Earlier this week, David Berman, primary tentacle of Silver Jews, posted what amounted to a disturbing (if true) revelation to his many fans and admirers: His “…gravest secret. Worse than suicide, worse than crack addiction — his father, Robert Berman, aka Dr. Evil. This followed a post announcing the end of Silver Jews and Berman’s career as a songwriter… moving on to other means, perhaps screenwriting, as he also alluded to in our interview.
“This winter I decided that the SJ’s were too small of a force to ever come close to undoing a millionth of all the harm he [Richard Berman] has caused,” Berman wrote. A Jan. 31 show at Cumberland Caverns in McMinnville, Tenn., will be the last of the Joos. Either way, the records left behind are nothing short of legendary and I feel fortunate to have seen the Silver Jews on each of their two tours. Read the thread at Drag City and see some other reactions here and here.
Republished below is an e-mail interview I conducted with David Berman last September, for LAist.
Been having fun with LaLa.com lately — really straining to remember the tracks I’d repeatedly listen to back in the day — which for me was 1991, when I’d make a dozen mix tapes and rock out driving back and forth to high school, etc. I was 16 and there was nothing more liberating than driving around rockin’ out.
Lala.com is interesting. First of all, I was confused because I initially signed up for LaLa (under a diff username) when it served as middleman in a CD-swapping online network that never really took off. I traded one CD through the service (Billy Bragg for Swearing at Motorists) and continued to get occasional requests for a few CDs I was happy to part with (Prince 3121 anybody?) and finally closed that account now that LaLa has redefined itself as a legit music listening and sharing (via embed / recommendation / iTunes) social network.
I’m currently listening to this great interview with Paul Westerberg, circa 1986 on the release of Pleased to Meet Me. Westerberg is sounding drowsy, but is definitely at his rolling-stone-critics-poll loves me I’m a serious songwriter phase. He sloughs of the bands “firing” of Bob Stinson noting that he just can’t do stuff like “Nightclub Jitters.” Interviewer Roy Trakin mentions that Bob Dylan bought tickets for that night’s show… “It’s always weird, y’know…” says Paul. Fun chatter about “Alex Chilton” and what happened to Big Star, etc. He kinda likes the Coronas that everyone is throwing around these days, but his preference is Grolsch. Special Export better than Bud. Then your typical “I hate myself… I just don’t understand myself.” The band was making $750/month each according to Westerberg at that time. But the band did it for a good 10 years, and personally, I can never get enough of the ‘Mats.
In other news, I can’t stop listening to Screaming Trees Uncle Anesthesia. It was one of my favorite tapes of the early ’90s that nobody else seemed to be into (ironically, I had a similar experience with Smashing Pumpkins Gish at the time). Mark Lanegan’s voice was the real deal Still is.
Complaints about LaLa: big one here — the AJAX is a little screwy using Firefox 3.0.4 on Mac. I can’t copy the embed code to paste into this blog and I have a little trouble logging in — it often takes two tries for it to execute. Couldn’t copy / paste an embed code on Opera either. Or Safari. I’ve managed to put it on my Facebook profile (via the LaLa app) but that’s about it. I’ll embed this Westerberg Interview as soon as I figure out why I can’t successfully copy / paste the code!
It only took 30 years or whatever for MTV to get back to actually presenting music videos. It’s been about a month since MTV fully acquired Flux / Social Project. MTV’s involvement with Flux has been quiet and inneffective over the past year or so. Perhaps owning the full package will lead to some nice social channels? Or perhaps I just want to embed one of the worst videos of all time (by one of my all-time favorite bands) below. Via MTVmusic.com.
In brainstorming for tomorrow’s panel on Social Media and Music tomorrow tonight (Sept. 11) at Kleiner Perkins in LA (I’m co-moderating with Jackie Peters), I came up with the below list of concepts, products, and applications that peer into the future of music and the Web. More info on the panel is here. Please feel free to add more context / suggestions in the comment section below:
In brainstorming for tomorrow’s