{"id":2734,"date":"2014-12-16T10:11:00","date_gmt":"2014-12-16T15:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/?p=2734"},"modified":"2015-01-23T14:05:48","modified_gmt":"2015-01-23T19:05:48","slug":"cracker-berkeley-to-bakersfield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/cracker-berkeley-to-bakersfield\/","title":{"rendered":"Cracker <br>Berkeley to Bakersfield"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/cracker.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-2735\" src=\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/cracker.jpg\" alt=\"Cracker, Berkeley to Bakersfield\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/cracker.jpg 250w, https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/cracker-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/a>As history boils things down to the bullet points, it\u2019s easy to forget that there was always more going on. Neither from Seattle nor particularly \u201cgrungy,\u201d Cracker tends to get overlooked despite the fact that they had actually hits in the early \u201990s. Still, right now, somewhere in this great land of ours, \u201cLow\u201d is coming over some car speakers and there\u2019s a slow dawning of remembrance. While Cracker never had as big of a moment (<i>Kerosene Hat<\/i>, the album that spawned the song, went platinum) as that again, they\u2019ve never called it a day and have had a fairly steady touring and release schedule. So it\u2019s of no surprise to anyone paying attention that they\u2019re on their 10th studio album, the double-disc <i>Berkeley to Bakersfield<\/i> (429 Records).<\/p>\n<p>But for those who need a quick refresher, Cracker was formed in 1991 after the break-up of singer\/guitarist David Lowery\u2019s previous band, the much beloved Camper Van Beethoven. And while Cracker wasn\u2019t as stylistically adventurous as Camper, it certainly had the same lyrical bones and musical underpinnings. <i>Berkeley to Bakersfield<\/i> is an explicit attempt to showcase both the rock and country sides of Cracker. While there have been country-leaning songs on most of the records and even a pair of bluegrass and countrified albums, their latest splits in up evenly while also marking the return of the &lt;i&gt;Kerosene Hat&lt;\/i&gt;\u2013era line-up.<\/p>\n<p>Notably, <i>Berkeley to Bakersfield<\/i> is not only split into two separate halves sonically, but the songs on each disc are tailored lyrically to the corresponding location. On the Berkeley portion, Lowery rages against the pushing out of the working class and creatives for \u201cnew money,\u201d writes nostalgic love letters to the punks and the freaks who occupied the area\u2019s coffee shops and bars, and generally longs for the Bay locale\u2019s lost bohemian era. Fittingly, the Bakersfield side is a sepia-toned celebration of a simpler existence. In a sense, Berkeley is about what was, while Bakersfield is about what is. When Lowery sings about the dying town on \u201cTonight I Cross The Border,\u201d there\u2019s not the undercurrent of anger that peppers the Berkeley cuts, just sadness. The trick is that even though both halves mine the same territory, Lowery is adept at creating distinctive characters and slight variations of similar circumstances.<\/p>\n<p>But <i>Berkeley to Bakersfield<\/i> wouldn\u2019t work if Cracker wasn\u2019t equally adept in tapping into distinct musical personalities. While the Berkeley side isn\u2019t pure rock, as some small country accents pop up here and there, Bakersfield is as straightahead as you can get, without a wink of irony, though there are moments where the band plays it weird. It\u2019s rare to have a double album that couldn\u2019t be distilled into a single disc, but Cracker have avoided that pitfall by making two albums that could stand on their own as well as in a linked set. <i>Berkeley to Bakersfield<\/i> is a delightful case of the parts being equal to the sum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As history boils things down to the bullet points, it\u2019s easy to forget that there was always more going on. Neither from Seattle nor particularly \u201cgrungy,\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[711,34,314],"class_list":["post-2734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-reviews","tag-429-records","tag-album-review","tag-cracker"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Cracker Berkeley to Bakersfield - The Agit Reader<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/cracker-berkeley-to-bakersfield\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cracker Berkeley to Bakersfield - The Agit Reader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As history boils things down to the bullet points, it\u2019s easy to forget that there was always more going on. Neither from Seattle nor particularly \u201cgrungy,\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/cracker-berkeley-to-bakersfield\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Agit Reader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/TheAgitReader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-12-16T15:11:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-01-23T19:05:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/cracker.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dorian S. Ham\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@agitreader\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@agitreader\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dorian S. Ham\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/cracker-berkeley-to-bakersfield\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/cracker-berkeley-to-bakersfield\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Dorian S. 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