Customer Reviews

Key Lime Pie

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Before alternative rock was a marketing ploy there was CVB, a group of Santa Cruz musicians who were truly alternative, mixing musical genres with elan, ease, and above all intelligence. Tex-Mex, Balkan and Eastern European sounds crossbred with ska, punk, folk, acid rock, and just about anything else the band thought might work well. And it invariably did; CVB, little known but loved among its fans, released a series of smart and increasingly assured albums throughout the 1980's. Telephone Free Landslide Victory, II & III, Camper Van Beethoven, and Vampire Can Mating Oven would throw the experimental, the improbable, and the incomprehensible cheek by jowl, and make it work. CVB was a hard band to get into-if only because their albums were so hard to come by-but once you did, you were hooked. I discovered the Camper Van Beethoven LP when I was in high school; after much head-scratching and cries of "What the hell is this?!" I found I had been listening to it for a week straight and now could not stop. I still have the cassette . . . and I still don't know what the hell it is, but I love it.

In the late `80's CVB was becoming more and more popular, touring with R.E.M. and 10,000 Maniacs (this was the only chance I had to see them live). They signed with Virgin and released the best work of their career, Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart. The experimentation was tightly controlled and accessible, and the band sounded like it was having more fun than ever.

Then came 1989's Key Lime Pie . . . and everything changed. Struggling with newfound popularity and the pressures of being a major-label band expected to sell records, CVB began to splinter. Multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Segel left, replaced by violinist Morgan Fichter; the others in the band struggled to fill Segel's shoes. Krummenacher and Pedersen left the following year, David Lowery went on to form Cracker, and CVB was no more. Key Lime Pie is an unintended elegy for the band, a stark journey through heartbreak, and the longing for things that will never be. There are songs that haunt, songs that cry, and songs that thrum with power . . . and yet which are no less elegiac for all that.

The instrumental that opens the album is a mysterioso, Eastern-influenced track, juxtaposed neatly with the searing "Jack Ruby"-and if anyone told me before this album that I'd love a song about Lee Harvey Oswald's assassin, I'd have laughed. But "Ruby" takes the unfocused anger over Oswald's murder, and turns it into dissonant, brittle brilliance. Next up is the melodious "Sweethearts," a bizarre trip into the mind of Ronald Reagan (written before his Alzheimer's was diagnosed), where missions over China, WWII, Dixon, and Mom all intermingle; the result is a delightful, wistful ode to a man unsure just who he is, but who knows who he should be.

And there's a lot of that in this album. Key Lime Pie is in large part about the search for identity in dreams-balancing the suspicion on one hand the desire for something better than what is, and the angry realization on the other of the obstacles barring those dreams' fruition. Song after song-the sly, wry "When I Win the Lottery," "The Humid Press of Days," "(I Was Born in a) Laundromat," with its angry cries of "just give us some tension release," and most of all "June" and "All Her Favorite Fruit,"- struggle with that frustration; "Laundromat" seethes with it. The dark rock waltz "June" and the majestic, heartbreaking "All Her Favorite Fruit" sigh with it.

In a way, those latter two tracks form the album's centerpiece. The first states "There is nothing in this world/More bitter than love." The second proves that thesis with lyrics about a man longing for a woman, and whose longing leads him into a startling and wild fantasy about living with her in a tropical semi-paradise "within intervention's distance of the embassy"-one of many lyrical curlicues dropped in that make the song's narrator at once a bit creepy and totally sympathetic. The instrumental break, with Fichter's violin, is so eloquent of loneliness and aching, the music raises chills. It may well be CVB's finest moment as a band, and those two tracks alone make Key Lime Pie worth having.

There are many more reasons, however, from the eerie "Flowers," to the broken-step waltz of "The Light From a Cake," the ska-laced lament of "Borderline," the seesawing rhythms of "The Humid Press of Days." And then come the final two tracks, which probably do a better job than I ever could of summing up what CVB is, and how good they really are. First is an astonishingly good cover version of Status Quo's garage-rock psychedelic quasi-classic, "Pictures of Matchstick Men," featuring Fichter's echo-drenched violin in place of the keyboard figure, to great improvement of the song. CVB reworks an old chestnut into something new and different here, and does so in unforgettable fashion.

Closing the album is "Come on Darkness," as haunting a cry for surcease as I have ever heard. It's a song about weariness, about the need for rest and silence. You hear it reflected both in the excellent lyrics and the slow, purposeful strum of an acoustic guitar, laced with echoey slide guitar figures in the background, backed with steady, hammering drums that feel like the heartbeat of the world's weariest man. "Come on Darkness" can be seen as the band's unconscious farewell to itself, an elegy for a short-lived and extremely creative band that produced some of the best (though unfortunately not the best-known) music of the 1980's. Key Lime Pie is still one of my favorite albums, one I listen to after over ten years while other albums by "name artists" have fallen by the wayside, and one I recommend unreservedly to anyone who loves good music and good fun. There's plenty to be had with CVB.

It's funny how lyrics which seem objectively silly can deeply stir you when sung in some mysterious context. This album manages such a feat. And then there are lyrics which are poetry no matter which way you cut them. For someone who likes pretty songs you have to first get used to the discordant violin in this album...like scotch, you might not like the first few sips but once you alow it to work its magic on you there's no going back. You will have been rewarded for allowing yourself to discover the dark beauty beneath the surface dicord. It will sound like a wolf howling at the desert moon, the distant sound of a gypsie caravan with dancing bears dancing the cancan...it's one of those wonderful experiences which can enrich your life.

Big tie between this one and Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart. Probably give the edge to Key Lime Pie since I bought it first. David Lowery is simply a genius. 'All Her Favorite Fruit' is one of the all-time greatest songs in my opinion ... perfectly describing how most all of us go through our relationships not really knowing what the other truly wants and feels. The orchestration with Morgan Fichter's violin at the bridge should send chills up your spine.

I listen to this frequently mainly because there's not a bad song on here ... Jack Ruby, I Was Born (in a Laundromat), When I Win the Lottery, that Status Quo cover, Flowers, Humid Press of Days ... all great tunes. Makes me wonder why Intelligent bands like Camper are dismissed from the mainstream, while pure drivel like Celine Dion, Billy Ray Cyrus, and Ricky Martin are treated like gods. Oh well, I guess the rest of us smarties can revel knowing we know more than the masses.

i remember buying this album 11 years ago. i saw the video for laundromat on 120 minutes/MTV and being a musical experimentor, i thought i would pick it up. being 17, i, of course, listened to this album perpetually. having listened to this just today, i was reminded of all of those things that consumed my life back then. the lyrics were brilliant and i embraced them fully, but they conjured up not literal meanings, but nostalgia for my youth. the songs made me think of a girl i loved, the kids in my school i despised, the beauty of rebellion, my passion for expression, etc. you see, this is the type of album that transcends quality artistry and the trendy music "scene." it evokes memories and crystalizes emotions.

From start to finish, Camper Van Beethoven left us with a some times dark, twisted, but brilliantly sarcastic and moody album, that really shows-off their potential if they had stayed together beyond "Key Lime Pie."

Along with "Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart," Key Lime Pie stands out in the suprisingly lengthy discography of Camper. It's edgy, dark, funny, much more modern and electric than their past work, and leaves you wishing that they never broke up.

I bought this disc when it was released and actually had the pleasure of seeing CVB on the ensuing tour in Athens, GA. This disc is darker, deeper and seems more personal than some of CVB's earlier material which ventured (in a good way) into, as I believe D. Lowery himself said, "absurdist rock". This disc stands the test of time and still sounds great today with standout tracks like Borderline, All Her Favorite Fruit and Sweethearts which I consider one of CVB's very best songs. It's a classic album that was critically underappreciated when it was first released. As others have noted CVB was one of the many bands that really established 80's college radio that set the stage for today's indie rock scene. This was their last disc but in retrospect I believe their most creative. I'd agree that it's not their most challenging or "envelope-pushing" as some of the earlier material.

Several tracks on this disc suggest that the songs were written during the brutal heat of summer (June, The Humid Press of Days, Favorite Fruit with "the heat drifts towards a line of trees", and obviously Come On Darkness "let the pavement cool"). I recommend that once this becomes a favorite disc of yours (as it is mine) you give it a listen on the hottest day of the year - it will really make sense. At the same time the heart of the disc and the middle set of songs obviously represent a break-up - I remember at the time (a really hot Athens summer) my girlfriend and I were also calling it quits and I think that's one of the many reasons that this disc has stuck in my psyche all of these years later.

Also if you are a Cracker fan who never really listened to CVB, I urge you to give this one a try.

This album is so good it is scary. I don't know what anyone was talking about inconsistency. To me that is something that plagued Camper's other great albums. This album is so good from front to back that it is hard to pick a favorite. Sweethearts, When I Win the Lottery, Jack Ruby, All Her Favorite Fruit, I Was Born in a Laundromat, Come on Darkness, Borderline, Pictures of Matchstick Men (just to name a few) are some of the absolute best songs that I have ever heard. Three years ago when I bought this album it become my favorite album ever made. It is still in my top 10. This album is so subtle, yet powerful. It is self-depreciating, humorous, painstakingly beautiful, poetic, inspiring, and quite frankly absolutely brilliant.

This is one of the few albums that I can honestly say changed my life. I had a cassette copy in high school that I completely wore out in a couple years.

For my money, this is the best Camper Van Beethoven album and a serious candidate for best rock album of all time. Musically, on other CVB albums like "My Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart," I personally find the Balkan element running through much of the music a bit irritating, and I think the replacement of Jonathan Segel by Morgan Fichter was a brilliant move, as the violin work on this album is stunning - the solo on "All Her Favorite Fruit" is unforgettable. I also don't think the level of brilliance of the lyrics on the other albums comes up to the standard of this one (though in this department I do recommend the first album by David Lowery's next band, CrackerCracker). The lyrics are really stand-out on this album, some of the best ever written, and I think comparisons with T.S. Eliot in the case of songs like "June" and "All Her Favorite Fruit" are no exaggeration. The underclass humor of "When I Win the Lottery" can't be beat (and for more in this vein, check out "Mr. Wrong" on the aforementioned Cracker album). (David Lowery's lyrical approach to the denizens of America's underbelly is more humorous, but still the best stuff this side of Tom Waits.)

Some bands rise to the occasion once and make a really timeless record and while it may be argued by some that CVB has done it more than one, nothing they released was anywhere indicative of what they could achieve. This is a classic example of what a great producer can do with the right band and the right songs at the right time. I love the production on this album. It's very cohesive - sit through the album from start to finish to get the full effect.