Show Review: Silver Jews in Indianapolis

OK, I admit that I am very biased, but the Joos put on a hell of a show at Birdy’s in Indy last night.

I saw them a couple of years ago in Bloomington during their first tour, and it’s great to see that David has become a confident and self-assured performer. They rocked the house.

But more importantly, since David and Cassie are family members of mine, it was great to see that they both seem to be well and both seem to be legitimately happy. They’ve gone through hell, so I love that it appears that they are in a great place in their lives. They and the rest of the band were incredibly kind to their fans. David’s humility was moving.

And on a point of personal pride – I remember spending a few summers with David in Wooster, Ohio when we were kids. I always took my music to Wooster which was usually punk rock from the period – mostly California punk. Dead Kennedys, X, Black Flag and the like. At the time, I thought that he “didn’t get it.”

Got it, he did. At David’s wedding, and when I’ve met his friends and associates in the past, he always introduced me at “the guy who introduced me to punk.” People seem to like me for having done that work.

That’s a thing in my life that I am proud of.

There doesn’t appear to be a video from the Silver Jews show in Indy, so check out this one from their Bloomington, IN show two years ago:

It’s been evening all day long.

Silver Jews Friday

Silver Jews — Sleeping is the Only Love

David, Cassie and company are going to be in Indy on Saturday and I couldn’t be more excited to see them. It’s going to be a wonderful celebration of family and what it means to be alive.

Silver Jews Saturday – David Berman on LOMLOC, Obama, and Squirrels – Part III

This is the final piece of the series. Part I is here and Part II is here.

David and Doris

Raford: In past interviews I’ve read, you emphasized your adolescence in Texas, but rarely have I have read you reference another part of your upbringing, which was in Wooster, Ohio. I hear a lot of Wooster influences in your lyrics. How has Wooster influenced your art?

DCB: It’s true that Wooster is something I keep to myself. It’s a secret wellspring of inspiration for me and always has. It is also a place of serious social awkwardness for me. My sense of myself as an artist and as a social human being starts at about age 15. I developed a public persona very late in life. I don’t talk about Wooster because I didn’t talk while I was in Wooster. Does that make sense?

Raford: Yeah, I didn’t realize you were shy like that early on.  I don’t think I said one word to any of my peers outside of the family until I was 16, so that makes a lot of sense.

DCB: Of course I “talked” to you and a few people but mostly I was zipperlipped.

Raford: A question about your Jewish faith. As kids, we were raised in very secular environments. Beyond trips to church and temple (for you) on holidays, I don’t see religion as a great part of our upbringing. As an adult, what drew you to Judaism?

DCB: Well Christianity is just out of the question for me. None of it makes sense when you get down to it. Just the little stuff like the trinity is complete bullshit. Judaism is massive and it all correlates and makes sense to me.

Judaism is what helped this small group of people survive for over 3000 years, without a common language, as empire after empire that tried to wipe them out crumbled to nothing. And they are still here. And until 50 years ago they had never even fought back.

The continued existence of the Jewish people is the only supernatural fact of history I can be sure of. A couple of years ago I realized that if  I wanted to survive the next forty years I was going to need whatever the Jews had that made them last. Judaism is that thing.

Raford: Wow.

Raford: This is a mostly political blog, so I’d like to hear your thoughts on the current political situation in the US and the world.

DCB: I think we are waiting for the crisis that will make the Republican way of living and legislating a complete anachronism. It will probably be a major disaster brought on by Republican policy, that in the struggle to repair will have the country finally waking up from a dream where we are all assholes and loving it!

David and Cassie

Raford: Obama? McCain? Barr? Nader? Pinny Doo?

DCB: It’s pretty clear that Obama has a date with destiny.

Raford: As kids, why didn’t we go outside more often?

DCB: I think if the squirrels and birds and fish had been more friendly we would have.

Raford: What was the story w/the window and the BB gun? Are you still being judged too harshly because of that incident that few living people understand?

DCB: Well you have never had a problem with it. I took out grandfathers bbgun pistol which was  for shooting squirrels! Anyway I walked out the street and turned around and faced the house. It was night so there was only one window glowing and it was right at eye lever. Behind the window you were drawing a picture on papa’s desk. Yes I pulled the trigger that night, but I swear that bb  wasn’t’ meant for you. I think it did make a crack in the storm window though.

Raford: I appreciate that the BB wasn’t aimed at my head. But all things seem to go back to the squirrels.

Raford: Have you been able to find any creme sticks that can compete with those from Buehler’s?

DCB: Every couple years Ill see one but it’s no good.  I only liked vanilla. The Maple ones were weird. I never liked that old fashioned flavor. Maple I associated with Wooster.

Raford: You didn’t like the maple ones? How is that possible?

DCB: Did you know they opened a Buehler’s in Louisville a couple of years ago where a Winn-Dixie was. I couldn’t make anyone understand who weird it was that there was a Buehler’s there. Subsequently they left.

Raford: Damn! People don’t understand that magic that is Buehler’s if we’re lucky, there might be at least a couple of readers who understand that grocery store’s beauty.

Raford: Any pizza like Coccia’s?

DCB: That pizza is weird. I  believe they were actually Albanian shepherds who presented themselves as an Italian pizza family when they arrived in Wooster..

Raford: Man, I love that pizza! I think the secret is in the provolone cheese and the garlicky red sauce.

David, thanks so much for taking some time to chat with me. Good luck w/LOMLOC! It will do well.

Silver Jews Friday – David Berman on LOMLOC, Failure, and Squirrels – Part II

Click here for the first installment.

David and his sister Carrie back when motel pools were cool.

Raford: I see the image on the cover of LMLS as a metaphor for those of us who feel like children, or who are basically children, entering a dangerous world and who are struggling to change it while saving ourselves. Your thoughts?

DCB:  Yes I agree. We are living in a time where no adults are in charge. American history’s most selfish generation has come of age and shot everything to hell.  And I think I can trace it all back to the Preppie Handbook somehow.

Raford: Yeah, it seems that too many of our national problems can be traced back to the Preppie Handbook. That book was widely read, but it celebrated greed, conformity, and little whales on denim skirts.

Raford: In the 90s, you told me that you had a thing against women in rock, but on LMLS, Cassie plays a much more prominent vocal role than she has before (and it sounds great). How has your view of women in music evolved over the years, and what caused the change (if there is a change)?

DCB: That’s some hard-nosed journalism. Okay, I deserve it. I was somewhat ignorant when I said that. You know I just have this aversion to a kind of  (sorry)  Janis Joplin  female mainstream rock singer because they always try to go corny bluesy and that’s wrong for everybody’s sake.  That kind of Chicago beer commercial blues. The ultimate example of this and maybe my most all time hated song “Black Velvet” by Alannah Myles.

Raford: John Doe and Exene or Johnny Cash and June Carter? None of the above?

DCB: I don’t think we are that good. It’s funny though, there have always been people who dislike my singing. What I’m finding now is that many people also dislike Cassie’s singing, so that’s actually making me feel closer to her and less down about it.

Raford: LMLS opens with “What Is Not, but Could Be If,” which I took as an idealistic political song when I first heard it. Upon further reflection, it also seems like a recovery-related song. A few lines stand out, and I’d like for you to comment on them:

“One has lived life carelessly, if he or she has failed to see that
the truth is not alive or dead, the truth is struggling to be said.“

DCB: This is actually a jewish proverb: “The truth neither lives nor dies, It struggles.”

The whole song is just meant to encourage. Lies discourage. Many times the lies are easy to go with. But if you can know that the truth is always struggling, in the present moment. It wakes you up.

Raford: “When failure’s got you in its grasp, and you’re reaching for your very last, it’s just beginning.”

DCB: People like me have trained themselves to expect the worst. People born between 1965 and 1980 aren’t very hopeful. Yes…..i’m talking about ……Generation X.

A lot of Judaism makes you consider whether access to the impossible might not be so impossible. I am so pragmatic and so unmystical it’s sad. But here I am talking to myself too, I’m sure.

Raford: “So how do we get out of this? Family shadows, all of this?”

DCB: We all have to grow up and read the People’s History of America.We can still think Chomsky is an apologist for Marxist genocide. But people inside families must take responsibility for the harm committed by family members that they let run loose and keep secrets for.

Raford: On  “Strange Victory, Strange Defeat,” you sing about squirrels.  Can you talk about the squirrels?

DCB: Squirrels have always been on my mind.  As far as I know I’ve always done right by them. Like with birds though, there is the feeling that they don’t particular like you back.

This is Mother Nature’s form of rejection. It turned me into an indoor kid, but I never felt hostility for the little critters. I liked them so much I put an Open Field after that song for them to escape into. As a songwriter, it’s especially pleasing to set your characters free when you’re done with them..

David Shows off his farcical, cynical, facetious, or sarcastic hair.

Raford: At what point in your life did you have sarcastic hair? I know you did a time or two.

DCB: Well I think it was farcical in 82, cynical in 83, and facetious in 84. So starting in 1985.

Raford: Recovery is a major theme on LMLS and that’s especially obvious in “Candy Jail” and “Party Barge.” What role has recovery played in your music (which I saw first reflected in Tanglewood Numbers)?

DCB: What comes easy to you, you don’t value. What you have struggled to achieve, that you value. And the l essons of that struggle are the basis of where I’m writing from.  Someone may think I go too far. Maybe they think it is an anti-poetic element that poisons the art. It’s a PSA.  A Personal Service Announcement.

Raford: What else do I need to know about LMLS?

DCB: I’m trying to get people to call it LOMLOC.

Silver Jews Thursday – David Berman on LOMLOC, Writing, and the Ugliness of Failure – Part I

Three Years Old

Raford: I’ve actually been a fan of your music since you gave me the Arizona Record, which I loved, but at the time, I never imagined that the Silver Jews would become something of an institution in indie music. In those days, I thought of the Silver Jews as a fun hobby of yours, but not much more. In those early days, did you imagine that the Silver Jews would become a major part of your career?

DCB: No, of course not. I was mostly embarrassed we even existed.

Raford: So what happened? How did the Jews evolve from that point?

DCB: Well the job market in 1989, coming out of college, was the worst since the thirties.
There were zero jobs for a creative person. I saw making records and writing poetry as a kind of cultural loitering, fending off cubical slavery.  I was leaning against a wall all day, working as a guard in a new york art museum. I thought “I need to find a way to lean against my own walls.”

So the band just started as a way to make art. That’s why it wasn’t really a band. It was semi-conceptual art.

Raford: I’ve always admired your writing. I find myself sharing my worn-out copies of “Actual Air” with friends and acquaintances who express even a little bit of interest in poetry. The same is true of your lyrics. Do you find that there is a great difference between writing poetry and lyrics?

DCB: Poetry is complete freedom with words. Getting the right lyrics to fit in rhythmically and also mean something interesting is closer to searching for a tic-tac in a haystack. Writing poetry is daunting. Writing lyrics can be grueling.

Raford: I’ve understood that writing can be a torturous process for you. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

DCB: It’s not so bad as long as I just do the work everyday. But it is hard to keep your will going because for all the days you aren’t finished with the song, you only have these ugly butchered thing with a dream of being better attatched to it. You have to live with the ugliness of failure for many days before you get it right.

Raford: The ugliness of failure? That seems to be a theme in many of your lyrics.

DCB: Failure is the key to success. I got it from Oedipus Rex. No, I sing about failure from the perspective of one. Everybody should want to be an ex-failure. Never failing at all is just too uncharming to bear.

Raford: And how the hell do you find the motivation to work every day if you’re not really accountable to others in terms of a deadline, boss, etc?

DCB: You have to harness your fear.

Like your fear is a seahorse and you are Aquaman. No, it’s hard.

For a lot of years I stuck to something I read early on.  Stendahl had this dictum: “Twenty lines a day. Genius or not.  This rule of thumb was something that kept me writing, eveb during my lost years.

Raford: How is that process similar to and different from recording a record?

DCB: On a record you are more likely to go with “feel”. You get other people to do a lot of the imagining for you. A lot of things become foregone conclusions. You get “stuck” with having to dress stuff up sometimes. You know the clock is running and you don’t have the ability to just do stuff over and over again.

Raford: A couple of years ago, your toured for the first time to support the Tanglewood Numbers. Before that tour, you had been known as a recluse when it came to performing your music. What changed?

DCB: I made a deal with God, like Kate Bush. I felt like I had to do it to save myself and Cassie from imminent ruin financially. I couldn’t continue to say “no” to offers to play.

I suddenly realized I had a way to out, and I just had to say “yes” to make it happen.

DCB and Raford as geeky adolescents.

Raford: How did you enjoy touring? Was it miserable, or do you now see touring as a major part of the Silver Jews’ future?

DCB: It’s not miserable. I like being on stage. I don’t like the driving. We are going to tour this fall but I don’t think it will continue on into my forties. I’d like to get doing something else.  Playing live is a happy ending to the silver jews, more than it is a new beginning.

Raford: You’re already into your 40s. I understand that you don’t want to be like the Rolling Stones, but you don’t see yourself as a 45 year old touring Silver Jew?

DCB: I’m hoping that I’ll find different work by then.

What do you think about LOMLOC as the official acronym for it? It’s cute, I think.

Raford: LOMLOC? It works.

Raford: Do you see LOMLOC as the Jews’ last record?

DCB: I don’t know if it’s the last, but I’m definitely not going to make it again.

Raford: On that tour, you told me that it was kind of strange for you to be around people who knew the lyrics to your songs better than you did. I found it understandable that your fans would know the lyrics to your songs. What was a little disconcerting to me was that there seemed to be a certain element of your fan base in Bloomington that seemed to enjoy emulating your appearance. Creepy? Inspirational? Or am I thinking too much?

DCB: Hmmmmm. I think they are trying to look like Carl Sagan.

Raford: Heh. No.

Up next: David and I discuss Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea.

Silver Jews Wednesday

I’m Gonna Love the Hell Out of You

Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea — Silver Jews Tuesday

Here’s the cover of the Silver Jews’ “Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea” cd that you can find in your local record store today:

It’s a meaningful image to me, and  I’ll explain the reasons for that later in the week.

But for now, check out “I’m Getting Back Getting Back into You:

If you like the video, it’s was filmed during the Silver Jews’ tour in Israel a couple of years ago which was captured in the documentary ‘Silver Jew.’

I’m working on an interview with David that I hope to start posting later this week.

In the meantime, relax and have fun.

Kicking Off Silver Jews Week

On Tuesday, the SIlver Jews’ new record, “Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea, will be released in the US. Buy it, as it’s the best SJ release to date. You will love them.

For that reason, I’ll be blogging about them more than I usually do this week. It’s their time.

To get things started, check out “How Can I Love You If You Won’t Lie Down” from the Tanglewood Numbers record:

Random Music from the IPOD Friday

Silver Jews — Random Rules

Remember, the Silver Jews’ new CD, Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea will be released on Tuesday, June 17. I’ve been following them closely for many years and this is, without a doubt, their best work to date. Berman’s lyrics are poetry and the music is sublime.

Buy this record.

What are critics saying?

From the UK’s muiscOHM.com review:

Their sixth and most accomplished release to date is bursting at the seams with more of their typically cerebral references, sardonic puns and metaphors, but where in the past this much-loved cult alt-country act have kept their offerings decidedly stripped down and lo-fi, this time they embrace a bigger, more expansive sound that is every bit as warm and inviting as the intriguing lyrics on display.

From the Guardian:

With the release of the band’s sixth album, however, the time has surely come for Berman to break out of cult obscurity.

BBC:

The man’s final triumph here lies in his lyrical vision, which goes beyond merely skewering a world of craven mediocrity to suggest better possibilities, where the end might just be another beginning. But rather than expound further on the Silver Jews’ new sympathy for unloved machine humanity, perhaps it’s enough to say that this is the best album to come out of Tennessee this year; indeed possibly the world. It even has a chord chart. So you really should get your own copy.

If you read this blog, you’ll love ‘Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea.’

And I’m not biased.