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Reviews of Tennessee
Bright Flight / Tennessee
By Jillian Steinberger, taken from neumu.
In over a decade, the Silver Jews (AKA David Berman and whoever he
chooses to record with) have never quite fit into the musical
landscape, existing in a genre twilight zone, subverting the codes.
Berman makes his own rules and doesn't always follow them. His roots
are in the music of American youth when he was coming up in the '80s
— punk. He records for Drag City, an indie label. On both his
latest album and his EP, Berman identifies most closely as a
countrified artist — although his music is beyond country and
alt.country and tacitly offers a criticism of both.
Berman's often compared to rock heavyweights. Bob Dylan, for example,
although they don't share much beyond common ancestry and a voice
with a bit of scratch. Lou Reed? That might be valid, since the band
has an early seven-inch called "The Silver Jews and Nico" (1993)
— but it's not. While they've been compared to Neil Young, The
Jews are not like Neil Young — they are wry, post-modern. As for
Tom Waits, Berman's voice is hardly the same gravelly bear, and the
songs differ vastly in tone and texture. And although the Silver Jews
have been seen as a Pavement side project (members of that
now-defunct über-indie supergroup play on previous albums, but
not this one), it isn't. The Jews are so often misunderstood.
There's a boho masculinity about the Silver Jews' music. Lore has it the
"band" (originally called Ectoslavia) began as a trio of University
of Virginia, Charlottesville, graduate students (Berman, plus
ex-Pavement members Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich) sitting
among beer cans and cigarette butts, inventing lo-fi tunes for
friends. Eventually they moved to New York and left the little songs
on people's answering machines (including Sonic Youth's, whose number
they reputedly finagled from a girl at a record store).
While his sometime bandmates dabbled with stardom, the apparently
incorruptible Berman has stuck to his indie roots. He refuses to
tour, saying he's not a performer, and live performances offer no
value above and beyond the recorded songs. Yet he does make
appearances, drawing caricatures at record stores, most recently in
New York (Kim's on St. Mark's Place) and London (Rough Trade, for one
quid). Very common-sense in Berman's world.
An MFA in Creative Writing and published poet, Berman emphasizes the
lyric, with no shortage of attention to songwriting or musicianship.
He is the author of "Actual Air" (Open City, 2000) and numerous
pieces in that beloved Situationist rag, The Baffler. Richard
Brautigan, psychedelic beat author of deep teen fave "In Watermelon
Sugar," comes up regularly as a comparative reference.
At Berman's request — and to their purported disappointment
— Malkmus and Nastanovich have taken a break from the latest
project, although word is they'll return for future recordings. To
protect the Silver Jews from the continued perception of
Pavement-side-project status (the opposite could be argued), Berman
opted for experienced studio musicians. Props to them; they play
beautifully together and with Berman. William Tyler plays acoustic
and electric guitar, while Lambchop member Paul Niehaus, who has
sessioned with Yo La Tengo, adds slide and twang with wave table and
pedal steel guitar. Keyboards go to Tony Crow (Lambchop). Michael
Fellows (Royal Trux, Rites of Spring) returns with his bass from the
Jews' 1998 release, "American Water," with drummer Tim Barnes. Cassie
Marrett adds a welcome female dimension, and Berman has found his
vocal female doppelgänger in her sweet, textured, country-punk
voice.
Closer listenings, particularly to the LP, reveal how grounded it is
in its sense of place and history. Overall, the new work seems to be
about movement and making tough choices — having the courage to
live life according to one's vision and determining one's destiny. It
is about what happens if you don't. It is about yearning — to be
a better person, for communion with another, for a better world. It
is about when the masculine joins the feminine and the worthwhile
challenges of negotiating long-term romantic partnerships. It is
packed with images — screen doors banging in the wind, freight
trains rolling West, God when he was young, plug-in reindeer,
floating hatchets and rhinestone suits. It is about the South —
a condemnation of hypocrisy, rednecks, horseracing, guns and throwing
in the towel too early. And it recalls and questions the meaning of
American history.
The songs are by turns tender, sweet, sexy, wry, tragic and mournful.
Some are romantic ("Tennessee," "Room Games and Diamond Rain"), while
others are spiritual ("Slow Education", "Death of an Heir of
Sorrows").
"Slow Education" opens Bright Flight; the album's first lyrics
soothe the weary adult soul ("When God was young, he made the wind
and the sun/ And since then, it's been a slow education").
"Everybody's going down on themselves" in this NC-17 lullaby,
featuring Berman's none-too-scratchy vocals and Marrett adding a
pretty backup. I like the rhythm, the keyboards are right on, the
guitars dish out the perfect twang, and even George Washington makes
an appearance.
"Room Games and Diamond Rain" follows. Again, the rhythm's on the
mark and that same pretty twang from "Slow Education" weaves in. The
song's about settling into romantic commitment; the affecting melody
and rhyming lyrics might get schmaltzy ("You keep finding and
reminding me/ That you only can be kind to me"), but the chorus takes
it in other direction, presenting a kaleidoscope of compelling images
("It's a fox hunt, it's an f-stop/It's a ten-acre wood") that balance
the song out. Sweet but contemplative, "Room Games" is one of my favorite songs on Bright Flight. I like how it sounds, what Berman talks about and the way he expresses himself — it's tender, but not saccharine.
Some of Berman's songs have an onomatopoetic quality. Many songs in
the history of country have sounded like trains (Johnny Cash's
"Folsom Prison Blues" is a good example). On Bright Flight I
do believe I've heard my first horse-galloping song, the instrumental
"Transylvania Blues" — horse-galloping music from a
fourth-generation, Southern Fried, American Jewish perspective.
(Overall, the instrumentals are respites from the intense lyricism of
the songs.)
The 4-song EP, "Tennessee," was a teaser released two weeks before
the 10-song Bright Flight. I figure Berman didn't include the
other tracks on the album because they didn't fit Bright
Flight's narrative thrust. On both the EP and LP, "Tennessee" is
the centerpiece, the heart, of the new work.
Berman conveys his agenda with two unsubtle lines, "Punk rock died
when the first kid said/ 'Punk's not dead, punk's not dead.' " (A
friend argues that it died when Joe Strummer got his teeth fixed.)
With this shout-out, D.C. says he's not working in a vacuum. He's
drawing from tradition (punk), but he's not stuck in it. Berman
appeals to youth as if to say, "Think for yourself. Invent new forms;
don't trot out the old tired forms." It's an important message, and
typical Berman.
In "Tennessee" the narrator hits the road with his gal pal and flees
to Nashville. Acoustic guitar lends a folky feel, while electric
guitars provide a twangy lead and an airy Western texture. Marrett's
voice and delivery are perfect on this duet.
The line, "Louisville is death" has caused speculation that Berman
uses "Tennessee" to reveal a distaste for this significant village in
the world of indie, one that developed while living with his
girlfriend while she finished school. Louisville's indie stars
include Berman's Drag City label mates, Will Oldham (Bonnie Prince
Billy, Palace) and David Pajo (Papa M/Aerial M, Slint, Tortoise),
neither of whom play often in their hometown. Bob Nastanovich has
claimed that Louisville is only good for compulsive gamblers, and
that the punk and indie scenes have died. The image of "Horseleg
Swastikas" and lyrics like "My horse's legs look like four brown
shotguns" ("Time Will Break the World") evoke a town populated by
fascists perverting nature at the racetracks. Hence, the male voice's
desire in "Tennessee" to make for Nashville, where he can juggle with
the rubble of Southern music and build something new.
On the EP, "I'm Gonna Love the Hell Out of You" is a sexy number
heavy on guitar, tambourine and Berman telling a story about a
"Christian rock ingénu" who wants to "love the hell out of
you." Where are those Nancy Sinatra boots when you need 'em? This
song makes you want to stomp around on the table tops. If you don't
know how that feels, listen and you'll know. The most fun of Berman's
new crop, it works on the EP but would have disrupted the flow of the
somber, introspective LP. A demo was originally released as a Jane
Magazine CD.
Berman originally drew me in with a deja vu line that captured a
previously unarticulated concept: "We're trapped inside the song," he
and Malkmus wailed in "New Orleans" on 1994's Starlite Walker.
Now I'm trapped inside Berman's latest project. And I love this rebel
Jew.
[Note: Bright Light gets an "8" rating; the "Tennessee" EP gets a "6" rating.]
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