Purple Mountains (RIP David Berman, August 2019)

Good eye, the first pic was taken ~86, the Starlite Walker pix ~8 years later.

i had that exact shirt around 9th grade lol. surprised i didn't make the connection before

https://i.imgur.com/PE32eVG.jpg

https://uvamagazine.org/articles/testing_grounds_for_indie_greatness

https://youtu.be/nsjQ3Gblzys?t=177

Weeeiiiird. I've never been able to get into Avalanches, but I guess it's cool to see them pay tribute to David.

i'm sure this is in this thread elsewhere, but

https://youtu.be/7XTrz0yvxe0

Oh, I didn't know they had worked together.

i'm sure this is in this thread elsewhere, but

https://youtu.be/7XTrz0yvxe0🕸

i've listened to this album far more than any other over the past 8 months.

good album. one year. miss him.

<3

It doesn’t seem like a year but here we are. On 8/7/19 the world lost one of the greats. I was lucky to call him a friend & a mentor; he was that & more for so many. Tried to think of a way to mark the date w/o focusing on the awful end. Here’s my idea. Tomorrow at @tresgatosjp. pic.twitter.com/VIYESE6T7l

— Ryan H. Walsh (@JahHills) August 6, 2020

From someone's private collection:

"Dime Map Of The Reef"
https://i.imgur.com/ah2mX4l.jpg

And housed within the song's design
Is the ghost the host has left behind
To greet and sweep the guest inside
Stoke the fire and sing his lines

that's a very nice image. but somehow i find self-referential lyrics still very heavy especially when they anticipate the disappearance of the songwriter. there is something coquettish about it. on the other hand there is also something very resolute about it. but of course i would have preferred him to be inconsistent, i.e. to write that song and not do it.

I don't take those lines as self-referential, or anticipating his suicide, necessarily. It's just a lovely way of saying that something of the songwriter lies within every song, forever. Taken with the lines before it, and the overall theme of the song, for me it evokes how a great piece of music can make you feel less alone, warm, comforted, human.

Yeah, I agree with that. There’s of course added poignancy following his death, but the lines stand out for me first and foremost because his songs are really like that, they are places you can go and experience the sensibilities, wit and intellect of a really special songwriter.

I find PM to be quite a hopeful record for the most part tbh

I dunno. Songs 1, 2, 3 and 8 are pretty devastating.

of all the songs on the snow is falling in manhattan is the least grim to me and the most pretty and kind

I agree

I also thought the new record seemed hopeful, then and now. Obviously presenting super heavy stuff, but in a way that felt like ripping off a band aid rather than diving into the abyss or w/e. Ending it with "Stoyline Fever" and "Maybe I'm the Only One For Me" seemed like a big statement to me, a powerful combination of songs that seems to have something to say about how with some work you may discover that you're bigger than your problems. I couldnt really get on board when after his death people started parsing the lyrics for any reference to absence, exit, or finality as saying that the record felt like a suicide note, I just didn't see it. (Also I feel like if David Berman actually sat down and wanted to do a Blackstar-style album about his own impending death, it would be like 100x more scary and intense than PM.)

That being said I've barely been able to listen to it since his passing, aside from "Snow" which I'm more & more convinced is the best thing he ever did.

^all OTM

That's a take I would like to believe in even if I'm not sure. Definitely OTM about "Snow", however.

I don't find the album that depressing, there's a lot of funny stuff

depressing is never depressing because it's ~relatable~

I still have trouble listening to it (or any Silver Jews, to be honest). i'll dig back in at some point, but for now it feels rough.

"Nights That Won't Happen" does feel a bit morbid now, I admit.

very much so. i think the album is full of really sad, poignant observations on life, much like his other albums. squint a little bit and you can see hints of the darkness to come, both on PM and the earlier SJ albums, but you can also see him coming to grips with what it would mean to push on. it's all of those things, throughout his work.

It's very probably not a deliberate "suicide note", but describing an album containing the thoughts of Nights... or That's Just... or All My Happiness... as "hopeful" just seems way off to me. He was in a bad place.

it's hopeful to me because, for the most part, it seems like he was making an effort. there's hope in the effort.

the weird thing about people who kill themselves is often that just before they do it, they seem happy and relaxed. when the decision is made there must be a big load coming off their back.

personally that's not the vibe I get tbh

i think it's an album about facing depression, frankly, with humility and humor. the self-deprecating parts of the album are humane, not self-lacerating, and actually finding that narrow line and walking it.

the disease took him in the end but this is the testimony of a survivor. if it wasn't, then "nights that won't happen" would have been the final track rather than "maybe i'm the only one for me."

otm

Has this made the rounds? I found it today and it made me smile:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXLcpX2xUt4

For all his grouchy reclusive mystique, I get the impression that it seems like he really enjoyed dishing out little bits of himself like that, little painless things that he knew people would find special.

Mounting mileage on the dash
Double darkness falling fast
I keep stressing, pressing on
Way deep down at some substratum
Feels like something really wrong has happened
And I confess I'm barely hanging on

Yeah, I don’t know if it’s worth arguing whether this album is hopeful or resigned. It’s both. Guy was obviously in a battle. Love it to so much though, still finding corners and lines from it that hit me hard a zillion listens in.

xpost those lines are so good

Just saw this pop up on Spotify, haven't listened yet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDE6_NUqagE

could not get through more than 10 seconds of that garbage

some old correspondence from DC Berman to Arthurt, 2004

https://arthurmag.com/2021/10/27/you-cannot-underestimate-how-big-a-deal-this-hair-thing-was-at-the-time-david-berman-on-a-certain-shift-in-punk-culture-in-the-1980s/

is that Shakey’s brother or did I conflate some weird ilx dreams w reality

It is.

?

(Arthur Mag’s Jay B.)

Yeah, been going through the old drives and email folders. I also recently posted an Actual Air-era transcript of an interview I did with DCB; only a very small part of it was published. Happy to share it, nice to remember him just riffing and laughing.

https://jaybabcock.wordpress.com/2021/10/25/live-from-mallard-crossing-david-berman-on-actual-air-interviewed-by-jay-babcock-1999/

nice, thank you for posting that!