Yeah, yeah, I know it is not even nighttime, so I probably shouldn’t be posting a “What I’m Listening to Tonight” entry, but let’s face it: it is my office hours and I am stuck on campus, so I might as well be doing something productive. Rather than research or grading, I think my time could better be spent telling you all about how much I have been loving some Camper Van Beethoven lately and giving you a few tracks to listen to. This is what I have been listening to for the past several days — ever since my friend S. and I decided to put on an album of theirs on the way home from the local music show on Saturday.

I started listening to Camper Van Beethoven in high school and have loved them ever since. I like them oodles better than Cracker, by the way, for their sort of quiet-but-unabashed weirdness. Here are a few tracks from the album Camper Vantiquities, a rarities collection that has some truly wonderful songs not heard elsewhere, including the song my heart dedicates to my students each and every day, “(We Workers Do Not Understand Postmodern Art).” Here are my favorites (try to guess which one was my predictable angsty teenage anthem*):

Axe Murderer Song

I’m Not Like Everybody Else

Photograph

My favorite regular Camper Van album was always Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart, the title of which is a reference to Patty Hearst. Here’s the Hearst-related song plus two other favorites (the last one is the best of all):

Tania

Eye of Fatima, Pt. 1

She Divines Water

*Which was not, ironically, Cracker’s “Teen Angst.” Heh.