Boards
Silver Jews; And Other Reasons They're Best Band in The World
Up there with other such illustriously befuddling occurrences as time, Bono and two people thinking how long you wait and then two come at once simultaneously at a bus stop, is why David Berman and Silver Jews are not the biggest band in world. Is it because their first tour in 16 years was last year? Are their lyrics perhaps too obtuse? Why, when luminaries like Will Oldman and Stephen Malkmus achieve such praise for their work, does David Berman remain the also-ran of the alternative-lo-fi-county scene despite 5 albums of unbridled brilliance and lyricism that ranks him in the leagues of Dylan, Drake, Cohen and Young? I honestly don’t know, and here’s why.
“Punks In The Beerlight” from Tanglewood Numbers (Drag City, 2005)
http://neighborhoodies.com/design/radio/archives_HTML/archived_songs/10-12-05.mp3
The Beginning; Ectoslavia, Pavement, art museums and answerphones. They don’t play live.
Ectoslavia was the college band Berman and friends Bob Nastanovich and Stephen Malkmus constructed while in the University of Virginia. Yes, THAT Bob Nastanovich and Stephen Malkmus. Essentially an exercise in noise and having fun, answerphone tapes – lo-fi to the max - from the time are rare and often unlistenable, as if Half Japanese really fucked with their recording process.
Disbanded after graduation, the three guys moved to New York and deciding to continue the sheer joy they got out of playing together, dubbed themselves the Silver Jews, a reference to both the legendary group Silver Apples and the tragically blonde Jews who walked New York’s streets. Berman and Malkmus worked as security guards at an art museum and Nastanovich was a bus driver. Just let that image stay with you for a while…
The rise of Pavement, the band Malkmus started on the side while playing for Ectoslavia, was both a blessing and a curse for Berman which still remains a tough point to circumnavigate when convincing other’s of the band’s individual merits, and something that bothered Berman for many years. It didn’t help they shared band members and soon meant Berman was regarded as perhaps the one not good enough to play with Pavement which is, of course, tosh, Berman being solely committed to the ‘Joos who were after all his band and where he was the frontman.
Aliases employed ever so slighty tongue-in-cheek (Hazel Figurine and Bobby N. never convinced anyone) and the naming of Pavement’s debut album after the cartoon Slanted and Enchanted concucted by Berman, didn’t alleviate the misinformed inferiority plague placed upon the band. It did, however, make Drag City sit up and listen. Then, not the bastion of American folk music it is today, this hardly caused a ripple.
The first two EPs conceived from their still-strong relationship, Dime Map of the Reef (1990) and The Arizona Record (1993) saw Berman completely sell out. That’s right; he recorded them on a walkmen. The corporate bitch. They were, disregarding silliness, very limited in their release but were clearer in intentions and showed the skeleton of where their sound was a heading, particularly Steve West’s impeccable drumming capabilities and their modern take on the garage-country Neil Young records of the late 60s.
“Room Games and Diamond Rain” from Bright Flight (Drag City, 2001)
http://www.weeblackskelf.co.uk/cordsuit/audio/songs/roomgamesanddiamondrain.mp3
The Minor Label Debut; the band, the words, the follow-up. They don’t play live.
What was really, really, missing from the early primal EPs however was Berman’s lyricism, where hyperbole like the opening paragraph suddenly are justified. With bursts like “There is a house in New Orleans/Not the one you know about/I’m talking about another one” and “Sin and gravity/
Drag me down to sleep/To dream of trains across the sea”, suddenly, here wasn’t a stoner rocker from the South making a racket and finding satisfaction in other’s frustration, but an enigmatic folk rocker. Here was a folk rocker with soul and poeticism. Most importantly, here wasn’t the train of thought school of thought perpetrated by Malkmus, but the measured, unbearably humorous thoughts of a man in love and pain.
But this isn’t about knocking other bands to build up another, Pavement are awesome. Silver Jews, however, haven’t been given that chance, and Starlite Walker is where it’s quite clear they were missed the first time around.
The Natural Bridge lived up to its name and progressed Berman’s sound naturally. Lyrically darker and embracing Balkan mysticism it is, however, overshadowed largely by American Water.
“People” from American Water (Drag City, 1998)
http://www.weeblackskelf.co.uk/cordsuit/audio/songs/people.mp3
The Classic; “In 1984 I was hospitalized for approaching perfection”. They still don’t play live.
Three words that sum up what Pitchfork awarded 9.9 and NME ever so reliably awarded a nonchalant 7: baritone, lyrics and Malkmus.
“Up the hill past 694, at the stone wall make a left,
and I will see you soon my friend if these old directions still direct.
Is the problem that we can't see or is it that the problem is beautiful to me?
The birds of Virginia are flying within you
and like background singers they all come in threes.
Won't soul music change
now that our souls have turned strange.
Once a day, twice a day
And when on and off collide
we'll set our souls aside and walk away.
We've been raised on replicas of fake and winding roads
and day after day up on this beautiful stage
we've been playing tambourine for minimum wage
but we are real, I know we are real.
My ski vest has buttons like convenience store mirrors
and they help me see, that everything in this room right now is a part of me.
Won't soul music change
now that our souls have turned strange.
Once a day, twice a day
And when on and off collide
we'll set our souls aside and walk away.
Realizing is how it feels inside when it happens to you.
So I took a shot of sugar like snow dumped into the blood
and children wander off into the ultra-economic
but we are real I know we are real.”
“Black and Brown Blues” from The Natural Bridge (Drag City, 1996)
http://www.weeblackskelf.co.uk/cordsuit/audio/songs/blackandbrownblues.mp3
“Advice To The Graduate” from Starlite Walker (Drag City, 1994)
http://www.weeblackskelf.co.uk/cordsuit/audio/songs/advicetothegraduate.mp3
Bright Flight, Tanglewood Numbers; Cassie, suicide and Conservative Judaism. They start.
A more honky-tonk affair and featuring wife Cassie on vocals, Bright Flight is perhaps the most vilified of his albums because of its loving tone and true country pangs. But that clearly wasn’t the mental state of Berman, who, after struggling with depression in the tense and morbid Nashville scene of the time, attempted suicide only to be prevented by Cassie rushing him to hospital. The event caused his work from the time to greatly alter but for also his past work to gain another facet of curiosity. Those who bemoaned his lax and lazy drawl were now forced to revaluate his work.
The attempt brought him to Conservative Judaism, a liberal form of the religion despite it’s politically right choice of name. The work on last year’s Tanglewood Numbers featuring the quite frankly jawdropping list of players (Malkmus, West, Will Oldman) and its subsequent release showed a man truly experiencing new life. The work was more aggressive but conciliatory and peaceful, the song “There is a Place” directly concerning his brush with death, haunting lyrical turns like “There is a place past the blues I never want to see again” and the repetition of “I saw God's shadow on this world” getting vast critical recognition.
The release also saw Berman, wife Cassie and a band put together especially finally take their music live. Before, Berman had stated he detested the live reproduction of music and wanted to leave songs as relics and untouchable. It was Cassie, though, that convinced him of the unique feeling of the stage, a musician herself from Nashville.
The perfect band. Utterly, utterly perfect. Why they’re not massive, I don’t know.
Further Reading; records and YouTube.
-The sheer effort of this must make some of you buy some of these:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Natural-Bridge-Silver-Jews/dp/B000024NMW/sr=8-1/qid=1163786997/ref=pd_ka_1/203-3756029-9897556?ie=UTF8&s=music
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tanglewood-Numbers-Silver-Jews/dp/B000AGL1G6/sr=8-2/qid=1163786997/ref=pd_ka_2/203-3756029-9897556?ie=UTF8&s=music
http://www.amazon.co.uk/American-Water-Silver-Jews/dp/B00002428B/sr=8-8/qid=1163786997/ref=pd_ka_8/203-3756029-9897556?ie=UTF8&s=music
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bright-Flight-Silver-Jews/dp/B00005RRYO/sr=8-9/qid=1163786997/ref=pd_ka_9/203-3756029-9897556?ie=UTF8&s=music
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Starlite-Walker-Silver-Jews/dp/B000024FAR/sr=8-11/qid=1163786997/ref=pd_ka_11/203-3756029-9897556?ie=UTF8&s=music
-YouTube live videos, and one quite unexplainable one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mKG79XJSZA&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwGgnFXkV70
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnyOOp85EN4&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gF3Gb4cKbc&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRqF6Lh-AsY&mode=related&search=