Telephone Free Landslide Victory

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Telephone Free Landslide Victory
Telephone Free Landslide Victory cover
Studio album by Camper Van Beethoven
Released 1985
Genre Alternative
Length 39:37
Label Independent Projects
Professional reviews
Camper Van Beethoven chronology
Telephone Free Landslide Victory
(1985)		 II & III
(1986)

Telephone Free Landslide Victory was a 1985 landmark album by musical group Camper Van Beethoven, released on Independent Projects. It featured the band's best known song Take the Skinheads Bowling.

The band's lineup at the time of recording was David Lowery (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Jonathan Segel (violin, keyboards, guitar, backing vocals), Chris Molla (guitar, backing vocals), Victor Krummenacher (bass, backing vocals), and Anthony Guess (drums). The album is the only Camper Van Beethoven record not to feature the talents of lead guitar Greg Lisher. Lisher is actually listed in the album credits as a band member, but he did not join the band until after the album was recorded.

Musically, the album is a combination of songs and instrumentals. The former are simple garage tunes, with a folk-punk sound and absurdist lyrics, often simultaneously mocking and affectionately celebrating aspects of 80's underground counterculture, with references to punks, skinheads, surfers, skaters and hippies. These songs are comparable to other humorous 80's underground bands like The Violent Femmes, The Dead Milkmen and The Young Fresh Fellows. Camper Van Beethoven, however, are completely different: they combine ethnic melodies (often Eastern Europe, Mexican or spaghetti-Western) played on Segel's violin and Molla's guitar, with ska beats supplied by Guess, Lowery and Krummenacher. The alternation between the instrumentals and songs creates an almost schizophrenic feeling that is one of the most unusual aspects of the record. Later versions of the band would integrate the ethnic influences with the actual songs, but here they are quite separate. The one thing that the two song-types have in common is that they are both quite droll, leading to the band being inaccurately typecast as a novelty group.

Despite the considerably musical growth that the band would show on its later work, Telephone Free Landslide Victory has remained one of its most enduring albums. The reunited Camper Van Beethoven frequently features several of its songs in their setlists to this day, including Take the Skinheads Bowling, the countrified Black Flag cover Wasted, the hardcore send-up Club Med Sucks, The Day That Lassie Went to the Moon, Ambiguity Song, and several of the instrumentals.

[edit] Track listing

[edit] Original 1985 release

  1. "Border Ska"
  2. "The Day That Lassie Went To The Moon"
  3. "Wasted"
  4. "Yanqui Go Home"
  5. "Oh No!"
  6. "9 Of Disks"
  7. "Payed Vacation: Greece"
  8. "Where The Hell Is Bill?"
  9. "Vladivostock"
  10. "Skinhead Stomp"
  11. "Tina"
  12. "Take The Skinheads Bowling"
  13. "Mao Reminisces About His Days In Southern China"
  14. "I Don't See You"
  15. "Balalaika Gap"
  16. "Opi Rides Again - Club Med Sucks"
  17. "Ambiguity Song"

[edit] 2004 CD re-issue

  1. "The Day That Lassie Went To The Moon"
  2. "Border Ska"
  3. "Wasted"
  4. "Yanqui Go Home"
  5. "Oh No!"
  6. "9 Of Disks"
  7. "Payed Vacation: Greece"
  8. "Where The Hell Is Bill?"
  9. "Wasting All Your Time"
  10. "Epigram #5"
  11. "At Kuda"
  12. "Epigram #2"
  13. "Cowboys From Hollywood (Original Version)"
  14. "Colonel Enrique Adolfo Bermudez"
  15. "Vladivostock"
  16. "Skinhead Stomp"
  17. "Tina"
  18. "Take The Skinheads Bowling"
  19. "Mao Reminisces About His Days In Southern China"
  20. "I Don't See You"
  21. "Balalaika Gap"
  22. "Opi Rides Again"
  23. "Club Med Sucks"
  24. "Ambiguity Song"
  25. "Heart (remix)"