Fleetwood Van Beethoven

This is old Camper Van Beethoven news, but (to follow up on Vitriolix's post about Camper/Cracker) they recently finished a bizarre project they had begun towards the beginning of their careers:

The last words we hear on Tusk, Camper Van Beethoven's new, song-for-song cover of Fleetwood Mac's semi-ambitious 1979 double album, are "This is a bad idea." While the chuckling band member who says this probably isn't referring to the project as a whole, it's safe to assume the band left that bit in as a winking acknowledgment that their Tusk is an odd little beast, as likely to frighten and bewilder those who listen as it is to please them.

We'll get to just why you should risk listening shortly. First, you're probably wondering why in the hell the band recorded the thing in the first place. The story goes like this: Sometime in 1986 or '87, the band retreated to a friend's cabin in the mountains to write songs for what would become their first LP on Virgin Records. But drummer Chris Pedersen broke his arm skiing, and the group got distracted when their friend, who apparently had a Lindsey Buckingham obsession, suggested they try recording Tusk note for note.

Now, if someone dared you to take a record that cost something like a million dollars to produce in state-of-the-art Los Angeles studios and try to re-create it over a weekend with your four-track, you would probably giggle and tell them to quit hogging the bong. This is why you are not in Camper Van Beethoven.