Like like the the the POLL: SILVER JEWS = American Water

Natural Bridge is my bummtertime favorite. That's Malkmus-less.

American Water by Silver Jews was first released two decades ago. Observing the time between then and now, the album has been half-speed mastered at Abbey Road to provide depth and nuance for all future vinyl listeners - and current ones! Additionally, a cassette version of this timeless album makes its debut, to provide an alternative aural timestamp for intrepid audio voyagers who weren't there the first time around. You can pre-order both versions NOW for the 9/28 release date. American Water - here's to the next 20 years!

(via Drag City)

That "Blue Arrangements" garnered only ONE VOTE in this poll is a crime for the ages.

And this is emphatically my second or third favorite SJ record. (I wind up in arguments with folks about this now and again.)

haha, i'm not sure i've ever heard anyone ever emphatically claim something as their second or third favorite! but i kind of know what you mean. i will emphatically place it in my top 2!

This is the best SJ rekkid, and not just because SM is all over it

love this record but can't think of any reason why anyone would wanna shell out for an audiophile version of it

Holdin up the trousers with extension cords

Paul — I have “Starlite Walker” on vinyl and the sound is crappy; so maybe the same was true for this album, and the remaster rectifies it(?) I have found Matador / Drag City vinyl from the ‘90s to be poorly mastered...

That makes sense. I just never thought of this as an album I needed to hear in pristine audiophile quality. My CD copy sounds fine! But tbf I've never heard it on vinyl, and 90s DC pressings were notoriously poor quality iirc

Air crickets air crickets air crickets air crickets air

Like sparks from a muffler dragged down the strip, uh huh huh

Why can’t monsters get along with other monsters?

Playin tambourine for minimum wage

People gonna come arrrooooooound

the vinyl version I have of this record is perfectly fine

how has this thread been around for eight years without one of the most unbelievable verses DB ever wrote in it

got 2 tickets for a midnight execution
we'll hitchhike our way from odessa to houston
and when they turn on the chair
something's added to the air
forever

honestly, i thought we had a whole dedicated to that song! but i'm looking now, and don't see one.

a whole thread, i meant.

but yeah, those words will always give me goosebumps. s&j was my intro to silver jews

Huh — I always thought it was, “

...“We hitchhike away from a desolate Houston”

FTR, I think my favorite song on the album is “Like Like The The The Death” — both musically and lyrically (notwithstanding the bum line, “Nobody cares about a dead hooker”)

but yeah, those words will always give me goosebumps. s&j was my intro to silver jews

Here comes the coda

Not much water coming over the hill
Not much, not much, not much
Not much water coming over the hill
Not much, not much, not much

Is there a coda thread? I know Ned has talked eloquently and correctly about New Order's Regret, and that's the greatest thing. But SM's work here is immense. Love this album. Don't think I've seen this thread until today.

The bird of Virginia
Are flying within ya
And like background singers
They all come in threes
And like background singers
They all come in threes

I would've been a "We Are Real" voter because it would fit better on his slightly better album Natural Bridge

from the op:

During a brief pause in conversation, the delicate sound of ringing guitar from a song called "Self-Ignition" escaped through a studio door. Berman described the song as a future B-side, explaining that the band had run through the track too quickly for it to make the final cut for the album. "We've never sounded tight like this," Berman said. "There's hard-rocking songs where we've never had that level of intensity before. They're really charged songs."

did this ever become a song?

Yeah:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W90V4D1P9VY

(It was indeed a B-side, to “Send In The Clouds”)

oh nice, thanks! i know absolutely zero silver jews b-sides

22 years old today. What a beast of a record.

I've got two tickets to a midnight execution
We'll hitchhike our way from Odessa to Houston
And when they turn on the chair
Something's added to the air
When they turn on the chair
Something's added to the air forever

So many strange and fantastic moments on this record. RIP.

My life at home everyday
Drinking coke in a kitchen
with a dog that doesn’t know it’s name

One of my dumbest opinions is that i don’t really fully fuck with this album (despite the openers being 2 of my lifetime favs) bc there’s too much steve malkmis on it and when I put silver jews on its cus I’m in the mood to hear DB

Here's something that's always mystified me: in Buckingham Rabbit, the last line of every stanza is repeated two times, except for "I can track a single bee to the hive." Why?

I want to make a cocktail called a shattered dog on the rocks

Haha same. For maximum authenticity you would need to blow your rent money on the whiskey you use to make the drink

Here's something that's always mystified me: in Buckingham Rabbit, the last line of every stanza is repeated two times, except for "I can track a single bee to the hive." Why?

― J. Sam, Tuesday, November 3, 2020 10:37 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

he's tracking a single bee, not two bees

xps I love the Malk presence on this record; to continue with the cocktail theme, he's like the soda to Berman's straight whiskey, adds lightness/sweetness/delicacy/bubbliness.

I had p much the exact experience as flopson with this record for a long time too, but ive come to appreciate the malkmus presence over the years

I thought I was alone in not digging Malkmus much here! The high points *are* rather high but I nowadays get more excited about the prospect of listening to pretty much any other long-player as a whole album, with the exception of perhaps Tanglewood Numbers.

I adore everything Berman did but American Water yeah

hey there riders on the storm HOLD THE WORLD TO ITS WORD

he's tracking a single bee, not two bees

― glengarry gary beers (voodoo chili), Tuesday, November 3, 2020 12:39 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

damn.

the malkmus songs on american water are v good, but they wouldn’t be the best songs on any pavement album and they’re also like, kinda funky? in a way that i just don’t think jibes with dave’s songs

They are funky - and the gtr work at the end of “Blue Arrangements” is sort of the heart of the album for me. This should not be taken as a slight at Berman, but Malk’s presence is core to the SJs sound for me.

I like this one even more than the last two Pavement records--feel like the SJ's w/SM are just a "different" kind of band. I think there are less stinkers for sure on this one. Like on Tanglewood, everything on Side 2 but How Can I love you but you won't lie die down doesn't really work for me. Whereas Side 2 of American Water is all hits. Same with Lookout Mountain, there's def. a drop off on side two.

I dunno I think they brought out the best of each other when they worked together, and I love their harmonizing.

they hit fagen/becker peaks

tbh i think what threw me off about it for so long might just have been SMs vocals, the incongruity of hearing another voice from another well-known band popping up. Silver Jews are one of those bands that feel like an island unto themselves, off in their own sui generis soundworld. Periodically hearing the voice from "Range Life" just felt so strange and spellbreaking