Jo Rose & Klara • Tennessee (Silver Jews) • 2013

Best of 2019 • Purple Mountains

Best of 2019 • Bill Callahan • Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest

The voice murmuring in our ear, with shaggy-dog and other kinds of stories, is an old friend so fine to hear from again. Bill’s gentle, spacey take on folk and roots music is like no other; scraps of imagery, melody and instrumentation tumble suddenly together in moments of true human encounter.

I never thought I’d make it this far

Little old house, recent model car

And I’ve got the woman of my dreams

And an imitation Eames

And I signed Willie’s guitar!

He sang, Hey good lookin’ whatcha got cookin’

And I signed Willie’s guitar

When he wasn’t looking!

The idea of communal befuddlement and communal peace has been present in Callahan’s discography for a while. For me, hearing him and his wife sing “Lonesome Valley” as a duet, their voices never quite melding, but each nonetheless lifting the other, is a moving argument for partnership as a guiding, palliative force—a way to keep on, alone, together. TNY

Woods, Kevin Morby & more cover Purple Mountains at Woodsist Fest • 2019

Woods, Kevin Morby, Kyle Field (Little Wing), and Anna St Lous cover Purple Mountains’ “All My Happiness is Gone” at 2019 Woodsist Festival in tribute to the late David Berman. Nearly everyone on stage played on the Purple Mountains album.

Approaching Perfection • A Tribute to DC Berman • 2019

« The idea came from my friend Baptiste Fick, who taught me two decades ago how to play How To Rent a Room on a guitar. “What if we organized a tribute compilation of David Berman?” As is customary at Section 26, I responded : “Let’s do it. We’ll think about it afterwards.” The musicians we started to contact reacted the same way, with short and direct answers. We often got a modest : “I’m in, buddy!” Sometimes, we’d receive whole testimonies of an encounter, an interaction with David Berman around Jewish mysticism, or teenage memories which obviously struck a chord with Baptiste and me. Even the most legitimate refusals were encouraging. Xavier Mazure

The Avalanches & David Berman • A Cowboy Overflow of the Heart • 2012

SPOKEN WORD WITH ELECTRONICS • Issue #1 (A Tribute to David Berman, Sept 2019)

A Toast to David Berman

This is the first three-track set for a new series of mine called “Spoken Word with Electronics” - David had agreed to participate in a track, with a suggestion to record in the Winter when he'd returned from tour. Time ran out (love to him) but here’s a piece about these three tracks and the process: boingboing.net/2019/09/02/my-unf…d-project-wi.html

Audio for "The Moon" was completed this month, post-death, as a way of grieving his work and celebrating him. This audio comes from a 2016 performance perfectly titled "The Secret Conversation" — One of only four public readings David ever performed. The entire recently surfaced recording is an incredible gift: www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFPganP_p6Y — There's a fragile sense to the performance here, particularly in the last two sets of spoken lines, that likely would not have been delivered in a recording booth.

Love to David Berman, Thanks for the bright moments.

More pieces from Spoken Word with Electronics in a few months, but I wanted to post this today.

Peace, Ethan. ep.tc/

Documentary about the Silver Jews • 2007

A film by Michael Tully documenting two shows by the Jews in Tel Aviv and an afternoon in Jerusalem during their first ever tour. 15 years after the band's inception, this tour is treated as the amazing and improbable event that it was.

RIP David Berman • 1967-2019

There’s a trapdoor in the country where we can disappear.

These giant evergreens are a promise redeemed

Let’s walk down the glassy top of a frozen pasture stream

Our minds can dream like soda machines

“I’m not convinced I have fans. In my whole life, I’ve had maybe 10 people who have told me how much my music means to them.”

We’re gonna take a ride in the dirt, we’re gonna die til it doesn’t hurt, then they can bury us side by side. 
“Room Games & Diamond Rain”

“It’s distressing to do this, but if I’m to grow, I have to do things that I didn’t do a long time ago. I’m tired. I need to take a few risks. I can’t keep living like this.” the ringer

I asked a painter why the roads are coloured black.

He said, “Steve, it’s because people leave

and no highway will bring them back.”

‘Random Rules‘

David Berman talks about the end of Silver Jews, the rise of Purple Mountains, every song on their self-titled debut… July 12th, 2019

Darkness and cold, darkness and cold
Rolled in through the holes in the stories I told
Conditions I'm wishing weren't taking control
Darkness and cold, darkness and cold
"Darkness and Cold"

What’s with all these handsome grandsons in rock band magazines? What have they done with the fat ones, the bald and the goatee’d? 

“Strange Victory, Strange Defeat”

Ten thousand afternoons ago

All my happiness just overflowed

That was life at first and goal to go

Me and you and us and them

And all those people way back when

All our hardships were just yardsticks then, you know

You know

Not the purple hills

It's not the silver lake

It's not the snowcloud shadowed interstates

It's not the icy bike chain rain of Portland, Oregon

Where nothing's wrong and no one's asking

But the fear's so strong it leaves you gasping

No way to last out here like this for long

'Cause everywhere I go, I know

Everywhere I go, I know

"All my happiness is gone"