Cracker
NewMusicforOldFolks says …
When I started doing this I said it wasn't going to be about Classic Rock or looking backward. But this is one of my favorite bands from the ’90s, and they were moderately popular back then. But not many people realize they're still out there making music and putting on good shows. The first album had the minor hit "Teen Angst (What the World Needs Now)" as well as personal favorites "Can I Take My Gun Up to Heaven" and "Mr. Wrong." The follow-up featured another almost hit "Low." The band has kept plugging along for almost 20 years and 2014's Berkeley to Bakersfield is excellent. But if you haven't heard of Cracker, start at the beginning.
Artist's info
Website: crackersoul.com
See them live: Tour dates
Record company: 429 Records
Genre: Alternative, Alternative Country, Roots
See also: David Lowery, Camper Van Beethoven
If you like this, look into: Shawn Mullins, The Radiators, Dave Alvin
Bio (From AllMusic.com)
During Cracker's heyday in the 1990s, the Virginia-based band molded elements of alternative pop/rock and country into several irreverent, buzzworthy anthems. Singer/guitarist David Lowery made no attempt to mask his affinity for traditional roots music, but his own background was far from traditional, as he spent the '80s fronting the quirky alternative outfit Camper Van Beethoven. Shortly after Camper Van Beethoven embarked on a long hiatus in 1990, Lowery began demoing new material with guitarist Johnny Hickman and bassist Davey Faragher. The three musicians named the project Cracker (although several of those early demos would later surface under the title David Lowery Demo Mixes) and set up their headquarters in Richmond, Virginia. By 1991, the band had signed a recording contract with Virgin Records and enlisted the help of several drummers (Jim Keltner, Rick Jaeger, and Phil Jones), all of whom helped shape the sound of Cracker's debut album. (more)
Spotify Sampler
Recordings
Most Recent
BERKELY TO BAKERSFIELD (2014): Cracker releasing their tenth studio album, entitled Berkeley To Bakersfield, a double-album that finds this uniquely American band traversing two different sides of the California landscape the northern Bay area and further down-state in Bakersfield. Despite being less than a five-hour drive from city to city, musically, these two regions couldn't be further apart from one another. In the late 70s and 80s a harder-edged style of rock music emerged from the Bay area, while Bakersfield is renowned for its own iconic twangy country music popularized, most famously, by Buck Owens and Merle Haggard in the 60s and 70s. Yet despite these differences, they are both elements that Cracker s two cofounders, David Lowery and Johnny Hickman, have embraced to some degree on nearly every one of their studio albums over the last two decades. On Berkeley To Bakersfield, however, instead of integrating these two genres together within one disc, they ve neatly compartmentalized them onto their own respective regionally-titled LPs.
OTHERS
Cracker (1992)
Kerosene Hat (1993)
Bob's Car (1995 – Fan club exclusive release)
The Golden Age (1996)
Gentleman's Blues (1998)
Garage D'Or (2000)
Hello, Cleveland! Live From The Metro (2002)
Forever (2002)
Countrysides (2003)
O' Cracker Where Art Thou? (2003)
Greenland (2006)
Berlin (Live In Berlin December 2006) (2008)
Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey (2009)
