History Music / CamperVanBeethoven

** Cracker's album ''Kerosene Hat'' is named for a period where members David Lowery and Johnny Hickman lived in a dilapidated house with only two kerosene fueled heaters for warmth and no transportation - when David Lowery had to walk to the nearest gas station for more kerosene, he'd bundle up and put on a wool hunting cap, so it was his "kerosene hat". While the album has a TitleTrack, it has WordSaladLyrics that don't explain the title.

** The liner notes to ''Vampire Can Mating Oven'' are credited to a fictional music journalist named Isaac Fringe and offer spurious facts about each song on the EP - for instance claiming that one of the songs was originally written for the soundtrack of a 1970s BMovie about surfing vampires.

* CoverVersion: "Pictures of Matchstick Men" (originally by Status Quo), "Interstellar Overdrive" (originally by Music/PinkFloyd), "Photograph" (originally by Music/RingoStarr), "Who Are the Brain Police?" (originally by Music/FrankZappa), "I Love Her All the Time" (originally by Music/SonicYouth), a countrified cover of Music/BlackFlag's "Wasted," a live cover of Music/ButtholeSurfers' "The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey's Grave," Steve Reich's "Come Out," and the [[CoverAlbum entire album]] ''Music/{{Tusk}}'' (originally by Music/FleetwoodMac).

* CreatorInJoke: A few inside jokes have made their way into their lyrics and David Lowery has explained some on his blog. For instance, "Long Plastic Hallway" mentions Box O' Laffs opening up for Music/TalkingHeads aboard a UFO. Box O' Laffs was a band Lowery was in before Camper. Once Box O' Laffs' guitarist phoned the rest of the band to let them know that he'd just secured them a gig opening up for Music/TalkingHeads in Los Angeles that night, then hung up without giving any more detail - after much ado, it turned out the guitarist was stoned out of his mind and claimed the concert was going to be held on a UFO flying ''above'' L.A.

* CreatorInJoke: A few inside jokes have made their way into their lyrics and David Lowery has explained some on his blog. For instance, "Long Plastic Hallway" mentions Box O' Laffs opening up for Music/TalkingHeads aboard a UFO. Box O' Laffs was a band Lowery was in before Camper; Basically, Box O' Laffs guitarist Chris Hart phoned the other members and told them that he'd met the percussionist for Talking Heads and got them the opening slot for a show in Los Angeles. After scrambling for information and driving 400 miles to the venue, it turned out that Hart and the "percussionist" were high when that call was made and the supposed gig was going to be on a flying saucer floating ''above'' Los Angeles.

** "Peaches In The Summertime" is a loose adaptation of 18th century folk song [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shady_Grove_%28song%29 "Shady Grove"]].

* CreditsGag: The back cover of the CD edition of ''Key Lime Pie'' gives the track-list and other pertinent information in the form of a long paragraph formatted to scroll around the CD case, and includes a couple of humorous asides: Besides alluding to the Cut Song on the Trivia page, the text also laments that having to include legal notices "makes it a little more difficult to have a stark artsy sleeve like all those cool British imports".
** Drummer Chris Pedersen has sometimes been credited as Crispy Dersen, as a bit of FunWithHomophones with his name.

** "ZZ Top Goes To Egypt" combines the blues-rock of early Music/ZZTop with a stereotypically Ancient Egyptian-sounding violin melody.

** A somewhat rare Best Of compilation is ''The Virgin Years'', which was released in 1994 and features eight songs each by Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker. This is mainly notable as the only official release of "Eye of Fatima Parts 1 & 2", a special radio edit of "Eye Of Fatima Part 1" that segues directly into a shortened version of "Eye Of Fatima Part 2".

** Parodied in "Club Med Sucks", which uses the same kind of rhetoric as political HardcorePunk songs of the time to describe a teenager's parents forcing him to going to Club Med instead of just letting him hang out on the beach on his own all summer ("I want no part of their death culture/I just wanna go to the beach"). Played more straight with "Might Makes Right", from the point of view of a disillusioned soldier.

** Drummer Chris Pedersen has sometimes been credited as "Crispy Dersen", as it's a close homophone for his name.

Camper Van Beethoven is an [[NeoclassicalPunkZydecoRockabilly eclectic]] American AlternativeRock band from Santa Cruz, California, whose output mixes elements of CountryMusic, {{Ska}}, PunkRock, and FolkMusic. They are best known for their 1986 single "Take the Skinheads Bowling." Their lead singer, David Lowery, would go on to form the band Cracker -- who would have a mainstream hit with "Low" -- in TheNineties.

* ChronologicalAlbumTitle: Sort of - their second album is titled ''II & III''