#35 Don’t Frak Me Up With Peace And Love-Cracker. Eugene Oregon. Playing with the Grateful Dead.
Eugene Oregon
11 Don’t Fuck Me Up ( With Peace And Love )
Frak? Yes i watch the Sci Fi Channel.
As I write this I am in Eugene Oregon all the way down at the end of the Willamette Valley. It’s part of the climate zone that is known as the Marine West Coast. In brief it has mild temperatures, little snow and is relatively wet. The scenery around here is absolutely beautiful. Lush green rolling hills and mountains opening up to the farmland of the willamette valley. This end is a little sunnier than the Portland end of the willamette Valley so there are even vineyards. Eugene is sometimes called the Emerald City. I always assumed cause it’s lush and green. But some locals think that it refers to the pot culture/industry prominent in the surrounding hills and mountains. The geography says it belongs to the land and people north of here, portland etc. Culturally it’s part of the proposed State of Jefferson. (see post #21 Hey Brett) That is the rougher poorer mountain culture of Southern Oregon and extreme Northern California. But the overwhelming hippy/alternative lifestyle/ college town vibe qualifies it as the cosmopolitan capitol of the state of Jefferson. But state of Jefferson nonetheless.
I’m very familiar with Eugene. I’ve been coming here for 25 years. And it has not changed in that quarter of a century. My old girlfriend was from here. Well sort of. It was one of the three places that she grew up. Three places on the very fringes of Civilization. Fayetteville Arkansas, Petersburg Alaska and Eugene Oregon. Eugene was and remains more of a slacker town than Santa Cruz ever was. I dare say it is one of the few slacker towns left in the US.
So Jennifer and her sister Heather showed up in Santa Cruz fully trained to live in a slacker/hippy/punker college town. Because they were from the mecca of slacker towns. They were like slacker Senseis. They were junk store Ninjas. Garage sale xiansheng, flea market virtuosos. They were Free-gan before it was a word. While I thought I was clever shopping at the thrift stores and wearing vintage rayon shirts and cowboy boots, they taught me that you didn’t even have to buy this stuff at the thrift stores. All you needed to do was just go and visit the Goodwill drop box after hours. Say 8pm. We weren’t technically stealing anything mind you. It’s just people would illegally leave there donations after hours outside of the Goodwill drop station. So there were always bags of clothes, rooster alarm clocks, fiesta ware knockoffs, and the occasional console stereo or couch to be dragged back to our dilapidated victorian. Jen and I lived in the attic. Accessible only by a ladder! Yet somehow we managed to get an amazing amount of stuff up into the attic.
One day Jennifer and I were determined to rid our attic of all our ironic ponchos, bowling shoes, embroidered squaredance jackets and eiffel tower curtains. We loaded up the 1968 Galaxie 500 (A great rock car! It fits an SVT cabinet in the trunk or and entire drumset and at 500 bucks way cheaper than a van). We dragged all this shit back to the Goodwill drop box. After hours of course. Then to reward ourselves we went out to dinner at our favorite mexican joint. When we got back we found her sister Heather and her boyfriend sitting in a pile of ironic ponchos, bowling shoes, embroidered squaredance jackets and eiffel tower curtains.
“Look at all this cool shit we found at the goodwill drop box!”
Eugene 1994.
So back to Eugene Oregon. Cracker played here with the Grateful Dead. 3 shows in Autzen Stadium. We are talking U2/Stones size venue. The Grateful Dead on their home turf at the height of their popularity! It was 1994 and we were hot on MTV/Alternative and Rock radio. Our song Low was popular at the time and seemed to be talking about weed AND we covered The Jerry Garcia Band song The Loser. We also had our old fiddle player Morgan Fichter join us for a few songs. Hell yeah the Deadheads dug us.
BTW I’m often incorrectly corrected by Deadheads – “it’s called Deal man, The song is called Deal”. Usually in a very passive agressive manner. And this is kind of the theme of todays post . Passive agression. Passive aggressive or outright aggressive hippies. Would you expect anything less from a song called Don’t Fuck Me Up With Peace and Love.
The vast majority of Deadheads are/were mellow and quite affluent. But there was always a panhandling, cigarette bumming knife fighting underclass that followed around the Dead. And something about Eugene being right up against the wilder parts of southern Oregon amplified that contingent. When we were here for those three days in May 1994 I always felt like i needed to be on guard. A little more so than usual. This was not like seeing the dead at Irvine Meadows, or Shoreline. This was especially true because part of the time in Eugene we were tripping on mushrooms. But that’s another story.
Autzen Stadium
We got to play with the Grateful Dead! That in itself is a milestone few bands have achieved. I always get a kick out the fact there are all these jam bands emulating the Dead touring around the country these days. And they never played with the Dead. Probably never even saw a show. But little ol’ cracker did. And I think we managed to play with the Dead not because we had a song that vaguely referred to smoking weed, not because we were on MTV and they needed a “current” band to round out the show. Not even the fact that we covered The Loser on Kerosene hat. (Although i’m sure that didn’t hurt.) I think we got the opportunity to open for the Grateful dead largely because we mined the same vein of american roots, folk and country that The Dead mined. Just in a different way. So someone over there thought their audience would enjoy us. Or at least not hate us. We had the same DIY Northern California ethic. And at least with the Robert Hunter penned lyrics there are certain vague similarities in the narratives, especially the reliance on “the unreliable narrator.” Check the lyrics to The Loser, or Wharf Rat. (It should be noted “we” includes CVB because shortly before CVB broke up there were informal inquiries about CVB playing with the Grateful Dead.)
Cracker Performs Loser at Mystic Hot Springs Monroe UT 2010.
I saw Jerry Garcia from afar the first day we played with them. I also saw him watching us from the side of the stage briefly. It wasn’t til the next day i met Jerry Garcia. I was waiting in line for the porta potty that was at the bottom of the steps to the stage. Who walks out of the porta potty but Jerry Garcia. Immediately friendly and warm grabbing my hand to shake and then holding it.
“oh hey man nice show yesterday, I love Eurotrash girl, such a great country rock song, people dont’ do that stuff anymore. mind if we cover it?”
“i’d be flattered beyond belief”. I stuttered and stammered as i answered.
20 seconds at most. And then he just wandered off.
I’m not making this up. That’s what he said. He observed what few have observed about that song. It’s all twang. The other thing about that conversation that was weird. At least on my part. The whole time he shook/held my hand i kept thinking “there is no sink in a porta potty”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Eugene 1986.
In 1986 Camper Van Beethoven played in the venue we are playing tonight. The W.O.W. hall or Woodmen of the World Hall. Here again is a flashback to the the Anarchistic anti-authoritarian separatist past of this region. Not much different than a Knights of Columbus hall. But still unique in it’s own way. We were supporting the 10,000 Maniacs. They had managed to sort of screen part of the side stage off so that you couldn’t actually see Natalie Merchant approach the stage. Otherwise it was the same old WOW hall that had been doing reggae/punk and hippy shows for years.
This story like friday’s story also involves Jackson Haring, our manager 1986-2000. He grew up in the wilds of southern Oregon. Specifically Medford Oregon smack in the heart of the state of Jefferson.
Every story involving Jackson is usually funny. Not cause he was a clown. But precisely cause the guy was an audacious and smart guy housed in the (not unimpressive) frame of a cuddly hippy stoner dude.
At the end of Camper Van Beethoven’s set we had managed to fill the entire hall with fog machine smoke. We had come across and arena sized smoke machine a few months back. It was like SFO in July. You could barely see your hand in front of your face by the end of the set. Somehow in the chaos of set change over, someone had grabbed my delay pedal off the front of the stage. I mean like pocketed it. The fog had helped the sleazebag grab it. In 1986 a $200 dollar delay pedal was about the average monthly income of a family of 4 in southern Oregon (and half the CVB stipend). I flew into a rage. I ran backstage to find Jackson. Jackson was making a sandwhich from the deli tray. He calmly walked out of the dressing room and scanned the crowd. I don’t know if it was just that he was from the area but he seemed to know exactly what type of person he was looking for. He focused in on a group of three dudes. They looked a lot like Jackson. Fluffy hippy frat boy ne’er do wells. They aroused his suspicion even more when they quickly sat down on the folding chairs lining the walls of WOW hall. Jackson walked up to them and said. ”My guitar player is missing an effects pedal”. Like i said Jackson is kind of a big guy and I think he made one of them nervous enough that his eyes darted to his right. Jackson leaned down and looked under the seats a few feet away. There was my pedal. At this point i realized that Jackson still had the sandwich in his hand because he took the top piece of bread off and began methodically screwing/smashing the sandwich into the closest ones face. All the while staring the nervous one directly in the eye. Don’t fuck Jackson up with that peace and love bullshit.
After making sure that Jackson and I weren’t about to be beat with metal folding chairs I grabbed the pedal off the floor and darted back into the dressing room. Southern Oregon is scary.
Eugene Oregon 2010
Skip forward 24 years and it’s 2010 and we are playing in Eugene Oregon. The WOW hall of course. And again great place but a little passive aggressive. The show starts with a crazy hippy guy in dress shirt and tie yelling “you better be fucking worth it!” Wha? also what was up with the dress shirt and tie? Especially since the entire W.O.W smelt like body odor. As if the entire audience needed a bath. It was like playing a logging camp. So when the 82nd airborne is finished with their humanitarian effort in Haiti perhaps we can send ‘em into Eugene OR and have them hose down the entire population the way they do circus elephants. “Yeah and uh check their teeth while you’re at it.”
“You better be worth it!?” That is the rougher southern oregon mountain culture talking.
I’m pretty sure…. It should be noted that Eugene is also the second largest city in Oregon. It’s more urban and crime ridden than you would think for a place called the Emerald City. And with the gentrification of the formerly seedy Portland OR (remember drugstore cowboy) there has also been flow of portland’s port town seedy underlife back up the willamette river to Eugene. The hippy guy was from the mountains.
Now the punker/neck tattoo gang kids who were tailgating on the back of our equipment trailer in the parking lot of WOW hall were probably part of the portland backflow. The little pricks tagged our trailer also. I didn’t notice at the time or i would have gone inside and made a sandwich.
After the show i was out on the loading dock. A punker kid wandered by. He wanted a cigarette from me. I didn’t have any. He didn’t say “thanks anway” he says “do you know who the fuck has a cigarette around here”. I pointed up the street to some dark figures on the next corner. I was secretly hoping they were the thugs that were tailgating in the parking lot earlier. . He dutifully went off to ask them for a “fucking cigarette”. When it appeared that thee wasn’t gonna be an ass whipping i went back inside.
+++++++++++++++++++++
Which finger was Jerry Garcia Missing?
People in this part of the word say fucking a lot. For an area that has a reputation for hippies, PC politics and alternative lifestyles there is a lot pissed off cursing. You expect it in NYC. but here? And they do it twice as much. I shouldn’t single out Eugene. The same aggressive pan handling gimme some of yours culture is all the way down the coast, Eureka/Arcata, San Francisco, and Santa Cruz. Especially Santa Cruz back in the 80′s. A guy asked me for money once and i gave him the 17 cents i had in my pocket. he counted it and then threw it back at me.
I laughed heartily In 1996 when Bob Rupe Cracker’s bass player took a different tack. He told a panhandler in Santa Cruz ”i’ll give you a quarter for every push up you do.”
So you see what I’m getting at with Don’t Fuck Me Up With Peace And Love? Post Camper Van Beethoven, Cracker’s more rock more country persona allowed me to say “No, fuck YOU” right back. Like every reasonable thoughtful citizen of the northwest secretly wanted to do. I nor anyone else really believed all that peace and love bullshit that these hippy/punk street kids were spewing. It was nice to just get in their face and say “you know what I’m sick of your shit, you little shit so FUCK YOU”. It was quite liberating.
Camper Van Beethoven also wrote a tune called We saw Jerrys Daughter. She was rumored to have attended one of our shows in Eugene OR where she was a student. This was also around 1986. or 1987. We didn’t need it to be confirmed for us to write a song about it. This was camper Van Beethoven after all. I’m sure she is a lovely lady. No offense intended.
Reading back over this I’m not sure that i made it clear enough that I am a fan of the Dead. I only saw the Dead a handful of times, and I never really “got” the Dead until I was recording Key Lime Pie in Hollywood. Again with Jackson Haring. He came back to our apartment in Hollywood late at night. He thought i was out of town and he put on a mixed cassette of live GratefulDead and Jerry Garcia band. It woke me up but i remember that was the first time i really listened to the Dead carefully. When Loser played i got out of bed and asked him what record that was from. I of course scared the shit out of him cause he thought I wasn’t home. He may have been doing The Seaweed or the Sun-Grow. Anyway a few months later we started covering Loser with CVB. There are some versions on Archive.org. The Cracker version is far superior. Not taking sides or anything.
Don’t fuck me up with peace and love lyrics.
[C]-[G]-[C]-[G]-[Am]-[D]-[Am]-[D]
[C]-[G]-[C]-[G]-[Am]-[D]-[Am]-[D]
[Am]-[D]-[Am]-[D]
[C] Now here I am, the youngest old [G] man in the world
[Am] And I have come to bring you my [F] burden
[C] Of every sleepless night without [G] you in my arms
[Am] Of being bored and calm and sometimes [F] sober
[D] Don’t mess me up by being [F] kind
[D] Don’t mess me up by being [F] wise
Now here I am, I am the angel of Earth
And I have come to bring you my burden
Now here I am, I am the game warden of love
’til someone took away my gin and tonic
Don’t mess me up I’m on a roll
Keep being wise, I’ll be inspired
Don’t [C] fuck me [G] up with [C] peace and [G] love when I [Am] haven’t [D] got it [Am] in me [D]
Don’t [C] fuck me [G] up with [C] peace and [G] love when I [Am] haven’t [D] got it [Am] in me [D]
[Am] I haven’t got it [D] in me
[Am] I haven’t got it [D] in me,
Any-[C]-more [G]-[Am]-[F]
[C]-[G]-[Am]-[F]
[C] Don’t fuck me up with peace and [G] love
[Am] Don’t fuck me up with peace and [F] love
[C] Don’t fuck me up with peace and [G] love
[Am] Don’t fuck me up with peace and [F] love
[C] Don’t fuck me up with peace and [G] love (no don’t fuck me)
[Am] Don’t fuck me up with peace and [F] love (no don’t fuck me)
[C] Don’t fuck me up with peace and [G] love (no don’t fuck me)
[Am] Don’t fuck me up with peace and [F] love (no don’t fuck me)
We Saw Jerry’s Daughter
[B]-[G#m]-[C#m]-[E]
[B] We were walkin’ [G#m] down the road at ni-[C#m]-ght [E]
[B] And all the [G#m] brothers and sisters [C#m] they were goin’ [E] nowhere
[B] Peace and [G#m] love were not aro-[C#m]-und [E]
[B] Trouble and [G#m] strife was everywhe-[C#m]-re [E]
[B] We saw Jerry’s, [G#m] we saw Jerry’s [E] daughter
[B] We saw Jerry’s, [G#m] we saw Jerry’s [E] daughter
Now peace and love were all around
And the brothers and sisters are free to go where they want and be who they wanna be
And nobody wears flowers in their hair ’cause flowers are
Everywhere, flowers are everywhere
We saw Jerry’s, we saw Jerry’s daughter
We saw Jerry’s, we saw Jerry’s daughter
We saw Jerry’s, we saw Jerry’s daughter
We saw Jerry’s, we saw Jerry’s daughter
[BREAK:]
[B]-[G#m]-[C#m]-[E] [B]-[G#m]-[C#m]-[E]
[B]-[G#m]-[C#m]-[E] [B]-[G#m]-[C#m]-[E]
We saw Jerry’s, we saw Jerry’s daughter
We saw Jerry’s, we saw Jerry’s daughter
We saw Jerry’s, we saw Jerry’s daughter
We saw Jerry’s, we saw Jerry’s daughter
[B] [("SURPRISE TRUCK" BEGINS)]
August 22, 2010 at 5:41 pm
Another 300Songs BLog post after a short respite. It’s about fucking time!
August 22, 2010 at 6:07 pm
“you know what I’m sick of your shit, you little shit so FUCK YOU”.
Mind if I use this on my 15-year-old? He has got it coming.
Great stuff, as always.
August 22, 2010 at 6:21 pm
I lived in Eugene in 1994 (in an apartment two doors down from the WOW hall). We had friends travel from Seattle, N. Idaho and Montana to cram into our studio apartment in order to get to see the Dead play in Eugene. Because, you know, what could be more authentic than seeing the Dead in Eugene, right? I was, at that point, beyond tired of the Dead and all the hypocritical peace-and-love pan-handling hippies that followed them around the country in their daddy’s old BMW, now with dancing bears decals. But I LOVED CVB. So we opened our home to our friends and walked to Autzen stadium with them. My boyfriend and I danced our asses off to you guys, and then we walked out. We were the only two people walking away from Autzen into a sea of patchouli-drenched trippers, making their way to mecca. It was a GREAT fucking show.
August 22, 2010 at 6:32 pm
Having grown up and tended bar in santa cruz this song has always struck me as one of those songs that NEEDED to be written.
August 22, 2010 at 6:55 pm
This bit especially amused me:
Having shut down a passive-aggressive hippie crowing about how far he’d traveled to the show, the next thing out of your mouth was “Come down from your treehouse condominium…”
Also later: “Yeah, we’re mellow. Mellow like Dennis Hopper.”
-Not a hippie, but have lived in treehouse condominium
August 22, 2010 at 6:58 pm
Love the photos of Eugene in 1986, 1994, and 2010. They look exactly how it looked in 1977. Is Mama’s Homefried Truckstop still there ?
August 22, 2010 at 8:43 pm
what is it about the north? having never been to the north west, i always thought it was just the north east that was fucked up and violent.
the first time i ever got the sense of danger at a dead show was in philly, back in the 80′s. it was the first time we had ventured north of virginia for a show.
the friendly crowd we were used to had been replaced by what looked and felt like street gang punks. i had never seen so many knife scars on faces before.
no incense in that scene, just the smell of b.o. and piss. no happy swirling hippies on the floor. they were all up in the cheap seats, playing it safe. we soon joined them.
August 22, 2010 at 8:45 pm
a priceless take and accurate anthropological insight on the PNW
but hopefully you won’t consider these minor corrections as passive-aggressive, David, because the librarian in me is all about accuracy, so that’s my only agenda here:
it’s just “Loser,” no The, and you know this! it’s correct on all the releases, and even above on the embedded video… and those Eugene shows were not in May ’94, but June 17-18-19 (say the tix): three of The Best Shows of My Life – Thank You! and is it true, or just my hopeful imagination, that Cracker is the only band to have opened for the Dead and the Ramones?
and just a fun tidbit: while Medford may be in the heart of the “state of Jefferson,” it is in fact the county seat of _Jackson_ County.
if you want to upbraid me for this post, i’ll be at the Echoplex in LA in a couple weeks; can’t wait!
August 22, 2010 at 9:59 pm
Another brilliant and entertaining entry for so many reasons. I’ve been watching that clip of “Loser” from Mystic Hot Springs repeatedly for the last week.
Of course I also love it because it mentions my city, Fayetteville, AR, where I have lived for about 20 years. The first time I saw Cracker play here in the late 90s, I ran into you (David) at a coffee house where you were eating lunch. Then at the show, I saw an older colleague of mine standing alone along the side of the house. We acknowledged each other, and when I admitted being surprised to see him at the show he told me, “My daughter is/was? (I was never sure of the tense) a ‘special friend of David’s.”
After these many years, it appears that I have confirmation of his claim directly from the source.
August 22, 2010 at 10:16 pm
How the hell does someone confuse “deal” with “loser”? and ew, how long did it take you to find a sink?
August 23, 2010 at 12:19 am
I like to think of myself as an anti-hippy Deadhead but in any case, those Autzen shows in 94 converted lots of us Deadheads to Crumbs.
Don’t mock me me when I say that for years I knew about CVB but not that the bands intersected the way they do.
Evergreen State in Olympia WA had quite a few CVB fans (yeah, the UCSanta Cruz of the NW) .
Looking forward to Sebastapol and hoping if the mood strikes, you can play tribute to Hunter/Garcia in some smallish manner.
August 23, 2010 at 12:50 am
i’m adding a post script to this story. just cause i think that i didn’t make it clear that i am and always will be a fan of the dead.
August 23, 2010 at 3:42 am
I was a punk (well, at college and not so poor kind) in danger of becoming a deadhead (the sense of power as the Hampton crowd grokked my merengue-like hair was tempting) when Key Lime Pie came to the rescue. I like the Dead, some. Not to obsess over trivia, and not to pretend like it’s all peace and love and Jerry is a genius. Speaking of which, I hope that one of his missing fingers was on his shaking hand, for your sake.
By the 90s I was in Hawaii archaeologizing and would regularly meet hippy chix whose first words were “I’m Heather from Santa Cruz.”
And speaking of archaeology, I appreciate the reverse chronological sequence of images from Eugene: I really feel like I have a sense of the place over time.
And speaking of place, Thanks David for a blog that I came to to clear up fuzzy lyrical comphrehension but like even more for your cultural geography and history.
August 23, 2010 at 5:13 am
I was in the 82nd when we almost invaded Haiti in ’94 before Jimmy Carter and Colin Powell had to go and ruin everything.
Since I didn’t know how long I’d be gone, I put most of my cds on cassette to listen to while I was there, including the Euro-Trash Girl EP.
Jumping into Eugene and kicking the shit out of some of these little turds would probably have been more fun…
August 23, 2010 at 7:44 am
Did the Dead end up covering “Euro trash Girl”?
August 23, 2010 at 10:04 am
Would like to hear this too. Cheers.
August 23, 2010 at 11:53 am
I heard that they played it once for a soundcheck but that nobody actually recorded it. I figured by the ’90s people were recording EVERYTHING the Dead did so hopefully I’m wrong.
August 23, 2010 at 2:35 pm
i got to say that i’m not sure the dead did soundchecks by this time. they didn’t soundcheck when we played with them. so i think it’s only a rumour. EVERYTHING was recorded, a soundcheck with a “new” dead song would have made it’s way out there.
August 23, 2010 at 11:51 am
Having lived in Boulder, CO for they last 11+ years, I know exactly the type of dirtbag pseudo-hippie your talking about in this post. We’re up to our armpits with them here. Especially when the Rainbow Family rolls through every summer. I could share a few stories about run ins with these fuckers, but what would be the point? We’ve all had them.
August 23, 2010 at 12:42 pm
Unlike many bands, the Grateful Dead kept their core road crew for decades. Three of their key guys from the 60s (Ramrod, Rex Jackson and John Hagen) were supposedly from the same dumpy little cattle town in Eastern Oregon. Thus it appears that Hermiston, OR (between Pendleton and Walla Walla) is the spiritual center of the working class underside of the Dead’s audience, in contrast to the suburban bohemianism of the band themselves.
When the Dead “went country” in the early 70s, they got the music from Buck Owens, but the boots-and-poncho style came from Hermiston. I don’t think Oregonians were necessarily aware of the Hermiston connection, but the natural affinity for Oregon wasn’t an accident.
August 23, 2010 at 10:53 pm
“Went country.” Man, it used to piss off the Deadheads when, as that sat slackjawed and incredulous that I would listen to punk and 60′s TV show themes instead, I explained “I don’t like country music.” I’ve softened, and like “country music” by the likes of Cracker and the Dead, Southern Culture on fthe Skids, and so on.
A good friend nearly drove Deadheads to murderous violence on a Hawaiian beach simply by asking “What band is this?” every time a new song would come on. So much for peace love and understanding.
August 23, 2010 at 1:09 pm
I’m in Argentina. I thought I wanted to buy a poncho before I left this afternoon. I have changed my mind for some reason (my unlikely exception is if I see one with bullet holes in it – never say never).
August 23, 2010 at 3:35 pm
Interesting post.
I hope you will follow up with some explanation of how on earth CVB ended up performing with Tiny Tim.
August 23, 2010 at 3:56 pm
I’m just waiting in anticipation for the upcoming ‘Surprise Truck’ post. What a cliffhanger!
August 23, 2010 at 4:22 pm
“I didn’t notice at the time or i would have gone inside and made a sandwich.” Remind me not to bother you around the backstage spread.
August 23, 2010 at 6:03 pm
“The whole time he shook/held my hand i kept thinking “there is no sink in a porta potty”” that was the first thing that crossed my mind as I was reading. yeah I don’t know what that sez about me.
another fun read, thanks.
August 23, 2010 at 6:38 pm
I always loved this song and I love the story behind it. I live in one of those college slacker towns in Chico Ca. I drive a cab here and you see it all night every night.
August 23, 2010 at 7:39 pm
I was at the Wow Hall for your show. It is not my favorite place to see a band but have seen some good ones there (James McMurtry, JJ Cale). It sounds like you are painting with a broad brush after confronting a couple of slackers. I saw those guys and they were embarassing but not everyone there was a slacker, myself and son included. I met your drummer at a nearby restaurant and he was a super nice guy. You apparently were having a bad day, I was standing out back with my son waiting on my wife to pick us up and stated thanks for coming to Eugene and you gave us the cold shoulder. I love your music and have seen you guys over 30 times or so but I would say if you don’t like Eugene, don’t book a gig here,bottom line. The statement about the body odor, maybe funny to some but not me, check their teeth, Wow. You need to hang with Frank a little more. Johnny was also cool, a lot of eye contact. I had a blast at the show but some uncalled for remarks. Maybe you are not as cool as I thought you were.
August 23, 2010 at 8:40 pm
the iphone wordpress app is really screwy. i had to post this 5 times.
No I’m not cool. And I don’t care about being cool. I also said a lot of nice things about Eugene. How you implied a polite hello back at you qualifies as a brush you off is really crazy. like you’re crazy. also remember unlike Johnny and frank I have to write setlists for two bands. There is also some truthiness that i left out of the post. just to be polite. but what the heck:
the volunteers at wow hall were drunk and surly. They wouldn’t let us in and out the backdoor. So every time we needed a pen or a battery we had to walk all the way around. When I pointed it out this to the door volunteer. He said “I don’t care who the fuck you are i’m not opening the door for you” Verbatim quoate. It wasn’t one person that bugged us about eugene. It was multiple people. And after a while you need to call bullshit. That’s what we do her.
Also you appear to be posting under a pseudonym. No one else from Eugene took offense at my comments. They had a sense of humour. have you ever actually listened to my lyrics? it’s perfectly okay to like a place and make fun of it quirks at the same time. If i didn’t like eugene i just wouldn’t right about it.
Also your “polite ” friends frank and johnny were pretty non polite in the van the next day. i called it body odor. and told it in a funny way. a they said they thought they had “stepped in shit”. referring to the body odor problem.
also FYI wouldn’t bring my kids to that place. not with dudes with neck tattoos and drugs hanging out in the parking lot all night.
August 24, 2010 at 10:48 am
To Mr Steve Jinxy: maybe David Lowery started to notice you following him to all of those places and analysing his personality, and was just afraid to make eye contact with you.
August 23, 2010 at 9:06 pm
I faked my way into a press conference prior to the debate in Eugene between Timothy Leary and Ken Kesey around 1978/79. I had a few months old son who, during the press conference, had a big ol’ runny shit. My friend, Garrick Beck, who owned the Rainbow Farm in Drain offered to take care of “things” while I finished the interview. Afterward, as Leary and Kesey were leaving, Garrick jumped forward to shake Kesey’s hand. Garrick idolized Ken Kesey and told him so. Kesey shook hands then brought his hand up before his face and asked Garrick “You always shake hands with your idols with shit on em?”
August 23, 2010 at 10:21 pm
the lyrics to jerry’s daughter would suggest that you were referring to jerry garcia. I had some friends back in the day who liked to speculate that it wasn’t jerry garcia, but jerry lewis. you saw one of “jerry’s kids.”
August 23, 2010 at 10:25 pm
Sorry David. I know you are quite capable of defending yourself, but I suspect you are too gracious to remind these whiny fuckers that you are human and that at some point, you just might like to clock out and be done for the day.
August 23, 2010 at 10:51 pm
well I don’t know why you replied to me, I didn’t mean any disrespect, in fact I was relating a fond memory. one that still makes me laugh 20+ years later.
August 23, 2010 at 10:54 pm
Damn iPhone app. It doesn’t go in the right order.
August 23, 2010 at 11:07 pm
Sorry lynn marie, my reply under your post was a mistake; I was actually all set to say that I loved your Jerry’s kids story but then I got all fired up! forgive me?
August 23, 2010 at 10:22 pm
To those of you complaining because David might be surly after a show, consider this: judging by their tour schedule, they are on the road something like 250-300 days a year, doing an average of 4-5 shows a week. I don’t know this for sure, but I suspect they spend a good amount of time away from their families and closest friends. And everywhere they go, people want a piece of them. You can’t possibly expect him to stand around and schmooze after every show. Sure, sometimes he might be in the mood to do so, and sometimes not.
Just step back and consider how these guys bust their asses every day to play for us. I, for one, appreciate the shit out of it.
August 24, 2010 at 2:03 am
I’d be more than willing to forgo the banter of light chit-chat if I could listen to Cracker play Loser while sitting in a hot tub. The application of water might also have the added benefit of solving the body odor problem.
August 23, 2010 at 10:29 pm
Crikes, what’s with people giving you shit David? Unfounded. Then they want to throw “surly” into their post because they learned the word from your songs. Electronic communication can be the greatest ally and the worst evil concurrently. “Now everybody wants to be our friend.”
Whatever. I wanted to post how much this story had me laughing, seriously, out loud at work. If I were cool like you’re apparently not, I’d be doing shit like LOL DAVE! Or maybe I wouldn’t spell your name right, or just call you DL! Come on, people.
I can’t believe you have “fans” that are fringe fans that do the dumb. It just kills me. I guess it comes with the territory.
FYI, Cracker is always welcome at Waterfront Wednesdays in Louisville. You’re completely free to make every Kentuckiana rib you like. Because there are plenty.
Loved this post. Thank you.
August 24, 2010 at 12:17 am
I’ve lived here in Eugene for 8 years and it’s all true, especially the part about gutterpunk kids bumming change and cigs in their new shoes. Also, I’ve seen the same whiny crackpot crowd vibe in presentations at the *library*. It seems the streets are paved with a profound sense of entitlement. Once a city employee told me that Eugene was a city of 40 square miles, surrounded on all four sides by reality.
Sometimes this town resembles a melange of two types of people: menopausal old rotary club sow and preachy burned-out hippy – and I just want to punch it in the throat. Especially when it reeks like joints rolled from a rotten stack of Whole Earth catalogs.
Great show by the way.
August 24, 2010 at 1:32 pm
What do you like about Eugene to still live there? Seriously. I had a friend in grad school who was from there but I know nothing about it. Also I’m curious as someone who has also been living in a city of mixed blessings I adopted as my home 8 years ago
August 24, 2010 at 12:33 am
The level of discourse has dropped considerably. At one point Lowery is doing some sort of Geo-Social Political Sci-Fi analysis viewed through the lens of randomly selected songs. The next thing you know everyone is focusing on some whiner who didn’t get an autograph or something.
Let’s remember what’s important here. 300songs is an evolving document that may rank among the all-time great rock revelations. It’s an expose of the interior of the minds of two great bands. Plus an excellent exposition of the Borderlands, State of Jefferson, and Inland Empire.
So, next time some loser projects his or her neuroses in comment just ask yourself this question – how do you wash your hands in a port-a-potty ?
August 24, 2010 at 8:26 am
“The next thing you know everyone is focusing on some whiner who didn’t get an autograph or something.”
There must be a word (coined from German along the lines of ‘schadenfreude’, but different?) to describe how those whiny posts made me laugh and feel uncomfortable about the person at the same time.
As for port-a-potty sanitation, thank goodness for those pump bottles of hand sanitizer inside the last one I needed to use. And the modern latches seem to be fairly elbow-friendly too.
August 24, 2010 at 4:28 pm
Feathead
Chill dude. Have a gin and tonic (even a few).
David gives us more than kindness through his music.
What do you want him to lick your balls? Come on man..really?
Nobody’s saying your saying it in black and white…your projecting it in black and white..
David’s one smart and observant MFer. IMO one of the best lyricists ever. These guys are one of the hardest working bands out there. Look at how much they tour. I sure would hate for them to stop touring cause they finally say fuck it, I am just gonna do it for my own satisfaction. Fuck all the featheads of the world. (Sometimes I think that’s why you covered Reasons to Quit. The hard tour life, having kids, and tards like feathead add up.)
I have seen them tons of times and fought the urge to say hello because I wanted to give them their well deserved respect/space once they left the stage.
BTW David… thank you a ton. You too Johnny, Frank, Sal and all the other Cracker alumn. Come back to the Doylestown Moose soon.
August 24, 2010 at 7:17 pm
Exactly.
August 24, 2010 at 7:14 pm
Since it’s David is an SOB day, let me tell you my story of the first time I spoke to David in person. I doubt David will remember this.
Cracker was playing at the Boulder Theater, co-headling with Cowboy Mouth. I think this was around 2004. I wasn’t that into cowboy mouth, so I headed to the bar for a cold beer. As I was standing in line, I noticed that the guy in front of me was none other than David himself. So I said something along the lines of “excuse me Mr Lowery.” David turned and said “yeah?” I said “I have to tell you that I’ve been a fan since I was about 14 and you’re music has really meant a lot to me throughout my life.” David said “I can’t tell you how much that means to us to hear that.” and then he gave me big hug.
I stammered something unintelligible, I was completely flummoxed as what to what to say. David, recognized my deer-in-the-headlights response, took note of the Sierra Nevada bottle in my hand and said “you want another of those?” I nodded. David handed me the beer, I took a pull, by which time I recovered. David introduced me to the rest of the band members that were around and some of their friends. We chatted a bit, and then I excused myself so as not to be a pests. Although I did feel a bit embarrassed by my behavior.
Subsequently, as coincident would have it, Cracker and/or Camper or the Acoustic Duo tend to play a front range show just about every year on my birthday. So for my birthday just about every year, I drag a bunch of friends to a show. And I usually email David or Johnny and ask them to play “Happy Birthday To Me” and every year they say “we’ll see what we can do.” And every year without fail they play it. And my drunk friends and I belt it out with the band and make a general good-natured nuisance of ourselves. And everyone tolerates our “cheeky” behavior because it’s my birthday, and it’s Colorado.
Yeah, David is a real fuckin’ prick.
August 24, 2010 at 11:38 pm
I have nothing negative to say about David, but I did download the shows of Cracker opening for the dead off archive.org out of curiosity a couple years ago. The take of Loser done as the closing number on the third night is truly amazing. Johnny plays an elongated jamlike solo and the energy of it absolutely electric. I’ve heard it’s one of the few times an opening act for the dead ever got a standing ovation and was called back to do an encore (something David neglected to mention.)
For anyone who collects live shows, get that one if you don’t have it.
August 25, 2010 at 2:36 am
Thanks for the suggestion. Went to retrieve it just now:
http://www.archive.org/details/cracker1994-06-17
One thing about Cracker is they do excellent covers: Loser (Grateful Dead); Good Times, Bad Times (Led Zeppelin); Blue Rosebuds (The Residents); You Ain’t Going Nowhere (Dylan); Victoria (Kinks); and the entirety of Countrysides are all excellent. (also worth mentioning CvB cover of Matchstick Men).
Speaking of covers… If wikipedia is to be believed, Cracker did a version of When the Levee Breaks that was deemed too weird. But calling it weird just makes me want to hear it that much more. Anyone know of an extant recording of this song?
August 25, 2010 at 3:12 am
Chris iLL post that later. That’s a decent story. It wasn’t so much weird as longer and slower. We tried to do more of a north Mississippi trancy version.
August 25, 2010 at 3:14 am
Hey I’d live to have independent confirmation that there was an encore that night. I thought that was the case?where did you hear that.
August 25, 2010 at 11:43 am
David,
All three nights are on Archive.org. I downloaded them a couple months back. Not the greatest sound quality, but good enough. Here’s the link:
http://www.archive.org/details/cracker1994-06-17
August 25, 2010 at 11:41 pm
I don’t recall where I heard that. It’s just one more piece of useless Cracker trivia I’ve picked up over the years.
It is there for the hearing in the archive.org set though.
August 25, 2010 at 12:56 am
I was standing near the guy with shirt and tie and he was really weird. Watched him for a while before the show. Did not hear what he said but it your response was hilarious. Have not seen you guys is over 20 years and it was great. Spent a lot of time in SF and insanity Cruz ( as we used to call it) in the 80′s and the show brought back lots of great memories. I grew up in Redwood City (deadwood City)… Saw CVB at the Great American Music Hall, Fillmore in 88 and I know many more places that escape me due to it being the 80′s and drunk 24/7…Lived in Eugene for 2 years about 10 years ago and it is a lot like Santa Cruz. My sister lives in Corralitos and my uncle is in Capitola. Santa Cruz was cool before the earthquake. Not sure now. Loved your comment about everywhere going yuppie and Eugene has not. (Very true when you travel how everywhere has that “upscale” feeling) There are places that have become yuppie-fied in Eugene but not really downtown.When I visit down there I do not miss the Bay Area. Parts I do… but mostly not…Your music means a lot to me so thanks for coming up here and this great blog. I liked the small intimate venue @ the WOW Hall. In the 80′s it was impossible to get close to the stage in the day….Whats up with the people though here??? How you can not anything but love for CVB and Cracker. That Autzen show must have been right before Jerry passed…
August 29, 2010 at 12:48 pm
I was at that CVB/10,000 maniacs show at WOW hall. I think you or someone playing a guitar lit a guitar pick on fire, which I thought was a stellar bit of showmanship.
August 31, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Just found a live recording of Camper’s version of Loser. I don’t know David. It’s pretty damn good.
http://www.archive.org/details/CampervanBeethovenCampervanRarities
August 31, 2010 at 4:23 pm
great i’ve never heard a recording of it.
September 24, 2010 at 1:10 pm
Been listening to the live camper archives at work and stumbled across the 09/24/1989 show on KCRW where Camper first did Loser. (The dialog at the beginning indicates that it hadn’t been performed publicly before that point):
http://www.archive.org/details/cvb1989-09-14.flac16
What I was really wondering though is if this is the instant in time when Cracker got named? (listen to the last 10 seconds of 7-Oh Death).
September 25, 2010 at 9:22 am
another great story. you should put these together in book form when you’re done. excellent writing, man.