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Real World Fantasies And Online Realities
with David Berman of the Silver Jews
T his is actually how it went down. I picked up Silver Jews
bandleader David Berman in my milk delivery truck on a snowy
Valentine's Day in Athens. We left before sunrise. Our uniforms
were pressed, and so white. We drove through the city passing out
glass bottles of milk to waiting ladies. We took the time to give
candy canes to the city's orphans, who, as you probably know, are
big into candy. And parents. It's a shame, really.
We rode around talking about music and love,
and what it felt like to have a beard, and whether ^
pets have the capacity to find their owners j2j
annoying. It was all very spontaneous and im-
mediate. We were witty as hell, right out of our i
mouths. That was to be expected—Berman writes E
songs like a country singer would write if he lived ^
in the suburbs. They're gut-felt commentaries
on what people go through. He growls questions
and answers over ringing, rhythmic songs. He's
quietly sincere, and he hides nothing behind trite
ironies. It should be noted that his book Actual
Air also makes Berman a published poet, just like
Jewel! (Berman's poems, of course, are relevant
to those of us older than, say, 12.)
But actually, it didn't go down like that at all.
I don't have a milk truck, and Flagpole couldn't
afford to rent one when I asked. Flagpole didn't
even know where to rent a milk truck. It didn't
snow on Valentine's Day. and I've never even met
David Berman; I didn't even get to talk to him,
because he doesn't do phone interviews. “David
Berman is available for interviews via email (he
is a writer first and foremost)," said his publicist,
"guaranteed to be captivating and insightful!"
So I did get to write to him via the information
superhighway to ask him about his new album
Tanglewood Numbers, a surprisingly rollicking affair. Berman—the
brains and voice of the Silver Jews, a project that sprang up in
1989 with Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich of Pavement a f -
ter they graduated college in Virginia and moved to New York—is
taking the band on the road for the first time ever, starting his
national tour right here in Athens. That touring lineup: Berman,
Cassie Berman on bass, Brian Kotzur and/ or Bob Nastanovich on
drums, Tony Crow on keys, and William Tyler and Peyton Pinkerton
on guitar.
So here's our email back-and-forth, with some of that spastic
Internet writing slightly cleaned up by editor-types. You know,
capitalizations here, punctuation there. Spelling all over the damn
place. After all, regardless of firsts and foremosts, recommend is
not spelled "reccoment." But be warned: sometimes words can't
express what only a sideways smiley face made out of punctuation
can. Welcome to the future.
Flagpole: Tell me about what you were like in high school. Did
you write then? Did you vandalize tool sheds and stuff like that?
David Berman: I was shy and moody the first two years;
flipped out and absurd for the last two. I was way too uninformed
to be making anything more permanent than graffiti.
FP: When you ployed in Ectoslovia in Virginia with Stephen
Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich, was Pavement still small or did it
exist as a separate entity?
DB: Steve had another band called Lake Speed. He recorded
the album at this old man's studio in Crozet, VA. This was 19S8.
I thought it was brave and advanced to go make this record in a
real studio. The bass player was from a frat rock band called the
Skulltones. I think he sent the record out to a bunch of labels. I
think they got a letter of interest from Frontier Records and that
was it Ectoslavia was a basement noise organism that was hap
pening concurrently.
FP: Why did you change the name of the band
to Silver Jews?
DB: Two years later we were all living in to
gether in a cellar apartment in Jersey City, NJ,
barricading ourselves against the work world un
til such a point as we could liberate ourselves.
FP: Regale me with tales about your formative
years as a band.
DB: I'm taking a stand against the contribu
tion of any additional Scruffy Lads Tales to the
mythology of rock.
FP: This record seems pretty conducive to rock
ing more than your others have...
DB: The practices we've had with everybody,
we've had three this week, have sounded ve
hement. Is there already a metal band called
Vehement?
FP: No. but there was a death-metal band in
2000 called Vehemence. Why do you only do email
interviews?
DB: Because every interview I read sucks and
this one doesn't. Face-to-face/ phone interviews
just yield small talk and stock answers. Besides, with the unlimited
follow-up-question clause, what is lost besides the time you know
for sure you'll get the answers?
FP: You've been sort of exploited by journalists to some degree
before... or is it something more benign than that nowadays?
DB: I refuse to introduce any more chatter into the bullshit
world of appearances. I can't talk on my feet, and from what I've
read of 'live* interviews with musicians, hardly anybody can.
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