With great respect for scientific methodology I submit this poll to fans of the band Cracker without judgement on their decision to get vaccinated or not. This poll is totally anonymous. I will immediately delete all non aggregated data that might possibly identify any individual. This poll will be used to help venues at which we are performing safely plan future events.
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The Band Cracker fan totally anonymous vaccination poll
Posted in Uncategorized on August 4, 2021 by Dr. David C Lowery#84 Sugartown: San Pedro, SugarBeets and Portuguese Fishermen
Posted in Uncategorized on June 9, 2014 by Dr. David C Lowery
Buy El Camino Real at your local record shop. Click here for locations
The Song Sugartown is the 6th track on the Camper Van Beethoven album El Camino Real (2014). This album is part of a two album series on California. The first album La Costa Perdida(2013) focused on Northern California while El Camino Real focuses on Southern California. In particular El Camino Real celebrates the polyglot poly-cultural history of Southern California
The fictional Sugartown is a combination of the working class neighborhood of San Pedro and the early 20th century sugar beet plantations of Seal Beach and Los Alamitos. San Pedro is situated at the mouth of the Los Angeles River and faces the massive Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach. Seal Beach and Los Alamitos are on the mouth of the San Gabriel river to the southeast on the other side of the two ports.
Both cities are (or were) home to large and diverse immigrant communities. San Pedro is now known for it’s Italian neighborhoods, but was also once home to large populations of Croatians -actually Dalmatians, Greeks, Portuguese and Irish. The Dalmatians are perhaps the most interesting group as they settled here when California was still part of Spain. I wanted to use the Dalmatians as the fishermen in the story but lines like “We Came from Portugal to fish the sea” didn’t sound as good with Croatia, Dalmatia Brač, Hvar, Vis or Korčula substituted. So the Portuguese got the focus.
Los Alamitos and the adjacent Seal Beach were the center of Southern California’s briefly thriving sugar beet industry. The sugar beet farming and processing industry attracted a lot of immigrant labor. When the sugar beet farming collapsed in the 1920’s one of the big owners John Bixby started leasing out land to immigrant farmers including many Japanese families (many later ended up in Manzanar) further diversifying the population.
Finally Sugartown also makes reference to Crocket or as the locals in the North San Francisco bay call it “Sugar City.” Crocket is most clearly distinguished by the big C&H (California and Hawaii) sugar processing plant that faces the Carquinez strait. Interstate 80 is carried over the city by a massive flyover bridge hence the line in the song “Stay up upon the bridge at sugar town mind your business don’t come down.”
So essentially the story is this: Portuguese fisherman come to California to fish the sea. The fishing dies out and the lucky ones get jobs at the sugar processing plants. Of course the sugar beets are not even grown locally anymore. So they process sugar cane shipped from hawaii. The unlucky resort to smuggling drugs “sugar cane” (probably heroin) using the local port and what’s left of their fishing fleet.
The sea is empty now
It’s all we had
So we sell sugar cane
God is our judge
This little area is so rich in history, I feel like I could have done a whole album just on this area. The Portuguese began exploring this as far back as the 1540’s. The Spanish used this as a regular port shortly after. The Tongva-Gabrieleño had villages here for at least 8,000 years. They were expert seafarers and traders. They had ocean going canoes something of a rarity among the native populations.
The whole sugar beet boom involves various railroad and banking tycoons and some genuine 19th century robber barons. The aforementioned John Bixby deserves his own treatment. Finally their is the fate of the Japanese americans who were forcibly relocated to Manzanar during WWII. Most of them lost everything.
Sugartown
We come from Sugartown
At the river’s mouth
Nestled in soft green hills
A factory town
it comes from cross the sea
raw sugarcane
it comes in railroad cars
we make it pure
Dont you show your face in Sugartown
we dont need your kind around
if you think you’re better than we are
you can leave at anytime
Stay up upon the bridge at Sugartown
Mind your business dont come down
If you show your face in sugar town
You know what happen last time round
We cam to Sugartown from the old country
We came from Portugal to fish the sea
The sea is empty now, its all we have
So we sell sugar cane, God is our judge
Dont you show your face in Sugartown
we dont need your kind around
if you think you’re better than we are
you can leave at anytime
Stay up upon the bridge at Sugartown
Mind your business dont come down
If you show your face in sugar town
You know what happen last time round
#82 Camp Pendelton – Echos of New Roman Times.
Posted in Uncategorized on June 4, 2014 by Dr. David C LoweryCamp Pendelton- Camper Van Beethoven.
Last year Camper Van Beethoven released La Costa Perdida (loosely “the lost coast”) which is a set of songs about Northern California (see Northern California Girls or Come Down the Coast as examples). This year Camper Van Beethoven releases the companion piece to this album “El CaminoReal.” This time the album thematically focuses on Southern California and Baja California.
Whereas La Costa Perdida was a look back at the “back to the country” hippy period of northern California with references to Jack Kerouac, Richard Brautigan, The Grateful Dead and even The Beach Boy’s “Big Sur” period this one is firmly planted in the present and further down the coast in Southern California.
The best way to look at the new album is to draw a contrast between the two. On La Costa Perdida the ocean is calm, benevolent and feminine; on El Camino Real the sea is “filled with darkness, secrets and chemicals.”
Camp Pendelton is the 4th track on the new Camper Van Beethoven album El Camino Real. The song tells the story of a marine in either Iraq or Afghanistan (most likely Afghanistan). He is manning a remote outpost somewhere and in his head he is speaking to his wife:
“Keep the children safe
dress them the same
cause I have changed
I’ve changed forever”
The idea is that he is fully aware that he is suffering from the effects of his long deployment. Maybe PTSD although it’s not really clear to me and I wrote the song. You might compare him to the character in The Hurt Locker. Although the similarity is purely coincidental because this is the one song that we didn’t write FOR this album. This song has been kicking around since 2003 in the form of of a half finished demo. This was when Camper Van Beethoven was working on their alternate history sic-fi rock opera New Roman Times. In fact it was intended to be a track for that album. It would have loosely fit in somewhere between White Fluffy Clouds and Might Makes Right. We didn’t include it because it seemed like we didn’t need this “in between” stage of his character development. I sort of forgot about the song.
Skip forward 8 years and I was looking for B-sides for La Costa Perdida and I came across the demo for this song. What a surprise! How could we leave this unreleased?
Fortunately it’s set in Southern California and considering that Camp Pendelton and Twenty Nine Palms take up 85% of the landmass of Southern California (joking folks) it seemed like it was perfect for the album.
Buy the album at your local record store
Camp Pendleton
I have dreamed immortal suns
I gazed upon the fiery surfaces
and I have fought down burning roads
The highways littered with our humanity
I see your face safely at home
Baby keep the home fires burning
Keep the children safe
and dress them the same
Because I have changed I’ve changed forever
Pump up the violence bring the lights on down
Pump up the violence bring the lights on down
Pump up the violence bring the ordnance on down
Pump up the violence bring the lights on down
Pump up the violence bring the lights on down
Pump up the violence bring the ordnance on down
Pump up the violence bring the lights on down
Pump up the violence bring the lights on down
Pump up the violence bring the ordnance on down
I have dreamed immortal sun
I gazed upon the fiery surfaces
always fear but never falter
onward forward Christian Soldiers
Pump up the violence bring the lights on down
Pump up the violence bring the lights on down
Pump up the violence bring the ordnance on down
Pump up the violence bring the lights on down
Pump up the violence bring the lights on down
Pump up the violence bring the ordnance on down
Pump up the violence bring the lights on down
Pump up the violence bring the lights on down
Pump up the violence bring the ordnance on down
Pump up the violence bring the lights on down
Pump up the violence bring the lights on down
Pump up the violence bring the ordnance on down
©2014 Camper Van Beethoven
#81 Classy Dames and Able Gents – Southern California’s Military-Academic-Industrial-Electronic-Espionage-Complex
Posted in Uncategorized on June 3, 2014 by Dr. David C LoweryThe Oceanview Club on Kwajalein Atoll which will be the site of Camper Van Beethoven’s 2027 Reunion show.
In number #60 I’m So Glad She Ain’t Never Coming Back I posed a little riddle about where I found the titles for three unfinished demos I exhibited in the blog. These titles were
“Infidel Sorcerers Of The Air”
“Peppermint Mind”
“Classy Dames and Able Gents”
Only a couple of people figured it out. It was a reference to a website that appeared to be the semi-secret homepage for the Forsythe Associates. This audiovisual services company was the “cover” company that operated the secret underground bunker beneath the Greenbriar Resort in West Virginia designed to house the US government in the event of a nuclear war.
This is not a joke. This actually happened. This is not some wacko conspiracy theory thing like the Denver International Airport Conspiracy.
So after reading about the Greenbriar bunker I decided to try and track down information on the Forsythe Asscoiates. Eventually I came across a webpage that seemed to have no obvious purpose. The website had 4 screens that were supposed to be live camera feeds but all 4 only showed static. Each of them had a cryptic title. That’s the three titles above. My first thought was “What fantastic band names!”
Think about it? Especially the first two “Infidel Sorcerers of the Air” and “Peppermint Mind.” Classy Dames and Able Gents is more like a wedding or corporate gig band. However it does make a good song title. So I used it.
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So what in God’s holy name are you blathering about in this song? I’ll tell you what I’m blathering on about. I’m blathering on about elements of the military-academic-industrial-electronic-espionage-complex that covers much of the Southern California coast from Vandenberg AFB to the Mexican border. The whole southern half of the state is bristling with sensors, antennae and mysterious military installations. Most people who visit Southern California don’t really notice this or if they do give it much thought. But California is pretty much a garrison state. It’s pretty well chronicled in this book Fortress California. This song riffs on this theme and throws in references to other important military and electronic warfare installations in the Pacific. The main character who is some sort of government contractor has just returned from being stationed at the military installation on the the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Instead of speaking literally and directly I had him speak in a style of cryptic prose that I borrowed from the aforementioned Forsythe Associates website. It’s perfectly logical in a Camper Van Beethoven sort of way. As some of our readers have already noted it seems to have confused the starched shirts over at American Songwriter.
Buy at your local record store
Classy Dames and Able Gents
I Augustine, the fishes widow
I knew the crawfish, I lived on shellfish
Under a sail
Lived on atoll
I had a foreclosed motorhome
At Kwajalein tracking station
I’ve got friends not on vacation
They got big ears they got big eyes
Classy Dames and Able Gents
Classy Dames and Able Gents
We’re here to serve our government
Classy Dames and Able Gents
There was a fire under water
Bring me my space suit!
I always wear it
I feel like Elvis
A million bucks
I lived in Baltimore
I work greenbriar
I worked for Foresythe associates
A Kwajalein tracking station
I’ve got friends i can be trusted
i got black bags i got black hands
Classy Dames and Able Gents
Classy Dames and Able Gents
We’re here to serve our government
Classy Dames and Able Gents
Classy Dames and Able Gents
We’re here to serve our government
Classy Dames and Able Gents
©2014 Camper Van Beethoven.
#80 It Was Like That When We Got Here & I Live In LA – Northeast Los Angeles Party at the End of the World.
Posted in Uncategorized on June 2, 2014 by Dr. David C LoweryThese two tracks are from the new Camper Van Beethoven album El Camino Real. Release date June 3rd 2014.
I was recently in Highland Park a neighborhood of what might be loosely referred to as Northeast Los Angeles. I was there to record an episode of Marc Maron’s immensely enjoyable podcast WTF. I realized I was not too far from the apartment where the “Playing on a flying saucer over Los Angeles” story took place as chronicled in #68 The Long Plastic Hallway-Playing on a Flying Saucer with the Talking Heads. Funny. Regrettably I failed to tell Marc Maron this story in our interview.
It seemed like all throughout the 1980s every couple of years I would end up at some strange party in this area of Los Angeles. Some weird mix of rich people, hipsters and low lifes. Socio-economically strange as well. On the east side you have the extremely wealthy enclaves of South Pasadena and San Marino. I mean really rich. Like Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos corrupt ex-dictator rich. Indeed this is where the former filipino president and his wife lived after being overthrown. Various relatives of the Shah and other members of foreign oligarchs seemed to settle in this area. And of course the wayward scions of New England establishment fortunes. I assume dwindling fortunes cause they always lived in some decaying mansion. Think grey gardens.
But back to geography. To the north you have Glendale and Pasadena. To the south high-rises of Downtown. To the west Los Feliz and Hollywood. All relatively affluent places, home to power brokers of various kinds: banking, entertainment, military-industrial academic (Cal Tech/JPL) and political. But in the middle of this are a series of neighborhoods like Highland Park, Eagle Rock, Atwater Village, Montecito Heights, Mt Washington and others without name. Within these neighborhoods you have poor areas, usually in the flatlands, and up on the hillsides are nicer houses and generally wealthier people. Not Imelda Marcos 15,000 pairs of shoes rich, but not as poor as the folks in the flatlands.
It was in a relatively new and nice compound near the top of one of these hills that I occasionally attended parties with a few of the the punk rockers from the Inland Empire. I don’t know who in my IE group of friends got the original introduction but somehow we were on the guest list from time to time. The hostess was a woman reportedly from spain, but I always wondered about that because most of the cars were tagged with Mexican “La Frontera” licenses plates. The rumor was she was variously the daughter, mistress or wife of some gangster. This was the early 1980’s and the Mexican and Colombian drug cartels hadn’t really made any headlines, so we always assumed that our host was connected to the Sicilian Mafia. Which somehow made it seem safer.
Regardless these were pretty typical LA parties, mostly booze and a little bit of drugs in the back room somewhere. Some impossibly arty musical ensemble. Inevitably someone was keeping time on an oil drum or some other large piece of metal. Guitars, Synthesizers and a often more than one bass player. At least one of the band members was always from the UK.
One night we all went outside because there was an enormous brush fire in the Angeles National forest that had worked it’s way down into the foothills of Pasadena. It may have even been the La Tuna fire that burned parts of Verdugo Mountain between Burbank and Glendale. It looked like the end of the world. But this only seemed to enliven the guests.
Their are two songs on the record inspired by these parties and their mysterious hostess. It Was Like That When We Got Here is largely about the party on the night of the fire. I Live in LA is about the hostess.
Buy album at your local indie record store
Or
It was Like That When I Got Here
It was broken on the floor
It was like that when we got here
A piece was stuck in to the door
It was like that when we got here
There was this girl I kind of know
It was like that when we got here
In an Army Uniform
It was like that when we got here
I’m a mess baby and you’re a mess baby
So why can’t we be more than friends
You and I were meant to be together
I’m a mess baby and you’re a mess baby
So why can’t we be more than friends
You and I were meant to be together
An Endless pool of summer light
It was like that when we got here
Pasadena burning bright
It was like that when we got here
A phoenix rising from the smoke
It was like that when we got here
The mountains rising up in flames
I’m a mess baby and you’re a mess baby
So why cant we be more than friends
You and I were meant to be together
I’m a mess baby and you’re a mess baby
So why cant we be more than friends
You and I were meant to be together
It was like that when we got here
It was like that when we got here
It was like that when we got here
It was like that when we got here
I Live in LA
She comes in like a star
Wearing jewelry and fur
with her own entourage
hanger-oners in clogs
From some small town in spain
Its never explained
Sufficiently
Or the security
I live in LA
Come and see me someday
You can stay at my house
I’ve got plenty of space
I live in LA
Come see me someday boy
If you wanna have a good time
A good time with me
Black SUVs in the drive
tinted windows and guards
Cowboy boots and shaved heads
Italian suits tattood necks
the party rages inside
but its never explained
Sufficiently
Oh boy I hope its not too late
I live in LA
Come and see me someday
You can stay at my house
I’ve got plenty of space
I live in LA
Come see me someday boy
If you wanna have a good time
A good time with me
Done ever ask where i’ve been
Dont ever ask where the money comes from
Dont ever ask who I am cause it cant be explaind
Sufficiently
Or the Security
I live in LA
Come and see me someday
You can stay at my house
I’ve got plenty of space
I live in LA
Come see me someday boy
If you wanna have a good time
A good time with me
I live in LA
Come and see me someday
You can stay at my house
I’ve got plenty of space
I live in LA
Come see me someday boy
If you wanna have a good time
A good time with me
© 2014 Camper Van Beethoven
#79 The Ultimate Solution- The Polyglot Polyculture City-State that is Los Angeles
Posted in Uncategorized on June 1, 2014 by Dr. David C LoweryThe Ultimate Solution- Camper Van Beethoven.
The polyglot poly-cultural city state that is Los Angeles.
Last year Camper Van Beethoven released La Costa Perdida (loosely “the lost coast”) which is a set of songs about Northern California (see Northern California Girls or Come Down the Coast as examples). This year Camper Van Beethoven releases the companion piece to this album “El CaminoReal.” This time the album thematically focuses on Southern California and Baja California.
Whereas La Costa Perdida was a look back at the “back to the country” hippy period of northern California with references to Jack Kerouac, Richard Brautigan, The Grateful Dead and even The Beach Boy’s “Big Sur” period this one is firmly planted in the present and further down the coast in Southern California.
The best way to look at the new album is to draw a contrast between the two. On La Costa Perdida the ocean is calm, benevolent and feminine; on El Camino Real the sea is “filled with darkness, secrets and chemicals.” The choice of the masculine title subject El Camino Real as opposed to the feminineLa Costa Perdida was an intentional contrast. On La Costa Perdida the bucolic rural past is the focus; on El Camino Real it’s the urban polyglot multi-cultural landscape of Southern California that is celebrated. La Costa Perdida is laid back where El Camino Real is fast paced and frenetic.
Generally when journalists have written about Camper Van Beethoven they have inevitably associated the band with Northern California because of the band’s long residency in Santa Cruz CA. But it’s often overlooked that the band originally formed in the gritty and rural “Inland Empire” region of Southern California. This album is a gentle reminder of the band’s roots.
The album starts with the track The Ultimate Solution. Essentially an ode to the City of Los Angeles. Frommer’s has described Los Angeles as “Less of a melting pot and more of a tossed salad of overlapping cultures.” This song essentially sums up this view of Los Angeles as the ultimate polycultural American megapolis .
If there were a video to this song it would be a high speed stop action video that took you down vermont from the Hollywood hills through downtown Los Angeles. There would be stops along the way for snacks like “Armenian lamb kabobs served in Mayan pickled cabbage tacos” or “Filipino style curry udon.”
Alternately you could take a larger east to west cross section of the megapolis and travel from the celebrity suburbs of the far west sunset drive, through downtown Los Angeles all the way out to the far end of the San Gabriel Valley. On this drive you would encounter large communities, of Russians, Mexican-Americans, Persians, Samoans, Koreans, El Salvadoreans, Filipinos, Hasidim, Indians, Japanese, Armenians, Arabs, Greeks, Chinese, Turkish and Afghanis.
I once took a city bus from the Fairfax district all the way down pico and into Boyle Heights with a native Angeleno specifically to experience this aspect of the city. Oh and to sample the food at various restaurants along the way.
Finally I reference the LAPD “Rampart Division” scandal. Los Angeles as a true city-state has often operated it’s police department as an almost militarized internal security force. Sometimes acting more like a La Guardia Civil than a traditional city police force. The most bizarre chapter in the LAPD history concerns an anti-gang operation out of the Rampart substation that rumored to have acted as it’s own gang, with it’s own tattoos and spray paint tags.
The Ultimate Solution
I was living happily
waiting for the world to end
eating pickled cabbage in a taqueria
I was waiting patiently
For the geminids to show
I was staring happily in to the sun
And every day is just like a dive
into the ultimate solution
violins and violence
Samoa town Los Angeles
In Tagalog Korean girls
say Oyster Pearls
are like the Ultimate
Ultimate Solution
Ultimate Solution
I was on a new game show
Dancing with the Rampart squad
everyone had gang tattoos
and designer luggage
Waiting on the El Al Bus
Security was tight that day
Pico and Sepulveda
all the way to Baghdad
And every day’s just like a dive
into the ultimate solution
violins and violence
Somoa town Los Angeles
In Tagalog Korean girls
say Oyster Pearls
are like the Ultimate
Ultimate Solution
Ultimate Solution
© 2014 camper van beethoven music
Trichordist
Posted in Uncategorized on April 8, 2012 by Dr. David C LoweryHello everybody.
I’m making some changes to the this blog. So for the time being I have unpublished all these posts. I’ll put them back on line as we go through them. thanks.
You can also visit me at http://www.trichordist.com
#78 No more bullshit. The top 10 lamest excuses for stealing artists music
Posted in Uncategorized on January 21, 2012 by Dr. David C LoweryI am on the fucking warpath this week.
Lamest arguments in favor of illegal file sharing from the past week. I’m not making this shit up. These are real arguments people presented. And argued vehemently.
1. “Marijuana is illegal. File sharing is illegal. Therefore it’s okay.”
Response try filesharing your pot dealer’s stash with 5,000 strangers online and let’s see how long you live.
2. “The RIAA is secretly behind filesharing. They make more money suing people than by selling albums. There are Youtube videos explaining all this therefore it’s true. Therefore it’s okay to steal from cracker and camper van beethoven”
Response: The RIAA was also behind 9-11, Global Warming Hoax and the Kennedy assassinations. Usher is behind Justin Bieber. And Camper Van Beethoven tests cosmetics on lab animals.
3. I heard that the record companies ripped off Willy Dixon in the 1950’s Therefore it’s okay to steal from Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven.
Response: Very clever. You figured out that Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven have a time machine. We all went back in time to the 1950’s (before we were born) and took $20 dollars from the man’s wallet while he was sleeping. Curses Foiled again.
4. Louis CK. Is successful and his stuff is on Youtube. Therefore it’s okay to steal Cracker’s songs.
Response ask Louis CK if he would prefer his income stream or his idol George Carlin’s Income stream from album sales, video sales, book sales in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Louis CK is making a lot of money. But nothing like George Carlin. And in the process he is helping Google/Youtube add to the piles of gold bullion that Google keeps in secret spaceship deep inside the mantle of the earth below their mountain view “campus”.
5. Music should be free it belongs to the universe.
Response: Okay then come to my house and do YOUR job for free. My car needs it’s oil changed and someone needs to pick up the dogshit in the backyard. There is a signup list on our website. Last i checked my car and the dogshit also “belonged to the universe”.
6. In the middle ages there were no music sales. It was all based on live performance.
Response: Yes and doctors bled you or covered your torso with leaches when you were sick. Also it was permissible to beat your wife with a stick as long as the stick was not larger in diameter than your thumb .
7. “Music sucks today. I’m gonna steal music I like. You bad. No No.”
Response: There is no official response. We have been advised by our legal counsel that the above referenced statement exhibits such a degree of logical incoherence that the statement:
A) was made by a mentally disabled individual
B) are lyrics to a Red Hot Chili Peppers song
C) A zen koan created by a zen master operating on a higher level of consciousness
D) or any two of the above three.
8. “You’re not the boss of me. You can’t tell me what to do”
Response: Actually I personally am the boss of you. Check with your attorney. Unless you are in international waters. Now get out in the backyard and clean up the dog shit.
9. “The Record labels and Musicians failed to adapt to the new hi tech reality. So it’s okay to steal music by Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven”.
Response: So it’s okay to steal handmade boots, organically grown farm produce from family farms, and custom motorcycles? You’re right I’ve been stealing custom choppers for years. How stupid of me. You win.
10. “It’s okay to steal from musicians cause they are all rich”
Response: Although I am dictating this into my solid gold jewel encrusted dictaphone from horseback I’m not rich. Now Steve Jobs he was rich. You know he was buried in a 300 yard long platinum coffin along with 50,000 of his favorite servants? A funeral procession 66 miles long stretched from Vacaville California to Mountain View. Thousand of Buddhist monks burned themselves alive. I’m not rich.
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A lot of you may be shocked by this response. But should you really be surprised? I mean i’ve spent 29 years making music for people who think the world is full of a lot of unadulterated bullshit and can see the humor in it. Have a sense of humor people.
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