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Classic Album Review: Camper Van Chadbourne | The Revenge of Camper Van Chadbourne

The psychedelic indie-roots outfit & the folkie demento join forces once again.

This came out in 2000 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):

 


There are supergroups and then there are super-freaky groups.

This time-to-time teaming of two former members of psychedelic indie-roots outfit Camper Van Beethoven and folkie demento Dr. Eugene Chadbourne is definitely the latter. Cult fave Chadbourne, with his political-satire lyrics and untethered musical aesthetic, is sort of a cross between Woody Guthrie and early Frank Zappa. Not to mention that he plucks the banjo like somebody cranking a jack-in-the-box way too fast. Luckily, CVB fiddler Jonathan Segal and guitarist/bassist Victor Krummenacher are around to keep his balloon from floating away. Which is to say: They flesh out his skeletal, Appalachian-mutation ditties into oddly elegant chamber-folky works of depth, darkness, dementia and desperation. Delightful.