Silver Jews in Philadelphia, 9/9/08: Preface

It's hard (for me) to write well about music with which I've developed a significant personal relationship. Not just stuff I like or love, of which I consider myself a fan or devotee, or for which I'm willing to withstand hours sweltering in a dimly-lit church basement to hear and see. It's not the music I obsessed over as a 13-year-old -- remember when "repeat" was considered a totally sweet feature?

Rather, I'm tripped up by the music that serves a desperate need. Plenty of great music has the power to seduce, creating desire for a sound and feel and then fulfilling that desire. I'm talking about the stuff that blindsides you because you'd been feeling a need for something for a long fucking time -- sure, call it an ache -- and then you hear a record that fills in the ache a little, or makes you feel a little less unhinged than you think you might be. The need at its core isn't met (no record will do this), but maybe you can fight it off more easily, or you understand the need better, or you can at least think about something else for 40 minutes.

Compared to the heavy ruminations I tend to stumble into (see above x10), describing the airy lift of an organ hook sometimes seems beside the point.



David Berman's work falls into this category. I could go on about brilliant-sad-funny lyrical moments, twangy and dark atmospherics, spooky mocking rockers, etc. But more often I find myself at a bit of a loss because his songs evoke a very specific, alienated, period of time for me. Not because the songs on American Water boast the best of the above traits but because the first time I heard it (because of and with Michelle, in Ann Arbor, and I was probably wearing hideous ankle boots and too much eyeliner) was in the grasping, chaotic early stages of a years-long period of depression. Silver Jews brought me a little bit of comfort (sure whatever let's call it that) as my mind adjusted around whatever it was that I needed, or profoundly lacked, or was hiding from. I still listen to all of their albums on a weekly-or-so basis, still derive enjoyment and comfort and artist-modulated doses of humble but wry despair. But now, parsing Berman's newer works and recent performances critically feels like analyzing depression: I do it in my head all the time, but when you break that shit to the rest of the world, you feel uncomfortable, exposed, unable to do justice to a thing that, well, if it was such a big deal, you should have a better handle on.

If I can't do justice to Berman's music in a standard 500-word review, then let the fact that this is the first thing I've written about in four months do it for me.

Next: The First Unitarian concertgoing experience, Monotonix, and the Jooz live in action.

Get Inside the Kingdom: Silver Jews in Pittsburgh

When I saw Mr. & Mrs. Berman last, it was at the Starlight Ballroom in Philly, one of the earliest shows they played. There was a little more hype, it being their first real tour (I recall an off-stage announcer introducing them in an old timey showbiz manner, and Bob Nastanovich’s guest/gimmick appearance on drums), and a lot more nerves. Berman stayed planted by his music stand, reading the lyrics, and apologized for it a few times, tapping the side of his skull as explanation. The crowd was so adoring, though, that I can only imagine this latest tour reflects a growing ease with live performance and not just continued financial hardship.

Berman definitely seemed more relaxed this time around. The venue was a lot smaller-- the William Pitt Student Union, which was essentially like a small hotel conference room where some boring seminar/convention would be held-- so maybe that helped. He dispensed with the music stand, wandering the stage and pantomiming along with the lyrics, telling corny jokes here and there. He even threw fun-size candies into the crowd! (During "Candy Jail," of course.) Cassie looked more confident on bass, too, though she did have the same indulgent, ever-so-slightly embarrassed “Aw, look at my crazy husband” expression that I remember. What other kind of face can you make, though, when your man is fixing you with a super intense stare of devotion and/or singing “I love you to the max” literally nose-to-nose with you?

I tried to get a good photo of his crazy love-stare, but fate/lighting was not cooperative. This is as close as I got:



The rest of the band didn’t really talk, and they had on matching suits, so apparently they have no qualms with being relegated to the background. The couple, singing front and center, was certainly the main focus. Actually, Berman focused more on Cassie than the audience about half the time.

That’s the thing about the Silver Jews. There’s so little separation between David Berman and any sort of artistic persona. The Silver Jews is less a band than a way of documenting his life. Roommates with Stephen Malkmus? He collaborates on your album (and you get written off as a Pavement side project for ages, although I think that’s not an issue anymore, especially among people my own age and younger who never listened to Pavement while they were actually together). Fall in love and get married? Your wife becomes a central member of the group. I’m hoping this means that as long as there’s David Berman, there will be Silver Jews albums. Also I heard a book of his cartoons is coming out in the near future, though I cannot for the life of me find corroboration of this on the internet right now.

Oh yeah…what songs did they play? I’m not the seasoned concert reviewer that Alex is, so it didn’t even occur to me to write the set list down. But as I recall, it was quite healthy in size and variety: they opened with “Getting Back Into Getting Back Into You,” then “What Was Not But Could Be If,” then…in some order or another, Smith and Jones Forever, Trains Across the Sea, Candy Jail, Horseleg Swastikas, My Pillow is the Threshold, Random Rules, Slow Education, Strange Victory Strange Defeat, Wild Kindness (I think maybe?), Aloysius Bluegrass Drummer, K-Hole, We Could Be Looking for the Same Thing, and San Francisco B.C. The encore (they did an encore this time!) was Tenneesee, Suffering Jukebox, and Punks in the Beerlight. A veritable greatest hits indeed. I’m not the biggest fan of Aloysius Bluegrass Drummer or San Francisco BC -- they’re a little too witty/wordy for me, when what I really love about Berman’s lyrics is how he can condense so much into a single line, and how the humor is more usually more subdued and weird than in either of those songs. But they worked in the set, nice bouncy numbers to bring up the energy, considering the bulk of the Jews’ catalogue is a little, uh, melancholy.

Also of note: new logo. On the drum kit and the t-shirts.

This must relate to Berman’s recently intensified/renewed interest in Israel. The video for “Getting Back Into Getting Back Into You” is just shots of him and Cassie strolling around Jerusalem. There’s a documentary coming out on this topic in a couple weeks, so I’ll wait til I see that to write about this further cause I don’t really know what the deal is.

D.C. Berman quotes for the road -- slightly paraphrased as they are from memory:

“I googled that phrase, ‘my pillow is the threshold,’ when I was writing the song, because I thought someone must have already used that metaphor. But no hits. It’s what I call google-pure.”

“It’s not sexual harassment, she’s my wife!” Rim shot. This is after pawing Cassie during a song.

[After “Smith & Jones”] “This next song, Horseleg Swastikas, we were in Germany and I wasn’t sure if we should play it. Just because, you know, it has the word swastikas. But then someone asked me if Smith and Jones was about white supremacy. So I thought we’d play those two together tonight.”

“I saw this old Italian man sitting on his stoop today. And he has this tiny grill, and he’s turning a chicken on a little rotisserie. Then this hippie walks by and says, ‘Hey man, your monkey’s on fire and the music’s stopped.’” Say what?

Also, I own the same dress as Cassie was wearing but in a different color! OMG we’re so alike!!!

Alex, I expect you to write up the Philly show. I am usurping your blog in a major way.