RIP David Berman, of The Silver Jews and Purple Mountains. Only 52 and set to tour for the first time in a decade. This one's a real bummer.
https://pitchfork.com/news/david-ber...ns-dead-at-52/
Printable View
RIP David Berman, of The Silver Jews and Purple Mountains. Only 52 and set to tour for the first time in a decade. This one's a real bummer.
https://pitchfork.com/news/david-ber...ns-dead-at-52/
American Water is one of my all time favorite records. RIP.
No doubt...was about to go on tour. Troubled soul
I made it three tracks into Purple Mountains. Not sure I’ll revisit that one :(
I'm shocked. This really caught me by surprise. This Purple Mountains album seemed like his announcement of his re-emergence. It's a fantastic record.
The lyrical content of the Purple Mountains record definately makes it seem like he was contemplating stepping off. He was a fantastic lyricist and a unqiue voice and I'm saddened that it ended this way.
Are any of you familiar with the band Actual Tigers with frontman Tim Seely? Story goes that the band Willis was looking to change their name for legal reasons, and they got the idea for their new name from a postcard they received from David Berman. They released one album under the Actual Tigers name, "Gravelled and Green", and that was the end of the band. To this day, it's one of my all time favorite albums.
Anyway, a bit of a tangent there. RIP, David Berman.
Yeah, his lyrics were always pretty dark, but the new album was very direct even by Silver Jews standards. I hate to say it wasn't all that surprising, but you don't even have to go too far past the song titles to get a sense of his mental state: "All My Happiness Is Gone," "Darkness and Cold" and "Nights That Won't Happen." His ability to discuss loneliness and depression, I think, are a big part of his appeal though.
One of my favorite pieces of indie rock trivia is that Berman was in a band at the University of Virginia, Ectoslavia, with Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich, of Pavement, and James McNew, the bass player for Yo La Tengo.