RhoDeo 1421 Aetix

Hello, as the EU leaders consider how to ignore the EU citizens whilst claiming this isn't business as usual, hatred is taking root against these arrogant we know best politicians, who can do nothing but smere those opposed to them, but not a word on the serious grievances. These corrupt nincompoops are in the busines of selling the EU out to the criminal US multinationals eager to treat the EU public the same way as the US public...like dirt. Should this come to pass Brussels will burn and commissioners will hang! And the EU will dissolve with civil war on the cards for Spain, Belgium and France. Ah yes don't think these nincompoops ego's aren't warned but hey they know what's best (for their bank account).

Meanwhile the worst payed professional sportsmen, race cyclists were forced to ascend 2.7 km high mountains between walls of snow and in a snowdrift the final descent was supposed to be neutralised but not everyone got that message so in the end those who stayed around the pink leader jersey must have felt fools as 3 contenders just went for it and before the final ascend had 3.30 min lead and as these were serious climbers retained most of it and the pink changed hands- another Colombian Quintana is in control now. But as i said these top sportsmen are so underpaid compared to the effort they put in.


Back in the day, before alternative rock was invented and indie rock was still shy of roots music and other folk elements, today's band's merging of punk, folk, ska, and world music was truly a revelation. Singer/songwriter David Lowery's smart-aleck lyrics, delivered in laid-back California style, combined with Jonathan Segel's violin as lead instrument, were the band's instant trademarks. Decades after its inception, the band's sound is still remarkably fresh and their influence on alternative music undeniable and resounding ....N'joy

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Self-described as "surrealist absurdist folk," the group had its beginnings in the summer of 1983 when Lowery and boyhood friend Victor Krummenacher (bass) started playing music together around Riverside and Redlands, California. Upon relocating to the Northern California college town of Santa Cruz, they enlisted friends Chris Pedersen (drums) and Chris Molla (guitar) to join the fold; Greg Lisher (guitar) and Jonathan Segel (violins, keyboards, mandolin) were added in 1985, and collectively they created a repertoire built on acoustic and electric, traditional and punky aesthetics. The reissue of the band's self-released 1985 debut, Telephone Free Landslide Victory, which included their signature song "Take the Skinheads Bowling," made the Top Ten in the 1986 Village Voice Pazz and Jop Poll, as did their second album, the confusingly titled II & III, along with their self-titled third album, both released in 1986. In addition to punk and ska, II & III dabbled in lo-fi sounds, with touches of country (as in the original "Sad Lovers Waltz" and the twangy cover of Sonic Youth's "I Love Her All the Time"). The band's forte was its ability to switch styles, from Balkan folk to psychedelic rock on alternate takes and sometimes even within the same song!

The third album, Camper Van Beethoven, continued the thread, as blueprint CVB tracks like "Joe Stalin's Cadillac" and "Good Guys and Bad Guys" fused punk-inspired looseness with more sophisticated melody and rhythm patterns. At the same time, they were blowing minds and ears with their prog rock leanings (check their nearly note-perfect version of Pink Floyd's "Interstellar Overdrive"). By the time of their Virgin Records debut (coinciding with the label's U.S. re-launch in 1988), the band took a more serious tack for its fourth album, Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart. With Molla gone by then, the group was officially a five-piece, though a cadre of friends assisted them at recording sessions, including producer Dennis Herring (eventually, touring guitarist David Immerglück, later of Counting Crows, became an honorary sixth member). Stretching out in larger studio facilities and experimenting with sound, Sweetheart was the first CVB release met with mixed critical response. Following the elegiac Key Lime Pie and amid creative and personal strife, the band (then featuring female fiddler Morgan Fichter in place of Segel) called it a night in 1989.

In the '90s, Krummenacher, Pedersen, and Lisher (with Immerglück) continued to play together in Monks of Doom, a mostly instrumental prog rock concern, as well as in other formations that sometimes included Segel. Segel released three albums as Hieronymous Firebrain from 1990-1994, and two with Jack & Jill for the Magnetic label. In 2005 he collaborated with Dina Emerson in Chaos Butterfly. Krummenacher has released six solo albums and has collaborated with Eugene Chadbourne, Bruce Kaphan, and members of Tarnation, among others, also released through Magnetic. Lisher has two self-released solo albums to his credit. In the wake of the band's dissolution, Lowery formed Cracker, by far the most successful of the post-Camper ventures; it served as a vehicle to keep him on the road as well as a way to keep Camper's name in circulation, though he kept a distance from his bandmates and left California for Richmond, Virginia.

By 1999, Krummenacher, Segel, and Lowery were reunited while compiling an unorthodox rarities collection, Camper Van Beethoven Is Dead: Long Live Camper Van Beethoven, a mash-up of rare cuts utilizing the band's back catalog. In 2002, they officially issued their song-for-song version of Fleetwood Mac's Tusk, recorded on a lark in 1987. In the process of reissuing and archiving, the original members (sans Pedersen) quietly reunited for a handful of live shows and began work on a new batch of songs. In 2004 they released New Roman Times (a concept album about a Texas teen who joins the military then leaves ranks to join an anti-government militia) featuring all-original members including Pedersen on drums and original guitarist Molla sitting in. In 2008 Cooking Vinyl released Popular Songs of Great Enduring Strength and Beauty, a collection of fan favorites, followed by an all-new studio album, La Costa Perdida, in 2013 and its sister release, El Camino Real, in 2014. CVB continue to tour, often in support of alternative acts who've followed in their groundbreaking indie rock footprints.


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They say "never say never," but it's still extremely unlikely something so goofily low-key, inventive, and fun will ever achieve cult status so quickly again, especially in terms of musical range on display. Not simply a rock group but not anything else, Camper Van Beethoven pulled off a series of entertaining fusions throughout its debut record, as the opening song "Border Ska" indicates by name alone. Eastern European folk, tropical grooves, post-punk atmospherics, country laid-back good times, psych/garage band aesthetics, lyrics about Mao, Greece, and more -- a lot of stuff went into the Santa Cruz band's brew, and most of it came up trumps on Telephone. Lowery's lead vocals aren't much like what his more famous work in Cracker would indicate, being more speak-singing through shaggy dog stories (even one about Lassie) of all stripes. Hearing his tale of woe on "Wasted" -- "I was a punker, and I had a Mohawk/I was so gnarly and I drove my dad's car" -- delivered in a "yeah dude" tone of voice is pretty darn funny. Segel's keyboards and violins color the arrangements with a fun touch, while rhythm team Krummenacher and then recently departed drummer Anthony Guess try out nearly everything at least once. The production is eminently suited for the proceedings, sounding a bit like the thick, fuzzy flow of many Shimmy-Disc releases but with just enough of a crisp edge. When it comes to humor, it's everywhere -- for instance, the plaintively sung chorus of "Where the Hell Is Bill?," not to mention the various speculative answers ("Maybe he went to get a Vespa scooter"). Or, of course, the song that kick-started the band's reputation, "Take the Skinheads Bowling," two and a half minutes of chiming, goofy nonsense with references to Jah and incomplete rhymes.

Musically, the album is a combination of songs and instrumentals. The former are simple garage tunes, with a folk-punk sound and absurdist lyrics, often simultaneously mocking and affectionately celebrating aspects of 1980s underground counterculture, with references to punks, skinheads, surfers, skaters and hippies. These songs are comparable to other humorous 1980s underground bands like The Violent Femmes, The Dead Milkmen and The Young Fresh Fellows. The instrumentals, however, are completely different: they combine ethnic melodies (often Eastern Europe, Mexican or spaghetti Western) played on Segel's violin and Molla's guitar, with ska beats supplied by Guess, Lowery and Krummenacher. The alternation between the instrumentals and songs creates an almost split personality that is one of the most unusual aspects of the record. Later versions of the band would integrate the ethnic influences with the actual songs, but here they are quite separate. The one thing that the two song-types have in common is that they are both quite droll, leading to the band being inaccurately typecast as a novelty group.

Despite the considerable musical growth that the band would show in its later work, Telephone Free Landslide Victory has remained one of its most enduring albums. The reunited Camper Van Beethoven frequently features several of the album's songs in their set lists to this day, including "Take the Skinheads Bowling", the countrified Black Flag cover "Wasted", the hardcore send-up "Club Med Sucks", "The Day That Lassie Went to the Moon", "Ambiguity Song", and several of the instrumentals.

Camper Van Beethoven -  Telephone Free Landslide Victory ( flac 311mb)

01 The Day That Lassie Went To The Moon 3:13
02 Border Ska 2:56
03 Wasted 1:55
04 Yanqui Go Home 2:41
05 Oh No! 1:54
06 9 Of Disks 2:36
07 Payed Vacation: Greece 1:52
08 Where The Hell Is Bill? 2:05
09 Wasting All Your Time 2:59
10 Epigram #5 0:09
11 At Kuda 2:14
12 Epigram #2 0:21
13 Cowboys From Hollywood (Original) 1:41
14 Colonel Enrique Adolfo Bermudez 2:09
15 Vladivostock 2:22
16 Skinhead Stomp 1:47
17 Tina 1:37
18 Take The Skinheads Bowling 2:32
19 Mao Reminisces About His Days In Southern China 1:59
20 I Don't See You 2:23
21 Balalaika Gap 2:13
22 Opi Rides Again 0:50
23 Club Med Sucks 3:05
24 Ambiguity Song 6:23
25 Heart (Remix) 3:07

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After releasing their debut album, original drummer Anthony Guess left the band, and guitarist Greg Lisher joined. With the band temporarily lacking a drummer, guitarist Chris Molla played many of the drum parts on 'II & III', with singer/rhythm guitarist David Lowery playing some of the drum parts as well. As the album was being finished, they finally found a permanent replacement for Guess with Chris Pedersen, who ended up playing on only one song, "We're a Bad Trip." The album also found violinist/multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Segel singing lead vocals for the first time, on the tracks "Chain of Circumstance" and "We're a Bad Trip," the latter which featured him and Lowery trading verses.

II & III found the band already moving past the mixture of faux ethnic instrumentals and absurdist folk-pop-punk tunes of their debut album, for an even more eclectic sound, including elements of Americana, psychedelia, and Middle-Eastern music. Molla played steel guitar on some songs, and Segel played mandolin, adding to the country influences. There are relatively fewer instrumentals, with the vocal songs taking on many of the ethnic elements that were contained on the debut album's instrumental numbers. It contains several notable songs, especially "Sad Lover's Waltz," a slow alt-country number that did much to dispel the band's then-image as a novelty band. Another Americana-style song was a bluegrass-influenced cover of "I Love Her All the Time" by Sonic Youth, which continued the band's traditions of doing countrified versions of punk and alternative songs.

Camper Van Beethoven -  II and III  (flac 341mb)

01 Abundance 1:53
02 Cowboys From Hollywood 1:43
03 Sad Lover's Waltz 4:03
04 Turtlehead 1:16
05 I Love Her All The Time 2:16
06 No Flies On Us 1:46
07 Down And Out 1:35
08 No Krugerrands For David 2:32
09 Goleta 1:21
10 4 Year Plan 1:49
11 Devil Song (Original Version) 2:07
12 Vampire Club 4:11
13 (We're A) Bad Trip 2:32
14 Circles 2:52
15 Dustpan 1:54
16 Sometimes 2:37
17 Chain Of Circumstance 2:27
18 ZZ Top Goes To Egypt 3:07
19 Cattle (Reversed) 2:50
20 Form Another Stone 2:09
21 Circles Dub 2:49
22 (We're A) Bad Trip (Vinyl Version) 2:46
23 No More Bullshit 3:08

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CVB's self-titled third album generally differs little from II & III, continuing the blend of wistfully weird lyrics, any number of musical touches from all over the map and good-time vibes. The opening "Good Guys & Bad Guys" proves that much, with reggae, folk, country and more stewed together as Lowery plaintively sings about lawyers and the people in Russia and the like.

With the six then CVB members joined in the studio by acid-folk eccentric Eugene Chadbourne, the album is arguably the zenith of the band's musical experimentation, with surreal lyrics, backwards, speeded-up and slowed down parts, and a great number of ethnic instruments used. In addition to the usual violin parts played by member Jonathan Segel, the album also features pedal steel, banjo, tablas and sitar. While the album features the band's trademark absurdist lyrics by leader David Lowery and Segel, with CVB staples like affectionate parodies of counterculture and references to drugs and alien abduction, it also features some satirical political lyrics and social commentary on tracks like "Good Guys and Bad Guys", "Joe Stalin's Cadillac" and "We Love You"'.

The songs cover a bewildering range of musical styles: garage punk on "Shut Us Down"', acid-rock jamming on the Pink Floyd cover "Interstellar Overdrive", bluegrass jamming on "Hoe Yourself Down", folk-ska on "Good Guys and Bad Guys", gentle tabla beats on "Une Fois" and "Folly", psychedelic pop on "We Saw Jerry's Daughter", ominous desert-rock spoken word on "Peace and Love" and grinding raga-rock on "Stairway to Heavan" (sic). While earlier CVB albums had featured influences of Eastern European and Mexican musical styles, this album has more noticeable elements of Indian and Arabic musics, done in the usual irreverent Camper style. These combine with the elements of psychedelic music that dominate the album. There are also more elements of Americana than on their previous albums. The American Southwest looms large in the music and lyrics as well, especially on songs like "The History of Utah" and "Peace and Love".

There are a number of classic rock references too: "We Saw Jerry's Daughter" is a parody of Deadheads; "Stairway to Heavan" (sic), "Five Sticks" and "Joe Stalin's Cadillac" all contain song titles or lyrics modified from Led Zeppelin; and the cover of "Interstellar Overdrive" and several of the album's songs are reminiscent of Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd. "We Love You" also contains a parody of the Charlie Daniels Band song "The Devil Went Down to Georgia". In the original "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", the Devil was portrayed as a negative being who is defeated in a fiddle-playing contest by the song's protagonist, but in "We Love You", the devil, presumably Jonathan Segel, so impresses the band with his violin playing that they allow him to become a band member. The classic-rock influences are a contrast from their first two albums, which contained covers of other contemporary underground bands like Sonic Youth and Black Flag. A number of the album's tracks remain staples of the reunited Camper Van Beethoven's live sets, including "Good Guys and Bad Guys", "The History of Utah", "Interstellar Overdrive" and "Shut Us Down".

Camper Van Beethoven - Camper Van Beethoven  (flac 407mb)

01 Good Guys & Bad Guys 3:55
02 Joe Stalin's Cadillac 2:32
03 Five Sticks 1:37
04 Lulu Land 2:55
05 Une Fois 1:28
06 We Saw Jerry's Daughter 2:09
07 Surprise Truck 3:27
08 Stairway To Heaven (Sic) 2:32
09 Pope Festival 2:46
10 Love The Witch (Camper Van Beethoven Version) 2:41
11 Pictures Of Matchstick Men (Fox Demo) 4:26
12 The History Of Utah 2:52
13 Still Wishing To Course 3:50
14 We Love You 2:03
15 Deux Foises 1:25
16 Hoe Yourself Down 2:14
17 Peace & Love 2:39
18 Folly 1:57
19 Interstellar Overdrive 7:45
20 Shut Us Down 1:26

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