Silver Jews: Classic or dud

http://mentholmountains.blogspot.com/

Pleased to see he is still active

"Lookout Mountain" is probably me favourite these days

when i was hungover the other day i spent a long time phasing in and out to 'the natural bridge' and i went: huh! i think every song on this album mentions rain! or even: 'the rain!' but i stopped paying attention when i had to go and vomit around track six

Does anyone remember what magazine had that harrowing profile of DB around the time of Tanglewood Numbers, the one where he told of being holed up at the hotel where Gore conceded the 2000 election and was going to kill himself?

That was "Dying in the Al Gore Suite," by Nick Weidenfeld, in Fader 31 (Jul/Aug 2005). Part of it can be read on Google Books here.

Thanks, one way street

no problem

Was kind of surreal to hear Marc Maron talking about this stuff...

Maron's trying to reach out to Berman via Twitter to set up an interview as he's going to Nashville in a couple weeks...doubt he'll have much luck

http://www.stereogum.com/1728068/silver-jews-had-band-practice-in-nashville-last-night/news/

!!!

cool news, was hoping berman would get the itch to write songs again.

WHAT

i never realized that the 15 songs performed during the last silver jews performance in the Cumberland Caverns were apparently his very favorite songs. here's the setlist:

1) We Are Real

2) Trains Across the Sea

3) How to Rent a Room

4) Slow Education

5) K-Hole

6) What Is not but Could Be If

7) The Wild Kindness

8) Room Games

9) Suffering Jukebox

10) I'm Getting Back Into Getting Back Into You

11) Random Rules

12) Tennessee

13) We Could Be Looking for the Same Thing

14) Pretty Eyes

15) Smith & Jones Forever

Happy enough to hear this news , but sure hope if there is a record involved it moves away from the last one's trajectory (it had very little staying power with me and kind of made me think it was a good time for him to walk away). Would love to get to chance to hear something new though, as really I just hope Berman is doing well and does whatever the hell he wants to do.

Happy enough to hear this news , but sure hope if there is a record involved it moves away from the last one's trajectory (it had very little staying power with me and kind of made me think it was a good time for him to walk away). Would love to get to chance to hear something new though, as really I just hope Berman is doing well and does whatever the hell he wants to do.

― grandavis, Thursday, January 8, 2015 11:03 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^this

I suspect the break from music has reinvigorated him. Glad Nast is involved.

Yeah, agree on both fronts.

i liked the last two records when they came out, but they are definitely not the jews i reach for when i'm in the mood for Berman.

further news: http://www.wonderingsound.com/silver-jew-band-rehearsal-first-new-song-veranda-toy-shoppe-nashville/

Yes!!!!!!

xxp I agree on the last record but Tanglewood Numbers is all-time classic imo.

haha you're right -- i just looked at the tanglewood tracklisting and i was like "those songs are all fucking great"

It is only the last record that really does very little for me, though I would cut "The Farmer's Hotel" from Tanglewood in a heartbeat. Skip it every time but really enjoy the rest of the record.

I've never bothered with the last one before. No good?

kinda like news of new twin peaks; wonderful as much for the thought of its creator's renewed activity as for its individual merit. really great to hear.

faraway gaze of dcb redolent of historic presidents

maybe on my own, but I really love the last one - Suffering Jukebox and San Francisco BC are two of my favourite SJ songs & I keep coming back to the whole thing, has so many moments that make me happy - language of virtue in 2nd verse of Strange Victory, Strange Defeat (ha and also of course "What have they done with the fat ones? The bald and the goateed?"); the jolly/bleak mania of Party Barge; whole ornately developed conceit of Candy Jail.

It is an odd album - What Is Not But Could Be If feels a bit like he's writing against his talents & trying this slightly mystical abstract style, and a couple of tracks don't quite come off (never been keen on My Pillow… and We Could be Looking…). But it's between this and Tanglewood Numbers for my favourite.

I have a lot of time for LMLS, although the fact I did a moderately indepth review of it probably meant I gave it more attention than might otherwise have been the case. there are less ~quotable vignettes~ on it than others which (understandably) disappoints ppl I suspect. (unsure how much crossover there is in the fanbases but the new Half Man Half Biscuit album has a comparable deal in that regard I think)

I love LMLS. I got a friend of mine into the band on the back of that album

xp HMHB: the English Silver Jews?

Maybe.....There's similarities but Berman likes to poeticise more than HMHB

yeah I guess Berman is the frustrated* poet to Nigel Blackwell's frustrated standup comedian

*albeit published, and even without this I think both have proved their aptitude for the respective mediums

good analogies and I agree neither have anything to prove

interesting parallel - Berman & Blackwell both have really masterful sense of verbal form & sonics (eg I'm almost disturbed by the way 'Deck quoits with the French trance vets' is just in my brain like a barbed hook, regardless of sense), both brilliant at running syntax over a verse and nailing the rhymes; there's a books thread somewhere with a digression on 'what happened to English light verse' & HMHB were a sort of answer to that iirc - so sometimes there's a touch of class-variant Betjeman to them.

But yeah, Berman's more obviously a *poet* - sense for an image especially.

also something of the music hall/vaudeville with HMHB, what with the pastiche, vignettes etc. There's little ironic distance with Silver Jews I don't think, which is very different to HMHB.

arguably their relationship w/ the country music/Nashville tradition functions in a similar way, ie it's clearly heartfelt but recognises its wealth of cliches

Not as many pop culture references with Silver Jews too

still a fair few though "we saw BB King on General Hospital..." is a favourite line of mine

I praised LMLS pretty highly in a review when it came out, and included on my top ten list for that year. It's not terrible, just pales in comparison to most of the discography (for me Natural Bridge just towers over the rest). "San Francisco B.C." may be in my top 5 Jews tunes though, I could listen to that all day.

Tanglewood Numbers I respect for what it represented (emergence from addiction/nightmare) but I really, really have a hard time listening to it or enjoying it.

don't know how anyone could have a hard time enjoying "I've been working at the airport bar. It's like Christmas in a submarine."

that was a good line, sure. there were good moments on that album! it's just when I'm looking at the various albums TJ is the one i least wanna reach for.

Tanglewood Jumbles

oops

TN track I ride for:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ieb3qkMHhaw

"I'm Getting Back into Getting Back into You" is probably top 5 Silver Jews for me.

xp Sorry, it's Friday, I couldn't help it. :)

I think "Sleeping Is the Only Love" may be the only song on TN that I couldn't see showing up in my personal top 5 at any given moment.

This thread inspired me to put TN on and it's really hitting the spot rn.

TOULOUSE-LAUTREC!

find Sleeping is the Only Love a bit of a plod but that "back of an old tv" line is all-time

very true

I really wish he'd publish a new poetry book. When my friend and I saw the band live in 2006 or whenever the last tour was, Berman signed my friend's copy of Actual Air with "better shit is coming."

The issues with LMLS for me are not that I was let down by the lyrics, just that it represented a side of the band (well, Berman) that did not seem nearly as vital or invested as previous incarnations. It is enjoyable on plenty of levels when taken outside the context of the other work, but as Raymond points out it pales in comparison (to me) to the other records. Of course, it seems somewhat to be a record purposely grappling with/embracing this other side, and maybe represents a happier and healthier Berman, which I would not sacrifice merely to get more great records from him, but it really just does not resonate with me. With some more distance on it maybe, but I still listen to most of the other records but when I continue to try with this one it just doesn't stick.