Silver Jews: Classic or dud

Cana-daaaaahhhhhh

The rumor I heard a while back from some random dude on a Facebook group was that he was recording with Dan Bejar, so now that recording in Canada has been confirmed I don't feel quite as bad about spreading it.

That’s a very beardy combo.

i don't know if this has been posted anywhere else but this seems to be the main Silver Jews thread:

https://variety.com/2019/music/news/david-berman-dead-dies-silver-jews-1203296128/

David Berman, a singer-songwriter who formed the 1990s indie group Silver Jews as well as creating poetry and cartoons, has died, according to music label Drag City. He was 52. Musician Joe Pernice tweeted that he died by suicide.

FUCK this sucks!

RIP

Purple Mountains

we've been talking about it on the purple mountains thread

i don't know Purple Mountains at all, lol. was a HUGE Silver Jews fan however

anyways carry on...

it was his new project that just released an album that is well worth checking out for any silver jews fan

really like the purple mountains record

People ask people to watch their scotch

They’re playing SJ at the bar !

Yr third drink will lead you astray

Amateur hour over here

A Pavement ad from back when they were called Jivement and sounded like bees pic.twitter.com/a7vPdIfKzU

— Matthew Perpetua (@perpetua) February 9, 2021

"Cokehead Quentin Compsons," that's some good stuff.

More Berman ephemera over here: https://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/642202376899624960/david-berman-stephen-malkmus-bob-nastanovich

P3rp3tu@ didn't realize it was DCB until it was explained to him in the comments which is uh... par for the course.

he hates berman, right? questionable.

I think so, he just also has some really baffling (trying not to say "wrong") opinions for a guy who has been writing about music for as long as he has.

singing by: Meg Baird Bill MacKay Cory Hanson Cassie Berman David Pajo David Grubbs Matt Kinsey Haley Fohr Emmett Kelly Todd Rittmann Alasdiar Roberts Matt Sweeney George Xylouris Azita Youssefi Sean O’Hagan Ben Chasny Elisa Ambrogio Bill Callahanhttps://t.co/x6hEaBuc1k

— will oldham (@signifyingwolf) February 19, 2021

Wonderful.

<3

That’s an intense one to listen to in the middle of winter.

Holding up the trousers with extension cords

The drums March along like an iv drip like a muffler dragged down the strip !!!

I saw the river playing in the valley
Rushing round a bend and skipping stones
I saw the meadow wobble In the moonlight
I’ve come to get my girl and take her home

The doorbell plays a bar of Stephen Foster

xp That part always gets me.

I still try to write lyrics as I’ve done for 20 years now and it’s mostly cause this dude keeps me hungry

I had never seen the TV clip in this Instagram post… fairly bizarre

lmao

holy fuck

what a piece of work.

Here's the original story that instagram account stole: https://www.brooklynvegan.com/micheal-sheen-sang-silver-jews-how-can-i-love-you-if-you-wont-lie-down-on-last-nights-the-good-fight/

Check out what Lana’s listening to

seems many of the top recording artists of the day are only now discovering the late, great Silver Jews

Just discovered the band Silver Jews. Fantastic songs! RIP David Berman.

— John Hinckley (@JohnHinckley20) May 4, 2023

Thanks to my gf for putting on a car playlist recently that had a couple Purple Mountains tracks on it. It made me realize that enough time has passed for this record to be fun again <³

I also revisited it a few weeks ago (for the first time in forever), and – as good as the album is – it felt to me like it’s not “meant” to be listened to as anything other than a tragic document. Just incredibly sad stuff (a few songs in particular)…

Night Society is one of the best instrumental tracks ever.
They are also referenced in a song by the band Why?

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.

When was that? SM played on every other SJ album (as in, played on one then skipped the next)…

(co-wrote at least one song, too)

Pavement Jews ftw

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.)

You are forgiven!!

:)

I think it's important to remember that Pavement is a Silver Jews spin-off band.

isn't it more accurate to say they're both Ectoslavia spinoff bands?

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.

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

Steve Shasta = Spiral

that's my theory