Hello friends...just got back from the 3 shows in Petaluma, San Francisco and
Sparks/Reno. As I hang out with my nineteen year old son Hans I find myself
feeling wistfully appreciative of my cohorts and decided to write it down.
Allow me to give props to my associates and brothers in Cracker and CVB:
Frank Funaro: This amazing drummer and human being is the engine that keeps
both of these bands on the highway. He loves to perform live more than anyone
I've ever met much less played with. When he hits the stage Frank puts the show
over anything else going on in his reality and has inspired ALL of us to do the
same countless times.
Kenny Margolis: An intuitive and brilliant musician who could easily sit in
with anyone, anytime, anyplace and hold his own on the keys. Case in point...in
a moment of good humored and courageous spontaneity he scooped up a pump organ
(foot operated mind you) from a nearby house and dragged it up onstage to add
unrehearsed yet splendid backing to my solo show at Pi town. Balls.
Sal Maida: Basically walked right into Cracker and played as if he had been
there for years. Amazing style and an uncanny ability to pick up songs, blend
and create on the spot. AND he's one of the nicest guys around this camp.
David "Immy" Immerglück: This musical maniac is a combination of comedic
genius, consummate showman and brilliant musician. The gang say he and I are a
little too similar and grow more so all the time. I am honored by that overview
indeed. David has been a spicy ingredient to the brew ever since he joined us in
the studio for "The Golden Age" 11 years ago. That's his glorious pedal steel
haunting songs like "Big Dipper" and "The Golden Age" and his beautiful singing
right along side yours truly on gems such as "I'm A Little Rocketship" and
"Useless Stuff". Whether making music together or tossing m-80s off the roofs of
luxury hotels at 2 AM he is a delight to be around.
Victor K.: This eloquent and talented man has been, in been many respects at
the heart of CVB from day one. From his teenage days when he was part of our
small circle of pre CVB punk rock friends around the Inland Empire to the
present day he has been a solid bass player, songwriter, vibester and friend to
all of us. He is probably the most solid, even tempered and well liked person
amongst us.
Jonathan Segel: In a very real way Jonathan is one of the edgy geniuses
behind the Camper Van Beethoven sound. An aggressively brilliant multi
instrumentalist, songwriter and intellect, Jonathan is a true musical seeker,
always reinventing his approach and devouring styles and genres for his own
amusement and growth.
Greg Lisher: As a fellow guitarist I have been a major Lisher fan for 2
decades now. We both admire several of the same greats (Jeff Beck, David
Gilmour, Peter Green) yet filtered through Greg's brain, heart and hands these
influences meld into a highly original style that is pure Greg. His solos are
small symphonies of their own and his tone and slide work floor me again and
again.
David Lowery: Certainly the fire at the center of our universe, David has
written music his own way for as long as I've known him and that's a hell of a
long time. I count him among the best songwriters of his generation. As friends
playing in separate bands around the same area, his oddly unique humor, wit,
angst and passion inspired me long before we became partners in Cracker. I might
not have come up with half of the melodies, riffs, lyrics or titles I've
contributed to the Cracker canon without his direct inspiration and delightfully
skewed vision of life on earth. When asked how we work together once in an
interview I once blurted out that I try to play guitar the way David feels when
he's telling the story. That's as close as I can get to the core of it. There's
no set method. Sometimes the words come first, sometimes chords, sometimes a
guitar riff that may or may not become a vocal melody, sometimes it's just a
title or a sentence. Here's just one example of a Cracker song's birth : I have
a guitar melody that feels to me like a cross between some freaky goth like surf
music and The Pixies circa "Surfer Rosa". I show it to David and he soon begins
firing off free verse lines on a fictitious character we invented for our own
amusement (we do this often) named Kam Phoc. Soon, there are redneck mamas and
comets flying around the studio. At 3 am in the hotel that night I wake up and
hear another melody line in my head. I pick up my guitar and play it before I
forget it. This one is a strange, almost atonal ascending thing. I show it to
David the next day and he quickly finds chords to go under it. We graft the the
new riff in and around the other until it feels right. Although Kam Phoc started
out as my alter ego, ( I have many and perhaps should seek psychiatric help for
this ) and would appear as our tour manager and mentor suddenly and without
warning, David mind melded with him and realized that he was secretly an
underground indie icon from a bygone era. David decided that Kam's TRULY great
mid sixties record was called 100 Flower Power Maximum. Some disturbingly choice
chanting and breathing from Herr Lowery and my estimation of Kam's wife's voice
speaking the song title into a hand held recorder with a dying battery at the
very end of the song and we had it. Thankfully our Golden Age producer Dennis
Herring was (and still is) as out there as we were and caught it all, prodding
us further on into our madness. After hearing David's "Let's pick it up!"
screamed into the microphone, Dennis gladly obliged my sudden desire to capture
the sound of my amp being dashed against the brick studio wall and miked it
accordingly. That's one of the sounds that make up the bridge or "middle eight"
as they call it in the U.K. That's how we roll as they say.
Perhaps in another entry I will go into detail about some of the past band
members who played a significant role in our family. Johnny over and out.
