Silver Jews: Classic or dud

Oh yeah Suffering Jukebox the wifey sings the chorus? That's a great one too.

Wait...there's a new album? When is it coming out, what's it called? Shit, how did this pass me by?

yah mee too im psyched dling now!

l loved tanglewood numbers - so by far their best

I like it.

any sm involvement? american water's by far the bossest

Really not feeling this much beyond "Suffering Jukebox", "My Pillow is the Threshold", and "San Francisco B.C.".

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?

"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

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..."

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 ... "

Oh shit, I love me some Silver Jews. Gotta get on this.

I think it's one of his better albums.

I miss the old sloppy, gritty Joos. Not that I was expecting that with this new one, but the slicked up stuff can't help but make me think back fondly of the older albums. I end up thinking the same thing with each new Will Oldham and Smog album too. It loses some of its charm all cleaned up.

Anyway, I like what I hear so far OK. These things take some time to digest.

Boy wants a car from his Dad
Dad says, first you gotta cut that hair
Boy says, hey Dad Jesus had long hair
and Dad says
that's right son, but Jesus walked everywhere

When I was younger I was a cobra
in every case I wanted to be cool
Now that I'm older and sub-space is colder
I just want to say something true

When the governer's heart fails
The state bird falls from its branch

Oil paintings of x-rated picnics.
Behind the walls of medication I'm free.
Every falling leaf in a compact mirror
hits a target that we can't see.

Grass grows in the icebox.
The year ends in the next room
It is autumn and my camouflage is dying
instead of time there will be lateness
and let forever be delayed.

I had this friend, his name was Marc with a C.
his sister was like the heat coming off the back of an old tv.

I too miss the sloppiness. Starlite Walker to me is a near perfect album, even if it's sometimes a bit of a mess. It feels like a concept album. Tanglewood Numbers in comparison just seems like a collection of songs... but I guess sometimes you just wanna record some tunes.

Has anyone watched the clips of them just put out on P-Fork? Good god, man, what has happened to his voice? I mean he was never Caruso but what on earth is that sound he's making? That's some of the worst singing I've ever heard, including my tone deaf grandpa, and I (used to) like SJ

DB's never really been that into playing live. I'd suggest listening to the records and just ignoring the live stuff.

Except for the fact that his live show was the best concert I've even been to.

Oh man, I was at the first Irving Plaza show when Tanglewood Numbers came out, it was incredible. His encore of There Is A Place was like a life-affirming moment

not sure what you're on about re: his voice, but there isn't much evidence in those videos that he's ever attempted to play guitar before.

new album is totally amazing.

really, you didn't think his voice sounded hi-lariously offkey and weird? kind of like a baritone rosanne barr singing the star spangled banner

I've been putting off buying the new one until listened to the promo that should be coming to wnyu soon. I have high hopes though.

maybe off-key and weird, but not that different from he normally sounds

ok, for some reason I always go through the same schizophrenic swing when I hear something new by the Joos, from "this is terrible" to "I love this" to "eh". Except American Water, Starlite Walker, and Natural Bridge, of course...

I don't think he sounds bad at all on that pitchfork show. I actually liked the songs better live.

all my favorites singers couldn't sing

really, you didn't think his voice sounded hi-lariously offkey and weird? kind of like a baritone rosanne barr singing the star spangled banner

:D

haven't watched the clips in question yet, but I definitely thought there were points on the last album where his voice sounded ten times worse than it ever had before. could just be that he finally decided to raise it above a mumble, though.

he's gone country and he warn't talking to me this time out at least, but I think this is his best record ever or at least the most listenable

what the shit?

whoa

whaaaat???

wow

My life has been riddled with Ibsenism.

am i crazy or is that second post ten times more wtf than the band breaking up?

i kinda prefer it when artists announce they're done, rather than just disappearing

http://www.bermanexposed.org/

yeesh, no wonder db was suicidal.

"what you have become is a major tool... for corporate america." - from 60 minutes.

That's nuts. It's kind of strange how he felt the need to confess it "now that the Joos are over." I don't see why he couldn't reveal it before and I don't know why he feels the need to reveal it now.

hmmm (from an old pitchfork interview)

I've never gotten a grant. Well, that's not true. I had a fellowship to go to graduate school. I never had to pay for tuition while I was there and teaching paid your other living expenses. My father paid for my undergraduate tuition. There's this famous story in my family of when my father took me out to eat when I was 18. I had been too lazy to apply to college so he'd had his secretary apply for me late. To the University of Texas and the University of Virginia (because I romanticized Virginia as a kid).

Well, I got into both (Texas was automatic). The tuition difference was large. UT back then was $350 a semester. Virginia was, what $12,000 a year? My dad likes to make games of things. He told me he wanted me to go to UT so I'd be closer to home and said that if I went to UVA he'd pay my tuition but that would be it until death. And four years of health insurance, I guess. Instead, if I chose Texas he'd pay for that plus give me the difference between the two schools' tuitions to live on. I am frankly amazed I chose Virginia. I don't remember my reasoning.

I worked in the morgue at the UVA hospital all through college to pay my rent. In the 15 years since I've graduated he's loaned me $5,000 two times when I was in trouble. The first one in my 20s, which he kindly absolved, and a second one last year trying to get back on my feet. I still owe him that one and I hope this album will enable me to pay him back because he holds it over my head every single time we get into an argument.

I guess I should add that he did pay for my rehab, which I let him, figuring at the time it was his fucking idea, and what did I care?

woah. he has a book of drawings out on drag city in a couple of months. i liked the new lp but it'd be real sad if it turned into some morrissey thing where people twanged along in the background while he spat bermanisms.

Jeezus. And I thought my dad was bad.

All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues

i cant call myself the biggest joos fan, but berman is a very gifted writer and, judging from various interviews, a smart and interesting guy. hope he sorts his shit out :/

Silver Jews End-Lead Singer Bids his Well-Wishers Adieu

Hello, my friend.

Cassie and I went to the cave and it looks great. 58 degrees but the humidity makes it feel like 72.

I'm just going to play fifteen songs. My fifteen favorite ones.

A dollar per song. Plus Arnett Hollow. I don't want to keep you underground for too long. Fall Creek Falls State Park State Lodge is great by the way.

Yes I cancelled the South American shows. I'll have to see the ABC Countries another way.

I guess I am moving over to another category. Screenwriting or Muckraking.

I've got to move on. Can't be like all the careerists doncha know.

I'm forty two and I know what to do.

I'm a writer, see?

Cassie is taking it the hardest. She's a fan and a player but she sees how happy i am with the decision.

I always said we would stop before we got bad. If I continue to record I might accidentally write the answer song to Shiny Happy People.

What, you thought I was going to hang on to the bitter end like Marybeth Hamilton?

love david

Last edited by DCB on Thu Jan 22, 2009 6:38 pm; edited 1 time in total


DCB

Joined: 19 Jan 2008
Posts: 47
Location: Nashville

My Father, My Attack Dog

Now that the Joos are over I can tell you my gravest secret. Worse than suicide, worse than crack addiction:

My father.

You might be surprised to know he is famous, for terrible reasons.

My father is a despicable man. My father is a sort of human molestor.

An exploiter. A scoundrel. A world historical motherfucking son of a bitch. (sorry grandma)

You can read about him here.

www.bermanexposed.org

My life is so wierd. It's allegorical to the nth. My father went to college at Transylvania University.

You see what I'm saying.

A couple of years ago I demanded he stop his work. Close down his company or I would sever our relationship.

He refused. He has just gotten worse. More evil. More powerful. We've been "estranged" for over three years.

Even as a child I disliked him. We were opposites. I wanted to read. He wanted to play games.

He is a union buster.

When I got out of college I joined the Teamsters (the guards were union organized at the Whitney).

I went off to hide in art and academia.

I fled through this art portal for twenty years. In the mean time my Dad started a very very bad company called Berman and Company.

He props up fast food/soda/factory farming/childhood obesity and diabetes/drunk driving/secondhand smoke.

He attacks animal lovers, ecologists, civil action attorneys, scientists, dieticians, doctors, teachers.

His clients include everyone from the makers of Agent Orange to the Tanning Salon Owners of America.

He helped ensure the minimum wage did not move a penny from 1997-2007!

The worst part for me as a writer is what he does with the english language.

Though vicious he is a doltish thinker

and his spurious editorials rely on doublethink and always with the Lashon Hara.

As I studied Judaism over the years, the shame and the shanda,

grew almost too much. my heart was constantly on fire for justice. I could find no relief.

This winter I decided that the SJs were too small of a force to ever come close to

undoing a millionth of all the harm he has caused. To you and everyone you know.

Literally, if you eat food or have a job, he is reaching you.

I've always hid this terrible shame from you, the fan. The SJs have always stood autonomous and clear.

Hopefully it won't contaminate your feelings about the work.

My life has been riddled with Ibsenism. In a way I am the son of a demon come to make good the damage.

Previously I thought, through songs and poems and drawings I could find and build a refuge away from his world.

But there is the matter of Justice.

And i'll tell you it's not just a metaphor. The desire for it actually burns.

It hurts.

There needs to be something more. I'll see what that might be.

DCB

if you want to know what evil Herr Attackdog is currently up to look here:

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/120426/ad_wars:_'dr._evil'_vs._unions_over_employee_free_choice_act/)

for posterity's sake.