Not Much Water Comin' Over The Hill

I

(David Berman, courtesy Drag City Records.)

David Berman passed yesterday at 52 – if you don't know who he is, imagine a richer baritone-d, off-kilter Leonard Cohen who softened his all-encompassing darkness with acid-country wit. Imagine Leonard disappeared near the height of his powers, occasionally sighted in the Internet's bowels, only to reappear after a decade with arguably the best record of his career and a slew of self-effacing, brutally honest interviews – only to pass away less than a week before hitting the road for his first performances in 10+ years.

I have to use a terrible comparison of two completely different artist in a weak attempt to express the simple fact – Berman had no peers. Very few songwriters of his (my? our? I'm 17 years younger, but grew up playing with many bands who out-aged us by a decade) generation can measure up – and certainly, his style and wordplay made him singular, even amongst aging indie demigods whose very existence in 2019 are challenged by the realities of the music industry. "Icon" doesn't feel right, but good friend Pete said it best today: "I've never read so many eulogies."

To hear him was to love him – to know him. Probably why I left a bar record night yesterday to go cry quietly in my car, feeling exactly like and completely different from the 19-year-old who did the same in his dorm after Elliott Smith. Maybe it's the additional generation that's passed since then, or just 16 years of sleeping, driving, drinking, and worrying – all that living formed callouses that yesterday's news sloughed straight through.

II

Vienna, Austria has an amazing fast, modern train whose terminal is just down a few escalators from the international airport – for 10 euro or so, you can jet right to the city center on one of the smoothest, quietest, most comfortable airport transit systems I've ever ridden on. In May, Tyler and I flew in together and had settled into said train, when I connected to WiFi to get that first news drip after hours spent on international flights.

In a tumultuous spring, I had publically asked for – then received! – news of a new Bill Callahan record. Thought I'd try my manifestation luck again in April by asking the Gods for Dave Berman to return. The first thing I saw upon turning on my phone was the Purple Mountains news. I'd done it! Manifested another record out of the ether – I put my phone in Tyler's face, we high-fived, then bounded out of the train into a sunny Vienna, late afternoon, basking in the Stadtpark while watching toddlers scoot over a pedestrian bridge and summer revelers sip wine and chat in earshot of a quiet city stream. 

2019 was looking up, ripe with the return of possibility – right as we overcame the bland vagaries of adulthood to take a group ride down the Danube.

III

It's Spring 2006 and Everything, Now! is touring in a disused airport shuttle bus with handicap lift built into the rear door – most of us are in school at Ball State, so we've called the tour SPRING BAKED. Not only is the band a 6-piece at this point, but we've also got two good friends and roommates along for the ride. It's basically a rolling party bus – one overnight drive, I hear screaming and nervous laughter and it's because one of the guitarists is pissing out the window while driving through Georgia's foothills so fast that the pee is just streaming back the side of the bus in warm rivulets, losing additional flow in each gap between the cheap sliding windows like a leaky irrigation channel.

At the close of this tour, we made a 2-night stop in Athens, GA (our lead singer/songwriter's hometown) to play one of our favorite DIY spots – a multi-story-tall basement set into a hillside beneath street-level commercial storefronts. Because it was a weekend, the show was scheduled early-ish, 7pm, so as not to compete with all the other venues in town. 

We'd begun making friends in Nashville with a bunch of angel-voiced, bearded dudes who played multiple instruments and had a shit-ton of great rock-n-roll bands: Hands Down Eugene, The Carter Administration, and some others I can't remember. Through one of these connects (God knows how any of these super-talented Nashville folks dug our shit-gear, longhair, psych-punk-junk-prog jams...) we met a brilliant slide guitar player. That night in Athens, he was sitting in with a band opening for the Silver Jews at the 40 Watt.

[Note: I'm realizing with some research tonight that this was the first Silver Jews show ever. Previously...I was only aware that it was their first tour.]

I was 3 or so years into a deep Pavement obsession that started the second I heard S&E – Silver Jews ambled into my ears via a burnt CD from some friend and the laconic sounds of what I first thought were Pavement gone honky-tonk eventually seeped into my veins. When Tanglewood Numbers came out in 2005, I was Music Director at WCRD – and songs from that LP that should be goddam standards today ("Punks in the Beerlight", "Sometimes A Pony Gets Depressed", "I'm Getting Back Into Getting Back Into You") rapidly made their way onto our automated playlist and my regular show. 

Back to Athens – slide guitar guy gets ahold of Jon and asks if 2 of us want on the guestlist for the Silver Jews show. We figure we can make it straight out of our set, and agree. I'm not sure how we decided it was us who could go out of the 8 other than...we were the biggest fans? It was Jon's band? Regardless, I remember squeezing into the packed club and hearing the Joos rip through a great set, Dave dressed in a maroon blazer and towering over the stage and band. Once he started singing, all felt right. 

This was a musician's dream – the best night of my life! I was pretty sure – I remember coming down from the basement keg beer, thanking Slide Guitar, and leaving 40 Watt on cloud nine, a completely different person than the shy, uncultured nerd who nervously moved into a dorm 3 years earlier. We decamped back to the DIY space and drank through a 3rd show of the night – some fast-as-fuck punk via Guyana Punch Line that jackhammered thankfulness into my skull.

(Everything, Now! circa Spring 2006, on a beach in St. Pete, FL.)

IV

As I sit and stare at my wall of records, I suppose that the reason my shelves are always overflowing (besides an addictive personality) is that music affords you a workingman's way to connecting with a higher power – 5, 10, 15 bucks to see or experience art created from some body/soul/sweat/tears – art that takes you places, bridges divides between strangers, and attaches itself, barnacle-style, to events in your life, accentuating and colouring in the meaning of life events and decisions that you don't recognize the Power, Importance, or Heft of when you are in them. 

Only later. The gift of hindsight is a weird drug for self-analysis. In some ways, a curse: it's hindsight and our need to shape stories in order to make sense of the World that forces Berman's existence into an arc, when, like our own, it was more likely a squiggly line, frayed here, grayed there. We wanted to see Purple Mountains as a redemption, as someone defeating something inside themselves, for a moment or a hundred moments, and emerging the victor.

Upon his passing, the arc shifts: the album becomes a presage; and who but ourselves can parse the two-sided coin of self-lacerating wit and darkness? Sometimes we don't even know what side of our own coin is heads up.

I'm deeply sad that DCB won't be able to look back at the outpouring of love inspired by Purple Mountains and his passing. I hope he found peace.

back to the present

things i have been up to lately:

Writing album features (here and here) for Musical Family Tree, the Indiana-related digital music repository.

Went to Florida with Amelia to see my parents, who reside in Land O' Lakes...not the home of the butter. We walked beaches, ate fresh shrimp & grouper, saw botanical gardens, rode bikes on nature trails, slept-in, made pancakes, drank lots of coffee, saw dolphins, river otters, and all kinds of cranes, visited my Mom's co-op, introduced my parents to Cuban food...had a great time.

My parents & I outside their house in Florida. I think we were all looking into the sun...which is out 95% of the time. Now I remember why people move there...

An extra-sauced Thanksgiving due to generous tastings of Amelia's cousin's cider...

A mini-roadtrip on a freezing & rainy day to Cincinnati to see German experimentalist/improviser/elder-statesman Roedelius, in an art-space converted from a century-old brewery & warehouse, the Mockbee. also ate one of the finer meals of our life at Senate Pub---my review here.

One of the best live shows I've ever seen...(6-part vocal harmonies? Yes, please.) Enjoy this nugget filmed in their home-base of Athens, GA.

A month prior, roadtrip to Columbus to see a recently reunited (and completely awesome) Olivia Tremor Control at the fabulous Wexner Center, preceded as always by the irresistible Clever Crow pizza.

Released (digitally-only, for now, vinyl to follow in February) the new Everything, Now! album, Do It On The Moon, via the wonderful musician's tool Bandcamp. Check it out here.

Cover of the new Everything, Now! record, Do It On The Moon. Painting by Allen, our guitarist.

Read at least three incredible books, Steinbeck's East of Eden, and Orhan Pamuk's Snow, and Dexter Filkins' The Forever War.

Watched way too much 30 Rock / Parks & Recreation via Netflix, and finished the currently-streamable, anxiety & stress-producing, overall way too depressing seasons of Mad Men. Also discovered, thanks to my brother Wes, the British-comedy Peep Show, with its near-constant internal monologue.

One of the best moments of Season 4...had me rolling around on the couch with awkward laughter.

Third annual post-Thanksgiving bash filled our house with good friends & good times. Along with breaking the fire-code for bodies in the building, lentil stew & cranberry cake were served, along with a baby keg from Sun King, and aforementioned ciders. As a sign of getting old, the night slowed down pretty early & ended with a sleepy round of Scattergories (I blame this on so many English degrees in one place).

Two impromptu basement recording sessions with amigos Andy & Tyler have produced roughly 8 workable tunes. Went into the basement with just ideas, came out hours later with live tracks recorded through a 4-track into Garageband. Mixing & Chicago-apartment-overdub session is imminent for January 2012, with an internet release to follow shortly thereafter, with the nom de plume of.......well, I can't say. "D's P" for short.

Lastly and most recently, trip to Louisville for the family Christmas. Stayed in my sister's sweet new home, dined at the now-traditional Irish Rover (been coming here for a good 2/3rds of my life...yikes!), exchanged some small gifts, and helped cook a ridiculously awesome Christmas dinner of beef tenderloin, cheesy potatoes, balsamic brussels sprouts, garlic & butter green beans, homemade bread, and strawberry & cream cheese jello. Decadent to say the least. Who knew we'd all be able to cook so well! Oh, and can't forget the yearly treat of Buckeyes, as made by Jennifer. Thanks sis! Now, back to running...

music diary project, day two & three

Wednesday, April 6th
Pretty dry day. I think work was busy, and post-gym run (I'm one of the few who forgoes headphones in favor of listening to my inner rhythms) we got cleaned up and went on a date for sandwiches & beer. The weather was too nice not to!

(1:25p) Beastie Boys - "Make Some Noise"
Via Pitchfork alert, listened to a track from the upcoming Hot Sauce Committee Part Two. Unlike most (or all) of their previous borough-related effort, this one did seem to click. One part reverb-y, grungy drum track, and one part pitch-shiftin' distorted organ; it really is the perfect bed to let these aged rappers plant their (admittedly not-fresh) maxims in. One thing their vocals have gained over the years is flavor, and in-particular you should savor the transition of MCA's vocal stylings into a gravelly, Waits-ian timbre.

(3:40p) Wire - "Red Barked Trees"
Actually watched a Jimmy Fallon performance from this week. While their strengths are still evident, the fairly flavorless showmanship didn't do much to sell me on the song, in which one chord churned along while epithets for the future unfurled themselves. Then again, I've never had much attachment even to Pink Flag, which I listen to on rare occasions. I think I've never been able to cut through the dry, crackly production value...maybe one day this mental block will fade and I'll finally become enlightened. Similar mental blocks have delayed appreciation of the first Stone Roses record and other similarly too-Eighties sounding efforts.


Ah, abstract-ness. Mondrian much, guys? Will be interesting to see if the record is similarly stripped.

Thursday, April 7th
(11:00a) John Lennon/Yoko Ono - Double Fantasy Side A
Just got this record, though I'd never listened to it before. Started filling out my federal tax return, so I put it on. Though the production was more 80s than I expected (and try doing taxes while listening to the Ono moaning segue), I was enjoying it till Carlos, cat #2, decided to be cool and jump on the record player, before sitting down to a good lickfest. (Ono-related?) Side B will have to wait till another time.

(11:30a) Yuck - "Get Away"
Brought up by the estimable Tyler Clark, as they have a new record out on Fat Possum (which is increasingly no longer a blues label). Describing them in a G-chat session, the sum of our efforts was basically, "this is a 90s band." It's a Built to Spill/Dinosaur Jr./Sonic Youth/Pavement fuzzy guitar attack, heavyhanded at times but still sonically effective. I think this is the first single, and it's almost impossible for me not to like this, especially with that great, stomach-upsetting opening guitar "skreeeeeeeee!". I may forget about ever listening to the full-record unless I see it around, though maybe my lack-of-awareness of new records will finally cease in 2011.



(1:30p) Everything, Now! - Do It on the Moon Early Rough Mixes
Yeah, this is my band. This is our 6th record, and has been mostly recorded in my damp, freezing, cinder block basement. Had to listen to the first complete mixes of the record, begin to discover the little idiosyncrasies that you can see so much easier in a record you've been involved with, like re-reading your own words, alternatively grinning and wincing till you realize, "Hey, this is pretty good." I think this is and will be a good record; will anyone listen? Remains to be seen.

(2:30p) Sunroof! - Silver Bear Mist! 2xCD
A random purchase in a recent mailorder, this is a double-album by plenty prolific Matt Bower, out on one of my favorite labels in existence, VHF. I'd moved on to state taxes, and I think the universe was punishing me for listening to my own music. This is a squall of a double-record, most in a sonic range that is usually best expressed as tinnitus. Or maybe the patchouli rainforest incense was drowning out the low-end. Either way, much like burning extra-strong incense with your windows closed, this album was purification by fire, even at low volume. Sometimes you need an ear-cleaner like this, to wash out that ear-to-brain connection of all the junk we carelessly toss into it. Though I won't be digging into this often, it is recommended.

(4:30p) Oneida - Preteen Weaponry
My latest contact with Oneida has been the sprawling, 3-disc Rated O, which is more sonic narrative than record. Where it was a scatterplot of ideas, Preteen Weaponry is in their own words, "super fucking heavy, so be serious." It is definitely a haze of a record, all slow-burn and reminiscent of kraut & psych forebears, without directly ripping anything. While drummer Kid Millions is often the star of the show, this record is more about creating and maintaining an atmosphere, layers of smoldering guitar, distorted bass & keys, all shape-shifting and never quite resolving. This band continues to surprise and impress; they're never bored, and neither is the listener. One of my favorite Oneida records, up there with the classic Each One Teach One. Oh, and see them live.


Oneida playing "Preteen Weaponry" at Terrastock 2007. One of the best sets at the best show I've ever seen. Did I mention they played at Noon? Who needs lunch in lieu of this.

did you hear the one about the snow

Being all weathered-in (even the gym closed for a day), we've been watching plenty of movies, in-between catching up on Egypt-happenings via the New Yorker's excellent "Dispatches from Egypt" online series and frequent Newshour viewing. Also, completed a large amount of updates to the oft-neglected Everything, Now! internet portal, including figuring out how to stream 4 of our albums in their entirety, and putting a sampler EP up for download.


Cover art for our new CD 4xEP...

In-between, managed to escape the icy clutches of the near-Eastside to see (for the first-time, shame on me) the best American band of the past quarter-century: Yo La Tengo. Post-brewpub pints & burgers, we caught both halves of their set, the first of which was decided by the spin of a wheel. Though I was rooting for a Condo Fucks set, I was pleasantly surprised by DUMP, as bassist James McNew took over Ira's axe(s) and played a stellar, pretty clean and vibrato-y set of guitar-pop numbers. Plus a shredfest at the end, and the dude can shred. The second half of the set was not surprising, but allowed for all the YLT tropes. After classic mellow-organ-and-polyrhythm opener "Autumn Sweater", there was the R&B skronk of recent jam "Periodically Double or Triple". Other highlights were Summer Sun standout "Little Eyes", and on the opposite side of the noise-spectrum, aged guitar-freakout proto-punk blast of "Artificial Heart". There was the requisite noise-kraut jam which saw Ira switching guitars, James roughhousing his bass into his full-stack, loads of feedback closing out their set pre-encore. The encore was mostly quiet & acoustic, a warming coda on a below-zero night.


Pretty much ready for a road-trip to India.

After watching quirky doc Home Movie earlier in the week (a must-see for the Gator Farm owner alone), on a whim we watched director Chris Smith's more recent offering The Pool, a serious comedy/coming-of-age tale in Hindi, set in the beautiful city of Goa. Besides making me want to travel immediately, it was an unexpectedly great movie. The dialog was warm in tone, funny, poignant, smart; the colors fantastically vivid yet real, the locations full of dusty beauty. Unfortunately, you have to compare it to Slumdog Millionaire, but I feel like The Pool is much more realistic and touching in its depth. Just an excellent story.


Get out of my head, Robert Blake. With your no-eyebrows face and glistening hair!

Last night we had a double feature of Lost Highway and...Aziz Ansari: Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening. After the anxiety-ridden creepitude of another Lynch feature, I guess I just needed a palate-cleanser. Lost Highway, upon second viewing, may be my favorite non-Peaks Lynch creation. The story circles around on itself, the sense of suffocation and dread is fairly thick throughout, and the pace is deliberately slow yet carries momentum. Clearly going to need a third viewing. As for Aziz, his post-meta-whatever style does hold water; story-jokes about messing with a younger cousin via-Facebook and hanging out with Kanye both carry weight. For someone who's schtick is so heavy on "not-giving-a-fuck", all the intra-family joking was extra-funny to see. Meta, indeed.

musing on 27

The first time I really felt old happened at a house show. I was in Greenville, North Carolina, a shitty town in the no-man's tobacco plains between the college metro areas to the west, and the barrier islands of the Outer Banks several hours further east. Maybe it wasn't as shitty as it appeared on this particular day, one of constant drizzle, the whole atmosphere remaining a cold, steely gray through all waking hours. It was early November, and we were on tour.


Played in a house like this. Maybe this house? Add soiled mattresses against the wall, elbow-to-ass crowd, and sour puddles of beer and cigarette butts.

Summer is prime touring season for any number of reasons. Weather is great for driving long-distances, bands full of college-kids have extra free-time, people like to go out more often, spend more money, get more drunk. November is not prime touring season. It is cold, or rainy, or close to the holidays, impressing their moral glow on social activities. And the November immediately following one of the biggest recessions since the 1930's, well, let's just say this might have been the worst-timed tour possible. I was burnt out from working a full-time job and trying to book shows that we wouldn't completely lose our ass on. The van had died in Texas more than a year previous, thus we'd be packing all of our gear into Dave's mom's minivan.

If I had the choice between buying booze and forgetting myself, or buying records and thinking about the human condition...fuck it, I'm going to buy booze. Idealism fades in the face of shitty economic conditions, especially when any media source you can hear or see is inundating you with fear. Fear of disappearing jobs, fear of government, fear of your neighbors, your boss, fear of change, fear of anything that could change your shitty way of life.


Insert 5 dudes (the smallest, me at 5'11" & 160 lbs). 1 full drumset. 2 guitar amps. 1 bass amp. 1 keyboard amp. 1 box of cables. 3 guitar cases. 1 keyboard. 1 keyboard stand. Sleeping bags, food, coats and hats.

So, everyone there got drunk. Raging drunk, set-piles-of-stuff-on-fire drunk, pour-a-Forty-into-the-donation-bucket drunk. But it was a good-time buzz, enjoying the bands. We turned in a sweaty set marred only by Dave breaking strings and sitting down in the room's only floorspace--directly in-front of the kick-drum.

Outside, the fire now composed of treated lumber pallets, its sinewy, chemical smoke trail twisting up to the streetlight illuminating the sandy yard, we sat on broken benches, salvaged chairs, overturned objects. Kids (twenty-somethings, really) were buzzing about while Titus Andronicus set up for their guitar-army overdriven punk sound. Their van shone somewhere in the distance, a reminder of how far we hadn't come; 25 years old and still borrowing someone's minivan to pile in.


Titus Andronicus. This show did lack crowd-surfing, since the room was barely wider than the length of a body. Nice dudes, they offered to trade albums, and were a bit taken aback when we told them we had five. One asked, "How old are you guys?" I spent most of my time outside coveting their van and probable-hotel-money.

A couple songs into their energetic set, I was squeezed out of the bedroom-sized space by jostling bodies. Scrambled back through the fetid kitchen to the fire, still burning. From inside, the chords began playing a note-for-note cover of Weezer's "The Sweater Song." Kids in the yard, kitchen, street, immediately exclaimed, dashed in noisily to fill the room even more beyond its breaking point.

I stared into the fire, put my hands deeper into my pockets, watched the bodies stream in until the yard was quiet save for the brief sounds of traffic, moisture popping, snapping as the fire leached into the sky.