February 19, 2024
Victor Krummenacher announces fundraising for two forthcoming albums.
Victor Krummenacher has announced a fundraising drive to complete the following two project.
The first project, titled “If the Devil Gives Me House and Home” is a collection of archival and rare recordings dating from 1996 to 2006. My former studio partner, Chris Xefos, and I sifted through unfinished work recorded by my solo band, A Great Laugh, as well as several songs recorded at Magnetic, the studio we ran in San Francisco. Many of the songs on this release were later re-recorded for my third album, “Bittersweet.” Additionally, there are several songs that were released on compilation CDs, along with outtakes from the album “Cock Crows At Sunrise.”
The second project is called “Block Out The Sun” and it comprises new material that I began recording in late 2022. The project is fully recorded, and mixes are currently underway. The music on this album picks up where my previous album, “Silver Smoke of Dreams,” left off. Collaborating with Michael Jerome and Willie Aron from The Third Mind, as well as my longtime mix engineer Bruce Kaphan, we’ve recorded a group of songs with a wider sonic palette than I usually employ, incorporating various strings, keyboards, and virtual instruments. It’s a short, concise work featuring 8 songs, running just shy of 38 minutes in length. I firmly believe it showcases some of the best songwriting I’ve ever done, hinting at orchestral 60’s pop and folk, with an undercurrent of more contemporary electronic sounds percolating underneath. It’s definitely an evolution, made more special by the great contributions of Michael, Willie, and Bruce.
You can contribute to these projects here.
February 19, 2024
The Third Mind in Texas
Victor Krummenacher will be joining up with Dave Alvin, Jesse Sykes, Michael Jerome and Mark Karan to play three shows in Texas with The Third Mind in Houston (Feb. 29), Austin (March 2), and Dallas (March 3). The band’s west coast dates in January and early February were a rousing success, and these will be the last dates for some months. Tour dates can be found here.
July 21, 2021
Victor Krummenacher joins Portland’s Eyelids
Victor Krummenacher is a founding member of Camper Van Beethoven. Hailing from Riverside, CA, Victor grew up seeing punk rock shows in the greater Los Angeles area. After forming Camper Van Beethoven in the summer of 1983 in Redlands, CA, Victor and co-founder David Lowery re-established CVB in Santa Cruz, CA. Camper has had long, distinguished career over the last 38 years, sharing stages with everyone from REM to Built To Spill and enduring a break up and reformation. In addition to his time with Camper Van Beethoven, Victor has played with Monks of Doom with David Immerglück of Counting Crows, The Third Mind with Dave Alvin, experimental guitarist Eugene Chadbourne AND has released 10 solo albums, the latest of which, “Silver Smoke of Dreams” will be released on October 29.
Victor has worked as a bassist for Cracker, M. Ward, Eric “Roscoe” Ambel, and Magnet (among others). His latest endeavor has been to join up with Portland’s Eyelids. Says Victor: “They’re smart songwriters and good people. I’ve played a lot of what people call Americana now, music with folk, country and blues inflections, and Eyelids are distinctly different, more pop, but with lots of twists and edges. Variety for me is the spice of musical life, and I’m really enjoying the experience of slinging the 4-stringer for them.”
July 21, 2021
“Silver Smoke of Dreams” to be released on October 15, 2021 by Veritas Recordings
Victor Krummenacher’s 10th solo album, “Silver Smoke of Dreams,” has been completed and mastered by David Glasser at Airshow Mastering in Boulder, CO. It will be released by Veritas Recordings on October 15, 2021. The initial pressing will be CD only and limited to 500 numbered copies with a 20 page booklet and available exclusively at live shows, this website, and Bandcamp. Please check the store or Bandcamp to preorder. If you were so kind as to help fund the recording of this album, your copy will be mailed to you as soon as they’re back from manufacturing, now expected to be early September.
“Silver Smoke of Dreams” was written almost entirely during the first few months of lockdown. Barring the opening tune, “Confirmation Bias,” which was recorded in February of 2020 Hollywood Recorders in Los Angeles, the songs were recorded as they were being written. These recordings were then shared with the primary collaborators, drummer Michael Jerome and engineer and multi-instrumentalist Bruce Kaphan, where ideas were exchanged and refined. It was an entirely different approach to recording brought about by entirely unprecedented events and it yielded unanticipated and exciting results that sound unlike anything Victor has done before.
It’s an honest document of a difficult time and the collective state of being we all suddenly encountered last year. Victor and all of his collaborators are excited and proud of the results and grateful for the help they received to complete this recording. They look forward to sharing it with you this fall.
Look for live dates with Victor opening for Eyelids this fall. Check the SHOWS page for details.
March 1, 2019
“Blue Pacific”
VICTOR KRUMMENACHER (CAMPER VAN BEETHOVEN CO-FOUNDER) TO RELEASE HIS NEW SOLO ALBUM “BLUE PACIFIC” ON MARCH 1ST VIA VERITAS RECORDINGS
This spring Victor Krummenacher will be releasing his latest album, Blue Pacific. This will mark his ninth solo effort away from his two co-founding bands – the pioneering indie-rock group Camper Van Beethoven and the art-rock collective, Monks of Doom. The inception of this emotionally-charged project started nearly a year after his divorce, and, as it turns out, it’s one-part exorcism and one-part an effort to heal and put it all behind him.
“It was a really difficult album to make, some of the basics were recorded three times,” Krummenacher admits. “I went through two other drummers before settling on Michael Urbano. There was a lot of tension this time, and [co-producer] Bruce Kaphan seriously went all out to help make the best album we think we could do.”
Despite the fact this record was a direct result of so much pain, heartache and hurdles, musically it turns out to be one of Krummenacher’s most rewarding efforts of his lengthy career – be it solo, or with his other bands. “There was a lot of time put into this one,” the musician reveals, “and I don’t know if I can really do much better in as far as writing or recording. Between the emotional context and the difficulty in getting all the aspects of the recording taken care of, it was one of the hardest projects I’ve worked on.”
From beautifully reflective numbers such as “No One Left To Remember, No One Left To Tell,” “Skin & Bones” and “Nowhere Out There On The Line” to the sturdier, high-energy tracks like “The Prettiest Train,” “Some Time Ago,” “Lawrence in the Desert” and the infectious title track, this is an album that satisfies on so many levels. Throughout this sprawling effort, Krummenacher channels a number of the musicians and bands that have influenced him over the years, such as The Stones, The Dead, The E Street Band, Elvis Costello, The Flying Burrito Brothers and, perhaps more than any other, Pete Townshend. In fact, he admits, “There’s actually a lot of reference to Townshend on this album. He was the big hero when I was very young and first getting into music, and I think his expository writing affected me a lot more than I realized growing up.”
“These songs are more autobiographical and directly honest than anything I’ve done. I tried to leave enough ambiguity in them to keep them from being memoir specific, but most of the detail in here come from my experiences directly. It seemed like the more direct I was, the more resonant the songs became. My perspective is pretty odd at this point, when you do something this raw it’s hard to maintain one. But I know also it’s as good and focused as I can do, and that I got a lot of good musicians to help elevate these songs to a place I wasn’t sure they could reach.”
Victor Krummenacher’s Blue Pacific will be available March 1st on 2-LP vinyl on three sides (limited to 200 copies), CD, digital and streaming formats via Veritas Recordings.