Pitchfork

Espousing elements of the Minutemen's sunburned technical intensity, R.E.M.'s aloof pretensions and the free-form jams of late 60s icons like the Grateful Dead, Camper Van Beethoven-- a collective of folksy nerds from the University of California at Santa Cruz-- left an indelible mark on the 1980s. Sadly, history's monocle has blurred their assiduous creativity, reducing their legacy to a goofy pretend-punk tune that, to the untrained ear, sounds something like the lesser Dead Milkmen.

Featured on Dr Demento's weekly radio program for a solid year, "Take the Skinheads Bowling" (from their 1985 debut, Telephone Free Landslide Victory) was an offbeat college smash, but its audience for the most part missed out on its face-value pop genius, instead giggling at the wacky lyrics. Set alongside the album's two other gems, "Oh No!" and "Ambiguity Song", "Take the Skinheads Bowling" completes a troika to trump most of the twang-pop released up to 1985. These, however, are only three of Telephone Free Landslide Victory's seventeen tracks, and though genre-detonating instrumental hybrids like its opener (the punchy two-step "Border Ska") and the unnerving, incomparable "9 of Disks" work wonders, half of the album is composed of hilarious in-jokes you can take or leave. Featuring infamous, ludicrous songs like "The Day That Lassie Went to the Moon", "Were the Hell Is Bill?" and a folk-rock rave-up of Black Flag's "Wasted", Telephone Free Landslide Victory will either serve as the record that will make this box set well worth its admission fee, or the disc you're most likely to skim through.

The band didn't change their approach for II & III, though they did add to the scope and impact of their novelty numbers. Two great pop songs ("Sometimes" and "Chain of Circumstances") are bunched together on side two, but aside from the earnest "Sad Lover's Waltz", straightforward tunes are overshadowed by chaotic surroundings. More confounding instrumentals dot the tracklist, from the introductory violin frenzy of "Abundance" to the beautiful, if bald-faced, bagpipe approximation, "No Flies on Us". There's also "Dustpan", which stands up to obvious comparisons with R.E.M., and the anti-music cacophony of their bluegrass/no-wave duel, "Turtlehead". In another nod to the affected moping of their east coast avant-garde contemporaries, Camper Van Beethoven trimmed Sonic Youth's "I Love Her All the Time" down to a two-minute hoedown. Devastating salvos like this are the fuel that keeps music alive.

CVB turned up the treble for their self-titled third album, opening with the band's most beloved and accessible anthem, "Good Guys and Bad Guys", indie rock's very own "Hotel California". Unfortunately, the jokes on Camper Van Beethoven are comparatively unfunny: though you'll chuckle at "We Saw Jerry's Daughter", which was obviously written and recorded just after seeing her, the deadpan drawl of "Joe Stalin's Cadillac" and "Lulu Land" no longer tickle. This is the band's bridge album, where some surprising new ideas triumph (the tempo-juggling "Still Wishing to Course" absolutely predicts Heavy Vegetable) and fail (the stolid, spoken word "Peace and Love"). On Camper Van Beethoven, the group lays to rest the spark that brought them together in preparation for bigger things. [Side note: The two tape-reversed tracks, "Five Sticks" and "Stairway to Heaven (Sic)" are actually "Ambiguity Song" and "Border Ska" from Telephone Free Landslide Victory done acoustic.]

Following Camper Van Beethoven, the band hit some bumps. Founding member Chris Molla quit in advance of their major label debut Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart (Virgin, 1988), and soon after its release, Jonathan Segel, considered the driving force behind the group's rabid eclecticism, followed suit. On the outside, it seemed Lowery and the remaining band members were selling out, looking to jump the R.E.M. freight train to mainstream success, but that's an argument for my review of Perrier and Plum Wine: The Virgin Years.

Camper Van Beethoven's hyperactivity ensured a wealth of rarities for fans to track down at record conventions: we've seen two posthumous compilations of this material, in addition to the recent discovery of their long-lost 1987 tribute to Fleetwood Mac's Tusk. Cigarettes & Carrot Juice includes the first and inarguably best collection of CVB outtakes, 1993's Camper Vantiquities, which contains two of the best songs the band ever recorded: the solemn west coast lament "Crossing Over", and "Never Go Back", which now plays as drunken, nostalgic reverie, the band reaching for vocal harmonies they never quite hit. For CVB fans already choked up by these ballads, the only reason to buy Cigarettes & Carrot Juice (to my ears, nothing was remastered) is its fifth live disc, Greatest Hits Played Faster. The first track is reason enough: a shattering orchestral version of "All Her Favorite Fruit" from Key Lime Pie that is without question the most passionate performance of Camper Van Beethoven's career.

Greatest Hits Played Faster was recorded during the band's April 1990 European tour for an ostensibly posthumous live album. A flawless, inspired version of "Sweethearts" follows the stupendous opener, but as can be expected, the performances waver over the disc's 13 tracks-- the recording of their second-biggest alternative rock smash, "She Divines Water", falls victim to David Lowery's thoroughly thrashed vocal chords, and their combination of "Eye of Fatima Parts I & II" is less than effortless. For its first two cuts and rousing versions of "Life Is Grand" and "One of These Days", the live bonus disc probably can't command $30 from veteran fans, but any uninitiated follower of inventive, independent rock and roll couldn't ask for more at this five-disc set's modest asking price.