“Fathers, Sons And Brothers” (Cooking Vinyl Records)
By Eleni P. Austin
“The album spawned three more singles, none of them sounded like Grunge, but we were selling out theaters, it was timing and luck, and I should have got down on my knees and thanked the Lord, cause it don’t last long, enjoy it while you can, it don’t last long.”
That’s David Lowery, musing on the highs and lows that accompany a music career on “It Don’t Last Long,” a track from his new collection, Fathers, Sons And Brothers. It seems as though people have been urging David for several years to write an autobiography. Rather than write a carefully curated memoir, he has opted to create a song-cycle that tells his story and pays homage to his parents, sisters and extended family.
Born in San Antonio, Texas in 1960, David endured a peripatetic childhood. His dad was in the Air Force, so, the family moved around a bit, finally settling in Redlands, California. He spent his college years at UC Santa Cruz. It was there he began playing in bands like Sitting Ducks and Box O’ Laughs. He had more lasting success with Camper Van Beethoven, which included Anthony Guess, Victor Krummacher, Jonathan Segal and Greg Lisher. Paying their dues in the college town’s bars and clubs, they honed a sound that was a was a sharp synthesis of Folk Rock, World Music, Punk, Ska and Garage Rock. They scored a bona fide hit with their quirky “Take The Skinheads Bowling” song, garnering airplay on College Radio, Alternative stations and MTV. After a couple albums released via the Pitch-A-Tent label, they got a huge break when Indie Rock superstars, R.E.M. invited them to open for them on their Life’s Rich Pageant tour.
After they inked a deal with Virgin Records, they scored a couple left-of-the-dial hits with “Eye Of Fatima (Pt. 2)” and a scabrous cover of the Status Quo song, “Pictures Of Matchstick Men.” But CvB had already began to splinter and officially called it quits in 1990. Within a year, David had reconnected with his old Redlands pal, Johnny Hickman, once they recruited bassist Davey Farragher they formed Cracker. Although David’s trademark trenchant wit remained ever-present, Cracker’s sound was more Rootsy and muscular.
Their self-titled debut arrived in 1992, boasting irresistible singles like “Teen Angst (What The World Needs Now)” and “This Is Cracker Soul.” They followed up with Kerosene Hat, which was recorded in Pioneertown. It achieved real mainstream success with break-out singles like “Get Off This” and “Low,” as well as the hidden track, “Eurotrash Girl,” reaching platinum status.
Although Cracker never matched that feat again, the continued to release excellent efforts throughout the ‘90s and early aughts. The band took a hiatus and David joined forces with his former CvB compatriots, reactivating the Camper brand for a couple of compilations and a new record, 2004’s New Roman Times. A year later, he launched the first Camper/Cracker Campout Festival at Pappy & Harriet’s. Collaborating with Pappy & Harriet’s owners Robyn Celia and Linda Krantz, along with his girlfriend (now wife), Velena Vego, they curated a show that featured Cracker, CvB and assorted off-shoots, along with guests like John Doe, Neko Case, Built To Spill and Jessika Von Rabbit.
Something of a polymath, David has continued to juggle Camper and Cracker obligations, as well as produce artists like Counting Crows, Sparklehorse, Modern Skirts and Carbon Leaf, to name a few. He was part owner of the Sound Of Recording Studio in Richmond, Virginia. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in mathematics at Santa Cruz and later received a Doctor Of Education degree from the University Of Georgia where he is a lecturer and professor.
His solo debut, The Palace Guards, finally arrived in 2011. His next three, In The Shadow Of The Bull, Leaving Key Member Clause and Vending Machine have only been available digitally. Until now. Fathers, Sons And Brothers collect 28 tracks across a two-CD set and three LPs. The songs stitch together a rich narrative tapestry.
The first five tracks chart a course from childhood through early adolescence. Powered primarily by rippling back-porch banjo, weepy pedal steel, pensive piano and a kick-drum beat, “Frozen Sea” recalls his earliest memory of his father: “I go down to the kitchen, strange man in a uniform, he holds my mother’s hand, she kisses his cheek, my sisters all down his legs, hug and call him Pa, he reaches down and puts me in his arms, puts a silk ball cap on my head that says ‘Vietnam.’” The melody shares a bit of musical DNA with Bob Dylan’s “Love Minus Zero/No Limit.”
“Plaza De Toros” wraps shaggy acoustic guitars around stream-of-conscious vignettes of childhood and attending his first bullfight when the family was stationed in Spain. Meanwhile, on “Super Bloom,” finger-picked acoustic riffs hug the hairpin turns of the melody. The lyrics paint a vivid portrait of cousinly misadventure when David spends a week in Indio with some covertly rebellious relatives: “The twins stole a car, and they took me with to watch them burn it by the aqueduct, then they robbed the neighbor’s house, I was frightened, ran away, never told my grandfather what they’d done.”
Then there’s “How Does Your Sister Roller skate,” which weds sprawling piano and swoopy strings, thrumming bass and shivery guitars to a thunking beat. Lyrics offer a lesson in the casual cruelty of children: “It was a less enlightened time, and she was harassed all the time, they called her retard and spastic to her face, and they were generally cruel and unkind, me and my sisters tried to defend her, but nothing really changed, until my neighbor Victor broke somebody’s nose.”
Finally, the bare-bones “Disneyland Jail” finds David reminiscing about his own misspent youth, and hoping his own kids will steer clear of teenage temptation: “We all ate the mushrooms in the Disneyland parking lot. Dale had a puffy down jacket, put the vodka up one sleeve, he looked like a body builder, but only on one side, so we rolled up a t-shirt, stuck it up the other sleeve/Never take mushrooms and ride Space Mountain, you just might end up in the Disneyland jail, never drink vodka, pass out on the monorail, you might end up in the Disneyland jail.” Reflecting on his own sons’ adolescent rites of passage, he hopes “oh God, please don’t do the shit I did, stay in the chess club, run for student council, keep playing the clarinet in the marching band.”
The next trio of tracks chronicle coming of age and his first taste of success. On “Mom I’m Living The Life,” the fledgling has left the nest. Chunky acoustic guitar chords cloak almost-epistolary lyrics that find our hero navigating college life in Santa Cruz and gaining some independence: “I had a band, it was a joke, then it was not, we got some real gigs in San Francisco, went next door to the old grocery store, bought some refried beans and some fresh tortillas, heated them up on the flame of the stove, whispered ‘Mom, I’m living the life.’”
“I Wrote A Song Called Take The Skinheads Bowling” offers up a pocket history of writing a hit song. Vroom-y guitars connect with brisk bass lines and a percolating drum machine. This winsome number capture that moment when mundanity sparks creativity: “I was working at a liquor store in San Bernadino, summer of 1983, he liquor store got robbed while I was stocking up the cooler, took a 40 home and I wrote a song, I wrote a song called ‘Take The Skinheads Bowling’….it’s a song that didn’t mean nothing, it’s a song that put me on a different trajectory.” More importantly, the song shines the spotlight on the co-founder of CVB, David McDaniel who had “a calling from God and quit the band, he went on missions all around the world, while I toured around meeting girls who liked the song called ‘Take The Skinheads Bowling’… sadly, you’ve never heard of him and you’ve barely heard of me.”
Probably the prettiest and most poignant song on the record is “Mexican Chickens.” Loping guitars, swoony pedal steel and flinty bass lines are tethered to cantering gait. Feathery backing vocals from Megan Slankard add some distaff energy. Lyrics offer up a nuanced narrative wherein true love is eclipsed by immaturity and ambition: “…I loved her from the first time I laid my eyes upon her, got a little house, drove a truck played in a band, got some Mexican chickens and we raised them on our land, talked of having little girls, they’d have their mother’s little curls, it was more than just a dream, yeah one day they’d be real.” Of course, priorities shift: “I was foolish, I was selfish…I knew that she was better off without me, I saw their faces in her hair, but now it was clear, I would never be their father/Put on my coat and hat, slid the deadbolt in the hasp, took one last look back at her, I stepped across the threshold.”
Bitterness, regret and relentless hedonism inform the next few songs. On the banjo-riffic Bluegrass stomp of “Europass” he promises “If I make it out the other side, I will be a cult leader, you will be my number one acolyte, if I make it out, though it’s totally unclear that I will ever get my shit together, if I make it out the other side, you will be and I will be your faithful servant, if I make it out, Promise if I make it out the other side.” At this point, Camper Van Beethoven was coming apart at the seams.
If Don Rickles ever wrote an Appalachian ballad with xenophobic intent, it might sound like the woozy see-saw of “We Hate You.” Conversely, “Everybody Get A Fucking Day Job” is a Flamenco-flavored diatribe steeped in self-loathing.
And then there’s “Leaving Key Member Clause.” Swathed in honeyed guitars, Honky-Tonk keys, lowing bass and keening pedal steel, David offers a scathing take on the mendacious music biz: “I could barely get by on my Bug mechanical royalties, but record company parties kept us fed and drunk, there were local local girl flirtations in the Hollywood Dive Bars, the record company contract ‘Leaving Key Member’ clause, It’s a wonder we got anything done at all.”
He circles back toward family for the last couple of songs that close out the first CD. “Battle Of Leros” is a ragged sea shanty that finds him in the midst of an existential crisis, but gifted with an opportunity to get to know his maternal grandfather. Megan Slankard provides backing vocals, keys and a bit of whistin,’ and David handles guitars, bass and drum machine, as they sing Grandfather’s praises: “You’re always so sunny Grandad, didn’t sink you at Leros, leave you swimming with the fishes at the bottom of the sea, you’re still sunny Grandad, cause the Krauts didn’t get leave you swimming with the fishes at the bottom of the sea.”
Something of a dirge, “Piney Woods” unfolds as jangly guitars crisscross lachrymose violin and high-lonesome pedal steel. What begins as a road trip from California to Virginia, winds up a story of generational trauma, when they stop to spend time with David’s paternal grandmother in Arkansas. A mystery always shrouded the death of his father’s brother, here, she tells him the truth: “My oldest son was murdered in these fields…they took off in a small plane and circled our fields, he pointed the plane downward, it crashed into the ground, as William was dying his little brother looked on, that’s what your father carries, it’s inside of you too/The dark malaise that comes to you on a bright and sunny day, this feeling that something bad might happen any time, and it is a family wound, cuts across three generations son, you carry it inside you son, just like your father does.” The song is stark and sadly beautiful.
The second half of this collection begins with his new life in Richmond Hill. The Oregon Hill neighborhood where he first settled, gets a shout-out on the opening in the Folksy ramble of “Let It Roll Down That Hill.” The next few tracks introduce David’s “future ex-wife” and indulge in a bit of well-deserved domesticity.
Sun-dappled acoustic guitars lattice a bit of down-home whistling and sylvan violin on “Pretty Girl.” Lyrics find the couple navigating life in the “opulent poverty” of their neighborhood. A lesson in hubris is delivered on a silver-platter with the aforementioned “it Don’t Last Long.” South-Of-The Border guitars tentacle thready bass lines, as Cracker gets a shot at the big time and the band feel invincible: “And I was getting way too cocky, there was some bad behavior, but it didn’t really cost me, selling 5k a week, but then I taught the audience to sing the record company president’s direct line phone number, we were dropped in just a week.”
Conjugal bliss continues on both “Fat Little Babies” and “Mark Loved Dogs And Babies.” The former is a courtly Norteno propelled by sylphlike guitars, spidery bass and sepia-tone strings. Equivocal lyrics play devil’s advocate, offering up the pros and cons of procreation: “Fat little babies riding on a cosmic chariot, fat little babies trip the light fantastic, fat little babies won’t fix everything between you and me, fat little babies, the mystery of the universe.”
The latter is a cracked Country waltz that blends meandering fiddles, rippling acoustic guitars, sinewy bass and a tambourine shake. Lyrics pay homage to the menagerie of stray dogs and cats David and Mary rescued during their time together, and more tenderly, offer a sweet benediction to Sparklehorse front-man Mark Linkous, who died by suicide in 2010: “Mark loved dogs and babies, and came to visit my day-old son, he took a big sniff of his head and said ‘I love that smell’, Mark loved dogs and babies and may have had a happier life, if he and his wife could had little babies of their own, or maybe not.”
David turns a page with both “Sunrise In The Land Of Milk And Honey” and “Vending Machine.” Of course, “Sunrise…” originally appeared on Cracker’s 2009 album of the same name. Ditching the rollicking groove of the original, this solo version remains equally ambitious as a peppery horn fanfare and a shivery string arrangement supplants hard-charging guitars. At first, he cheekily declares “If you wanna live, let’s live together, in boas and feathers, in Weimar decadence” (referencing the wanton German debauchery that presaged the rise of Hitler). Lyrics like “dying is easy, it’s living that’s hard,” seem to yearn for something more substantial. Magnificently dark and moody, it winds down efficiently, folding into “Vending Machine.”
Anchored by sugary acoustic guitars and tough-minded bass lines, the arrangement is spare and bare-bones. Following an indulgent night of humbling self-destruction, David is at an emotional crossroads: “I passed out underneath the desk of the of the publisher of SPIN magazine, it was the last night of the Modest Mouse/Camper Van Beethoven tour, I said I didn’t want to live this way anymore, walked down the alley and I knocked on the door.” This starts him on a path toward sobriety: “I do the work, I read the book, I volunteer each week, I focus on keeping clean my side of the street, but not that it matters, this is a historically black AA room, I am accepted, I am extended grace, this blows me away.” It’s a deeply personal journey.
The title-track is a full-throttle collaboration between David and Riverside’s own Soul/Punk Rockers, The BellRays. This one nearly veers into Rock Opera territory as gritty guitars, fluttery strings and celestial organ coalesces around angular bass and a rock-steady beat. A few deftly turned phrases advocate for compassion : “Help me reach across, help me hear the signal in the noise, help me put aside all my pettiness and ego, every man is someone’s father, brother or son.” Spooky keys and a skittering guitar solo swirl on the break, and The BellRays add a bit of Gospel heft to this churlish rejoinder: “Live like this, you will be infinitely less of an asshole.” That’s a direct quote from the Good Book, right?
The next trifecta of tracks deal with mortality, marital strife, music industry woes and coming to terms with parenthood. “Yonder Distant Shore” is something of a restless farewell to his parents, fueled by a plaintive whistle and ringing acoustic guitar. His father paves the way for his mother: “I was away in a Spanish town when the ferryman returned, he took away my father, left my mother at the church, my mother, she was lonely, she slowly slipped away/Her memories fled across the sea to yonder distant shore, then returned the ferryman, he promised her life returned, to take her to my father in his Army uniform.”
On “Darken My Door,” sparkly guitars sweetly orbit a willowy melody as the dissolution of his first marriage quietly coincides with a series of paradigm shifts in the music biz. “Giving Father Tree,” is a tender paternal apologia (sans the maudlin “Cat’s In The Cradle” component), with a nod to Shel Silverstein’s classic children’s book, The Giving Tree.
The last songs to close out the collection includes “Art Basel,” which matches Grand Ol Opry strings and plangent guitars to a stompy handclap beat. David is simply the fly on the wall of a giant corporate rat-fuck. The solo splendor of “Every Time I Try To Get Out” finds him attempting to renounce making music only to realize his complicated love and obsession with music keeps him from completely breaking free. The record finishes with a sweet encomium to his wife Velena Vego. This skippy little number reveals a love-besotted David quietly insisting “If you haven’t heard it, and you’ve come to doubt it, don’t you know you are still beautiful, if you don’t know it, and you don’t feel it, don’t you know you are still beautiful.” It’s a uncharacteristically mushy finish to a roller coaster ride of a record.
Yeah, Fathers. Sons And Brothers is a potent collection of tracks. Candid, funny, touching and slightly cynical, it’s a window into David Lowery’s soul. But it’s only whet my appetite for a full-fledged autobiography. C’mon David, get on it.
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Pappy & Harriet’s Presents Campout: 20th Anniversary featuring Cracker // Camper Van Beethoven // The Third Mind // Jessika Von Rabbit + Special Guests Thursday Through Saturday. September 11, 12, 13, 2025. Indoor/Outdoor Shows. Thursday Doors: 7:30pm, Show: 9:00Pm Friday & Saturday Doors: 5:00pm Show: 7:30pm. 53688 Pioneertown Road, Pioneertown. pappyandharriets.com.
