5 thoughts on “Night Music: Camper Van Beethoven, “Take The Skinheads Bowling”

  1. Liked this band a whole lot at the very beginning. Like first two albums I thought they were the greatest, third album, OK, lost interest after that. Saw them in Philly real early at some little dump club. Thought the show was great at the time, but I don’t remember pretty much any of it now. Seems I like bands at the very beginning, Peter likes them after they develop a country influence.

  2. I do remember they did some screwing around with country, even early on, but I don’t hear it on “Skinheads.” As a matter of fact, when I hear it start up now many years later, it sounds like “I’ll Stop The World And Melt With You” (yuck) until the guy starts singing. Pure pop. I’m no expert on CVB anymore. Bet I haven’t listened since the late 1980’s.

  3. Maybe I’m retrofitting their later sound onto this, but the seeds are there, including the fiddle solo. After the Campers broke up, which was due, David Lowery formed Cracker, which was more Americana (pardon me) and more popular.

    What got me thinking about them is that Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven had a show together tonight at a club in Manhattan.

    There wasn’t much of the 80s pop rock that I liked, but one of my guilty pleasures was I’ll Stop the World. Oh, and Hungry Like a Wolf. Those are two perfect pop rock songs. I’m not proud of that, totally understand your loathing, but I’m just saying the truth. Oh yeah, 99 Luftballoons, too. Was that the 80s?

    About 10 years ago I bought an album (yes, an album on CD) by the reformed Camper. It was concept album telling the rise of George W. Bush and the decline of America. It had more in common with the more earnest Cracker than the once-playful Campers. I played it a lot though, because our troops were pouring into Iraq and the songs hated on that.

  4. Yeah, I liked Luftballoons too. I liked ABC’s “Look Of Love” and probably some other stuff I don’t remember now, so I wasn’t totally above the embarrassment either.

Leave a Reply to Steve MoyerCancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.