Topic: David Berman RIP

[sweeper]

I haven’t yet heard Purple Mountains, but If you’re looking for premonitions in his words, you can go back to at least Bright Flight.

[sardines]

I'm more inclined to think that the scale of that tour may be what did him but indeed everything is wild conjecture.
More likely this is just what happens and trying to rationalise is a pointlessly human endeavour.

[holyzombiejesus]

Hate to pry but has it been confirmed that he took his own life yet? I don't think the death of someone I've never met has ever hit me so hard.

[good times]

Feels a bit morbid re-reading some of the latest interviews but this one is just heart rending.

https://www.theringer.com/music/2019/7/10/20686306/david-berman-silver-jews-purple-mountains-drag-city

Written 4 weeks ago.

It’s strangely therapeutic reading that interview.

So sad how close to the edge he seemed, it seems maybe the thought of touring and rehearsals were quite hard for him to deal with

[holyzombiejesus]

Lovely couple of posthumous tributes.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/remembering-david-bermans-wild-kindness-869252/?fbclid=IwAR1uyT6CAadgR0bIBuyNhX5sSqs2vUhSoNDvTyV0BBznoA2hJ0UC-88iBic

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/postscript/david-berman-made-us-feel-less-alone?fbclid=IwAR2-ovoPYWpKBClp9cZzuxFG2mOTFkk4fcDmY0iPpYrHgSLU3C5hiYNuv-w

The first one has a link to Pretty Eyes which I would strongly warn you off playing unless you want to be turned in to a blubbering mess, like I am now.

[holyzombiejesus]

So sad how close to the edge he seemed, it seems maybe the thought of touring and rehearsals were quite hard for him to deal with

Don't think he'd ever played live without Cassie.

[good times]

i listened to Nights That Won't Happen, which i always suspected was about suicide rather than 'death', and am just convinced it was his goodbye. sounds like he's fighting singing it. was in floods of tears.

I thought I’d read him say somewhere that song was him expressing anger at a friend who is now gone, but you’re right it sounds like it’s actually written the other way round.

The black camel line from that song is also quite unsettling, great imagery though.

I also realised last night that “the light of my life is going out tonight without a flicker of regret” as well as being read as his wife going out on the town without a care can also be read as his actual life force being extinguished.

The most beautiful moment  of the album for me is the “songs build little rooms in time” verse in Snow is Falling in Manhattan.. it’s like a more poetic version of the “my vibrations will live on” verse from Psychic Dancehall by The Fall.

Also, this thread title is fairly bleak now.

[holyzombiejesus]

Yeah, I was thinking of asking Barry to change it. I might ask him to split the thread.

EDIT: Which he has done. Thanks Barry.

[good times]

Didn’t realise he did a drag city Instagram takeover the day before his death

It’s mainly fairly innocuous stuff but still pretty sad seeing him goofing around only a couple of posts before they have to announce his passing

[holyzombiejesus]

It's all just fucking horrible. My wife took our little boy to visit her parents on Wednesday and I was really looking forward to 3 days to myself, getting stuff done, going out on my bike and maybe doing some decorating. Instead, I've spent all my waking time since Wednesday night either in tears or on the brink and looking at tributes to and social media posts about David. Tried putting something other than Silver Jews on earlier but it just sounded shittty. The poor poor man.

[wosl]

I'm afraid his work passed me by but a friend has messaged this morning really upset and affected by this so condolences to you all and RIP.

It has me as well up to now, I have to admit, but just a quick look at the quality of the lyrics quoted in The Ringer article linked-to by holyzombie immediately makes you want to bracket him with songwriters as good as Mark Eitzel and Jason Molina.  Some beautifully imagery.  What an awfully sad business.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

https://pitchfork.com/news/silver-jews-david-berman-died-by-suicide-medical-examiner-rules/

I have nothing to add to this, it's just so terribly sad.

[selectivememory]

I just heard about him the other day and I've been listening to the Purple Mountains album non-stop since. It's so bloody good, and I doubt I'll hear a better album this year. On "Nights That Won't Happen" it does sound to me like he was really trying to make peace with the idea that he was going to end his life soon, but maybe it's just the context of his death that makes it seem that way. Beautiful but desperately sad song.

Will have to check out his back catalogue soon as well.

[Gregory Torso]

Will have to check out his back catalogue soon as well.

As i always say, do check out his book "Actual Air" as well.

[sevendaughters]

i think that about Nights That Won't Happen but as he pointed out in his AMA, it's also a joke (Nights in White Satin) that everyone missed.

[selectivememory]

As i always say, do check out his book "Actual Air" as well.

Will do, thanks.

[holyzombiejesus]

Susan’s blind date was a real mess. At the end of the night he walked her home. She was locked out of her own apartment. Frustrated, she asked him to break the door in. He grunted and bucked against it until she was completely repulsed. The sight of him brutally breaking into her apartment frightened her. She screamed for him to get out.

https://thebaffler.com/stories/clip-on-tie

[Gregory Torso]

Beautiful. Every paragraph, gorgeous.

[holyzombiejesus]

There was so much he could have done if it wasn't for his demons. But then, if he wasn't such a lovely, funny, gentle, clever man who was hurting so much it made him ill, he wouldn't have been the man he was.

I still feel so sick about this. I was talking to a friend and we agreed that one of the problems was that he's everywhere. His work was so peppered with things that changed the way you saw the everyday. I can't turn the tap on without thinking of that voice and seeing jewellery coming out, or see a horse without their legs as 4 brown shotguns. I really wish he was still with us but then I remember one of the lines from That's Just The Way I Feel

"But this kind of hurtin' won’t heal
And the end of all wanting
Is all I've been wanting"

and I kind of feel that he'd done his best, left us with some of the best, most beautiful and brilliant lyrics and poetry and decided to just opt out, as tragic as that feels. I certainly see why people invented an afterlife as the thought of him elsewhere, feeling better and looking at how loved he is would be tremendously consoling. But there's not and it isn't.

These pictures are nice, if only because it's a chance to look at some of the great lines from his poetry. Would post but don't know how to resize and they're all superjumbo.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/21/books/review/tamara-shopsin-david-berman.html?module=inline

[good times]

Listening to Tanglewood Numbers for the first time in years

After Lookout Mountain Lookout Sea it was probably my least favourite as it was a bit too jolly/produced and while I absolutely love Pony and How Can I Love You I never really got the hype over Punks in the Beerlight which I thought was fine.

That said, it's the perfect tonic right now - so full of life and David at his most happy and confident sounding.

[holyzombiejesus]

Have you heard the demos? I think they were leaked with DB's blessing although don't quote me on that. Anyway, they're not so polished and make for a slightly better record. Still think the 2nd, 3rd and 4th albums are miles ahead of the rest, although I had thought that the Purple Mountains album was better than any of them.

[SteveDave]

Listening to Tanglewood Numbers for the first time in years

After Lookout Mountain Lookout Sea it was probably my least favourite as it was a bit too jolly/produced and while I absolutely love Pony and How Can I Love You I never really got the hype over Punks in the Beerlight which I thought was fine.

That said, it's the perfect tonic right now - so full of life and David at his most happy and confident sounding.

Tanglewood Numbers is my favourite because of my slight Pavement hatred. I was listening to it again last week when this verse popped out and made me laugh my head off:

"Happiness won't leave me alone
Says a bird in his nest
Get a load of this fuckin' view
Its the best in the west"

It's in the delivery of the third line. A very boastful bird.

I would be interested in hearing the demos though.

I've been asked to do a song on a "tribute" thing for him for a French music magazine along with Jeffrey Lewis amongst others.

[holyzombiejesus]

Someone's got them up on Soulseek right now but if you don't use that, I'm happy to share if you leave me extremely simple instruction.

[good times]

Have you heard the demos? I think they were leaked with DB's blessing although don't quote me on that. Anyway, they're not so polished and make for a slightly better record. Still think the 2nd, 3rd and 4th albums are miles ahead of the rest, although I had thought that the Purple Mountains album was better than any of them.

I haven't actually, didn't know they existed. Will have to track them down.

Also can we talk about how hilarious the Darkness & Cold promo video is? Rewatched it again this morning and its fucking ace.

It's also a great example of making a scruffy, middle-aged man with a beer belly and combover seem incredibly cool.

[holyzombiejesus]

Also can we talk about how hilarious the Darkness & Cold promo video is? Rewatched it again this morning and its fucking ace.

It's also a great example of making a scruffy, middle-aged man with a beer belly and combover seem incredibly cool.

I can't bring myself to watch it although remember it only occurring to me after about the 20th watch that he's a ghost. Also, I liked the way he ate the sweets.

I've been asked to do a song on a "tribute" thing for him for a French music magazine along with Jeffrey Lewis amongst others.

Is it Les Inrockuptibles? Do you know which song you'll do?

[SteveDave]

Is it Les Inrockuptibles? Do you know which song you'll do?

It's this http://section-26.fr/

I'm going to do "That's Just The Way That I Feel"

[holyzombiejesus]

I'm going to do "That's Just The Way That I Feel"

Ooof!

[SteveDave]

Ooof!

I think he’d like my version with its light reggae feel

[sevendaughters]

not heard this but a journo did an interview with DCB for a never-realised 33 1/3 book.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqjwDK00rts

[good times]

Will have to give that a listen at some point

It's been nice everyone saying how lovely David was but his spiky side should be celebrated too eg.

1. the story about him whipping a CD-R at Frank Black's bald head
2. him saying Spiral Stairs's pavement songs gave a new sense of holiness to the skip button on a cd player
3. his takedown of Radiohead