David Berman

You've got a drawing that's, you know, bridging yesterday to something that happened almost 100 years ago.

You know, it's really weird to mix the word meditation with some of just the grotesque, you know, imagery that has just, you know, been in front of our eyes for so long.

But I imagine when you sit down to work on a piece that there is this really strange meditation because you isolate yourself, you freeze yourself in the moment, you've determined, you've decided that this image is fucked up enough or something was... strong enough and moving enough to isolate it pull it from you know the media you know from instagram you know wherever you're getting it from you know where we're all getting it from essentially and then putting it in you know this you know this romantic um analog um original format if you would because You know, I'm sure you know, you know, back in the 20s, you know, when you had like the Dada movement, like those dudes were like wearing suits in Paris.

Some of them just like sophisticated gentlemen of their time.

Next up is a look at Silver Jew's sophomore album The Natural Bridge on its 30th birthday.

Let's check out Dallas, one of David Berman's many masterpieces.

I passed out on the 14th floor

The CPR was so erotic A blizzard flew in through the door And little glowing cum buckets in her ankles Oh, Dallas, you shine with an evil light Oh, Dallas, you shine with an evil eye How'd you turn a billion steers into buildings made of mirrors? Why am I drawn to you tonight? One should taste the geometry of a church in a cul-de-sac You're gonna wanna sit with the bad kids in the back Cruisin' down commerce, feelin' time in the blazin' sun Is it true your analyst was the place to pick up all the Falcons? We saw B.B.

Or is the mouse every morning Rich as a cat every night? Some kind of strange magic happens When the city turns on her light

That was Dallas, a leading track from the now 30-year-old Silver Jews album The Natural Bridge.

Silver Jews was formed in 1989 by the enigmatic genius David Berman and his university friends Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich.

You might have heard of those two from this little indie band called Pavement.

You know, we talked a little bit about it offline.

I think I, you know, compared you to David Berman, who is a hero of mine.

Which is an

awfully nice comparison to hear.

I completely agree with you.

And it is definitely something that I stole from Dylan, probably first and foremost.

But yeah, Costello, Graham Parker, David Berman.

Yeah.

It's funny and serious.

At the same time, I was torn between him and David Berman of the Silver Jews slash Purple Martins.

Yeah, very

similar lyrical footprint.

do you have A lyric that you're proud of writing that feels similar to that kind of pacing and, I don't know, satisfying wrapping up?

I think the lyrics on the album that I'm most proud of writing, whether, you know, this is sort of slightly skirting around your question, but I really like the lyrics to You Could Have Died There on the Dance Floor.

I think that they're the most inspired by a Stephen Merritt character or a David Berman character.

Out of the songs on the album, probably.

I think there's a line.

I go to poems for that, like whether it's David Berman or Galway Cannell or Bob Kaufman.

There's all these brilliant Gregory Corso.

There's all these brilliant Marilyn Hacker poems.

I've wanted to write you for a long time to thank you for what you're doing.

Thanks also for the episode on David Berman.

The day David died is also the day my first son was born.

During his first days of life, we took naps listening to Silver Jews albums." I'm getting emotional right now.

And, um, we didn't meet him that night, but like the next week he did an interview for the Nashville Scene, and he, uh, they asked him, you know, like, "W- have you got to go out, do anything like since you've moved here? Seen any music?" And he said, "Yeah, I went to see," you know, my, the band that, that we were in, and he said how much he loved it and everything.

And so that sort of started our relationship, because that obviously everyone was like, "Oh my God, David Berman likes your band," right? So, like-

[laughs]

And then he came to another show, and we obviously started talking to him.

They came back and won after that.

Fucking-

They were getting their asses kicked and then they put on a, at halftime they put up, you know, "The world misses David Berman," or Tennessee or something.

I'm looking at the-

I'm a little down in the dumps today.

I have really been reeling since we lost David Berman on August 7th.

And the song up front.

was Trains Across the Sea from Starlight Walker, played for and requested by Bob Nastanovich in a conversation he and I had on Twitter DM.

In case you missed it, if you're not a subscriber, if you want to hear it, I did a full off-cycle episode commemorating, celebrating the work of David Berman and, of course, Silver Jews, Purple Mountains, and some of his poetry as well.

It's a tough lesson at times, but it might be worth a listen if you are dealing with this loss the way I am.

It's not good.

here in Toronto, we're very fortunate.

I think we're probably going to have a similar sort of take on favourite singers because there's a line by one of my favourite singers, which is, all my favourite singers couldn't sing.

And that is the great, late David Berman of Silver Dew's Purple Mountains fame.

And he's one of my favourite vocalists and he really can't

sing.