But despite their lack of technical ability, they had charismaand an infectious sense of rhythm.
I don't hear either in Berman's voice. But that's just me.They have a few great songs, so I can't in fairness dud them.
― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Friday, 9 April 2004 18:35 (twenty years ago) link
― comicbookguy, Saturday, 10 April 2004 20:25 (twenty years ago) link
― maria tessa sciarrino (theoreticalgirl), Saturday, 10 April 2004 20:34 (twenty years ago) link
― stockholm cindy (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 10 April 2004 20:35 (twenty years ago) link
― gygax! (gygax!), Saturday, 10 April 2004 22:23 (twenty years ago) link
― adam. (nordicskilla), Sunday, 19 September 2004 20:51 (nineteen years ago) link
― adam. (nordicskilla), Sunday, 19 September 2004 20:59 (nineteen years ago) link
― lauren (laurenp), Sunday, 19 September 2004 21:56 (nineteen years ago) link
― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Sunday, 19 September 2004 23:06 (nineteen years ago) link
I say classic, all the way, but i didn't buy his last album. Was it good?
― roger adultery (roger adultery), Sunday, 19 September 2004 23:41 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ian c=====8 (orion), Monday, 20 September 2004 00:43 (nineteen years ago) link
― plugz, Monday, 20 September 2004 01:00 (nineteen years ago) link
― adam. (nordicskilla), Monday, 20 September 2004 01:04 (nineteen years ago) link
― lauren (laurenp), Monday, 20 September 2004 01:12 (nineteen years ago) link
'in 1984 i was hospitalized for approaching perfection / slowly screwing my way across europe, they had to make a correction
― 6335, Monday, 20 September 2004 01:39 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ian c=====8 (orion), Monday, 20 September 2004 01:45 (nineteen years ago) link
― David Allen (David Allen), Monday, 20 September 2004 02:34 (nineteen years ago) link
― roger adultery (roger adultery), Monday, 20 September 2004 04:29 (nineteen years ago) link
― piers (piers), Monday, 20 September 2004 05:03 (nineteen years ago) link
― piers (piers), Monday, 20 September 2004 05:10 (nineteen years ago) link
― David Allen (David Allen), Monday, 20 September 2004 05:14 (nineteen years ago) link
― roger adultery (roger adultery), Monday, 20 September 2004 05:46 (nineteen years ago) link
― piers (piers), Monday, 20 September 2004 05:53 (nineteen years ago) link
1.American Water2. Natural Bridge3.Bright Flight4. Starlite Walker
― james, Monday, 20 September 2004 16:44 (nineteen years ago) link
― Taxi Dancing in the Soft Prison (Ben Boyer), Monday, 20 September 2004 16:59 (nineteen years ago) link
According to gygax, it is still coming out. I hope so, because I Ebayed my copy of The Arizona Record when I was broke and hungry and now I miss it. :(
― adam. (nordicskilla), Monday, 20 September 2004 17:01 (nineteen years ago) link
when smog was on tour last year, i asked dan k. about it and he said it was coming out. as expose sang many moons ago: "seasons change, people change..."
― gygax! (gygax!), Monday, 20 September 2004 17:05 (nineteen years ago) link
I have Bright Flight and American Water, but they have never been favourites. I shall dig them out from where they are stored.
Still, Starlite Walker is great. If they played here, I would go and see them, and as a rule I don't really go to concerts much these days.
I think I like the song about being ill/throwing up that is on the Hey! Drag City comp (I could be wrong about the subject)
I never really got into Smog, Ex-con is the only song I like by them...it's the "casing the joint" line.
― jel -- (jel), Monday, 20 September 2004 17:17 (nineteen years ago) link
― David Allen (David Allen), Monday, 20 September 2004 17:51 (nineteen years ago) link
― Taxi Dancing in the Soft Prison (Ben Boyer), Monday, 20 September 2004 17:54 (nineteen years ago) link
― jel -- (jel), Monday, 20 September 2004 18:12 (nineteen years ago) link
― adam. (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 02:39 (nineteen years ago) link
The "send in the clouds" b-side "Self-Ignition" is classic
― yahtz, Tuesday, 21 September 2004 04:03 (nineteen years ago) link
― morris pavilion (samjeff), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 04:13 (nineteen years ago) link
From Pfork Berman interview:
Sometimes I notice that people nowadays seem to build their own context, whatever they want it to be. I see someone like Devendra Banhart, and to me it's fascinating that he's able to create a context in which the scene in Animal House where the folk singer's bashed over the head with a guitar never happened. In his context, not all of America saw that movie, laughed, and agreed that folk music was annoying. And I never thought that I'd live inside a context like that. But I do, so I decided to make my own ones up too.
― G00blar, Sunday, 6 January 2008 23:08 (sixteen years ago) link
Thoughts on new album?
I like 3 or 4 songs a lot.
― wilter, Thursday, 27 March 2008 02:57 (sixteen years ago) link
The songs i'm digging are: What is Not But Could Be If, My Pillow is the Threshold and Open Field.
I need to give more listeningz tho.
― wilter, Thursday, 27 March 2008 03:04 (sixteen years ago) link
It's outstanding, maybe album of the year. "Open Field" (A Maher Halal Hash Baz cover, I think), "Candy Jail," "Suffering Jukebox" and "Party Barge" are all genius.
― If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Thursday, 27 March 2008 04:21 (sixteen years ago) link
Oh yeah Suffering Jukebox the wifey sings the chorus? That's a great one too.
― wilter, Thursday, 27 March 2008 04:24 (sixteen years ago) link
Wait...there's a new album? When is it coming out, what's it called? Shit, how did this pass me by?
― Z S, Thursday, 27 March 2008 15:08 (sixteen years ago) link
yah mee too im psyched dling now!
l loved tanglewood numbers - so by far their best
― jhøshea, Thursday, 27 March 2008 15:15 (sixteen years ago) link
I like it.
― Herman G. Neuname, Thursday, 27 March 2008 15:39 (sixteen years ago) link
any sm involvement? american water's by far the bossest
― kamerad, Thursday, 27 March 2008 16:17 (sixteen years ago) link
Really not feeling this much beyond "Suffering Jukebox", "My Pillow is the Threshold", and "San Francisco B.C.".
― jon /via/ chi 2.0, Thursday, 3 April 2008 16:33 (sixteen years ago) link
don't think there's any Malkmus on the new one. Smog is a decent comparison--I really only like one Smog song, "Cold Blooded Old Times," and has Berman ever come up with anything like that?
― whisperineddhurt, Thursday, 3 April 2008 16:47 (sixteen years ago) link
"random rules," "the wild kindness," and "buckingham rabbit" i like better than anything i've heard from smog. smog has always struck me as a little, um, smug. berman's not humble by any stretch, but there's way less standoffishness, and his best lyrics affect like nobody's business
― kamerad, Thursday, 3 April 2008 17:18 (sixteen years ago) link
Why must it be a competition?
Anyway, jon / via - crazy! Give it a few more spins. I didn't like Tanglewood Numbers much on first listen, but after absorbing it, it became one of my favorite albums of the year. This one is also a grower. And lyrics? Come on, dude:
"Living in a candy jail With peppermint bars Peanut brittle bunk beds and marshmallow walls... the warden keeps the data on your favorite brands..."
― If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Thursday, 3 April 2008 18:15 (sixteen years ago) link
I need to catch up on the joos .... I was big into them around the time of Starlite Walker / American Water but I've only heard a couple tracks since then ("Punks in the Beerlight" off Tanglewood Numbers is pretty classic)
reading back on the thread I'm surprised there's only scattered mention of "Advice to the Graduate," that was by far the "hit" as far as my friends were concerned. awesome lyrics.
"sleep on your back, and ash in your shoe, and always use the old sense of the words ... "
― dmr, Thursday, 3 April 2008 18:36 (sixteen years ago) link
Oh shit, I love me some Silver Jews. Gotta get on this.
― circa1916, Thursday, 3 April 2008 23:53 (sixteen years ago) link
I think it's one of his better albums.
― wilter, Friday, 4 April 2008 00:05 (sixteen years ago) link
it is indeed.
did it also have a life as a Pavement jam that never turned into a song? i seem to vaguely recall that ... maybe someone else can confirm.
SJ w/ SM is my favorite SJ, but also DCB was smart to move away from SM when he did.
― alpine static, Thursday, 18 May 2023 20:17 (one year ago) link
When was that? SM played on every other SJ album (as in, played on one then skipped the next)…
― Unidentified rogue Jedi (morrisp), Thursday, 18 May 2023 20:20 (one year ago) link
(co-wrote at least one song, too)
― Unidentified rogue Jedi (morrisp), Thursday, 18 May 2023 20:21 (one year ago) link
Pavement Jews ftw
― calstars, Thursday, 18 May 2023 21:58 (one year ago) link
i'm sorry, i have my history wrong, obviously, and my memory has failed me.
i thought they made American Water, then DCB got frustrated w/ the "side talk" stuff and he went and made Natural Bridge w/ other people, and then on from there. i had those two in the wrong order, and i did *not* realize Bob and SM were on Tanglewood Numbers.
my apologies! i believe myself to be a big fan of all involved but blew it here! :) (i'm getting old.)
― alpine static, Thursday, 18 May 2023 22:00 (one year ago) link
You are forgiven!!
― Unidentified rogue Jedi (morrisp), Thursday, 18 May 2023 22:04 (one year ago) link
:)
― alpine static, Thursday, 18 May 2023 22:20 (one year ago) link
I think it's important to remember that Pavement is a Silver Jews spin-off band.
― But who are we doing it versus? (sunny successor), Monday, 22 May 2023 14:14 (one year ago) link
isn't it more accurate to say they're both Ectoslavia spinoff bands?
― majorairbro, Monday, 22 May 2023 21:06 (one year ago) link
and yet maybe pavement was a sin-off band of the silver jews who were a spin-off band of Ectoslavia who were a spinoff band of Bag O' Bones.
― But who are we doing it versus? (sunny successor), Tuesday, 23 May 2023 10:39 (one year ago) link
v. obscure trivia but Spiral was using the name Pavement for a band when he was living in Tempe AZ with 3 other randos, a couple years before Slay Tracks.
so even Pavement is a Pavement-spinoff.
Hi SS!
-SS
― citation needed (Steve Shasta), Tuesday, 23 May 2023 15:31 (one year ago) link
Steve Shasta = Spiral
that's my theory
― alpine static, Tuesday, 23 May 2023 17:12 (one year ago) link
It’s too bad that War Comet never moved beyond the loosely conceptual stage.
― The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 23 May 2023 17:33 (one year ago) link
Haha shut my mouth https://archive.org/details/warcomet19931110
― The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 23 May 2023 17:35 (one year ago) link
Hey, that's cool, thx (these are Silver Jews songs, tho... so it's basically the Joos with West swapped in for Bob?)
― Day 1 fan (morrisp), Tuesday, 23 May 2023 17:56 (one year ago) link
West was a member of the Jews around that time, from the Starlite Walker reissue liners:
"Starlite Walker was an Oxford, Mississippi record. David resided on the outskirts of town at the time. He was renting a tiny building that was part of a professor's chemistry lab in the woods. He paid $100 a month. It was mildly suspicious. Stephen and I went there to rehearse for about five days. Oxford is a beautiful town. There are lots of beautiful people. We were well. Peaking physically. We built songs around David's words. David had just about all of his lyrics written down in a notebook. When we were 70% ready, we headed up to Easley Studios in Memphis (which burned to the ground a few years ago). Doug and Davis were ready for us. They were cool and it was welcoming. Steve West joined us on the songs that we needed a 'real' drummer. I just wasn't good enough. It didn't bother me. I was proud of my drums on "Trains Across The Sea" and my moog on "New Orleans." We didn't have any significant problems recording and it turned out well. Our host Sherman Willmott (we stayed above his record shop in a small apartment) did a marvelous job of keeping barbecue sauce on our faces the whole time. I gained six pounds. Upon completing Starlite Walker, Silver Jews felt like a band instead of a project. We became formidable.Bob Nastanovich2/7/11Des Moines, Iowa
Bob Nastanovich2/7/11Des Moines, Iowa
― citation needed (Steve Shasta), Tuesday, 23 May 2023 18:04 (one year ago) link
I've never liked "The Walnut Falcon" too much... :/
― Day 1 fan (morrisp), Tuesday, 23 May 2023 19:04 (one year ago) link
SS! Missed you! <3 SS
― But who are we doing it versus? (sunny successor), Friday, 26 May 2023 00:36 (one year ago) link
My favourite SJ song is Suffering Jukebox
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT_YIk-a8jU
― Punster McPunisher, Friday, 26 May 2023 01:34 (one year ago) link
Can anyone ID the final song in that War Comet set? I’ve never heard it before.
― Day 1 fan (morrisp), Friday, 26 May 2023 02:02 (one year ago) link
sounds like an improvised jam.
src: someone who listened to a lot of pavement improvised jams around that time.
― citation needed (Steve Shasta), Friday, 26 May 2023 02:15 (one year ago) link
was watching this old Harmony Korine/Gaspar Noe documentary and caught off guard by the Berman cameo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYiN2um9-Zs
― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Saturday, 29 July 2023 05:12 (ten months ago) link
Bless you, WBF, but you just posted a YouTube video that's 52 minutes long.
I'm going to take your word on the cameo.
― pplains, Saturday, 29 July 2023 13:21 (ten months ago) link
It's in the first few minutes, although he kind of looks like an alternate universe David Berman.
― ヽ(´ー`)┌ (CompuPost), Saturday, 29 July 2023 13:22 (ten months ago) link
9:00
― New No-No Bettencourt (Sufjan Grafton), Saturday, 29 July 2023 13:58 (ten months ago) link
Bob Nastanovich is with David there but doesn't get the call out.
― citation needed (Steve Shasta), Saturday, 29 July 2023 16:42 (ten months ago) link
haha - I didn't even catch Bob there!
― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Saturday, 29 July 2023 17:14 (ten months ago) link