Silver Jews: Classic or dud

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

It’s too bad that War Comet never moved beyond the loosely conceptual stage.

Haha shut my mouth https://archive.org/details/warcomet19931110

Hey, that's cool, thx (these are Silver Jews songs, tho... so it's basically the Joos with West swapped in for Bob?)

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 Nastanovich
2/7/11
Des Moines, Iowa

I've never liked "The Walnut Falcon" too much... :/

SS! Missed you! <3 SS

My favourite SJ song is Suffering Jukebox

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT_YIk-a8jU

Can anyone ID the final song in that War Comet set? I’ve never heard it before.

sounds like an improvised jam.

src: someone who listened to a lot of pavement improvised jams around that time.

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

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.

It's in the first few minutes, although he kind of looks like an alternate universe David Berman.

9:00

Bob Nastanovich is with David there but doesn't get the call out.

haha - I didn't even catch Bob there!