Meet the Silver Jews

By Chris Nelson. Originally appeared in Addicted to Noise. October 96.

Some people look at errors as bad things, as mistakes to be avoided. Not the Silver Jews’ David Berman. He sees them as inspirational gold for the mining. In fact, sometimes he even tries to commit them. “A lot of times, I’ll see something and I’ll get it wrong,” explains Berman. ”I’ll read a book sometimes really fast, or I’ll open up to a page, purposely to allow a sentence to hit me wrong, and use the error to my favor.”

Berman is the songwriter, singer, and guitarist for the Silver Jews, whose second album, The Natural Bridge (Drag City) is due out this week. In the past many folks considered the Jews a sister band to Pavement, but that notion is likely to change with The Natural Bridge. Steven Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich, both members of Pavement and collaborators with Berman on other Silver Jews records, are nowhere to be found on the new album. Recording sessions with the two musicians did take place, but wound up being scrapped. Berman instead recruited Peyton Pinkerton (guitar), Matt Hunter (bass), and Rian Thomas Murphy (drums) to help him flesh out his new material.

The Natural Bridge is an excellent country-folkish album stamped with Berman’s poignant lyrics and keen eye for detail. Sample this born-of-error line, which begins a verse of “Dallas”: “We saw B.B. King on General Hospital in the Oak Cliff dramhouse where we stayed. ” “I had a fever last winter,” says Berman, noting the line’s origins, “and I was just sorta sitting there, flipping through the TV. I hit the end of General Hospital when they were showing the credits, and I guess B.B. King had been on the show. (But) I wasn’t really sure if I had seen right… I don’t really know if it was B.B. King or a guy named Bob King, or whatever.” Whether King was actually on didn’t matter, because what intrigued Berman was the contradictory picture he saw: “The kind of misery on soap operas, and the kind of misery in the blues, and what kind of weird friction mix that would be–white, black, and everything. ”

The title “Inside the Golden Days of Missing You,” a track whose melody and guitar work should conjure comparisons to the Velvet Underground, had a similar genesis. Last year, Berman’s girlfriend was watching an episode of Saturday Night Live that featured a skit about a romance novelist. Berman was in an adjoining room and misheard the title of the novelist’s book. So he walked in, and asked his girlfriend, “Did he say The Golden Days of Missing You”? And she said, “The Golden Ache of Missing You,” and I said, “OK, that’s mine then. ” Of course, this is only the stuff that Berman happens on by mistake. He’s also a poet and short story writer who worked on (though he didn’t complete) his master of fine arts degree at the University of Massachusetts. Suffice it to say that he also knows how to write the old-fashioned, purposeful, hard way. Cross The Natural Bridge and see for yourself.