as the guiding factor for this evening’s festivities, these musical anarchists will put their creative bomb-throwing into action on Wednesday, Dec. 28 at The Independent (628 Divisadero St., San Francisco). 9 p.m., $25, $27.
Dave Gil de Rubio
The Independent
628 Divisadero St.
phone 415-771-1421
San Francisco

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/cracker-and-camper-van-beethoven/Event?oid=3072499

SF STATION (San Fran A&E site)
Cracker, the group that veritably introduced brash irreverence and irony into alt-rock, are back and in top form on their 429 Records debut, Sunrise In The Land Of Milk And Honey. This rich new trove of sharp-witted songs showcases a bristling, late 70′s – early 80′s power pop punk aesthetic which hits as hard as it did at the band’s formation 17 years ago. Eight albums (one platinum and three gold) and a barrel full of anthemic hit songs later, Cracker endures, using their ability to weave decades of influences into an album that is seamlessly riveting.

“We didn’t want to jump right back in and make that ‘Bad Reunion Record’ that most bands make when they try to reform. We were more concerned with getting used to each other and figuring out that we could still make music together, before we made a big deal out of announcing that we were back.” So says David Lowery of the extended gestation period that preceded New Roman Times, Camper Van Beethoven’s first album of new material since reuniting after a decade-long hiatus. The qualities that originally made Camper Van Beethoven such a significant force are prominent on New Roman Times, from the modified arena-rock of “White Fluffy Clouds” to the country-psychedelia “That Gum You Like is Back in Style” to the smooth Balkan ska of “Might Makes Right” to the jittery hoedown of “Militia Song” to the airy country balladry of “New Roman Times” to the dirge-like psychedelia of “The Long Plastic Hallway” to the Tex-Mex lilt of “Los Tigres Traficantes” to the widescreen ’70s-cop-show-funk of “Civil Disobedience” to the apocalyptic danceability of “Discotheque CVB.”

http://www.sfstation.com/cracker-camper-van-beethoven-e1456372

SFist (San Fran online A&E site) – Brief show preview with CVB photo
SFist Tonight, 12/28: Cracker, Camper Van Beethoven
MUSIC: Ever-popular alternative folk/punk veterans Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven will rock the house for fans young and old at the Independent tonight. (8 p.m., The Independent, 628 Divisadero Street)

http://sfist.com/2011/12/28/sfist_tonight_1228_cracker_camper_v.php

SF EXAMINER (San Fran online A&E site) – Brief show preview in City’s Best Bets column.
Fun alt-indie rock: Frontman David Lowery plays in a Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven double bill. [8 p.m., The Independent, 628 Divisadero St., S.F.]

http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/good-day/2011/12/contigo-chef-brett-emerson-likes-his-waffles-healthy-way

YAHOO SF LOCAL  (Yahoo locals San Fran A&E site) – Brief show preview with Cracker photo
Cracker
Wednesday, December 28 2011 at 8pm
Led by Camper Van Beethoven frontman David Lowery, Cracker’s post-punk, country-tinged songs earned some hits in the early ’90s with ‘Low’ ‘What the World Needs Now’ and ‘Get Off This.’
* The Independent
* 628 Divisadero
* San Francisco CA 94117

http://beta.local.yahoo.com/events-cracker-2973108636?woeid=2487956&lat=37.779598&lon=-122.420143&statecode=CA&cityname=San%20Francisco&source=trending&eventActualDate=1325102400

ASSIGNMENT X (online music site) – Positive Solana Beach show review with photos
Concert Review: CRACKER / CAMPER VAN BEETHOVEN – December 27, 2011 – Belly Up, Solana Beach, CA
Two great underrated bands show what they’re worth during an amazing two and half hour set
Grade: A-
By A.C. FERRANTE / Editor in Chief

Few artists can claim they are part of one successful band, but David Lowery can cite two  – Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven (and both active) as the very eccentric home to his hybrid musical compositions that span country, rock, ska and alternative music (with a little folk thrown in for good measure).

And now, Lowery continues the tradition of touring with both bands simultaneously for a brief little end of the year tour.

Things kicked off on Tuesday night in Solana Beach, CA at the Belly Up as Lowery’s Camper Van Beethoven served as opening act (they also have a new disc due out in 2012). What started in the 1980s as a very strange alternative band with the signature hit “Take the Skinheads Bowling” evolved over time to incorporate a wide range of styles and strangely addictive jams that featured not only guitars, but also the amazing violin playing of Jonathan Segel.

As the band segued from indie status to major label, the songs got more polished, and a bit more abstract all at the same time.

The nearly one-hour plus performance pulled from all of the band’s numerous releases and was split into three different parts. The first consisted of many tracks from their two major label releases MY BELOVED REVOLUTIONARY SWEETHEART and KEY LIME PIE. It kicked off with a great performance of “All Her Favorite Fruit” and also featured “Eye of Fatima.”

After a handful of songs with this configuration, Segel sat down his violin and picked up the guitar showing off his virtuoso strength with that instrument as well. Lowery announced they were going to play a new song and carried on with a more guitar centric set.

The last half had Segel flipping back to violin as the band put on their ska hat and dug deep into their jamming roots.

The sound quality at Belly Up was impeccable and it’s great to see the band which also includes lead guitarist Greg Lisher, bassist Krummenacher and drummer Frank Funaro (who also played with Cracker) really work the crowd up with their intense playing. They sounded phenomenal. Their ability to segue from one song style after another was a testament to the years they’ve played together on and off – and also showed the power of the music that, like Cracker, still endures years later.

One of the strengths of the band is also Lowery’s low-key demeanor on stage – and his willingness to step into the background as he and the rest of group kicks into the many jams that took place on stage during the various Camper Van instrumentals they played.

And that’s the testament of a great band. They existed in between the lines of the 1980s alternative music scene, yet their music doesn’t feel dated or retro – and in fact sounds as original and unique as it did the day it was recorded. I’d even dare say the band has gotten better with age. They’re tighter, stronger and more polished. Yet, the music world still hasn’t caught up with them. They’re still ahead of the curve.

When Camper Van broke up after the second major label effort KEY LIME PIE, the members split into different factions and directions with Lowery forming Cracker which evolved into an alternative rock band with frequent country flourishes.

Cracker proclaimed with their first single “Teen Angst” – “what the world needs now/is another folk singer/like I need a whole in my head” as if Lowery was saying he was moving past Camper Van’s eclectic folk leanings and trying something different.

Major success found Cracker, but that didn’t stop the eclecticism and that was evidenced in the nearly 90 minute set the band performed charging through 17 songs spanning their entire catalog.

The night kicked off with the band in country mode (Lowery even wore a country and western shirt) cranking out their great bar band song “Friends” from their 2009 album SUNRISE IN THE LAND OF MILK AND HONEY. It also featured a great back and forth vocals with lead guitarist Johnny Hickman.

Lowery continued in this vein with underrated “The Golden Age” and a great countrified version of “Mr. Wrong.”

This tone shifted soon after that – much like Camper Van – by corralling the songs into similarly themed sections.

“Euro Trash Girl” wound the crowd up properly with their nearly 8 minute epic about searching for an “angel in black” across a surreal adventure throughout Europe. It’s a great song (with the occasional ironic lyric) and it sounded phenomenal especially when the crowd started singing along with the chorus. To think, this song was originally released as B-side on an E.P. before it was given a formal place on their second disc “Kerosene Hat.”

“Happy Birthday” off their debut album was given a nice tweak and a little bit more twang, while “Merry Christmas Emily” was appropriate considering the holidays have just ended.

The hits were rolled out toward the latter part of the night with “Teen Angst” (What the World Needs Now)” revving things up. Damn this song still sounds good. They also rammed into “Don’t F**k Me Up With Peace and Love” with ferocity before concluding with their biggest hit to date “Low” that was one of the many highlights of the night.

Other nice surprises included the great “Get off This” and the incredible jam of “Gimme One More Chance” off their GREENLAND disc.

The encore included “Waiting For You Girl” and wrapped things up with the band’s awesome cover of the Flamin’ Groovies 1980s power pop hit “Shake Some Action” featuring Hickman on vocals. If Lowery decides he wants to forsake folk, country, ska, rock – the band might have a gig as a pretty kick-ass power pop band as well.

Cracker sounds incredibly rich with Hickman’s outstanding guitar playing. Like Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Hickman is a terribly underrated guitarist. He shines on every song and brings the kind of spit and polish that allows Cracker to morph from rock, country and alterna-pop all within a fifteen-minute span.

This guy is the real deal and like Lowery (and his incredibly eclectic songs), deserving of more praise in rock circles.

Sal Maida also gives the band a nice chunky bass sound and really rocked things out throughout, though it was “Gimme One More Chance” where he really got to show off his stuff as the band got into a extended groove. Funaro also proves he can roll with unique styles of both bands and not miss a beat.

Lowery’s lyrics, both as part of Camper Van and Cracker have also had a cheeky tone to them at times, and that expert turn of the phrase has allowed these songs to continue to flourish, grow and become more appreciated over time.

With seven official studio albums under their belt, they have a rich catalog of songs to choose from, and they really only scratched the surface during this performance. They could have played another hour’s worth of songs, and it would not have been just as invigorating.

The unique configuration of band members certainly allows both Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven to exist in the same stratosphere on the same night without seeming like more of the same.

I’ve been a long time Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven fan, but have, surprisingly, never seen them live. Getting the opportunity to experience both in one night at the same venue was a rare treat – and reminded me why I loved their music so much. With four decades and two bands, Lowery has proven why  creating music for yourself and not for the current trends can create a long-lasting embarrassment of riches of songs that can be mixed and matched and still provide a potent concert for fans and new converts.

http://www.assignmentx.com/2011/concert-review-cracker-camper-van-beethoven-december-27-2011-belly-up-solana-beach-ca/

SAN DIEGO CITY BEAT (San Diego weekly) – Brief show preview
Cracker, Camper Van Beethoven @ Belly Up. As per holiday tradition, Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven songwriter David Lowery will stop by for a two-set extravaganza featuring classics like “Euro-Trash Girl” and “Take the Skinheads Bowling.”

http://www.sdcitybeat.com/sandiego/article-9975-caspa-writer-and-more-san-diego-concerts.html

SAN DIEGO UNION TIMES (San Diego daily) – Early brief show preview with Cracker file photo
Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven
Tuesday, Dec 27 8:00p
at Belly Up Tavern, Solana Beach, CA

Best known for the hit songs “Low,” “Eurotrash Girl,” “Get Off This” and “Teen Angst (What the World Needs Now)”, Cracker mixes influences and sounds ranging from classic country music, psychedelia, punk and folk into their brand of “Americana” style rock.

http://thingstodo.signonsandiego.com/solana-beach-ca/events/show/216884384-cracker-and-camper-van-beethoven

KBZT – FM 94/9 RADIO (San Diego Radio) – Online show info with Cracker photo in their concert calendar.

http://www.fm949sd.com/concerts/Details.aspx?ConcertID=153771

CHICAGO SUN TIMES (daily) – Brief show preview
Here are some other great live music options for those wanting to turn New Year’s Eve up to ’11:
Big Head Todd & the Monsters, Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven — For hazy ’80s-’90s college rock, this is a helluva bill. Camper Van Beethoven opens, Cracker rings in the new year, and Big Head Todd plays into the wee hours, beginning at 8 p.m. at the House of Blues, 329 N. Dearborn. Tickets: $62.50. Call (312) 923-2000; houseofblues.com/chicago.

http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/conner/9579636-452/rockin-new-years-eave-hood-internet-leads-the-pack-of-local-concerts.html

FLAVORPILL CHICAGO (Chicago online A&E site) – Positive show preview.
Party: New Year’s Eve
Big Head Todd & the Monsters w/ Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven

Of all the conceptual pranks Camper Van Beethoven have pulled off over their 25 years, nothing tops the band’s inexplicable fling with Virgin Records. It’s hard to imagine any major label releasing 1988′s Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart (1988) and Key Lime Pie (1989) today — the albums exposed the Santa Cruz group’s heady mix of punk power, country candor, and Frank Zappa-inspired comic virtuosity to a wide range of adventurous listeners. Camper Van Beethoven never became as big as side project Cracker (who co-headline tonight), but when they officially reunited after covering Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk in its entirety, fans were waiting with open arms.” – Max Goldberg, Flavorpill

http://flavorpill.com/chicago/events/2011/12/31/big-head-todd-and-the-monsters-w-cracker-and-camper-van-beethoven

NORTHWEST INDIANA TIMES (Chicgoland/Indiana daily) – Brief show preview
Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Cracker, Camper Van Beethoven, 7 p.m., House of Blues, 329 N. Dearborn St., Chicago. $62.50 (21 and older)

For years, Todd Park Mohr and his Monsters have made the trek from Colorado to the Windy City to celebrate the year’s end, but for many this time around, the draw will be Camper and Cracker. Both led by David Lowery, Camper’s 80s output remain college rock benchmarks, and Cracker, his 90s band, fared pretty good with the masses with hits such as “Low” and “Euro-Trash Girl.”
FYI: (312) 923-2000, HOB.COM

http://www.nwitimes.com/entertainment/music/variety-celebrated-in-chicagoland-for-new-year-s-eve/article_d6d0515c-20a2-5a74-8da1-59a127d5e1e2.html

LUMINO MAGAZINE (Chicago online music site) – Feature interview with Jonathan Segel to preview Chicago show
Looking Back on Beethoven: Getting to Know Jonathan Segel
Written by JORDAN BRANDES
Christmas is over and New Years Eve will be upon us soon enough. If you plan on going out this year make sure you buy tickets for Camper Van Beethoven, Cracker and Big Head Todd and the Monsters playing at the House of Blues in Chicago.

Although they are not the headliner bands like Cracker and Big Head Todd, the Monsters owe a lot of their work to Camper Van Beethoven. Back in the mid-1980s, the Redlands Calif.-based band fused together folk, punk, ska and world music in a way no one had ever heard before or conceived. Once described as surrealist absurdist folk, the band was created in 1983 by singer/songwriter David Lowery and bass player Victor Krummenarcher. It was not long before the band expanded to include drums and two lead guitars along with a spellbinding violin, played by Jonathan Segel.

Going through a variety of band members, CVB split up in 1989. Since this time, CVB founder David Lowery joined up with Johnny Hickman to form what became known as the band Cracker. Camper Van Beethoven’s decade split allowed the band members to pursue their own passions. In 1999, the band reunited in-studio to compile a set of songs lovingly titled – “Camper Van Beethoven is Dead. Long Live Camper Van Beethoven.” Since then, CVB along with its sister band Cracker, have found a way to tour together through a majority of the last decade.

A Closer Look

Lumino Magazine was lucky enough to sit down with violinist and consistent member of Camper Van Beethoven, Jonathan Segel. A composer, violinist, guitar player and singer, Segel has seen the evolution of Camper Van Beethoven since its humble beginnings.

“Camper Van Beethoven really made me the musician I am today,” he says candidly. “During our hiatus we all did our own side projects and essentially had to become the band leaders of each of our new bands. When we finally got back together in 2004 for New Roman Times, that was when I realized that I learned to be a musician by playing with Camper Van Beethoven. Learning to trust other musicians, find my style and all that other stuff I had learned while playing with these guys. Even though there had been a 10-year hiatus, we’ve actually been together now for longer than we were when we first started in the 1980s. “

Segel finds it amazing that so much time has passed and notes that the new Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, although complement each other, are truly two unique bands. “We have been touring together for a long time now and although Cracker can be considered an offshoot of Beethoven they are two very different bands. Lowery and Funaro have a way of shifting the entire tone and mood of a show the moment Cracker comes on stage,” he reflects.

A New Year

2012 is looking to be a big year for Segel as two of his new albums drop the first week in January. “All Attractions really is the main album, Apricot Jam is more of a compilation of us fooling around,” he says.

Although he hadn’t planned on making another record after “Honey,” he found himself compelled to write some songs while with his wife in Sweden. “All Attractions” is the result.

“My wife is Swedish and I found myself writing most of those songs while we were in our place in Sweden. I do violin for CVB but play electric guitar at home and I found myself writing most of those songs just to entertain myself. It felt like that Onion article you read about, where the man goes off into the woods to write an album, I was kind of that guy,” he jokes.

All Attractions is a playful and light album full of the kind of masterful work you would expect from Segel. Though he never intended to make the album, I have no doubt that it will become an indie favorite in the coming year.

You can see Segel along with the rest of Camper Van Beethoven this New Years Eve in Chicago. Buy your tickets now before they sell out.

http://www.luminomagazine.com/mw/content/view/3290/1

ISTHMUS (Madison, WI weekly) – Positive show preview with band photo
Camper Van Beethoven’s signature tune was a surprise success
A song about nothing
Bob Koch
Ever since Camper Van Beethoven got back together in the late 1990s, the indie rock forebears have continued a remarkable second act. When they broke up at the beginning of that decade, the group appeared to be on the cusp of breaking big in the mainstream, à la R.E.M. Camper had released a pair of well-received major-label albums and notched a modern-rock radio hit with a cover of Status Quo’s “Pictures of Matchstick Men.”

After Camper’s demise, singer/guitarist David Lowery built on that success with the more straight-up rock band Cracker. More recently, Lowery has been writing a blog, 300 Songs, discussing the history of Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker. There’s a long, fascinating post about success in the music industry, under the entry for Camper’s breakout song, “Take the Skinheads Bowling.” That tune has remained a college/alternative radio staple ever since its release in 1985, and it is probably, to average listeners, the band’s most recognizable number.

Lowery begins the post with the idea that surprise events, like the song’s triumph, can only be rationalized in hindsight, then winds through his theory that there’s no way to predict the reason for a performer’s success, at least as judged by record sales — whether it’s talent, lack of talent, or promotional excess.

He reveals that “Bowling” is the last song he’d expect to catch people’s attention. He writes: “BTW this is the most important fact about this song. We wanted the words to lack any coherent meaning. There is no story or deeper insight that I can give you about this song.”

The post winds up with an interesting discussion of how bands come to be respected as “serious,” comparing the saga of often-humorous Camper with the journey of fellow travelers the Dead Milkmen.

Camper Van Beethoven is currently on tour and visits the High Noon Saloon on Jan. 4. The Madison show will be one of the first featuring some new material written for an upcoming studio album. But will they play “Take the Skinheads Bowling?” There’s only one way to find out.

http://www.isthmus.com/isthmus/article.php?article=35575

ONMILWAUKEE  (Milwaukee online A&E site) –Milwaukee  post-show review with band photo
Camper Van Beethoven relives it, kicks it forward

When OnMilwaukee.com contributor JC Poppe mentioned the Camper Van Beethoven show earlier this week, he predicted it would be a trip down memory lane. Indeed, for those of us who were fans in the ’80s and ’90s, it was.

The show was a mix of back-in-the-day favorites along with new songs that will most likely appear in the band’s upcoming album predicted to come out later this year.

It was not the band’s first trip to Milwaukee; it had prior gigs many years ago at the now-defunct Toad Cafe, Cafe Voltaire and the still-very-much-alive Bastille Days.

Tonight, the five-piece sounded very in sync and had a cool-but-present vibe. Camper opened the show with “All Her Favorite Fruits,” and went on to hammer out old faves like “Sweethearts,” “Good Guys and Bad Guys,” “Eye of Fatima,” “When I Win The Lottery,” “Turquoise Jewelry,” “Pictures of Matchstick Men,” “Take The Skinheads Bowling” (of course) and a gaggle of new songs. (I yelled out “She Divines Water” three times but nobody seemed to notice except maybe the bass player who squinted in my direction after one shout out.)

“Take The Skinheads Bowling” remains an anthemic college radio hit today and was featured in the Michael Moore film, “Bowling For Columbine.”

As usual, Jonathan Segel, violin player (and guitar player) added so much to the show, proving, once again, that the violin is totally punk rock.

Most of the members of the band have worked on individual solo projects, and yet, since 1999, have frequently rejoined to perform as a group. Lead man David Lowery fronted the more traditional rock band, Cracker, and released his first solo record, “The Palace Guards,” in 2011.

The 51-year-old Lowery, wearing a wool sweater both ironically and not ironically (since he is, after all, from California and not used to Wisconsin winters), has aged gracefully and has a confident presence. His voice, however, has changed and it’s now lower than it was 20-plus years ago. For the first half of the show, Lowery took his reading glasses on and off to read the set list, and finally just left them on for the second half of the show.

Their signature humor that’s present in their lyrics was present throughout the show, from the beginning, when they announced themselves as the Blue Man Group.

Most of the crowd was in their 30s or older, quite possibly, like myself, former slackers or skateboarders who, back then, devoured anything anti-establishment like a bag of Skittles.

http://onmilwaukee.com/myOMC/authors/mollysnyder/campervanbeethovenshow.html

ONMILWAUKEE  (Milwaukee online A&E site) –Milwaukee  show preview with band photo
Camper Van Beethoven returns to Milwaukee tomorrow
Popular and influential 1980s indie rock band Camper Van Beethoven will be in Milwaukee to perform at Shank Hall this Tuesday.

The band’s music is an amalgamation of sounds and styles, while still showing off its California roots.

After a 15-year hiatus, CVB’s members got back together for a reunion tour and album, the thematically creative “New Roman Times,” released in 2004.

CVB frequently played shows in Milwaukee during its run in the ’80s, so this will be a fun trip down memory lane for those who loved their records back then, as well as a great introduction to new fans that love the sound of California indie rock music.

http://onmilwaukee.com/myOMC/authors/jcpoppe/campervanbeethoven.html

ON TAP (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s website) –Brief Milwaukee  show preview
Also coming back to town: Camper Van Beethoven, the alt-indie rockers who helped define the term in the 1980s. David Lowery & Co. reunited a few years ago with a new album and a touring gig that brings them to Shank Hall tonight at 8.

http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/entertainment/136525458.html

VOICE PLACES / RIVERFRONT TIMES (St. Louis A&E blog for the Riverfront Timesd) – Show preview with Cracker photo
Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven
By ROY KASTEN

Whether taking the helm of iconic ironic rockers of Camper Van Beethoven, the sardonic janglers of Cracker or a smarty-pants solo project, David Lowery has consistently dug up the twisted roots of American music, always with dark humor and twangy intonations intact. If “alternative rock” ever had any meaning, it was defined by the energy of Lowery’s withering social and sexual parodies and celebratory self-loathings. Ubiquitous hits like “Teen Angst (What the World Needs Now),” “Take the Skinheads Bowling” and “Euro-Trash Girl” were principally political even as they made a mockery of the possibility of post-modern principles at all. What To Expect: Touring as a double bill of Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker should give Lowery plenty of room to stretch out across all the hits — and dip into this year’s fine solo release, The Palace Guards as well.
Price: $20

http://www.voiceplaces.com/cracker-and-camper-van-beethoven-st-louis-1514121-e/

THE ONION / AV CLUB (Madison, WI weekly) – CVB show preview with band file photo.
Camper Van Beethoven pick
Also Playing: American Scarecrows
When beloved, quirky outfit Camper Van Beethoven formed 28 years ago, critics struggled to categorize the band’s blend of pop, folk, punk, country, acid rock, and ska. Camper’s eclectic musical style and irreverent attitude (evidenced by fan-favorite songs like “The Day That Lassie Went To The Moon” and “Take The Skinheads Bowling”) made it popular on college radio stations, but the complexity and depth of its lyrics, coupled with music built on a solid foundation of classic rock, lent the group a surprising staying power. After taking most of the ’90s off, CVB reunited in 1999 and released its first studio album in 15 years,New Roman Times, in 2004. Tonight, frontman David Lowery and company will roll out new material from a follow-up to New Roman, due sometime in 2012.
High Noon Saloon
701 E. Washington Ave.
Madison WI 53703
608-268-1122
21+ $15/$17

http://www.avclub.com/madison/events/camper-van-beethoven-and-american-scarecrows,276713/

SHEPHERD EXPRESS (Milwaukee weekly) – Feature with David interview to preview Milwaukee  show
Camper Van Beethoven Thrives Amid Decadent Decay
By Chris Parker
“Dangerous business, using irony in America.” That’s what David Lowery’s English aunt once told him, and it’s a fitting caution—not just for someone writing in America, but also for working in the medium of rock ‘n’ roll. Subtlety is not the strong point of a style whose name was originally a euphemism for “the nasty.”

That’s why it’s taken time for Lowery’s sly wit to find purchase. During the ’80s he co-founded the psychedelic, rootsy art-punk oddballs Camper Van Beethoven. When they broke up in 1990 due to internal tensions, Lowery started the more sonically straightforward Cracker, which enjoyed initial mainstream appeal during the early ’90s thanks to hits like “Low” and “Teen Angst (What the World Needs Now).” Their popularity found a lower orbit as the ’90s closed, just as Camper returned from hiatus more popular than ever. The band’s return coincided with a critical reappraisal and renewed appreciation for Lowery’s entire catalog.

Without any hits and little more than word of mouth to spread their praises, Camper’s sustained appeal is a bit puzzling. “I wonder if it has to do with the trajectory,” Lowery offers from his Atlanta-area home. “If, as our society slowly decays into decadence, irony and cynicism become more common and accepted.”

Of course, cynicism has a way of proving prophetic sometimes. Such is the case with Camper Van Beethoven’s last album, 2004′s New Roman Times. Written in the aftermath of 9/11, it imagines the blue state/red state divide hardening such that Texas and California become warring republics. With ideological differences even more pitched and politicians like Texas Gov. Rick Perry talking of secession, the album is like Nostradamus. (All right, not that close.)

As always, the album’s convoluted story is rife with surreal details. It includes a wounded vet who joins a hippie/skater resistance based in Mexico, parallel universe communication that recalls (but predates) “Fringe” and competing blue/gray aliens who may be behind genetically modified pot that makes you smarter. (Lowery explains this futuristic America’s entire back story on his blog, 300songs.com.)

Writing such dense (if surprisingly nimble and catchy) music has always consigned the quintet to the margins. Formed in California in the early ’80s, they were self-styled iconoclasts and former hardcore punks with fiddle as one of their lead instruments. But what began as an expression of rebellion took on a life of its own.

“That was our only compass—’Let’s do this the way nobody would expect us to do this.’ But it morphed into this rediscovery of ’60s English and American psychedelica pretty quickly after initially being reactionary to punk rock,” Lowery says. “I remember playing with the Dead Kennedys in Chico, Calif., to 800 skinheads. We were doing a fake hippie thing and growing out our hair. This one guy down front was mouthing to me, ‘I’m gonna kick your ass.’”

They released five albums, including two major-label efforts for Virgin—their masterpiece, 1988′s Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart and the disappointing follow-up (minus fiddler Jonathan Segel), 1989′s Key Lime Pie. They broke up and reunited in ’99 to put together an archival odds and sods collection, Camper Van Beethoven Is Dead. Long Live Camper Van Beethoven, into which they snuck newly recorded material. Two years later they released a track-for-track cover of Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk, which they claimed they’d recorded a decade before.

“There were all these subtle clues in there that this was a lie, but everybody just bought it,” Lowery says. “Then, when we started New Roman Times, we were finally, ‘Let’s just tell people we’re a band again. Nobody’s getting it.’”

Writing takes time because of the band’s über-democratic, everyone-must-sign-on approach, which Lowery describes by lifting a line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

“It leads to some creativity, but it isn’t the fastest or best way to run a business or a band,” Lowery says. “It’s like an ‘anarcho-syndicalist commune’ until someone gets very frustrated and seizes power. There’s a junta for a couple weeks and something gets done, then it reverts to its normal state of anarchy.”

Despite this, the band has put together the beginnings of a new album, which they hope to release in the summer. Lowery expects them to preview three to four songs at upcoming shows.

“[The new album] is very much in the folky, indie-rock thing that Camper does, leaning toward that English early prog rock like Fairport Convention,” he says. “Maybe we’ll be a little braver about the prog-rock influences this time and step up the King Crimson, early Genesis, Yes, Fred Frith a little more.”

One thing is for sure: When it comes to Camper Van Beethoven, you can count on more than you expect.

Camper Van Beethoven plays 8 p.m. Jan. 3 at Shank Hall with American Scarecrows.

http://www.expressmilwaukee.com/article-17217-camper-van-beethoven-thrives-amid-decadent-decay.html

WMSE RADIO (Milwaukee college radio) – Brief Milwaukee  show  preview with CVB photo featured on their site
2012. It’s On!
Let’s jump right into it with, what else, music.
Tonight: Shank Hall – Camper Van Beethoven, 8pm
Before Cracker, David Lowery brought forth the eclectic, often humorous blend of hippie psychedelia, avant-garde improvisation, country-western shaded, pseudo-ethnic sounds with hardcore punch of mid-1980s postpunk band Camper Van Beethoven.

http://www.insidemilwaukee.com/Article/132012-NewYearNewWu

MILWAUKEE  MAGAZINE (Milwaukee monthly) –Milwaukee  show preview
Tuesday, Jan. 3: Camper Van Beethoven with American Scarecrows at Shank Hall, 8 p.m. ($20)
Before heading up the ’90s alternative roots rock band Cracker, David Lowery cut his teeth in the indie, eclectic post-punk outfit Camper Van Beethoven. After a solid run in the ’80s, CVB disbanded for a decade, allowing the members to go onto other projects (most successfully Cracker for Lowery and Counting Crows for David Immergluck). But they got the influential band back together in 1999 and have been recording and touring ever since. (1434 N. Farwell Ave., shankhall.com)

http://www.insidemilwaukee.com/Article/132012-NewYearNewWu

MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL (Milwaukee daily) –Milwaukee  show preview
CAMPER VAN BEETHOVEN
8 p.m. Tuesday, Shank Hall. $20.

There’s much glory but little money in being ahead of the curve. Just ask a member of Camper Van Beethoven, a band that now stands among those musicians (including Hüsker Dü and the Pixies) who helped define the very notion of indie or alternative rock.

During the mid-1980s, Camper Van Beethoven was probably just a bit of a lark, a curious blending of punk-styled raucousness, unusual instrumentation (the violin was key here) and acerbic humor (with songs like “Take the Skinheads Bowling”). The band went through numerous stylistic and direction changes over the course of four studio albums before dissolving in 1989.

The members went through solo ventures – David Lowery actually lunged toward the alt-rock crowd with the successfully snotty band Cracker – but they reunited and released a fine new album, “New Roman Times,” in 2004. Since then, Camper Van Beethoven has been primarily a touring act, recalling old glories for older audiences.
American Scarecrows will open.
- Jon M. Gilbertson, Special to the Journal Sentinel

http://www.jsonline.com/entertainment/musicandnightlife/jim-gaffigan-semitwang-moshe-kasher-skrillex-paul-cebar-the-get-down-blue-man-group-camper-van-beethoven-kp3fmi4-136378863.html

THE DAILY PAGE (Madison, WI daily) – News feature (from press announcement) with local show info and related links.

http://www.thedailypage.com/theguide/details.php?event=274110

DANE 101 (Madison, WI music site) – Feature story to preview Madison show
Soundcheck: Jonathan Segel of Camper Van Beethoven
Post by Aaron Scholz
Camper Van Beethoven are one of the weirdest bands to emerge from Southern California. During their heyday in the mid-80s they blended a kitchen sink mix of rock, ska, folk and country in a sound that foreran the alternative music explosion of the early 90s. Founding member Jonathan Segel (violin) left the band in 1988 and started a record label with fellow CvB alum Victor Krummacher. He also taught music composition at Ohlone College and worked as a listener advocate for Pandora. Segel has roots in Madison as his parents met here as grad students in the late 50s. He raised money to fund his latest record All Attractions via Kickstarter where fans can donate money directly to an artist to help defray the cost of recording and production. Camper Van Beethoven got back together at the turn of the century and picked up right where they left off, releasing New Roman Times in 2003 to excellent reviews. Dane101 talked to Segel in late December.

Dane101: Are you guys on tour right now?

Jonathan Segel: No, we’re starting up in about a week. We do the New Year’s Eve show in Chicago and then head to the show in Madison and then in St Louis I think? Then we’re doing some shows in California a month after that.

Dane101: And CvB has a new record coming out? I haven’t seen anything about it anywhere besides some pictures of you guys at work.

Jonathan Segel: Yeah, we spend a lot of time hanging out in the studio (laughs). The record is mostly recorded and we’re probably doing overdubs and such during the down time on the first part of the tour. Everyone in the band is riding a wave of creativity right now. David (Lowery) put a solo record out and I’ve got two records coming out in January and Victor (Krummacher) is working on a record as well.

Dane101: Tell me a bit about your new records and your band.

Jonathan Segel: All Attractions is a rock record. I didn’t think I was going to make any more rock records after Honey but here we are. Victor is on the record as well as the fabulous drummer John Hanes, who I’ve worked with for a long time. We do some shows in the Bay area, we opened for Built to Spill a few years back which was a lot of fun. The Apricot Jam record is really just a bonus disc where we took some stuff we worked out in the days off from recording and I took those recordings home and messed with them a bit.

Dane101: Your Bandcamp page is really impressive with the massive volume of stuff you’ve done over the last twenty years.

Jonathan Segel: Recently I’ve tried to put everything up that I’ve had a hand in, which is indeed a large amount of stuff and includes the soundtrack work I’ve done.

Dane101: What was the scene like when CvB started gigging?

Jonathan Segel: Our first shows in 1983 were strange because the SoCal music scene was very punk rock. There was this specific notion about what punk was supposed to be–if you didn’t sound like Black Flag, you weren’t punk rock. If you listen to the early CvB records we sort of sounded like punk but we would do these shows where we would say “Okay, we’re going to play this song but do a ska version of it” and that would mostly piss off the audience.

Dane101: How did the CvB reunion happen? You guys weren’t a band I figured would ever get back together.

Jonathan Segel: CvB wasn’t really a band in the 90′s. David was doing Cracker and the rest of us were doing our own different projects. David, Victor and I got together to work on Camper Van Beethoven is Dead in 2001, which was a sort of comp of older recordings that we overdubbed and remixed. Then we did the Tusk record as a sort of test to see if we could work together as a unit.

Dane101: Tusk is one of my favorite records. I really enjoyed hearing what you guys did.

Jonathan Segel: Well, it took a lot of convincing to get me to do it. I love that record too and was really obsessed with the phenomenon of Tusk. But we put that out and then over the next couple of years worked on what became New Roman Times.

Dane101: I was pleased to hear New Roman Times because it sounded like a CvB record. I had some fears that it was going to be a Cracker record with you guys on board.

Jonathan Segel: Part of the way the reunion happened is that Victor and I did some shows with Cracker. But yeah, it does sound like us with more elements mixed in. We all bring something to this band, David has lots of experience being the front man for Cracker and the rest of us have continued to make music in the interim. I think the sound has changed because of us being older and having more to bring to the table musically.

Dane101: What’s in store in 2012 for CvB?

Jonathan Segel: We’ll do the annual Campout out in California. Last year we did one in Virginia and this year we’re doing a Camp In in Athens. I’m not sure who all is going to be at that one but obviously CvB will headline a night and Cracker too, I’ll probably do a set as well. We mostly want to get the record finished and out the door!

Camper Van Beethoven play Wednesday January 4 at The High Noon Saloon with openers Scarecrow.

http://www.dane101.com/music/2012/01/03/soundcheck_jonathan_segel_of_camper_van_beethoven

CAPITAL TIMES / 77 SQUARE (Madison, WI daily) – Feature/interview Jonathan for a feature/preview for Madison show  (per Andy Downing)
Camper Van Beethoven returns to town older and wiser

When eclectic alternative rockers Camper Van Beethoven parted ways in the early ’90s, it happened so gradually that New York Press wrote of the split, “Camper dissolved like a urinal cake.”

It’s a description that still draws a chuckle from violinist/keyboardist Jonathan Segel.

“I don’t know what the opposite physical function to dissolution is,” he said. “Coagulation, maybe?”

In that case, the band “coagulated” back in 2002, ending a 12-year absence with a series of shows at New York City’s Knitting Factory. They returned to Madison in 2005 to open for Modest Mouse at the Orpheum, and will be headlining a show at the High Noon Saloon on Wednesday, Jan. 4.

In the days before those Knitting Factory concerts, the musicians holed up in a practice space and ran through every song in Camper’s diverse catalog, surprised to find just how naturally the material came back to them.

“Even if we couldn’t remember how to play the song mentally, we could almost just let our hands do it,” said Segel. “It was a shocking realization after spending 10 years not playing with them. Now here it’s nine years later and we’re making a new record. It’s quite amazing.”

The band, which is currently in the midst of recording its still-untitled album — its first since 2004’s “New Roman Times” — is likely to perform at least a handful of new tunes on this tour. They include the tongue-in-cheek “I Was Too High for the Love-In” and “Summer Days,” a pretty number partially inspired by the Johann Sebastian Bach recordings Segel listened to on repeat following the birth of his daughter this past summer.

It’s still somewhat surprising the longtime mates, who first got together in Redlands, Calif. back in 1983, have overcome their acrimonious split to resume making music. In the past, singer David Lowery, who also fronts the comparatively straightforward Cracker, joked the musicians were motivated to reunite by the string of Republicans in the White House. Segel, however, chalks it up to “a series of circumstances and coincidences.”

“At the end of the ’90s I was playing with Sparklehorse and ended up running into David after not speaking to him for a long time,” he said. “Then he ended up singing ‘All Her Favorite Fruit’ (off Camper’s 1989 album ‘Key Lime Pie’) with Sparklehorse one time when we were in Los Angeles, and I was like, ‘That is an amazing song. We really need to play that sometime.’ And it just started from there.”

Of course, the reunion wasn’t without some drama. Segel spoke of long, therapeutic conversations and numerous arguments — many of which were spurred by a still-in-the-works documentary about Lowery currently being shot by filmmaker Michael Santorelli.

“He’ll interview somebody, play it for someone else and say, ‘What do you think of that?’” said Segel. “It’ll be like, ‘Oh (bleep), why the hell did you do that? Are you trying to make a reality show or something?’”

Of course, the band’s colorful past is ripe for the big screen. Segel fondly recalled early confrontations with punk-rock fans (the band withstood countless hecklers opening for Dead Kennedys and Vomit Launch in the early ’80s), being pelted with raw meat (“I think it was a chicken liver”) and one incident in Alabama where Lowery pinned a rowdy fan against an exit door as guitarist Greg Lisher broke into a cartoonish version of “Sweet Home Alabama.”

“Coming up in San Francisco, we’d end up playing with these punk rock bands because that’s what was happening at the time…and they would just be like, ‘What the (bleep) are you?’” said Segel. “So we’d play things like ska with Eastern European melodies and make jokes at their expense.”

These days, however, the shows are noticeably less confrontational — a trend that doesn’t bother the violinist in the slightest (“I’m not sure I’d want to deal with hecklers (now),” he said). There’s even a sense of, gulp, maturity that’s started to surface in the band’s sound, which is a word Segel had never before associated with Camper.

“It’s quite amazing how the music is more mature now,” he said. “We’re all far better musicians than we were in the ’80s or even ’90s, and we have less to prove about our abilities. We’re allowing the music to speak more than ourselves, I think.”

CAMPER  VAN BEETHOVEN
Camper Van Beethoven w/ American Scarecrows
When: Wednesday, Jan. 4, 8 p.m.
Where: High Noon Saloon, 701 E. Washington Ave.
Tickets: $15 in advance/$17 at the door (21+); trueendeavors.com

http://host.madison.com/entertainment/music/camper-van-beethoven-returns-to-town-older-and-wiser/article_eed8bc61-ecb3-5693-9fa0-3e9f358a9769.html

CAPITAL TIMES / 77 SQUARE (Madison, WI daily) –Positive post-show review with photo.
Camper Van Beethoven delivers cohesive show at High Noon
ANDY DOWNING | 77 Square
Watching Camper Van Beethoven perform at a crowded High Noon Saloon on Wednesday, it became increasingly difficult to believe internal tensions kept the eclectic indie-rock quintet apart for a bulk of the 1990s.

The band members, who first got together in Redlands, Calif. nearly three decades ago, displayed both an innate musical chemistry and an enviable camaraderie throughout their 100-minute set, which drew on material both old (absurdist gem “Take the Skinheads Bowling”) and new (a pair of unreleased songs from a still-untitled record currently in production).

Of course, some things have changed with time, including the relative age of both the bandmates and their audience. “Don’t you all have kids now?” joked bassist Victor Krummenacher. “Is it past your bedtime?”

Led as always by singer/guitarist David Lowery, who also fronts the more straightforward Cracker, the band weaved together Eastern European-tinged waltzes, bluesy barn-burners and needly guitar jams that sounded faintly like lost outtakes from Television’s “Marquee Moon.” One new song, “Summer Days,” which Krummenacher jokingly christened “Swedish prog-rock,” moved through at least three unique musical mutations, shifting from orchestral passages to comparatively noisy guitar outbursts, like summer giving abrupt way to the harsh realities of fall.

Violinist/guitarist Jonathan Segel, who might be the lone classical instrument-playing musician to sport an outsized lizard tattoo running the length of his forearm, proved integral to the overall sound, lacing “Tania” with a cascade of Balkan notes, imbuing a cover of Black Flag’s “Wasted” with a Celtic punk flair and layering a gorgeous “All Her Favorite Fruit” with fluttering notes that played counterpoint to Lowery’s world-weary sighs.

While not a dynamic singer — much like comedian Steven Wright, the frontman delivers his words almost solely in a sobering deadpan — Lowery’s vocals served as something of an anchor point for the band’s sonic globe trotting. He particularly shined on hardscrabble character studies like “When I Win the Lottery” and “Jack Ruby,” a dense, dark number with violent lyrics (“He seems like the kind of man who beats his horses/Or the dancers who work at the bar”) that matched the menacing tone projected by the group’s three-guitar lineup.

Between songs, Lowery flashed a wicked sarcastic streak and a desert dry wit, offering that his favorite bluesman was “Blind Lemon Pledge,” breaking down the genesis of the new song “I Was Too High for the Love In” (a complex tale that involves psychedelic mushrooms, a large bird, a trip to Sweden and a viper bite) and admitting he only recently realized the prop suspended onstage at Milwaukee’s Shank Hall was a miniature Stonehenge inspired by “Spinal Tap.” “I always thought, ‘Why do they have a pi symbol (hanging there)?’” he said.

It’s a wit that surfaced in songs like “Take the Skinheads Bowling,” a goof directed at the close-minded punk scene that the band delivered here with tongue firmly in cheek. “If someone would have told me back then I’d still be playing this 30 years later I would have said, ‘Can I have some of what you’re smoking?’” Lowery cracked. “I probably said that anyway.”

http://host.madison.com/entertainment/music/reviews/camper-van-beethoven-delivers-cohesive-show-at-high-noon/article_7e36aad4-9e76-5069-844f-30f067014399.html

THE PRESS-CITIZEN (Iowa City daily) – Brief critic’s pick show preview.
Play: Events not to miss this week
Camper Van Beethoven
Take a little bit of punk, add in some ska and folk, toss in a sprinkling of world music and you’ve got Camper Van Beethoven, who play The Mill at 8 p.m. today with Poison Control Center. This will be one of the Camper clan’s first gigs on their tour where they unveil new material from their forthcoming studio album out this summer, so this is one show you don’t want to miss. Tickets are $15.

http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20120105/GOIOWACITY/301050001/Play-Events-not-to-miss-this-week

LITTLE VILLAGE (Iowa City weekly) – Show preview with CVB photo and video.
THURSDAY
Camper Van Beethoven, Poison Control Center // The Mill // 9:00 PM // $15

Here’s a band that is all over the place on a few different levels. Camper Van Beethoven was making quirky, pop-rock tunes long before say, Weezer did. The band does not limit itself to a genre though; many of their songs are rooted in folk music largely through Jonathan Segel’s role on violin.  Oh yeah, they can be a punk band too. Camper Van Beethoven was formed in the early ’80s, disbanded in 1990, took a nearly decade long hiatus, was reborn and continues to tour today. The lineup has changed many times and the band has cycled through over a dozen different members, some of which have worked with Sparklehorse (RIP), Dieselhed, Counting Crows and Cracker. High energy Iowa favorites, Poison Control Center open the show. PCC is putting out a limited copy of their unreleased first effort, A Nice Old-Fashioned Romance With Love Lyrics And Everything, a 30-song rock opera on Maximum Ames records. This release is vinyl only and there are only 150 copies. Expect headstands, splits and melted faces. I’m finding I say this a lot, but I really mean it right now – this won’t be one to miss.

http://littlevillagemag.com/weekender/iowa-city-weekender-january-5-7/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=iowa-city-weekender-january-5-7

VILLAGE VOICE (NYC weekly) – NYC “Recommened Events” show preview
David Lowery has been pulling double-duty with his two bands, quirky indie-rock heroes Camper Van Beethoven (“Take the Skinheads Bowling”) and alternative-era MTV darlings Cracker (“Low”), at concerts and in the studio since 1999. Somehow he’s kept it all straight, even putting out a solo album last year, despite the differences between the groups but thanks to a few common threads: his sardonic wit, the groups’ unpredictable solos, and catchy choruses. Tonight he’ll be in be sputtering out his tongue-in-cheek lyrics about Euro-trash girls and other forms of ear candy with both groups.

http://www.voiceplaces.com/cracker-camper-van-beethoven-new-york-3281492-e/

BROOKLYN  ROCKS (NYC music blog) – NYC show preview with CVB photo.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Camper Van Beethoven Will be Debuting New Material @ Highline Ballroom on Sat., Jan. 14th
DOWNLOAD: Camper Van Beethoven – Live at The Independent, San Francisco, CA 12-28-11
Cracker & Camper Van Beethoven’s annual year-end California trek is underway and the last night of this run of shows is Dec. 29th in Petaluma. After which, Cracker heads further north to Portland on December 30th for a special one-off with bluegrass jam band Leftover Salmon, where the two bands will perform their highly-lauded 2003 album O Cracker, Where Art Thou? together in its entirety.

The following night, Cracker & CVB will be in Chicago for a celebratory New Year’s Eve bash at Chicago’s House Of Blues. Camper Van Beethoven will open, followed by Cracker ringing in the new year, and then Big Head Todd & The Monsters playing into the wee hours.

Then Camper Van Beethoven will start off the year with their own headlining shows in Milwaukee, Madison and Iowa City, before hooking up with Cracker again for shows in St. Louis and Minneapolis. The two bands will then head east for their annual winter run through the Northeast. As David Lowery (frontman for both bands) told the Boston Herald earlier this year,”We always do it in January when it’s really cold and not many bands go up to the Northeast. It started from the fact that it was the only time that was slow for the Camper Van Beethoven guys who have real careers. Then we accidentally figured out nobody else is touring, so it’s seen as this mid-winter cabin-fever kind of party.”

Both Cracker and CVB will be running through their career-spanning canons of hits and fan favorites, while, perhaps even more exciting, Camper Van Beethoven will be performing a handful of new songs slated for their new studio album – their first in over seven years!

http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20120105/GOIOWACITY/301050001/Play-Events-not-to-miss-this-week

PIONEER PRESS (Minneapolis daily) –Best Bet show preview.
Entertainment best bets for Jan. 6-12
Rock Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven
Saturday: Singer/guitarist David Lowery is in the relatively unique position of leading two bands that claim somewhat unique audiences. He’s best known, of course, for his role in the ’80s alt-rock group Camper Van Beethoven, but he also heads up Cracker, which scored a trio of big hits in the early ’90s with “Teen Angst (What the World Needs Now),” “Low” and “Get Off This.” Both bands are on the bill for this club gig, with American Scarecrows opening. Expect to hear some fresh material from CVB, as they’re currently working on a new album due out later this year. 7:30 p.m.; Fine Line Music Cafe, 318 First Ave. N., Mpls.; $78.50-$18.50; 612-338-8100.
-    Ross Raihala

http://www.twincities.com/entertainment/ci_19680044

KDHX RADIO (St. Louis Community Radio) – Feature interview with David to preview show.
‘I just can’t spend all day talking about music’ An interview with David Lowery of Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven
Written by Scott Allen

As the leader of two influential alternative-rock bands of the ’80s and ’90s, David Lowery has spent over 25 years in the music business.

Originally fronting Camper Van Beethoven, a staple on the ’80s college rock scene, the band fused elements of pop, ska, punk, folk, country and world music into an eclectic mix. As the ’90s began and his band fell apart, Lowery formed Cracker with his childhood friend Johnny Hickman for a more mainstream rock sound scoring hits with “Teen Angst (What The World Needs Now),” “Low” and “Euro Trash Girl.”

Yesterday, I spoke to Lowery by phone to discuss the current status of both bands and his thoughts on his personal business model for the music industry. As noted in the interview, he personally tends to shy away from the spotlight and continues to stay busy with various musical and non-musical pursuits — including a stint as a lecturer in the University of Georgia’s music business program.

On Friday, Lowery brings both Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven back to St. Louis for a KDHX-sponsored double bill at the Pageant.

Scott Allen: It seems that you perform in St. Louis once a year, sometimes more. What’s been your impression of St. Louis over the years? Are there any memories that stand out?

David Lowery: Well, there’s the history with Camper Van Beethoven. St. Louis was always a fairly strong town for that band. Not everywhere got Camper Van Beethoven so it was a good place. In particular, with Cracker, it started on our first album. We literally had singles from that album and had this little EP ["Tucson"] that followed it. In St. Louis, “Euro Trash Girl” became a hit about two years before it became a hit in the rest of the country. I don’t know if you remember that?

Actually I do. I saw Cracker perform at Mississippi Nights back then.

So we sort of had this string of hits in St. Louis on the radio before we did in the rest of the country. I mean it was weird. We were going and playing little 100-seat venues all over the country. Then we’d come and sell out shows at Mississippi Nights. That’s one of the main parts of the history. For whatever reason Cracker caught on with radio in St. Louis in a big way before the rest of the country.

Speaking of touring, how many dates do you average in a year?

For the last two years we’ve really scaled back on the touring. I’m actually not sure that’s where the money is anymore. I think it was for a long time in that Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker were touring, grass roots, live phenomena. That was fantastic for us and we had that for about 25 years. But, about a year-and-a-half to two years ago, I noticed that everybody else tours now. Think about it. If you’re in St. Louis and you look at the paper on a weekend night there are a lot of shows to go to. It didn’t used to be like that. You used to have a few each month. Now, I can come to a city like Chicago, St. Louis, Dallas or any of the major markets and roll into town and look at the paper to see who is playing. There might be sometimes four or five other shows that I’d be interested in going to.

So, actually what is going on is that we’ve decided with all of our projects we’re just going to make a lot more recorded music right now. This sort of thing flies in the face of conventional wisdom right now. But the deal is record a lot of music. Again, I’m hoping it’s going to work out. Really what we’re doing in the last two years is instead of playing 150 shows we’re playing more like 45-50. We’re trying to make the shows special so we’re doing Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven together. We’ve had a long history with St. Louis, and people seem to love that show. So we’re coming to do that again.

Right. I saw you guys come through two years ago at the Pageant and really enjoyed the double bill.

Thanks.

Last year Jonathan Segel, your bandmate in Camper Van Beethoven, announced that work would begin on a new record, the first since “New Roman Times” in 2004. Are you still in the writing process or are there finished songs ready to record?

It’s more or less written and we have about half that are recorded, and the Monday after the St. Louis show we’re going to go back in the studio down in Athens and work on a little more of it. That’s kind of one of the things we’re doing. There are not many new songs we’re playing just because … Here’s the weird thing — there are no surprises anymore if you play your new songs live. (Laughs) The papers have them, they’re on YouTube and the songs are just sort of out there. People are critiquing them and it’s sort of bizarre. You want to say, “You know we’re not really kind of done with that.” There is a whole sort of process when you’re first playing the song you might play it a few times and rearrange it and play it again. We’ve got a handful of them that we’re doing that with. Maybe four or five that we’re playing to get a better feel of them and then we’ll go record them next week.

They’re very much in the vein of Camper Van Beethoven. This is exactly what I’m talking about. We’re trying to make a record from one of the projects — solo, Cracker, Camper Van Beethoven — we’re trying to make them every year now. We were trying to finish it by January, but it’ll probably be more like May or something when we actually get it finished.

Are you planning to start recording new Cracker material this year too?

No, I’ll probably start doing the writing for that this year.

As far as the recording you’re doing for the new Camper Van Beethoven, who are you working with in Athens?

We basically produce our own records, but when we’re working in Athens we’re working with an engineer named Drew Vandenberg [Drive-By Truckers, Deerhunter, the Whigs] who’s actually recorded a lot of interesting stuff — everything from Futurebirds to Toro Y Moi. He’s also working on some of the new Band of Horses album. He’s a young engineer and he was actually the second engineer on the last Cracker record, and we liked him so much. He’s not the only person we’re working with. We’re also working with Myles Boisen who’s in Oakland. We’ve worked with Jason Carmer who’s out of the Bay Area also. We don’t really use names that civilians have heard of. We generally use people who musicians know about.

When you said the name Drew Vandenberg it sounded familiar.

He’s actually been recording a lot of stuff. He was a second engineer on a lot of projects, but he’s recorded his own stuff out of Athens for many years now. His stuff is getting really popular now so it’s cool.

Do you still record analog during the recording process or do you record digital these days?

We track to analog and mix to analog a lot of times. We’ll probably mix to analog with the new Camper Van Beethoven record. There are some really good things about analog. I was really pro-analog for a long time. Frankly, the digital stuff has gotten so good. UAD, Universal Audio, which made a lot of the old analog recording equipment, their digital stuff is really incredible with the modeling that they do. The digital stuff has just gotten better. IAD out of Canada is another one. It just sounds so good now.

A lot of times we’ll track to the tape and then immediately transfer it into ProTools or Radar and then we will immediately erase that take and record another take over top of it. The thing that people like about analog is that it’s easier to record in analog and get it to sound good because it doesn’t do impossible things. That’s why for a long time I really liked analog. Truthfully, having engineers who’ve grown up only with digital they’re so good at it that it’s just better to do that.

I wanted to ask you a couple of personal questions. You mentioned on your website that the music thing isn’t always your thing.

I just can’t spend all day talking about music. Every musician started out as more or less a part-time musician and they had another life. This is where they got their inspiration and life experiences. That’s really my thing to always keep David Lowery the performer/writer/recording artist strictly part-time.

On the site you also mentioned enjoying military history. Tell me a bit about that.

I’ve read a lot of history. I like the Dark Ages to the Ancient stuff. When we went to Iraq, I got really fascinated with the region. I started reading histories of these different wars and conflicts. There are literally 30 different empires in that region. I got really fascinated with it, and so I was reading a lot of that material. My personal favorite right now is the Mongols. That’s the history of all Central Asian tribes loosely grouped under the Mongols. I find it fascinating.

Do you find that stuff colors your songwriting over time?

Not really. There is a song called “We All Shine a Light” on the last Cracker album. It’s about a kid growing up in Peshawar who’s a really big cricket fan. Peshawar, in Pakistan, it was sort of this beacon of multiculturalism, thinking, science, trade and art for a really long time. Now, it’s at the heart of this extremely conservative, militant Islam extremism. I ended up reading about that and how fanatical that area of the world is for cricket and mixed those two things together.

Amateur radio is another interest for you. Is that something you actively participate in?

Since I was twelve. I’m a little dormant lately, but I’ve been thinking about doing some stuff again. It goes in waves with me. Through the ’90s and mid-’00s there was a really great underground of all these amateur radio, computer geek and audio DSP geeks who were hooking soundcards to amateur radios. Basically they were creating these other non-corporate modes of communicating to each other with computers. It was really fascinating.

I kind of got to the point where I went all the way through that so I haven’t been doing much with that lately. I was just reading something that made me want to go back and hook my computers back up to my amateur radios again and get back on the air. It’s this strange sort of geek underground. I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s pretty interesting. I kind of moved away from it in the last five or six years because a lot of the people involved in this are such extreme right-wing people. I like the real libertarian branch of that — I think there’s always interesting people in that branch. I don’t like it when it gets mixed up with what to me is anti-American and anti-United States bullshit.

There were always people in that movement like Barry Goldwater. I assume if he were alive today he would be experimenting hooking computers to amateur radio and basically creating these open source communication networks. A sort of non-corporate, free communication. But, it kind of got taken over by this hard right wing.

Funny you mention Goldwater. I read a very prophetic quote by him recently where he said that if evangelicals ever got control of the Republican Party things in this country would go to hell.

Barry Goldwater, in retrospect, I don’t know how it happened, but Victor Krummenacher [bass player in Camper Van Beethoven] and I ended up reading a lot about him. We were kind of fascinated by him. There were good and bad things about him, but he was pretty cool. That’s the part of conservative, libertarian movement that I like — the Barry Goldwater part. Which has nothing to do with social conservatism. It has nothing to do with the modern conservative movement. It’s all purely about liberty and a somewhat radical interpretation of that.

KDHX welcomes Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven to the Pageant on January 6.

http://kdhx.org/music/music-news/i-just-cant-spend-all-day-talking-about-music-an-interview-with-david-lowery-of-cracker-and-camper-van-beethoven

KDHX RADIO (St. Louis Community Radio) –Brief positive show preview.
Cracker/Camper Van Beethoven
When: Fri 01/06  8:00pm
Where: Pageant – St. Louis
Cracker and predecessor Camper Van Beethoven mix alt rock, alt country with many other genres, including punk and glam rock.

http://kdhx.org/calendar/cracker-/-camper-van-beethoven-21829

RIVERFRONT TIMES (St. Louis weekly) – Second positive show preview with Cracker photo.
Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven
8 p.m. Friday, January 6. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Boulevard.
By Roy Kasten
Whether taking the helm of iconic ironic rockers Camper Van Beethoven, the sardonic janglers of Cracker or a smarty-pants solo project, David Lowery has consistently dug up the twisted roots of American music, always with dark humor and twangy intonations intact. If “alternative rock” ever had any meaning, it was defined by the energy of Lowery’s withering social and sexual parodies and celebratory self-loathings. Ubiquitous hits such as “Teen Angst (What the World Needs Now),” “Take the Skinheads Bowling” and “Euro-Trash Girl” were principally political even as they made a mockery of the possibility of postmodern principles at all.

What to Expect: Touring as a double bill of Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker should give Lowery plenty of room to stretch out across all the hits – and dip into this year’s fine solo release, The Palace Guards, as well.
Location Info
Venue
The Pageant
6161 Delmar Blvd.
University City, MO 63130
$20. 314-726-6161.

http://www.riverfronttimes.com/2012-01-05/music/cracker-and-camper-van-beethoven/

RIVERFRONT TIMES (St. Louis weekly) – Early show preview with CVB file photo and Eye of Fatima video
This Just In
Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven are Coming to the Pageant!
David Lowery will be very busy on this tour: Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven will be playing a co-headlined bill at the Pageant on January 6th. Tickets are $20 and go on sale this Friday at 5 p.m.

Lowery was in town this spring as a solo act — he played at Blueberry Hill’s Duck Room. That show, featuring Cracker’s Johnny Hickman as an opener, wound up being as much about Lowery telling the stories behind his songs as him actually playing them. Expect it to be much, much different this time around.

http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/rftmusic/2011/11/cracker_and_camper_van_beethoven.php

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH (St. Louis daily) – Early brief show preview with Cracker photo
Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven team up for Pageant concert
A co-bill of Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven, along with Gaelic Storm, Memories of Elvis and Railroad Earth are new shows coming to the Pageant.
– Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven (co-bill), 8 p.m. Jan. 6, $20, buy three tickets get one free first week of sales only
Tickets go on sale at 5 p.m. Friday at Ticketmaster, ticketmaster.com, 800-745-3000 and at the venue.

http://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/music/kevin-johnson/cracker-and-camper-van-beethoven-team-up-for-pageant-concert/article_40a184e8-0a8c-11e1-8853-0019bb30f31a.html

ALIVE MAGAZINE (St. Louis weekly) – Brief show preview
* Cracker/Camper Van Beethoven
Date: 01/06/2012
Time: 8 pm
The Pageant
6161 Delmar Blvd
St. Louis MO, 63112
Come out to the Pageant to see the ecelectic band ‘Camper Van Beethoven’ who combines pop, ska, punk rock, folk and alternative country. Playing the same night is ‘Cracker’ formed by lead singer of Camper Van Beethoven made famous by their pan-rock style and satirical take on Americana.

http://www.alivemag.com/events/sub_event.cfm?site_eventID=2138&nm=Cracker/Camper-Van-Beethoven

CITY PAGES (Minneapolis weekly) – Positive “Critics Picks” show preview with Cracker photo
Cracker and Camper van Beethoven
Fine Line Music Cafe on Saturday 1.7
Shortly after the new year rolls over, Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker blow into town midway through what has become their annual winter tandem tour. The closely affiliated bands, both led by singer/guitarist David Lowery, share eccentric, often deeply ironic lyrical tilts and eclectic musical threads that run from power pop to experimental via country, punk, and Southern rock. Both bands reportedly have been doing entire run-throughs of their various albums recently (CVB’s Key Lime Pie, Cracker’s Kerosene Hat, for example). There’s no word of any of that here, although nuggets from throughout each band’s extensive catalogues are promised. CVB also will be previewing an array of new tunes destined for their forthcoming studio album, their first since 2004′s New Roman Times. 18+. $20. 7:30 p.m. 318 First Ave. N., Minneapolis; 612.338.8100. —Rick Mason

http://www.citypages.com/2012-01-04/music/critics-picks-buffalo-moon-birthday-suits-and-more/

MINNEAPOLIS STAR-TRIBUNE (Minneapolis daily) – Feature with David
This feature also got picked up by the McClatchy/Tribune – MCT Information Services wire and has also been published in dailies nationwide, including the Syracuse Post Standard, Sacramento Bee, New Orleans Times Picayune, Macon Telegraph,

interview to preview Minneapolis show in their Vita.mn A&E section with David photo.
Music: David Lowery is on tour with both Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven
By Chris Riemenschneider
He’s flattered to be remembered at all, but David Lowery did not need the new Diablo Cody-written movie “Young Adult” to remind him that his band Cracker is nowadays mostly seen as an early-1990s nostalgia act. That reminder comes on a daily basis thanks to his new job teaching a music-business course at the University of Georgia.

“A lot of the students there tell me the same thing we heard from the soldiers when we performed over in Iraq” in 2009, Lowery said with a droll laugh. “They said, ‘Dude, my parents are going to totally freak out when they find out I was hanging out with you.’”

Let’s give Gen-X rock fans a little break and hope those kids were referring to Lowery’s earlier, far quirkier band, Camper Van Beethoven, a mainstay of the college-rock circuit in the mid-’80s that landed one novelty underground hit, “Take the Skinheads Bowling.”

Lowery enjoyed steady mainstream radio play with Cracker in the early 1990s with the slacker-flavored songs “Teen Angst (What the World Needs Now)” and “Low.” The latter landed on the “Young Adult” soundtrack alongside the Replacements, Lemonheads and other bands of the grunge era who weren’t all really grunge. Now both of Lowery’s groups have paired up for a short twofer tour coming to Minneapolis in the dead of winter.

“The advantage for me is I get to essentially cover my entire catalog in one night, which I really enjoy, and hopefully some of the fans do,” said Lowery. “The disadvantage is it’s a really long show, and actually a lot of work.”

The eclectic, gypsy-punk-gone-country ensemble Camper Van Beethoven — which originally disbanded in 1990 — has been working on its first new album in eight years. “With [Camper], we really don’t play a whole lot, and we kind of like it that way,” he said. “Which is funny, since everybody in the business is touring more now because it’s the only way to make money anymore.”

As for the more straight-ahead Cracker, 2009′s twangy effort “Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey” is actually something of a return to form.

“Cracker’s first record really was a lot more Southern-rock/country-rock than people remember,” he said. “I remember our longtime A&R person at Virgin said to us when we turned in that record, ‘It sounds great. But do you really want to put out a country-rock record when nobody else is?’ This was 1991, when Nirvana hit.”

Lowery’s trajectory with Cracker through the early ’90s echoes that of ex-Minneapolitan Bob Mould’s post-Hüsker Dü band Sugar, as the former indie-rockers went mainstream with new bands.

“We all kind of grew out of the tail end of punk-rock, when punk had sort of become this rigid art form and some of us just wanted to play rock ‘n’ roll — something poppier, but not like classic rock, our own kind of thing. The mainstream sort of moved toward us instead of the other way around. MTV and radio suddenly discovered our bands. It wasn’t like a specific stylistic thing. It was just like we were held up as the ‘new generation of rock.’”
Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven
Jan 7, Sat. at 8:30 pm
Fine Line Music Café
318 1st Av. N.
Minneapolis, MN

http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/music/136745523.html

ALSO POSTED HERE ON VITA.MN

http://www.vita.mn/story.php?id=136739853

THE ONION / AV CLUB (Twin Cities, MN weekly) – Show preview with Cracker photo.
Cracker
Also Playing: Camper Van Beethoven
Cracker’s David Lowery is getting to the age where it’s customary for modestly famous rockers to drag themselves out on tour looking bitter and bloated. Instead, Lowery and guitarist Johnny Hickman have done basically the opposite lately, touring as a stripped-down (but non-seated) rock duo and preserving the smart-assed songwriting voice Lowery established with Camper Van Beethoven. It helps that the band’s most recent work, including 2009′s Sunshine In The Land Of Milk And Honey, beefs up the setlist with songs that work well alongside the early-’90s stuff, and that they don’t seem to mind playing hits like the not-entirely-characteristic “Low.”
Fine Line Music Cafe 318 1st Ave. N., Twin Cities, MN
$20

http://www.avclub.com/twincities/events/cracker-and-camper-van-beethoven,279960/

PHILDELPHIA INQUIRER (Philadelphia daily) – Brief show preview.
Cracker
Led by Camper Van Beethoven frontman David Lowery, Cracker’s post-punk, country-tinged songs earned some hits in the early ’90s with ‘Low’ ‘What the World Needs Now’ and ‘Get Off This.’
Also appearing: Camper Van Beethoven
Where:
World Cafe Live
3025 Walnut St.
Philadelphia, PA 19104

http://www.philly.com/philly/calendar/135534358.html

QRO MAGAZINE (NY music site) – Feature with Jonathan interview to preview NYC show (phoner Tue Dec 20th at noon pacific)
Jonathan Segel of Camper Van Beethoven
By Ted Chase
Just before the holidays – and their annual December/January tour – QRO caught up with Camper Van Beethoven’s guitarist/violinist Jonathan Segel.  The multi-act multi-instrumentalist talked about Camper’s upcoming tour with sister act Cracker (QRO spotlight on), why they’re the rare band who tours in December/January, the new Camper material that’s gonna be on this tour, his new solo records All Attractions and Apricot Jam (out in the beginning of 2012), what having different roles has taught him, being a ‘grandfatherly Mr. Old & Bitter’ at a poorly-run, poorly-paid South-by-Southwest, and much more…

QRO: When/where did you make All Attractions & Apricot Jam?

JS: I live in Oakland, so most of it was recorded in San Francisco and Oakland, over the course of the past couple of years.

QRO: Did you work with a variety of musicians, since you were making it over the last couple of years, or was there a specific band that you had with you?

JS: I’ve been working with the same people a lot.  I worked with Victor [Krummenacher, CVB bassist] – he and I have been playing music together inside and outside of Camper Van Beethoven for the last thirty years.  We work pretty well together.

Camper’s initial drummer, Chris Pedersen, moved to Australia in the nineties, so we’ve been using some different drummers.  Right now, there’s this guy John Haynes, who Victor’s been playing with a lot, and I’ve been playing with him off and on for the past five years.  John Haynes is our main drummer – he’s been around the San Francisco Bay Area for a long time.  He played with Pearl Harbor & The Explosions – he’s played with all sorts of people.

QRO: You’ve done everything from your own  solo records to making records as part of a band to contributing on other people’s stuff – how do the different recording situations compare?

JS: Gosh, it really depends.  Being a bandleader is definitely a different job than being a hired musician.

Playing in Camper Van Beethoven is more like playing in a collective band, where everybody has their own sorts of ideas and parts, versus, for instance, when I played in Sparklehorse back in the nineties, it was definitely Mark Linkous’ thing, I was just the melody aspect of each song, I played violin or guitar or keyboards or whatever.  It’s a different job, those different things.

“I think that having been in all of these sorts of different situations in different bands ends up giving you a different outlook on how to react in each different job that comes along.”
I think that having been in all of these sorts of different situations in different bands ends up giving you a different outlook on how to react in each different job that comes along.

QRO: You feel that you can sort of put yourself in another person’s shoes?

JS: Exactly.

For many people, it’s hard to listen to their own band objectively.  I mean, I’m definitely guilty of that myself, of course.

One of the things that you do learn how to do, also, is to try to step back and listen to everybody’s part and say, “Is what I’m playing good for the band, good for the song that we’re playing as a whole?  How can this be better, not just based on what I’m doing?”

QRO: Do you find that you do relatively more guitars when making your own material, than when you’re contributing to someone else’s thing?

JS: Absolutely.  More people play guitar, obviously.  So I’m definitely wanted as a violinist more, coming in as an outside musician.

On All Attractions, Chris Xefos played bass on some of the stuff, because Victor wanted to play guitar, because he’s been playing guitar a lot.

QRO: Why are you putting out two records at the same time?

JS: I’ve been working on the song part of All Attractions for the last couple of years.  We went into the studio to record the last little bits of it, we ended up having an afternoon free, and we just improvised.  That ended up being Apricot.  That’s basically a bunch of instrumentals that were just improvised in the studio, and I took them home and sort of played with them for the next few months before they got mixed.

So it’s just sort of a bonus disc, really.

QRO: Are you releasing them at the start of the year – is it coincidence that it’s coinciding with the Camper tour?

JS: It’s coincidence that it’s coinciding with the Camper tour, but it’s also that, since, as an independent artist, it takes a long time for – I don’t have a real ‘release schedule’ that says, “Three months in advance I’m gonna place all of this sort of advertisement out” – I just can’t afford to do that sort of thing.  So for me to put it out at the beginning of the year is little bit better in terms of when people find it out, in the year 2016, they’ll look at it and they’ll go, “Oh, it was released in 2012,” as opposed to, “Oh, it was released in 2011…” [laughs]

QRO: That’s really true, especially with the internet, release dates aren’t quite the same importance that they were…

JS: It’s definitely not the same thing as it used to be. Although, strangely it’s still on Tuesdays…

QRO: Yes! [laughs] Except in the U.K. they’re on Mondays…

JS: Yeah, what the hell?  Who made that rule up?…

QRO: Now, even DVDs come out on Tuesdays as well.

JS: Really?  I didn’t even know that.

QRO: Starting with the twenty-fifth anniversary tour, this will be the fourth year in a row that Camper Van Beethoven has toured in January.  Why is that?

JS: Yeah, we’re making a habit of it.  We’ve been doing this thing on the West Coast between Christmas and New Year’s for six or seven years now – San Francisco, San Diego, Petaluma, sometimes Portland.  So we started adding on to do some Midwest, mostly East Coast dates in January.  It’s sort of crazy, but you know, no one else is out there.

QRO: It’s to the point where you play the same venue on the same date or day of the week, year-on-year.  Was it just to add to the California dates?

JS: Yeah, but it’s sort of becoming a traditional thing.

I like it.  I like having sort of set area.  You know, a lot of us work, also – to have set areas to tour around West Coast and into the Campout in Pioneertown in southern California in August/September, and then we tour around some dates on the East Coast in January, the Midwest, and then little bits and pieces here and there throughout the spring.  It’s getting to be a pretty good schedule.

QRO: How does playing California in December compare with playing the Mid-West/Northeast in January?

JS: [laughs] Yeah, California’s December is usually not that – usually the worst you get is some rain.

Last year, we went to St. Louis, and it was minus twelve!

QRO: Do you notice some of the same fans each time you visit a city?

JS: Many of the same fans, and what it does is then, they bring other people.  Which is really cool.

It’ll start off with a lot of people who are like, “Oh, I haven’t seen you guys forever!”  And then next year, it’s like, “You guys were really great last year – I’m coming and bringing more people this year.”

QRO: Where did the idea of the Cracker/Camper tour come from?

JS: Camper didn’t really exist in the nineties, at all, because [CVB singer David Lowery's] Cracker was really strong, and we were all doing our own thing, I was making my own little records and stuff.  When we started playing together again, it sort of came out of me or Greg [Lisher, CVB guitarist] or Victor joining Cracker for a couple of Camper songs.  Initially, it was just we did these… “traveling apothecary tours,” we called them.  It was sort of this amalgam of both bands, do a Cracker set, do a Camper set, or it was mostly Cracker, and they’d do a Cracker set, then we would join them to do some Camper songs.

It wasn’t until 2002 that we actually separated out and did Camper only.  I think the first shows as Camper only, again since 1990, I think were at the Knitting Factory (QRO venue review).

QRO: Was that around the same time you were working on New Roman Times [the first CVB record since 1989's Key Lime Pie]?

JS: Yeah, we started working on that.

QRO: And where did the idea of 2011′s Key Lime Pie and Kerosene Hat tour come from?

JS: Full records like that?  Well, I’m not exactly sure, but it was something that fans kept asking us to do it at our Campout festival.

Many of the songs from Key Lime Pie had never actually been played live.  Probably like five of them were ever played live.  We had a few of them in our normal repertoire, like “All Her Favorite Fruit”, “Sweethearts”, and “Flowers”, but many of them we’d actually never played.

So when people kept saying, “Can you play Key Lime Pie?” – so we were like, ‘We’re gonna learn the whole record?…’

QRO: Was it hard learning songs that you had written so long ago?

JS: Yeah!  It was hard!  We’re older & slower now… [laughs]

QRO: In the upcoming tour, are you going to be doing new material?

JS: Yeah.  We’ve been working on a new record, started writing a bunch of stuff earlier this year, started recording in June, had a couple of sessions in June, October, and then [December].  We’ve got a bunch of new songs, so I think we’re gonna at least be playing four or five of them.

QRO: Have you played them live to audiences before?

JS: No, we never had.  That will start after Christmas.

QRO: Are you nervous about that?

JS: …Yeah?  I think that we have the songs pretty well – we actually had some rehearsals.  We don’t usually rehearse very much; we usually just get together and play.  But we actually had some rehearsals last time…

QRO: When did you start thinking that you were going to do a new album?

JS: It’s been a while.  You know, we started thinking we were gonna do a new album several years ago, but then that sort of process became interrupted by Cracker doing another album (QRO review) they worked on for a long time, and then they toured an awful lot on that.  And we all work on our own projects.

We actually started, in earnest, talking about it, about a year ago, saying, “We’re gonna do it in 2011 – we’re gonna work on a new record.”  So that’s what we’ve been doing all year. I think we’ve come up with some amazing stuff; I think it’s gonna be a great record.

Of course I’m gonna say that, right?…

QRO: [laughs] Because you can’t be objective…

JS: [laughs] Exactly!

QRO: What is the writing process – does everybody come in with his own individual stuff, does it start as a group, or what?

JS: We do that; there’s many different writing processes involved in Camper Van Beethoven.

Since David is going to be playing and singing, we’re generally gonna leave it up to him to do the vocals.

A lot of what we’ve been doing is coming in with melodies, or some basic chord ideas, Greg, Victor, me, and David, all of us together at my house, every evening back in June for a week.  We worked out a number of things, a number of really great melodic hits, and number of great chord progressions, and then over the summer, they developed into songs.

QRO: When you’re coming with your own individual ideas, do you think, “Okay, this is going to be for Camper,” or you do you think, “This is going to be for my own thing”?

JS: That’s a very odd idea.

Some things I think just lend themselves to just one or the other very easily.  Other things, I just want to try out on people in the band, before I see if people are interested in the idea or not.

And then another thing, I think that a lot of the music, for instance that I did on All Attractions, doesn’t really fit in the Camper world so much.

QRO: Do you feel less pressure making this upcoming Camper record than when you made New Roman Times, since that was your ‘reunion record’?

JS: Yeah, definitely.  There’s definitely less pressure to make a ‘comeback record’ or something like that, but on the other hand there’s more pressure to make a good record.

I hope that people have high expectations, because I think that we’re up for it.  I think that, after we’ve been playing together and playing individually as musicians for a long time now, we’re all very good at what we do.  I think we’re riding a very good creative wave this year – my record, Greg has been working on an instrumental record of his own, Victor has been working on many projects, he has his McCabe & Mrs. Miller (QRO photos, opening for CVB) stuff, David had a solo record that came out (QRO review).  We’re all riding on a very, very large, creative wave, I’d say.

QRO: Are you working on Victor or Greg’s records?

JS: I occasionally do; I haven’t been so much lately, but I have ended up playing on a lot of Victor’s records, and just a little bit on some of Greg’s stuff.

QRO: I saw you at South-by-Southwest in 2010 (QRO recap).  What was it like to play an ‘industry festival’ that’s mostly about new bands, when you’re anything but a newbie?…

JS: Well, it’s sort of funny, because, like I said about how we’ve been playing for such long time, it’s sort of funny because we’ve been in that situation many times, and we actually know how to play our instruments.  In some ways, I feel like ‘grandfatherly’ – [old man voice] “Here, let me show you how to play that guitar…”

But in other cases, I always find it amazing to look around, when you’re at South-by-Southwest or one of those festivals, to look at all the different bands that are playing, because it’s funny how many different kinds of music are available to people.  There’s so much you can see.

QRO: Do you think that’s changed even since you’ve started?

JS: It’s definitely easier to, quote, ‘be in a band.’  They always say that the internet, computers, computer recording has leveled the playing field for people.  Yeah, of course the truth about that is that a level playing field means it’s sort of awash with mediocrity.  It’s hard to find the things that are really going to stand out, you know?

‘Cause there’s a lot, a lot of music now.  It’s very easy for people to make music, it’s easier for people to get started making music, when they have a computer, before they even have an instrument.  What’s harder to find, of course, is people who actually know how to play their instruments really, really well…

I sort of lament that, in a way, and I don’t wanna sound like ‘Mr. Old & Bitter’, but you go back and listen to sixties music – those guys were like in their twenties, and those guys played the shit out of their instruments!  Those guys were really, really good, and it’s really rare to find out guys in their twenties that have practiced, or have training, or music education to be able to really play the shit out of their instruments.  It happens, it does happen.

And then, of course, there’s the other side of that coin is that there are people who are innately musical, who don’t have the technical ability, but are able to put stuff together with a computer or with other sounds, something like that, and make music with it now, who could never have done that before.

QRO: Lots of things have gotten easier, but it’s not any easier to learn how to play an instrument…

JS: Right, exactly… [laughs]

QRO: Back to SXSW, where did the idea of selling endorsements for each song come from?

JS: It was just trying to figure out ways of getting ourselves there.  We couldn’t really afford to fly us all there, so we’re like, ‘Well, what if we actually sell endorsements?’

It was a little bit pointed at South-by-Southwest in general, because they don’t actually pay bands to get there – hey, we’re happy to play, but how do we do that?

QRO: Things don’t generally run on time at South-by-Southwest, but did you feel that you still had to play every song that you ‘sold’?

JS: Yes… [laughs] Yes, we probably did.

QRO: I was at the ‘official’ SXSW show, you & Cracker at Encore Patio – what the hell happened there with that ‘venue’?  It seemed like they screwed everything up… (QRO recap)

JS: I don’t know – it’s typical South-by-Southwest stuff; some of those shows, you never know what you’re getting into.

The show the night before that we did, our manager got into a fight with somebody.  She fuckin’ clocked this guy…

QRO: I also saw you at the outdoor show on the last day of South-by-Southwest, when it was freezing cold… (QRO recap)

JS: [laughs] That’s right, at the 40 Watt party…

QRO: I didn’t have a jacket…

JS: It’s fuckin’ Texas, and it’s freezin’ cold!  Set up an outdoor thing, and all these bands are trying to play, and their hands are completely frozen…

QRO: Are there any Camper songs that you particularly like playing?

JS: There are many that I really like playing.  One of my favorites, I was just reminded of this morning, is “One of These Days”, from Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart – such nice, interlocking violin and guitar lines, really good tempo.

The instrumentals are very interesting.  And it’s funny because some of them, even from the first record, like, say “Mao Reminisces About His Days In Southern China”, it’s one of the things that’s like – I’ve been playing it more than half my life, but I just keep thinking one day I’m going to get it exactly right…

QRO: [laughs] Where did the idea, years ago, of doing the covers of Black Flag come from?

JS: Early eighties California, when punk rock sort of became really embedded in the culture of clubs and stuff, people got really dogmatic about what was punk rock, especially in southern California, I think – not so the San Francisco area.  People were like, “This is punk rock – that is not!”  And we so were like, “Screw you – we’ll play punk rock however we want…”  Just do it right.

QRO: Are there any songs that you can’t play, because of the arrangement, or just don’t like to play?

JS: I think now, we’ve tried to play all of them.  There’s some that we haven’t played, some that maybe have too many instruments in them on the recorded version, and we can’t make it into a great live version or something like that.  I don’t think there’s any that we couldn’t specifically play live.

QRO: What about from All Attractions and/or Apricot Jams – how much have you even played those songs in front of a live audience?

JS: I maybe did about five shows – no, maybe about ten.  I played opening for Built To Spill (QRO live review) at the Fillmore for a couple of days, and then we played opening for Camper here in Oakland, and then some of the shows at Campout, stuff like that.  But I don’t really have a separate booking agent, so I don’t do very many shows.
I love all those songs, to play.

QRO: What’s it like, ‘opening for yourself’?

JS: I really like it, because I get really warmed up, and then I really play well. [laughs]

QRO: Will you be touring those albums, later on?

JS: Yeah, definitely, probably have some shows in the Bay Area – we don’t really tour that much – in San Francisco, definitely.

QRO: Will it just be you, or do you have a whole band?

JS: Usually I play with the people I recorded with – Victor, and John Haynes, and Chris Xefos.

http://www.qromag.com/interviews/interviews/jonathan_segel_of_camper_van_beethoven/

BOSTON MUSIC SPOTLIGHT (Boston A&E site) – Show preview with Cracker photo.
Cracker & Camper Van Beethoven plot co-headlining tour
Boston Music Spotlight, Staff

Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven have revealed plans for their annual co-headlining tour. David Lowery will lead both bands back to Massachusetts for a show at the Middle East Downstairs in Cambridge on Sunday, January 15. Tickets for the show are now on sale through TicketWeb for $20.

Fans can expect both bands to perform career-spanning sets of hits and fan favorites. Camper Van Beethoven will also preview a handful of new songs slated for their new studio album. The new release will be their first in over seven years. Cracker s last studio release was 2009 2s Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey. Lowery, who fronts both Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven, released his first solo album The Palace Guards in February.

http://www.bostonmusicspotlight.com/news-cracker-camper-van-beethoven-plot-co-headlining-tour-massachusetts-concert-january-2012/

MAINLINE TODAY (PA monthly) – Hobart Rowland confirmed he’d be  previewing Philly show. Also pitching a CVB Magnet magazine feature for summer release.

NY DAILY NEWS – Early brief show preview with Cracker file photo.
Cracker & Camper Van Beethoven
Saturday, Jan 14 (2012) 7:00p
at Highline Ballroom, New York, NY
CRACKER
In the mid-’80s in Santa Cruz, California, singer-songwriter David Lowry formed Camper Van Beethoven, and the band’s track “Take the Skinheads Bowling” became an instant college radio staple. When CVB disbanded on tour in Sweden following its second major label release, Lowery formed Cracker with his longtime friend, guitarist Johnny Hickman. Cracker’s emergent sound had less in common with Camper’s exotic excursions and was more in sync with the Kinks and Southern roots music.
Cracker released its self-titled debut on Virgin, and following the No. 1 modern rock hit “Teen Angst (What The World Needs Now),” the band became a minor commercial sensation. The platinum-selling Kerosene Hat (1993) contained the enormous, era-defining hit single “Low,” as well as “Get Off This” and “Eurotrash Girl.” When the dust settled, Cracker found itself with an ever-growing, devoted following both in the Us (where fans refer to themselves as Crumbs) and throughout Europe. Today, the band stays well-connected to yet another generation of fans via internet, many of whom were kids when these alt-rock godfathers were first ruling rock radio. The group’s latest release, Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey (2009), weaves decades of influences into an eerie yet strangely soothing story of escapism, apocalypse, and renewal that is still relevant as ever today.
CAMPER Van BEETHOVEN
At the time of its 1985 debut, Camper Van Beethoven’s merging of punk, folk, ska, and world music was truly a revelation. Self-described as a “surrealist absurdist folk” outfit, the band formed in Santa Cruz, Ca, and the 1985 re-release of its debut, Telephone Free Landslide Victory, made the Top 10 in the 1986 Village Voice Pazz and Jop poll. The group’s next albums, II & III (1986) and Camper Van Beethoven (1986), followed suit. After two major releases on the Virgin label – Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart (1988) and Key Lime Pie (1989), CVP had taken the music as far as it could go and disbanded.
In 2002, CVP reunited for a nationwide tour on what seemed like a whim. The tour must have gone really well, because unexpectedly, the full band trooped into the studio to record a new album, titled New Roman Times – a release that, surprisingly enough, stands with the group’s finest work. A loosely connected semi-rock opera telling the story of a Texas teenager who joins the military after a 9/11-like event, becomes disillusioned, and joins an anti-government militia, the disc is the most explicitly political record of Camper Van Beethoven’s career, resurrecting and amplifying the themes that colored the band’s previous two albums. The album is proof that CVP pulled off an exceptional trick. It not only reunited – it picked up exactly where it left off.

http://events.nydailynews.com/new-york-ny/events/show/216858885-cracker-camper-van-beethoven

SOUNDSPIKE (online music site) – News feature (from press announcement) with tour dates, band photos and related links.

http://www.soundspike.com/story/3353/cracker-camper-van-beethoven-join-forces-on-tour/

PERFORMER MAGAZINE (monthly music magazine) – News feature (from press announcement) with band photos and related links.

http://performermag.com/2011/11/15/cracker-camper-van-beethoven-close-out-2011-ring-in-2012-together/

GLIDE MAGAZINE (online music magazine) – News feature (from press announcement).

http://www.glidemagazine.com/articles/57837/cracker-camper-van-beethoven-winter-tour-nye-in-chicago.html

HELLHOUND  MUSIC (online music site) – News feature (from press announcement) with tour dates, band photos and related links.

http://hhmzine.blogspot.com/2011/11/cracker-camper-van-beethoven-close-out.html

ANTI-MUSIC (online music site) – News feature (from press announcement) with tour dates, and related links.

http://www.antimusic.com/news/11/nov/15Cracker_and_Camper_Van_Beethoven_Map_Out_Year_End_Plans.shtml

THE MUSIC BOX (online music site) – Tour dates listed.

http://www.musicbox-online.com/tour.html#cracker

INNOCENT WORDS (online music site) – Tour news piece with Cracker file photo.
The Annual Cracker & Camper Van Beethoven Holiday Tour!
By: Troy Michael

Annual Cracker & Camper Van Beethoven Holiday TourDec 27th Come celebrate constitution day (North Korea) with Cracker & CVB at The Belly Up – Solana Beach CA

Dec 28th Come celebrate The Feast of the Holy Innocents (Spain) with Cracker & CVB at The Independent – SF CA

Dec 29th Come celebrate Rick Danko’s birthday with  Cracker & CVB at The Mystic Theater – Petaluma CA

Dec 30th Come celebrate Freedom Day (Church of Scientology) with   Cracker & Leftover Salmon at Roseland Theatre – Portland OR
Buy tix here. I think.  at least this is the link listed on the theatre website. I could never get the page to load.

Dec 31st  Come celebrate the first day of Hogmanay or as the non- scottish say – NEW YEARS EVE SHOW – Cracker & CVB at The House Of Blues – Chicago IL

This show is with Big Head Todd.  They graciously invited Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven to play this show with them. That doesn’t mean that we will not attempt to blow them off the stage. Both Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker get a full hour set each.  2 hours of Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven.  And relatively early.  CVB starts at 8:30 Cracker at 10:00pm.  see you there!

Jan 6th Come celebrate Befana (Italy) with Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven at the Paegaent Theatre St Louis MO.  Stay tuned for more info.

Jan 7th  Come celebrate Distaff Day (Medieval Europe/Renaissance Faires) with Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven at The Fine Line Music Cafe in Minneapolis MN.

Jan 13th Come celebrate St Knut’s Day (Sweden/Finland) with  Cracker & CVB at World Cafe Live – Philadelphia PA

Jan 14th  Come celebrate the Feast of the Ass (Medieval Christianity) with Cracker & CVB at Highline Ballroom – NYC.  I’m not making that one up.  click the link it’s real.

Jan 15th Come celebrate Lee-Jackson-King Day (Virginia)  with Cracker & CVB at Middle East Downstairs – Cambridge MA.

http://www.innocentwords.com/Magazine/ItemDisplay/tabid/807/itemId/3133/catpageid/2/Default.aspx

YOUR MUSIC MAGAZINE (online music site) – Tour news story (from press release) with Cracker photo and related links.

http://yourmusicmagazine.com/index.php/news/item/315-cracker–camper-van-beethoven-close-out-2011–ring-in-2012-together.html

EXPLODING IN SOUND (online music blog) – Tour news story (from press release) with Cracker photo and related links.

http://www.explodinginsound.com/2011/11/cracker-camper-van-beethoven-announce.html

MUSIC INDUSTRY NEWS (online music industry site) – Tour news piece (from press release) with band photos and related links.

http://mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=148988

Lawrence Ball’s new double album Method Music comes out this Tuesday, January 31st and is featured in Magnet Magazine’s new poll “What Record Are You Most Looking Forward To Next Week?”
Go here to cast your online vote for this remarkable album:
http://www.magnetmagazine.com/2012/01/27/what-record-are-you-most-looking-forward-to-next-week-53/