#17 It Don't Last Long
I came out of oblivion
With two hit MTV songs
So Jackson quit his day job
Process serving Michael Milken
I bought a house out in the country
With my publishing advance
Jeff Ayeroff said
See I knew you’d write a hit by accident
Stream or order this album here.
This song covers the 12 years Cracker spent with Virgin Records under a major label deal. It begins by referencing the fact that our first record was immediately played on the radio—in fact, MTV started airing “Teen Angst” a couple of weeks before the album even came out, which is rare for a new band. That kind of thing happens all the time for big acts, but not for newcomers. But let’s back up a minute.
The last you heard from me, I was cutting demos and struggling to get the label to let us into the studio to record our album. Eventually that happened and we managed to record an album in a fairly efficient six weeks. But before that, between submitting our demos and starting the album, there was a lot of time being flat broke—all of us, including our manager, Jackson Haring. When Camper Van Beethoven broke up, Jackson also lost his main source of income and went back to process serving, which he’d done before becoming a rock band manager.
What is a process server? Ever been served court documents, subpoenaed, or issued a summons? If it wasn’t a sheriff, it was probably a private process server—a professional whose main job is delivering legal documents.
Since Jackson had to work, and this was before everyone had a mobile phone, I would sometimes ride along with him to discuss band business. One day, I joined him while he was staking out the back entrance of a Beverly Hills office building. He was trying to serve some poor schmuck who may or may not have been Michael Milken—the man who later became known as the junk bond king—who had so far managed to avoid being served. Jackson suspected the target was using the freight elevator to slip in and out unnoticed. That day, Jackson’s intuition paid off: as the man was boarding the freight elevator, Jackson managed to toss the documents to him.
It was pretty exciting—it felt like a small victory for me as well. That moment seemed to signal good fortune on the horizon. Shortly afterward, we got the go-ahead to record the new album, our choice of engineer/producer Don Smith was approved, and, most importantly, we received the first installment of the recording advance. It wasn’t a lot of money but we were no longer broke.
Recording the album was fairly uneventful—well, except for getting the legendary musicians Jim Keltner and Benmont Tench to play on a couple of tracks. Keltner played on “Mr. Wrong” and “Happy Birthday,” while Tench played on “I See the Light” and “Mr. Wrong.” Those days were pretty amazing, but otherwise, it was standard Hollywood fare—not quite assembly line, but fast. We didn’t have much of a budget. As the Van Halen song says: “Ain’t got no time to mess around.”
The most interesting part of the whole project was mixing the record and finishing overdubs at a studio in Chatsworth, way out in the valley. Chatsworth might not ring any bells for most people, but at the time, it was the Hollywood of the porn industry, sometimes called Porn Valley. The studio was in an industrial park surrounded by cabinet makers, sheet metal fabricators, and plumbing companies, but also video production companies with unusual names like Velvet Vixen Films or Eros Productions (I’m making those up—apologies if they’re real). When the taco truck showed up for lunch, we played a little game to guess which customers were adult film actors. Oddly, the men were easier to spot than the women. We’d test our hunches by sending the assistant engineer or studio gofer to follow them and see which building they returned to.
“Damn, I thought for sure I was right, he really didn't look like a sheet metal fabricator.”
When the record came out, the label sent us to San Francisco for a radio programmer convention—I think it was called the Gavin Convention. On the first day, we were thrilled to learn that “Teen Angst” had been played for a panel of programmers in a blind test, and several remarked, “I’d put that in heavy rotation right now.” One of those programmers was from MTV. This happened right at the start of the convention, instantly inflating our egos. Therefore we proceeded to make spectacles of ourselves for the rest of the event: our newfound mischievous rock star swagger had us crashing private parties and stage-diving during Spinal Tap’s closing performance for an audience of seated radio programmers.
Just before the convention, an A&R person from Warner-Chappell Music Publishing offered me a songwriter publishing deal. Publishing deals are like record deals, but for songwriters—many performer-songwriters have both. Even though I was the main songwriter, many songs on the first record were co-written, so it felt odd for just me to have the deal. I had them modify it to include Davey Faragher and Hickman. Warner-Chappell was happy to oblige, since it meant they’d have an interest in all the songs on the record not just mine. But on signing day, Hickman was nowhere to be found. He apparently had reservations and felt slighted, maybe because the deal was originally offered only to me—I never really figured it out. We tracked him down at a laundromat in Hollywood, and Davey Faragher convinced him to come to the attorney’s office with us. By the time the Gavin Convention happened, this was all forgotten, and we all had cash in our pockets, which probably only added to our obnoxious over confidence and cockiness.
A few years earlier, I’d had a brief conversation with Jeff Ayeroff, president of Virgin Records America. I wanted to convince him that Camper Van Beethoven was working hard to create songs that would connect with the public. I may or may not have had a working theory—after all, young artists often think they have special insight into consumer tastes and develop elaborate theories about making hit records. He wasn’t exactly annoyed, but he didn’t want to hear my theories; instead, he cut me off with a warm smile and said, “Just write and record a bunch of songs. You’ll accidentally write a hit.” And that’s exactly what happened. “Teen Angst” was written quickly—like “Skinheads,” I bashed it out in an hour. Hickman added his guitar hook when we demoed it. If any song was an accidental hit, this was it.
The second album
We recorded it out in Pioneertown
We tried to rent Frank Sinatra’s house
But the realtor shut us down
The album spawned three more singles
None of them sounded like grunge
But we were selling out theaters
It’s timing and it’s luck
The second album was different. We had a bigger budget, and producer Don Smith suggested we do a residency—rent a house in the mountains or a poolside manor in Palm Springs. One day, he picked up me, Johnny, and our manager Jackson in his Chevy Suburban, and we drove around looking at places in the San Bernardino Mountains, Idyllwild, and Palm Springs/Palm Desert. The first place we saw was an old speakeasy in Lake Arrowhead, once operated by gangster Bugsy Siegel—I think it’s called The Tudor House now. There’s an interesting story there but maybe for another time.
Next, we saw Frank Sinatra’s place in Rancho Mirage, a simpler, more rustic spread compared to his famous Palm Springs estate. It had a surprisingly small main house, a pool house/guest house, a movie theater, and remnants of a helicopter pad built for JFK. Sinatra called it The Compound, and ever since, I’ve been searching for a compound for my band. I have this theory that both my bands would have been more popular if we’d had a compound—especially Camper Van Beethoven, which seems like the kind of band that would’ve had one but didn’t. We violated some secret law of the universe, so our career was throttled or shadow-banned by unseen forces. But I digress. When the realtor stepped out briefly, Johnny leapt onto the bed in the master bedroom and said, “Frank and Ava” He was referring to Ava Gardner, but that was actually Sinatra’s Palm Springs house. This was his “breakup” swinging bachelor pad. When the realtor returned, she was now suspicious, she asked what we wanted the house for. When we explained we wanted to record an album, she shut us down and ended the tour.
We looked at a few more places before calling it a day. Jackson suggested we head up to Pioneertown in the high desert for a steak at Pappy and Harriet’s—a legendary roadhouse and live music venue. Though it’s now a fixture on the national touring circuit thanks to Robyn Celia and Linda Krantz, who bought the place in 2003, back in 1993 it was essentially a biker bar known for its serious mesquite grill.
As we ate, Don Smith turned to us and said, “Why don’t we record here? This place has a vibe!” When Harriet walked by, he asked, “Ma’am, is there any way we could record an album here? I’d bring in a mobile truck.” Harriet replied, “You can’t record in here, but what’s wrong with The Sound Stage?” Don surprised “Sound stage?”
Pioneertown, California, was founded in 1946 by a group of Hollywood investors—including Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, and Russell Hayden—as a unique 1880s-themed live-in movie set, designed to serve as both a filming location and a functioning community. Unlike typical Hollywood facades, Pioneertown’s buildings were fully constructed to house real businesses and residences, with Mane Street acting as both the town’s main thoroughfare and a ready-made Western backdrop.
Pappy and Harriet’s had originally been the gas station, but over the years it was expanded and converted into a bar and restaurant. Because this was a functioning movie set, they needed a soundstage for interior shots. They built the soundstage to look like a barn from the outside. We walked down to look at it one late November night—no moon, freezing, and very windy in the high desert. It was pitch black, and Pappy carried an old-school lantern to light our way. The place was filled with cars. It looked like a chop shop. Apparently, that’s what Pappy and Harriet thought, too, and they were in the process of evicting the tenants. Don took one look and said, “This is it. We record here.”
Don loved to conjure up a studio environment that sparked creativity. Producers often ship a lot of their own equipment to a recording location, and Don did the same—but he also sent along a couple of extra crates labeled “vibe.” Inside those crates were tapestries, candles, carved figures, saint candles, ornamental swords, beads, and all kinds of similar treasures. With his collection, he could transform even the most sterile studio into something that looked and felt like an opium den.
But it was more than just show. Don would burn sage and light special candles before we began recording. He was part Filipino and had some Catholic background, which had somehow blended with some Southwestern Native American traditions over the years. For Don, these rituals weren’t just about atmosphere—they were prayers and blessings.
One time, when we were running low on candles, Don sent a studio assistant out for more. The assistant returned with black candles. Don genuinely panicked. He was truly disturbed, believing the black candles could invite negative energy or even evil into the studio—something he associated with black magic or bad luck. “Get those fucking things out of here. Now get ’em out!” he shouted, in a state of real alarm.
But in Pioneertown, there was no need for his crates. The whole place was vibe—weathered wood, rough-hewn beams, railroad ties, and adobe bricks made you feel like you were in an 1880s frontier town. About two months later, we returned with a mobile truck and recorded what would be our most popular album in the soundstage. It was a magical environment for making music—coyotes howling at night, a mountain lion spotted walking down Mane Street, and, on moonless nights, the Milky Way more prominent than I’d ever seen.
Some years later Counting Crows were similarly impressed and sang in “Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby”:
We drove out to the desert
Just to lie down beneath this bowl of stars
We stand up in the Palace
Like it’s the last of the great Pioneertown bars
We shout out these songs against the clang of electric guitars
Well, you can see a million miles tonight
But you can’t get very far
There was something audacious about the night sky in Pioneertown. We became small specks in the universe, yet here we were—undaunted—singing our songs with friends around a campfire, just as others have done for thousands of years. Instead of feeling as if our songs—and ourselves—were in danger of disappearing into the void of the infinite universe above us, it felt as though we were being lifted up and carried along in the slipstream of time, alongside millions of other souls. In that moment, we were immortal, and the songs eternal.
And I should have got down upon
My knees and thanked the Lord
Cause it don’t last long
Enjoy it while you can
It don’t last long
It don’t last long
Enjoy it while you can
It don’t last long
David Lowery: Vocals, Guitars and Bass
Jim Dalton: Electric Guitar