Purple Mountains (RIP David Berman, August 2019)

which is he -- the dude on the far left?

yep. that pic is awesome, and thanks so much for the context and story, cow_art.

i am sitting here listening to my own neglected D.C.Berman album, Tanglewood Numbers. i recently found it on my record shelves, miscategorized, away from the others, and didn't even realize i owned it! it's a special gift this morning

Good album. Small problems, but I recently started buying vinyl again and had a couple SJ albums in my list of things I absolutely need to have. I imagine they'll be backordered for quite a while now.

Last night I rewatched Silver Jew and it was tough going, especially the end when he is praying and crying.

Yessir, that's a heavy scene to say the least. Says a lot about the steel of the filmmaker that we even got to see it. I don't know that I would've been able to breach that highly personal (figurative) wall by getting my camera so close to him during the wailing, but I guess he was cool with it.

Heavy scenes like that one are balanced out by lighter ones in the beginning, like when he's asking the pet shop owner for a chewable menorah.

As much of a fan as I am, have never watched "Silver Jew". Will have to rectify that soon.

It's worth your time, for sure. This scene even has a ski vest button-style convenience store mirror in it.

https://j.gifs.com/2x1yAN.gif

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zVzxausyPo

That pic of D♾M is fantastic, thanks a lot for sharing. (I feel like I know the guy in the middle somehow, like he was a camp counselor or something, but I guess lots of guys looked like that.)

Don't know the name of the guy in the middle. The guy on the right is Rob Chamberlin. I think Rob and David were Doom. Not sure if the other guy had anything to do with the band or if they were just hanging out together.

Silver Jew was hard to watch with hindsight, not because it is inherently depressing. He was actually at a pretty good place in his life then.

it's an insanely catchy song. i know it's a direct rip of a new wave song

Listening for the first time in weeks (and really enjoying it after days of just reading lyrics quoted), I noticed how the synths really are separated from being just a signifier of 80s top-40 pop. They sound live and part of the band, rather than an imitation of or homage to the era when they were a commercial necessity.

do we think we can try to figure out the bands for the two setlists on the wall behind the guys in that Doom pic?

my guess for the one on the left is True Believers - I've never heard them but they have songs called:

Marianne
Hard Road
Lucky Moon
Foggy Notion
She's Got
Who Calls My Name

they are also from Austin and Club Dada on the poster next to it is in Dallas - could be the set list is from that gig?

The keyboards are essential to the sound: I love the Mellotron on "She's Making Friends, I'm Turning Stranger" (reminds me of similar passages in Bowie's "Big Brother," oddly), for example.

This is the Twitter feed of Silver Jew director Michael Tully, scroll down a bit for some remembrances:

https://twitter.com/tullstoy

I like the way that WaPo piece dwells on Tanglewood Numbers; I agree that album occupies a special place in the SJ discography.

Am I the only person whose favourite album is bright flight?

No, I am a huge Bright Flight fan. Maybe his most depressing but I love it. The opening of Horseleg Swastikas ("Drunk on a couch in Nashville") might be my favorite Berman moment. Also, I'm a sap, so there is a 50-50 chance I tear up at I Remember You.

How long has American Water been out of print? I just checked and it seems to be going for crazy money on eBay and doesn't seem to have any sellers (of any format) on discogs at all. How can this be? This album was everywhere!

I noticed the same with Actual Air back in May -- the '99 Open City/Grove Press printing was going for $55 used online (now $275, though a 2019 reprint also is now out).

Bright Flight is my second favorite, about The Natural Bridge.

"after"

lol and to think I bought my paperback copy of Actual Air for $2 in the remaindered section of the campus bookstore in late '09.

How long has American Water been out of print? I just checked and it seems to be going for crazy money on eBay and doesn't seem to have any sellers (of any format) on discogs at all. How can this be? This album was everywhere!

― Paul Ponzi, Sunday, August 11, 2019 11:22 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Not out of print, afaik. Just that everybody bought the entire stock last week.

Caution to anyone clicking on circa1916's poemhunter link upthread! It's full of poems from a David Berman other than our David Berman.

$2 is a tough price to beat. Free is also good, but you know if they could, they'd sell the Air.

I'm so happy to still have my '99 Open City Actual Air, even though the pages are stiff from being waterlogged in some long-forgotten beverage that spilled on it some night many nights ago. I lent my little hardcover reprint edition out to some girl named Deborah that I hung out with twice in 2003, and now I'm starting to worry I might never get it back.

Deborah F from Manhattan Beach, California: if you're reading this I hope you at least read the book, you scoundrel!

Oh are there bogus poems in that link? My bad.

It's cool. We were warned of impostor Davids. The premonitions never ceased with the guy.

http://mentholmountains.blogspot.com/2019/05/fyi-other-david-bermans.html

cvilleweekly also had some nice memories.

https://www.c-ville.com/words-music-and-wit-indie-rock-icon-david-berman-touched-local-lives/

That article is good, though this is an odd remark (at least given the circumstances):

And of that Purple Mountains record, Hlad says, (...) “It’s so personal, and so revealing. It’s like Blood on the Tracks, but a much better record. And I’ll stand on Bob Dylan’s coffee table and tell him that.”

Well, at least when he did it, it was funny.

e.g. "NIRVANA: BUSH:: REAGAN: BUSH"

Kind of a riff on Steve Earle’s old line “Townes Van Zandt's the best songwriter in the world, and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that.”

Ah, I didn’t know that reference.

no wonder dylan gets so grumpy, look at this shit his coffee table has to deal with

and i'll stand on bob dylan's coffee table and look him in the eye and say that

Lookout Mountain is probably my favorite and most listened to, but I feel like Tanglewood & American Water are definitely his twin masterpieces, everything you need to know about him & Silver Jews is in those records.

The night before news of his death broke, I saw a gig by NYC antifolk/cartoonist guy Jeffrey Lewis and bought one of these delightful SilverJewsLand
prints that he was selling, framed & hung it in my kitchen as soon as I got home. Woke up the next morning, saw the news, and thought I cant handle looking at this over morning coffee every day and took it right down. Maybe someday it'll go back up but I dunno when.

I'm envious of people that have been able to listen to the albums since his death, I just dont feel like I'll be able to handle engaging with any of the material for a while.

many, many xps but the other gothy guy on the right in that old UVA pic is Rob Chamberlain who I met when he was working at Strand Books shortly after he was replaced by Mark Ibold as bassist in Pavement.

He's one of the many obscure members of Pavement that not many people know of, others being early drummers Jeff Doyle, Kelly Hensley & Jason Fawkes (all early drummers).

Wow, I’ve never heard of any of those guys. When were they members — like before Steve & Spiral even recorded with Gary?

The early Pavement show I saw (at the Uptown bar in Minneapolis) had a drummer both the door and making toast.

*both working the door

This is Rob's band, they were great live... much better than this. They were at the time contemporaries of the Silver Jews & Pavement if you could believe that lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WId0rLAItJo

Those other guys were Stockton dudes who drummed on the early stuff (not to say Gary didn't either, but Gary was more of the engineer in the very beginning but sort of became the drummer by default). I think Perfect Sound Forever was the first Pavement record where the lineup was just SM/Spiral/Gary.

I remember reading somewhere that Scott had a different band called “Pavement,” and wondered if there was any bleedover.

Yeah, Scott's ASU band was named Pavement briefly (in '87):

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DyXheS4UcAEeGkU?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

2/3rds of The Silver Jews (Hazel Figurine & DCB) at Steve Keene's studio in 1991 circa Dime Map Of The Reef:
https://i.imgur.com/peWdS9I.jpg

In Portland, late 2018 post Bejar-sessions:
https://i.imgur.com/OMwrp2Z.jpg

one of DCB's last short form broadcasts (trigger warning: embedded "indie" tweet):

"Albania..." pic.twitter.com/zGf3msItmi

— purple mountains (@prplmtns) July 27, 2019

This scanned interview from 2003 is really good.

“Out of James Tate and Charles Wright I got to meet grown dignified men who play with fucking words all day. They gave me permission to believe I could try for that in life.”

Back in 2003, as a grad student at @EmersonCollege I got to interview David Berman for Beacon Street Review (now @redividermag). I could not believe someone so talented (Actual Air from @dragcityrecords is actually perfect) would say yes, but he did: https://t.co/MOtQa6EfYo

— Kathleen Rooney (@KathleenMRooney) August 12, 2019

Re the American Water talk up above, I was surprised by the prices it's going for as well - even the CD copy. I could have swore I had a copy, but I guess I never did upgrade my old cassette. Hopefully Drag City gets more in some day soon. I also never got around to getting Tanglewood either and it's out of stock.

just dug up a copy of Minus Times from 2003 with a Berman poem called "The Irish Space Program."

I vaguely remember that one. It was from around the same time as "The High Numbers." https://believermag.com/the-high-numbers/

If you want to post it here, I for one would be much obliged.

I'll have to transcribe it later when I'm less busy, but will do. A friend of mine got a story published in the same one.

David Berman, “The Irish Space Program,” published in the Minus Times. pic.twitter.com/iilqtWUTq9

— William Boyle (@wmboyle4) August 8, 2019

go raibh maith agat!