Telephone Free Landslide Victory
| Telephone Free Landslide Victory | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Camper Van Beethoven | ||||
| Released | 1985 | |||
| Recorded | January–February 1985 | |||
| Studio | Sámurai Sound, Davis, California | |||
| Genre | Alternative rock, jangle pop | |||
| Length | 39:37 | |||
| Label | I.R.S. | |||
| Camper Van Beethoven chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| Rolling Stone |  |
| Robert Christgau | (A-) |
Telephone Free Landslide Victory is a 1985 album by musical group Camper Van Beethoven, released on Independent Projects. It featured the band's best known song, "Take the Skinheads Bowling". The album has sold well over 60,000 copies.
The band's lineup at the time of recording was David Lowery (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Jonathan Segel (violin, keyboards, guitar, backing vocals), Chris Molla (guitar, backing vocals), Victor Krummenacher (bass, backing vocals), and Anthony Guess (drums). The album is the only Camper Van Beethoven record not to feature guitarist Greg Lisher. Lisher is actually listed in the album credits as a band member, but he did not join the band until after the album was recorded.
Musically, the album is a combination of songs and instrumentals. The former are simple garage tunes, with a folk-punk sound and absurdist lyrics, often simultaneously mocking and affectionately celebrating aspects of 1980s underground counterculture, with references to punks, skinheads, surfers, skaters and hippies. These songs are comparable to other humorous 1980s underground bands like The Violent Femmes, The Dead Milkmen and The Young Fresh Fellows. The instrumentals, however, are completely different: they combine ethnic melodies (often Eastern Europe, Mexican or spaghetti Western) played on Segel's violin and Molla's guitar, with ska beats supplied by Guess, Lowery and Krummenacher. The alternation between the instrumentals and songs creates an almost split personality that is one of the most unusual aspects of the record. Later versions of the band would integrate the ethnic influences with the actual songs, but here they are quite separate. The one thing that the two song-types have in common is that they are both quite droll, leading to the band being inaccurately typecast as a novelty group.
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