Tag Archives: Cracker

PIONEERTOWN: Cracker/Camper Van Beethoven Campout hosts familiar faces

Katey Sagal and Davey Faragher perform with The Forest Rangers at the 2013 Stagecoach Country Music Festival. Faragher, a Redlands native, will perform with his band Jack… at the Cracker/Camper Van Beethoven Campout this weekend. (Vanessa Franko/Staff Photo)

The ninth annual Cracker/Camper Van Beethoven Campout at Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace this weekend is not only a celebration of the two bands, but the entire Cracker/Camper family, with many tentacles reaching to the Inland Empire.

In addition to members of both bands growing up in the area, many of the other performers have Inland ties as well, including The Dangers and country rock band Jack…, which includes former Cracker member Davey Faragher, who grew up in Redlands.

Jack … will perform Saturday, Sept. 14.

Faragher’s musical experience spans decades and dozens of musicians. Among the artists Faragher has worked with in the studio are Buddy Guy, Dusty Springfield and Sheryl Crow.

He’s also been part of the band that does the music for popular show “Sons of Anarchy,” and that outfit, The Forest Rangers, had a warm reception at the Stagecoach Country Music Festival in the spring.

“I grew up in a musical family so I don’t have a memory that isn’t musical,” Faragher said in an interview at the Stagecoach. “My older brothers had bands in the living room for as long as I can remember and I just grew into that.”

The siblings had their own band, The Faragher Brothers, and released a few albums.

Then, as Faragher worked as a session musician, he met the members of Camper Van Beethoven when he was doing background vocals for them. Lead singer David Lowery is also from Redlands.

“I met them in Los Angeles. I didn’t even meet them in Redlands,” Faragher said, laughing.

Davey Faragher performs at the 2013 Stagecoach Country Music Festival. (Vanessa Franko/Staff Photo)

As Camper dissolved, Cracker began with Lowery and another Redlands native, Johnny Hickman, in Virginia. Faragher also joined the group for the first two albums, including the massively popular “Kerosene Hat,” which led Cracker help define alternative music.

After leaving Cracker, Faragher went on to work with other artists before ending up in Elvis Costello’s group The Imposters 12 years ago.

“He’s great. I’ve never met anyone who is as enthusiastic about music. He lives and breathes it all the time. It’s hard to keep up. He’s a force of nature,” Faragher said.

His fellow members in Jack… are Pete Thomas and Val McCallum, are also fellow Imposters. They each take on fake names for the country rock group, too.

Tonight’s lineup includes the Hickman-Dalton Gang, Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers and Cracker Duo.

Friday’s lineup for the Campout includes Gram Rabbit and Cracker Van Beethoven on the outdoor stage and The Dangers, Chris Shiflett & the Dead Peasants and the Victor Krummenacher Band indoors.

Saturday’s lineup includes Jack… and Cracker on the outdoor stage and Jonathan Segel, Leland Sundries and Frank Funaro on the indoor stage.

Cracker/Camper Van Beethoven Campout, 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace, 53688 Pioneertown Road, Pioneertown, $27 for single-day passes.

Visit www.pitchatent.com and www.pappyandharriets.com for more information.

PIONEERTOWN: Cracker, Camper Van Beethoven celebrate ninth Campout

Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker will return to Pappy & Harriet’s for their 9th annual campout. (Jason Thrasher/Contributed Image)

One of the annual events that has become the stuff of legend at Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace every September is the Cracker/Camper Van Beethoven Campout.

The weekend of shows, which will celebrate its ninth year Sept. 12 through 14, started out as a birthday celebration for birthdays of former Redlands residents Johnny Hickman, guitarist for Cracker, and David Lowery, frontman for Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven.

Every year there are side projects and surprises from the members of the band, as well as some of their longtime friends they grew up and played with in the Inland Empire, including one of my favorites, The Dangers, and the project of another Redlands native, Davey Faragher.

Here’s the tentative lineup:
Thursday, Sept. 12
Hickman-Dalton Gang
Roger Clyne and the Peace Makers
Cracker Duo

Friday, Sept. 13
Camper Van Beethoven
Gram Rabbit
The Dangers
Victor Krummenacher Band

Saturday, Sept. 14
Cracker
Jack[expletive] (Davey Faragher’s country ensemble that I can’t post the name of because I value having a job.)
Leland Sundries
Jonathan Segel

A three-day pass is $68 and is available via the Pitch-A-Tent online store as well as on site at Pappy & Harriet’s. The show is all ages and kids 12 and younger get in for free.

CVB is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. Member Victor Krummenacher is a Riverside native, too. The band released its first album in nearly a decade, “La Costa Perdida,” in January.

Fun fact: Lowery is a lecturer at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business.
Another fun fact: Both bands are part of a forthcoming documentary, “Get Off This – The story behind Cracker & Camper Van Beethoven”

Check out a trailer for the documentary, with some sightings of Redlands AND Pioneertown!

AUDIO FILES: Listen to The Unforgiven

The Unforgiven in their 1980s heyday. (Contributed Image)

The Unforgiven was from the Inland Empire, merging Spaghetti Westerns with arena rock. And I’ve had the band’s music stuck in my head for days.

They reunited (sadly, without the great Johnny Hickman) at the 2012 Stagecoach Country Music Festival. They were fantastic there.

The Unforgiven performs at the 2012 Stagecoach Country Music Festival. (Vanessa Franko/Staff Photo)

Here’s a story I did on the band before that Stagecoach return. I couldn’t find the link since we’ve changed the website around, so here’s what originally ran on April 27, 2012, by yours truly. I’m sprinkling in the videos, too.

The Unforgiven rides again
BY VANESSA FRANKO
STAFF WRITER

The Unforgiven’s story is the epitome of the parable of the music business, with a plot line as strong as the Spaghetti Westerns that inspired the image of the Inland Empire-based roots rock band.

The legend of The Unforgiven starts nearly 30 years ago, long before there was a Clint Eastwood film or a Metallica song by the same name.

The short version goes a little something like this: friends start a band after taking a film course, band builds huge buzz in the European press before ever playing a show, band is at the center of a bidding war among major labels in the heyday of big music in the U.S., band makes a video for MTV hit “I Hear the Call” that actually looks like a Spaghetti Western with a power pop soundtrack, band’s lone album flops, band gets wild, members quit and by 1988 The Unforgiven is no more.

“We were unmanageable at the time,” lead singer/songwriter Steve “John Henry” Jones said in a telephone interview last week.

But, on Sunday, under the blazing sun and amid the dusty winds of Indio, the scene is set for The Unforgiven’s next act at the sold-out Stagecoach Country Music Festival, a reunion spearheaded by Paul Tollett, head of festival producer Goldenvoice.

Tollett, who was a student at Cal Poly Pomona the same time as Jones in the 1980s, had booked the band in its early years and approached drummer Alan Waddington in 2010 about reuniting the band for the 2011 festival.

“I didn’t see it happening,” Jones said. “I’m in my third career as a TV producer.”

Jones found a second career was in the business side of music and now Jones is the producer of the reality show “Turbine Cowboys” on The Weather Channel.

Likewise, the band’s other members were working on various things. Waddington teaches at Citrus College, bassist Mike Finn and guitarist Mike Jones are teachers with the Los Angeles Unified School District and guitarist Jay Lansford lives in Hanover, Germany, where he works in the music business as an A&R man and still plays in the punk scene.

Growing up, Steve Jones, Mike Jones and Finn were all lifeguards together in Corona, and Steve Jones and Lansford were in seminal Inland punk band The Stepmothers together.

Additionally, original Unforgiven member and Redlands native Johnny Hickman, who won’t be out for the reunion show, is a member of the band Cracker.

Another former member is in poor health and one couldn’t be found.

When the band split up, there was some bad blood among the members, but after the initial reunion proposal, Waddington continued to work on getting everyone back together.

Mike Jones, Finn and Waddington have played throughout the Inland region in the band The Hickmen as well as at the annual Cracker/Camper Van Beethoven Campout.

Waddington’s persistence is what made the reunion happen.

“Alan kept at it. He is the great Gandhi in this group,” Jones said.

One of Jones’ concerns was that he hadn’t played live and wasn’t up for it and there was a lot of healing that needed to be done.

“For me, the moment was when I got back in the room with the guys,” he said.

“I was a very tough guy to be in a band with,” Jones admitted.

The legacy and the music of the band has lived on, influencing others and still talked about and remembered in the Inland music scene. The Unforgiven inspired racks at Hollywood vintage stores filled with bolo ties, long leather jackets and wide-brimmed hats.

“We went out and forged our own way,” Lansford said.

The Unforgiven performs at the 2012 Stagecoach Country Music Festival. (Vanessa Franko/Staff Photo)

Fans who catch the band Sunday can look forward to the old songs off the lone album, as well as a few surprises.

“We have been writing new songs and we will be playing a couple of new things,” Jones said.

Visit www.roverpack.com for more on the band.

Here are a few other links about the band’s Stagecoach performance from the show itself:

STAGECOACH 2012: The Unforgiven reunites in rock
STAGECOACH 2012: The Unforgiven’s star treatment