Set both amidst an outdoor Old West movie set and the
surrounding prickly cacti, as well as the adjacent “Pappy and Harriet’s
a musical celebration of two bands that have used the desert and their own headstrong
dedication to forge a musical family and an artistic homestead lasting almost
two decades.
courtesy of their 1994 funky-grunge hit “Low,” with its evocative electric slide
response. I’ll always associate them most with Kerosene Hat hidden track “Euro Trash Girl,” however, since that was
the funky ditty one of my apartment mates at the time dropped on repeat for his
marathon Nintendo sessions. I learned of the group’s forerunner, cult-status
indie rock innovators Camper Van Beethoven, then, in reverse — and was certainly
glad when I did.
aforementioned site in the high
raw, live purity and joyous fervor, it features not only sets from Cracker and
Camper Van Beethoven (in a rare reunion with CVB’s original drummer, Chris
Pedersen) but also several rare, live performances from side projects and interrelated
spin-offs: groups and solo acts like the Monks of Doom, Johnny Hickman, Victor
Krummenacher, Jonathan Segel and Greg Lisher, plus bootlegged excerpt footage
from a late-night, impromptu “Porchstock” jam.
hours of music here is top-notch stuff, and very small crowds gives it a backyard BBQ-type feel. CVB’s two-part “Eye of Fatima” holds
serve, as does “Take the Skinheads Bowling.” Cracker’s aforementioned “Low” is given
a nice treatment — with the frontman of both groups, David Lowery, holding
forth in a UVa t-shirt and pinched ranch-hand hat — and the rest of their outdoor,
nighttime, 25-minute set includes “Movie Star,” “Teen” and “Big Dipper Cracker.”
(No “Get Off This,” unfortunately…) Johnny Hickman’s unbilled contributions, meanwhile (consisting of “The Great
Decline” and “Little Tom”) are a wonderful evocation and empowerment of those
that have slipped through the cracks, and rank as some of the best of the material
here. Monks of Doom’s outdoor offerings include “Poison” and “Riverbed,” as
dusk quickly bleeds out into night, and Krummenacher presents “Not Coming Back,”
“Bittersweet” and “Questa Sunset.”
great, and is nicely photographed, with blends and fades that showcase a light
artistic hand but don’t become too heavy on the directorial interjection. Some
of the interior footage suffers in comparison to the outdoor sets due to its
lighting, but the disc comes up with ways to get around this — rendering Lisher’s
set in a heavy sepia tone, for instance. The bummer of the release is that
there really isn’t a fuller explication of the genesis of the event, or any interviews,
commentaries or even biographies that would shine a light on the cooperative
and celebratory nature of these musicians for lapsed fans or newcomers. As is,
it’ll just have to settle for being great, and hope an appreciative and
nostalgic alt-rock audience finds it. A- (Concert) C- (Disc)