WENT TO YOUR PARTY AND DRANK ALL YOUR BEER, WE’RE A BAD TRIP: Camper Van Beethoven, London 1987.

Some time in the latter half of 1985 or the start of 1986, I met Mr Richard Norris. He was in a dj box of sorts in the long deceased Bierkeller in Liverpool. It was the opening of his psychedelic, groovy sixties event, The Hangout. I’d barged in, introduced myself and asked him if it was alright if I looked through his records. Among the jewels of the lysergic world were a couple of tunes that stuck out – they were contemporary, and whilst being guitar laden, were decidedly un-psych and seemingly out of place. This was in the eighties, before the word psychedelic had been redefined to describe anything loud and hairy. According to Richard, I pulled out a copy of “Sex Bomb” by Flipper and asked him if he would play it. He claims that he did, although I genuinely can’t remember. He did however, play the other record, a Rough Trade 7” by a Californian act called Camper Van
Beethoven. “Take The Skinheads Bowling” is bouncy, frivolous, happy beyond words and the lyrics are so wondrous and pointless they can make me weep with happiness. It was, and remains, one of the greatest records I’ve ever heard.

Some time in the latter half of 1987 I met Camper Van Beethoven. They were in a dressing room of sorts at Dingwall’s on Camden Lock – they had just played their debut show in this country. Tony Crean and I barged in, introduced ourselves and asked them if it was alright if we drank some of their beer. Which we did. They were such lovely people and we were having such a wonderful time that Tony and I didn’t notice that we were drinking all their beer. And I mean, all their beer. Being from another country, these young men were far too polite to flag up our obvious faux pas. We seemed to be getting on like a house of fire with them , they really were lovely people and despite the fact that I was drunk and highly animated, they didn’t seem to mind us disposing of their rider, either. In
exchange I gave bass player Victor Krummenacher my Andy Warhol ‘Dead’ badge, created by Liverpool artist David Knopov. We were both chuffed with the arrangement. They put us on the guest list for their next show. Tony and I had arrived.
The next time I saw Camper Van Beethoven, they were on stage at the Mean Fiddler in Harlesden that same week. In among the tuning up and drum rolls at the intro, their singer David Lowery announced “Does anybody here know two guys from Liverpool called Bernie and Tony? They came to our show last night and drank all our beer. This is for them, it’s called “We’re a Bad Trip.”

Camper van Beethoven – Take The Skinheads Bowling. Rough Trade 7”/12” RT (T) 161.