"There Are Doctors And There Are Lawyers, And There Are Folks Like You And Me": This Week's Music: Camper van Beethoven

All of the new songs for this week share a very important theme. That theme is that they are all by the same band! Lazy? Perhaps. But if you've never listened to Camper van Beethoven, perhaps you should consider this an introduction to one of the great bands of the 80s.

For those uninitiated, Camper van Beethoven was David Lowery from Cracker's real band. If you were in middle school in 1993 as I was, you probably remember Cracker's MTV smash "Low." Refresher: Black & white, boxing ring, Sandra Bernhardt. It was on every 14 seconds when MTV still showed videos. Oh what the hell: http://youtube.com/watch?v=lDPyep1Y0qE

It was a pretty decent song. But David Lowery had a real band called Camper van Beethoven throughout the 80s and into the early 90s, and then for whatever reason, back together since about '04. I like a good deal of CvB's music, but as you kind of have to sift through their stuff to find the gems, consider this a bit of an introductory sifting, free of charge.

The first song on the list is "Ambiguity Song" off of their 1985 record Telephone Free Landslide Victory. The most popular song from this album at the time--and probably their second most famous song after their cover of "Pictures of Matchstick Men"--is probably "Take the Skinheads Bowling," but I've always preferred this one. That track's worth a listen too.

"Some day soon, it will all settle down, but everything seems to be up in the air at this time," at one point, was about me, before I made current insane professional choice. And it will probably be about me again, sooner rather than later. "Ambiguity Song" is an 80s "college rock" (editorial note: yuck) classic, although I can never truly shake off my bias against rock songs over 6 minutes.

"Good Guys & Bad Guys" is probably my favorite Camper van Beethoven song, and it's off 1986's Camper van Beethoven. I love the semi-earnest, terribly dated Cold War lyrics. However, you could switch from: "This here verse is for the people in Russia" to "This here verse is for a scattered collection of loosely affiliated clandestine groups sharing an anti-American feeling based on the predictable aftershock of short sighted Cold War foreign policy decisions coupled with a dangerous reliance on fossil fuels, not to mention the stationing of American GIs in Saudi Arabia during the First Gulf War." Unfortunately, that doesn't rhyme with anything. "So just get high while the radio's on. Just relax and sing a song. Drive your car up on the lawn, and let me play your guitar." Honestly, that at least remains pretty decent advice.

Next up we have "Pictures of Matchstick Men" from 1989's Key Lime Pie, probably one of their most famous songs. I say that only because I think I've heard it on TV before, which is the only way I know how to gauge fame. Inconveniently, it's actually a cover version of a song originally performed in the 60s by a group called Status Quo. If you've only heard one CbV song, I bet it was this one.

Somewhat more randomly, I've added a song that I like a lot off of Key Lime Pie called "All Her Favorite Fruit." There's nothing too notable about this song, it's just a somewhat overlooked song in their catalogue. It's sort of a slow builder, and I just like it when he moves up an octave, because I'm a simple guy.

Lastly, for some reason no one can figure out, Camper van Beethoven recorded the entirety of Fleetwood Mac's bizarre 1979 album Tusk. Like, they just recorded the whole thing themselves. They made up a story about doing it in 1987 with some extra time, but they actually recorded it in 2001, marking their first time in the studio together for about a decade. I don't get it either. But strangely enough--and this is coming from someone who LOATHES Fleetwood Mac--I actually think some of their cover versions of some of Fleetwood Mac's weirdest material are pretty damn good. From that bizarre experiment comes "I Know I'm Not Wrong," my favorite from that album. "That's Enough For Me" is also really good.

So that's Camper van Beethoven for you. They are, as I mentioned above, back together. I have not heard their 2004 album, but despite the fact it's critically acclaimed and their fans seem to like it, I haven't been that interested. Did I just hear "Low" one too many times? Well, what's one more? http://youtube.com/watch?v=lDPyep1Y0qE

Tracks 27-31 on the player over yonder.