This event is 21 and over
$28.00 – General Admission
*plus applicable service fees
Tickets available at The Independent box office (628 Divisadero, SF) with no service charge.
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Cracker
Cracker has been described as a lot of things over the years: alt-rock, Americana, insurgent-country, and have even had the terms punk and classic-rock thrown at them. But more than anything Cracker are survivors. Cofounders David Lowery (also from Camper Van Beethoven) and Johnny Hickman have been at it for a quarter of a century – amassing 10 studio albums (including their most recent acclaimed double LP Berkeley To Bakersfield), multiple gold records, thousands of live performances, hit songs that are still in current radio rotation around the globe (“Low,” “Euro-Trash Girl,” “Get Off This,” “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out With Me” to name a few), and a worldwide fan base – that despite the major sea-changes within the music industry – continues to grow each year.
“Brian Wilson may have invented the rock & roll ideal of California, but David Lowery is doing more than his share to chronicle the way life is lived in his adopted home state in the 21st century. ‘Berkeley to Bakersfield’ is one of Cracker’s most ambitious and satisfying sets in quite some time, as good as anything they’ve given us since ‘Kerosene Hat’ in 1993.” – ALL MUSIC
“Cracker are still getting it done more than 20 years on.” – SPIN
“The Bible of current Americana. Surpasses ‘Kerosene Hat’ and ‘The Golden Age’… this double disc is their best work.” – EL PAÍS
Camper Van Beethoven
New Roman Times is Camper Van Beethoven’s first major recording project since the band quietly reunited in 2000 to share some live bills with Lowery’s popular post-Camper outfit Cracker. The resurgent combo’s performances were rapturously received by longtime fans and new admirers alike. But, rather than rushing to cash in, they chose to wait before recording a new album, instead releasing a pair of unconventional archival releases. Those discs—1999’s Camper Van Beethoven Is Dead, a collection of rarities and live tracks retooled into a suitelike sonic opus, and 2002’s Tusk, a distinctive song-for-song remake of the Fleetwood Mac album of the same title—functioned as a test runs for the reunited bandmates, allowing them to rekindle their collaborative rapport in a relatively low-key manner.
Camper Van Beethoven splintered after Key Lime Pie, but its members continued to pursue their unpredictable muses in a variety of worthy projects. Lowery has released five albums with Cracker and carved out a parallel career as producer, working with such notable acts as Sparklehorse and FSK. Segel has pursued a rewardingly idiosyncratic solo career, both under his own name and leading the bands Hieronymus Firebrain and Jack & Jill. Krummenacher, Lisher, Pederson and Immerglück formed the prog-rocking Monks of Doom, after which Krummenacher and Lisher launched productive solo recording careers on Segel and Krummenacher’s boutique label, Magnetic, while Immerglück emerged as an in-demand sideman with the likes of John Hiatt and Counting Crows.
Indeed, much has changed in the years that Camper Van Beethoven was dormant. The emergence of the internet, as well as the loosening of the major labels’ stranglehold on the marketplace, now allows the group to operate effectively on a grass-roots level rather than relying on corporate life support. “The bottlenecks that you used to have to overcome to reach your fans don’t really exist anymore,” Lowery says. “From the beginning, Camper’s thing has always been ‘We’re not gonna be popular, but we’re gonna try our best. We’re gonna turn over every rock, we’re gonna look in every nook and cranny, to find every person who shares our sensibility. It’s a lot easier to do that now.”