#76 Camper Van Beethoven and the Border Patrol-The Day Lassie Went to The Moon. 


Very early Camper Van Beethoven. From Left to Right. David Lowery, Mike Zorn, David McDaniel and Boris Yeltsin.

02 The Day That Lassie Went To The Moon

Camper Van Beethoven was originally called Camper Van Beethoven and the Border Patrol. We shortened it after about 9 months. Nobody was listing the full name of the band anyway. There are only two or three posters that I’ve ever seen that show the full name of the band. But this was the original name of the band.

The band name was the brainchild of David…

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#75 KQED’s The California Report on Big Dipper 

Giant Dipper. The Roller Coaster of Love.

03 Big Dipper Click here to play big dipper.

This is an interview I did with KQED for The California Report. As part of their California Songs series they ask me about Big Dipper. So todays blog is simply the audio recording of that interview.

http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201107151630/d

Look for the full or extended interview file.

Gabriel Coan/KQED David Lowery

The wooden roller coaster on the Santa Cruz boardwalk is a magnet for families,

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#74 Hits are Black Swans-Take the Skinheads Bowling 

The Black Swan Theory or Theory of Black Swan Events is a metaphor that encapsulates the concept that The event is a surprise (to the observer) and has a major impact. After the fact, the event is rationalized by hindsight.- wikipedia.

12 Take The Skinheads Bowling (click to play)


I’ve mentioned this before. Success in the music business is completely unpredictable. No one can really predict which artists will end up being successful. No one can really predict which song or album will be a hit. And a…

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#73 South California Revisited – St. Cajetan. 

South California as proposed by secessionists.

05 St. Cajetan

I was browsing the web last night and came across this NY Times article about the Inland Empire and 10 other counties wanting to secede from the state of California. The idea is to form their own state called South California. Not to be confused with the Mexican states of Baja California Norte and Baja California Sur (Lower California North and Lower California South). If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile you already know about the…

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#72- Marigold- A small fragment of a much longer story. 

Did I dream this?

Listen to Marigold. 07 Marigold

I awoke from a strange dream just before dawn. It was Nov 3rd 2005. I know this because I wrote the dream down in much detail using my laptop. I can see the date the file was created.

I wrote it down cause it seemed like my subconscious had been processing something. My head or rather my brain seemed like it had been churning a vast multi axis array of data all night. My head felt hot. And i was hungry and exhausted. Because of this I thought it…

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#71 The Palace Guards- A Superhero In Need of a Restraining Order. 

Listen to 02 The Palace Guards

I am totally hijacking the 300 songs blog for a few days to blatantly promote my new album solo album The Palace Guards.

It comes out Feb 1st 2011 and you can buy the CD here from:

click here for Amazon

download from itunes click here

I was driving around in my car listening to the reference master of my new CD The Palace Guards. I like to listen in my car because it’s a good to hear how your albums sound outside of a studio or on something other than a high end set of…

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#70 I Sold the Arabs the Moon- When we fly we all become philosophers. 


06 I Sold The Arabs The Moon

First of all let me openly acknowledge I am hijacking my blog for a few days to talk about the songs on my upcoming solo album The Palace Guards. Available everywhere Feb 1st.
And I know I have a lot of competition this week. It looks like a number of my peers are releasing records. So let’s quickly review them.
First off Iron and Wine has a new album out. Kiss Each Other Clean. I am told it is a 45 minute field recording of Sam Beam humming The Theme to a Man And a…

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#69 Deep Oblivion- A Victorian Love Song. 

The Doubtful Guest. By Edward Gorey. Eventually I’ll get around to explaining what this has to do with the song.

Pre-order autographed copy of this CD from Newbury Comics. click here.

Deep Oblivion is a track from my first solo album The Palace Guards (Feb 1st 2011). I originally started this solo project in a deep depression about the viability of making albums. By this I mean the rampant illegal downloading of songs had not just reduced CD and Album sales but had eliminated much of the…

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# 68 The Long Plastic Hallway-Playing on a Flying Saucer with The Talking Heads. 

 



12 The Long Plastic Hallway

“The music business is cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway, where thieves and pimps run free, where good men die like dogs. And then there is a negative side.”-attributed to Hunter S. Thompson

There is actually a debate as to whether Hunter S. Thompson said this or not. I suppose because there are variants that are similar attributed to other people. Really? It sounds so much like the guy it has to be Hunter S. Thompson.

Part of this post is a story you…

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#67-Turquoise Jewelry- Grace Slick Where Art Thou? 

 

07 Turquoise Jewelry

come down from that condominium treehouse

stop driving around in that station wagon with the wood on the side

take off that jumpsuit you look like grace slick

staying up all night drinking that 7-11 coffee

Funny story about this song. It was all pretty much based on the alleged sighting of Grace Slick (Jefferson Airplane) at a 7/11 in the north bay of SF. Sausalito? Mill Valley? I’m not really clear. I’m not even sure who told me about it. Paul MacKinney (my old college…

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