David Berman (musician) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids David Berman
Berman performing with Silver Jews at Webster Hall in 2006
Born	David Craig Berman (1967-01-04)January 4, 1967 Williamsburg, Virginia, U.S.
Died	August 7, 2019(2019-08-07) (aged 52) New York City, U.S.
Alma mater	University of Virginia University of Massachusetts Amherst
Occupation	Musician singer cartoonist poet
Years active	1989–2009 2019
Spouse(s)	Cassie Berman ​ ​ (m. 1999; sep. 2018)​
Parent(s)	Richard Berman (father)
Musical career
Origin	Hoboken, New Jersey, U.S.
Genres	Indie rock country-rock
Instruments	Vocals guitar
Labels	Drag City
Signature

David Cloud Berman (born David Craig Berman; January 4, 1967 – August 7, 2019) was an American musician, singer and poet. In 1989, he founded the indie rock band Silver Jews with Pavement's Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich. He was Silver Jews' only constant member until that band dissolved in 2009. With Malkmus he developed the simple country-rock sound that characterized the early lo-fi recordings of both Pavement and Silver Jews. His creative priority was his abstract and autobiographical lyrics, which he labored over extensively.

His only published volume of poetry, Actual Air, appeared in 1999. Alongside his wife Cassie Berman he toured for the first time, though soon dissolved the band. Returning to music following a hiatus, he later adopted the band name Purple Mountains and released an eponymous debut album in July 2019. Although he had planned a tour to pay off a $100,000 credit card debt, he died in August 2019.

Although Berman believed his work was unappreciated, he cultivated a passionate following and is regarded as a significant and influential indie rock cult figure.

Biography

Early life

Berman as a high-school senior, circa 1984–85

David Craig Berman was born on January 4, 1967, in Williamsburg, Virginia. At that time, his father Richard Berman worked as an attorney practicing labor law for the United States Chamber of Commerce, while his mother was a housewife. He came from a secular Jewish family, who he said had no literary or artistic inclinations. Raised mostly in Texas, he did not personally know or interact with many other Jews. He later said he had identified with Jews because he "felt like an outsider" in his youth. For most of his life Berman identified as "ethnically Jewish" but not religious. His mother had undergone conversion to Judaism without the supervision of an Orthodox rabbi, and for that reason neither she nor he would be considered Jews under certain criteria.

Berman's parents divorced when he was seven. Thereafter, he split time between each parent's household until he entered college. His father relocated to Dallas for a position as a lobbyist on behalf of foodservice businesses, while his mother moved back in with her parents in Wooster, Ohio, and became a teacher there. He later described his childhood as "grindingly painful" and said he kept "mostly independent of family things" into his adulthood. While he was an adolescent, his father rose to prominence as a corporate lobbyist representing firearms and other industries. Berman came to dislike his father at an early age. He was compelled to live with his father after 1979, despite his wishes to the contrary, because of concern he was "growing up to be a wimp".

He attended high school at Greenhill School in Addison, Texas. During his teenage years, his father sent him to see a psychiatrist. Berman suffered from depression throughout his life and later said the condition had become resistant to treatment.

For Berman, the burgeoning new wave scene in Dallas served as an early source of musical inspiration. He took an interest in a friend's rare Fairlight keyboard, and in the music of bands like Art of Noise, Prefab Sprout, X, the Replacements, the Cure, New Order, and Echo and the Bunnymen. In high school, he began experimenting with poetry by writing to girlfriends, considering the line "A cartoon lake. Wolf on skates" to be his first true foray into poetry. Berman hoped that his poetry would resemble the lyrics of punk singers Jello Biafra and Exene Cervenka. He read Henry Miller's The Rosy Crucifixion when he was 14: "It gave me permission to enjoy life". Reading significantly in his life, Berman said, reinforced his empathy, especially for those also troubled; he cited William Faulkner as an influence of his.

Berman went to the University of Virginia in 1985. He had been—by his own admission—"too lazy" to apply for college, so his father's secretary completed and submitted applications on his behalf. At university, Berman met fellow students Stephen Malkmus, Bob Nastanovich, and James McNew. He frequently attended concerts, shared records, and discussed obscure bands with Malkmus and Nastanovich, having first encountered the former in a carpool to a show. The quartet formed the band Ectoslavia. He graduated in 1989 with a bachelor's degree in English literature.

Origin of Silver Jews: 1989–1994

Stephen Malkmus, Berman's frequent collaborator, and occasional co-songwriter

Upon graduation, Berman, Malkmus, and Nastanovich moved to Hoboken, New Jersey, where they shared an apartment. In 1989, they adopted the band name Silver Jews and recorded discordant tapes in their living room – that same year, Malkmus's band Pavement released their debut extended play (EP), Slay Tracks: 1933–1969. The Whitney Museum of American Art – where Malkmus and Berman worked as security guards – and its contents (such as the art of Bruce Nauman, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Sherri Levine and Louise Lawler) was an influence to Berman. He wrote lyrics and poems while working shifts at the museum, occasionally in collaboration with Malkmus. According to Berman's longtime friend Kevin Guthrie, Malkmus and Berman had a harmonious friendship, and Nastanovich revered both artists' creativity. "It was mostly drinking beer and seeing grunge bands" Malkmus said regarding this time period and recalled that Berman appeared as a somewhat "scary goth" but was kind and enthusiastic, strongly desiring to be involved with Jewish culture.

Though Berman sometimes felt irritated by a common view that Silver Jews were merely a side project to Pavement, the connection led to his signing with indie label Drag City, which would later release all of his albums. The band's relation to Pavement was responsible for them amassing a "national audience", a notice great enough that the resulting sales meant Berman did not have to tour. The band's first extended-plays (EPs) Dime Map of the Reef and The Arizona Record were not commercially successful but gained them attention. Kim Gordon was an admirer and Will Oldham said Dime Map of the Reef inspired him to send recordings to Drag City.

Following the EPs, Berman began studying for a master's degree in poetry at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Dubbing this time an "academic exile", Matthew Shaer, in a 2006 Boston Globe article, speculated that Berman's extended time studying may have been an attempt to distance himself from Pavement. Three years earlier, Berman reflected upon his time there: after "meet[ing] grown dignified men who play with words all day," he felt he had "permission to believe that I could try for that life". He tried to get poems published in the American Poetry Review but was rejected, which increased his interest in music, "despite scarcely knowing how to sing or play guitar". As of 2005, Berman's public appearances mostly consisted of poetry readings.

By October 1994, Silver Jews had enough material for their debut album Starlite Walker. The release established respect in the indie rock scene, although with some detractors. Malkmus and Nastanovich's involvement with Pavement meant they were unavailable for the next Silver Jews album The Natural Bridge, and only Berman and Peyton Pinkerton continued writing for it. Pavement's success proved difficult for Berman, who became suspicious of fame and resented the people with whom he interacted, deeming them "cruel". He felt somewhat abandoned by Malkmus and Nastanovich, although he understood the circumstances permitted little else. Berman's personal life was affected by the deaths of friends, which would influence his songwriting. A close friendship between Oldham and Berman arose at this time and the two conceptualized a collaborative project, entitled Silver Palace.

Silver Jews was part of a "moment in underground music" of songwriters who looked to the 1970s and 1980s for inspiration, and were one of Drag City's seminal groups alongside Smog, Pavement, Royal Trux, and Palace, bands that "made American music frightening again by tapping into its most tangled roots". Berman wished to "distinguish his brand of songwriting from the depressive-narcissistic strain of 1990s rock" and later sought to break away from Drag City's "cryptic and prankish" style. The line-up of Silver Jews constantly changed around Berman, who remained its principal songwriter and "main creative driver" and led the band's creative direction since the start. "Malkmus and Nastanovich [were] there to serve his ideas more than offer their own," said Ian Gormely of Exclaim!.

Hiatus from music: 2009–2017

Berman at the final Silver Jews show on January 31, 2009

On January 22, 2009, Berman disbanded Silver Jews, and their final show was played the following week at Cumberland Caverns in McMinnville, Tennessee. "I always said we would stop before we got bad", and during the performance at Cumberland Caverns, claimed that "I always wanted to go out on top, but I much prefer this". According to Nashville Scene's Sean L. Maloney, due to Silver Jews' impact on Nashville's mid-2000s music scene, the final show meant "a chapter in this city's artistic evolution closed".

Alongside the news of the band's dissolution, Berman publicly announced, for the first time, that his father was the lobbyist Richard Berman, who he viewed as markedly loathsome and from whom he had been estranged since 2006. Berman reported owing Richard money, and once donated to a supposed investigation of Richard, initiated by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, who called upon the Internal Revenue Service's intervention.

After Silver Jews disbanded, Berman became a recluse. The "hermit, solitary aspect to the way [Berman] live[d]" predated this time, according to a 2008 interview—and Nastanovich reflected two years earlier that Berman had "gotten more reclusive". His seclusion, according to Stephen Hyden of Uproxx, concoted a perceived "mythology".

Berman published a 2009 book of surreal, minimalist cartoons called The Portable February to mixed reviews. He would later work with German artist Friedrich Kunath on the book You Owe Me a Feeling (2012), which features paintings and poetry by Kunath and Berman, respectively. Cassie sought a career in pediatric therapy. In 2010, he spoke about his difficulties with writing a book about his father—seeking to become his "nemesis"; HBO nearly adapted the book, but Berman canceled production, saying he did not want to glamorize his father. In an article about Berman, Derek Robertson said that a significant amount of his personal life was an "explicit rebuke" to Richard and an attempt to evade institutional power—Thomas Beller interpreted Berman's disdain as both political and personal.

By 2016, Berman had experienced the deaths of both his friend Dave Cloud and his mother, which compelled him to adopt the middle name Cloud and write the song "I Loved Being My Mother's Son", respectively. He was still in contact with Malkmus and maintained a close relationship with Silver Jews drummer Brian Kotzur. According to Nastanovich, at one point Berman intended to write new Silver Jews songs; he ultimately became more interested in a new style. As noted by Jewish Currents' Nathan Goldman, Berman soon "inaugurated...a different artistic phase with a series of songs about the disappointments of expectations unfulfilled", contrasting the "odes to the open field of possibility" that closely proceeded the Silver Jews' conclusion.

Purple Mountains and death: 2018–2019

In 2018, Berman and Cassie separated. Lacking money and living off royalties from Drag City, from June he lived in a room above the label's Chicago office. According to Berman, they "never had the kind of conflict that results in divorce" but had a "kind of need to live [their] lives without the other one". Berman thought his chronic depression meant he was "unfit to be anyone's husband". He and Cassie maintained a shared bank account and owned a house together, while he considered her an integral part of his family. He briefly lived in Miller Beach and Gary, Indiana.

He had grown disillusioned with Judaism, saying his belief in God lasted from 2004 to 2010; in 2008 he voiced a disconnect from Judaism, positioning himself as adjacent to Jews. In his withdrawal, he "[fixed] himself in Jewish tradition", said Goldman and Arielle Angel of Jewish Currents, viewing Berman as archetypal of Jews. His once-passion for Judaism made him eager to tour Israel; there he met Yonatan Gat and helped get him signed to Drag City—"[The] shows we played in Israel were pretty much the most amazing experience of my life". In 2018, Berman co-produced Gat's album Universalists. By that year, Berman had conceptualized a more conspicuous return to music: a new moniker, entitled Purple Mountains.

Following the release of two singles under his new moniker, an eponymous debut album was released in July 2019. An "instantly mythologized" album, Berman received heightened attention and very positive reviews: "Purple Mountains looked like the start to an unexpected second act for David Berman". Berman worked on Purple Mountains with Woods and Berman's friend Dan Auerbach, with whom he had worked in 2015; Auerbach called Berman "one of [his] heroes".

Berman's financial difficulties, the breakdown of his marriage, and encouragement from Drag City's president Dan Koretzky were impetuses for Berman's new music. Berman hoped to resolve the $100,000 of loan and credit card debt he had amassed; in a 2005 interview, he said: "I've got a credit card rotisserie system that would dazzle the ancients". He stated this was the only reason he intended to tour. Berman discussed the idea of a collaborative tour with Bill Callahan and Oldham, which ultimately did not occur. He expressed worries about the tour and notified the accompanying band that his depression may interfere but was excited for his "solitude to end".

In June 2019, Berman said: "There were probably 100 nights over the last 10 years where I was sure I wouldn't make it to the morning". Berman died on August 7, 2019 in an apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York. Will Reisman of SF Weekly reflected that by the time of Purple Mountains' release, Berman appeared as a "grim visage...Tinted sunglasses covered a set of weary, stricken eyes, his neck-length hair was thinning and reedy, and a pursed, lifeless expression graced [his] face". A private funeral attended by "Friends and family, along with the Jewish community" took place on August 16; a memorial, by filmmaker Lance Bangs at New York's Met Breuer Museum, the former location of the Whitney, was held earlier.

Artistry

Lyrics

Having given up on albums because he was unable to complete the lyrics, Berman spent most of his creative time working on the lyrics, to the point of obsession; Koretzky reportedly saw Berman spend months working on a single line. Berman's process involved considering his audience's understanding; he juxtaposed his abstract lyrics with simple melodies and rhyme schemes. He recalled a disconnect to his audience—"an indie rock crowd"—while writing Bright Flight due to the dysfunctional lives of his associates. Berman deemed all of this a "major problem". He had a didactic approach with Tanglewood Numbers and Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea, wanting to give "instructions" on forgoing depression with the former. Mark Richardson, writing for Pitchfork, and Randall Roberts of the Los Angeles Times, noted Berman's proficiency for minimalist compression.

Berman's songs often use country music tropes and his themes tend to focus on music, nature, beauty, disconnection, sports, America and god. An influence on his writing, Berman thought highly of America although hoped for a "redemption". His artistic perception of America has been noted as idiosyncratic, narrow and poignant, while forlornness often arose as humor. Religion is a recurring element in Silver Jews albums, while Purple Mountains evokes Jewish mysticism.

From Bright Flight onwards, his lyrics became more autobiographical, in a dramatic framework, and he came to view the preceding works as "make-believe". Roberts called Purple Mountains "nearly as autobiographical as a memoir". Berman discussed his isolation, divorce—Silver Jews songs about Cassie having been plentiful—and death, which had a particular presence. By this point, his music had less humor, misdirection, irony or embellishment; he was interested in being direct.

On the Silver Jews albums, Berman represented his alienation via substitutes, his characters composed of traits originating from either real-life people, fictional characters or archetypes. His fictional narratives often start relatively straightforwardly and then become bizarre; the songs of American Water conjure an "absurdist landscape" and "grow more obtuse in proportion to tunefulness". His stories present a literary aesthetic that is "equal parts rural shack and gothic zen" and his characters often reside in "half-empty country-and-western bars and backwater burgs".

Having found a wider audience with Actual Air, Berman's lyrics were held to a higher standard; and he has been praised for diverging from his peers. His lyrics have been credited as being influential for indie rock and other musicians. Pitchfork deemed him one of "the most influential" musicians of the quarter-century following the publication's launch in 1996.

Sound

Silver Jews' early work is defined by an ultra lo-fi aesthetic, starting as ostensibly "avant-gardist" within the framework of "traditional" pop songs. Their work before Starlite Walker is "regarded as the lowest fidelity recordings of the first lo-fi movement". The changing line-up influenced the sound, Berman's musical approach became simplified and the band moved further towards a country sound; Purple Mountains eschewed the previous punk rock strand. Purple Mountains is Berman's most direct, conventional album, said Spencer Kornhaber of The Atlantic, although all of Berman's discography is relatively conventional. Berman's vocal delivery has been identified as brusque, dry and mostly uninflected—his register was described as baritone and he would concurrently sing and speak. Reviewing Starlite Walker for The Guardian, Jonathan Romney described Berman's approach as "whiny, archetypally slackerish" with "vaguely country inflections"—the early country aspects being mostly humorous.

Silver Jews' songs were often sparse, usually with three or four chords, of novice difficulty. Berman understood his musical abilities were limited, the lo-fi sound initially obscuring his abilities. For a while, he wondered as to why he was without natural talent, eventually renouncing his creative insecurity and becoming assertive in his design.

Cassie and David in 2008

Berman spent significant time without playing his guitar and said his process of creating albums began with conceptualization and then daily refinement, typically writing the music first. For the first four Silver Jews albums, Berman wrote all the songs. Malkmus and Berman had differing approaches and were "longtime musical foil[s]". With Tanglewood Numbers, Berman exercised greater care and control—Shaer observed soon after its release that the album "represents Berman's most comprehensive effort to focus his songwriting".

Cassie and Berman "shared a brightening chemistry", the former's calm disposition onstage provided stability to Berman's electric presence. Everett True and Berman concurred that he was a natural performer. Berman also performed in a rigid manner, reading sheet music "like it's a literary reading"; Marc Hirsh of the Boston Globe said Berman used a music stand to create a barrier between himself and the audience. Cassie compared Berman's early showmanship to a child beginning to ride a bicycle. She did recall that their first performance belied his reluctance, as he was talkative to the extensive audience.

Poetry

Berman began to write poems in response to insecurites concering his musical abilites, the prospect arising from a competitive spirit. With regards to composition, he allocated the same time to both: two or three hours, in a daily manner, poetry being the more vigorous undertaking. His writings all saw extensive and meticulous rewriting, which he was initially averse to. He began to pursue the prospect of publication by age 22—two years before, by his judgement, his "first worthwhile song". Although his lyrics and poetry remain distinct from each other, critics have found they share certain defining characteristics, such as:

Unlike his music, Berman's poetry did not feature rhyme and the poems in Actual Air were written in free verse—he composed his poems using written notes and disclosed that he "didn't know anything about form, rhythm or meter", surmising his structure to be accidental or instinctual. Berman has mentioned various poets as influences of his: James Tate—discernible via a similar and blunt approach to surrealism and, in Actual Air, per style and focus upon location and person; Russell Edson, Kenneth Koch, Wallace Stevens, Charles Wright and Emily Dickinson.

Berman once expressed dismay that poetry offered too much freedom. Tate, under whom Berman studied, said the poems are "narratives that freeze life in impossible contortions", whereas Berman called them "psychedelic soap operas"; Heidi Julavits noted that Berman often distorted familiar concepts in his poetry. Scott Timberg cites "New York, New York" as an example of how "A typical Berman poem starts with an image almost iconic in its ordinariness, delivered in a flat tone".

Written with direct attention on emotions, Actual Air's poems include small-scale scenes and situations Berman extensively explored, the collection compared to a novel by one critic. The world concocted, analogous to that in his songs, is eccentric—with "plausible contexts" quickly altered by "an odd word" and domestic scenes "tinged with gothic weirdness". Using various styles of prose, Berman depicts, among other occurrences, "police officers [who] slowdance with target range silhouettes" and "blue deer [that] speak Fortran in the restroom".

Berman's poetry has amassed admiration, including from Dara Wier and Billy Collins—Collins featuring him in an anthology. Rich Smith of The Stranger summarized Berman's poetic output as a "master[y of] the opening line, the surprising image, the lyric narrative, the warm abstraction, and the crucial skill of knowing when to use the Latin word or the German word". Aaron Calvin, writing for Pitchfork, wrote that the intersection of Berman's lyrics and poetry bolsters his legacy.

Public image and self-perception

Berman was acutely self-conscious with his public image. After the release of Purple Mountains he feared he would be seen as a depressive, and had earlier wished he could convey a less abrasive persona; on said album, he mused about "the self-created narratives that ha[d] haunted his dark nights of the soul". The cover for Tanglewood Numbers was a "deliberate, self-conscious identification with rock tradition", rather than previous outsiderdom. He kept note of musicians who had mentioned him in interviews and believed his music was unappreciated, having never held his work in esteem, besides his lyrical capability. Berman did not view Silver Jews as a "band that other bands would namedrop", in contrast to the likes of Smog or Will Oldham's bands. Although he once expressed a need for outside validation, he refused to read reviews or articles concerning him. By 2005, hoping to separate his self-perception from others, he had installed an external blocking device on his computer for this very reason.

Although he later just considered himself an artist, Berman had been surprised that his songwriting gained more attention than his poetry, thinking of himself as more a poet than a songwriter. He didn't "fully identify as a songwriter" until the time of Tanglewood Numbers' release. Others perceived him as an earnest poet; Rothband considered Berman "synonymous with what he created". In music and poetry, Berman felt his peers saw him as "moonlighting". He once expressed interest in remaining "a stranger" in both fields.

Berman was seen as a "cult hero" due in part to his aversion to promotion, and his initial refusal to tour generated a sense of mystique. As of 2005, Silver Jews had only purchased one advertisement in Alternative Press in 1994, for The Arizona Record. He reportedly refused to let Drag City promote his music. Berman relied upon word of mouth and positive reviews, although he dismissed the notion of being critically acclaimed—he felt disregarded by critics; he resented and ruminated upon some who reviewed his work, vexed by reviewers preoccupied with his struggles, and hoped to sabotage their careers. He expressed ambivalence toward his inability to reach a larger audience. Eric Clark of The Gazette and Berman recognized the band's sound as the source of their relative obscurity; Berman further credited his singing and was motivated by such a status.

Timothy Michalik of Under The Radar said Berman had a simultaneously lowbrow and highbrow persona to which fans could relate; by 2006, Berman, according to Leon Neyfakh, was "increasingly well-known as an eccentric outsider artist". He had amassed a reputation as "perhaps the finest lyricist of his generation" with his diligence being a frequent point of discussion. Berman's return to music prompted a jovial and personal response from major publications, with concern for Berman having been identified as instrumental to his fervent fanbase. "David Berman was a friend to many, even if we never met him in person", wrote Jesse Locke for Now.

Posthumous tributes

Many artists paid tribute to Berman following his death. Malkmus and Nastanovich both commented on his death and performed shows in his honor. Drag City released a tribute cover of "The Wild Kindness" sung by Callahan, Oldham, and Cassie. Two months after his death, two cover albums had been released.

The Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library announced it would be collecting materials related to Berman.

A number of musicians referenced and/or paid tribute to Berman in albums: The Avalanches and Cassandra Jenkins quoted Berman. Fleet Foxes and Mogwai memorialized Berman on their respective songs "Sunblind" and "Ritchie Sacramento". Callahan described his and Oldham's collaborative album Blind Date Party as "all of Drag City coming together for David". The Mountain Goats dedicated their song "Arguing With the Ghost of Peter Laughner About His Coney Island Baby Review" to Berman. Daniel Blumberg and John Vanderslice dedicated their respective works On&On and I can't believe civilization is still going here in 2021! Congratulations to all of us, Love DCB to Berman.

The Tennessee Titans, Berman's favorite football team, displayed the message "Nashville (and the world) will always love David Berman" on its Jumbotron during a home game on November 10, 2019. Major publications: The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Slate, Spin and The Washington Post wrote obituaries and tributes. Fans shared lyrics and other tributes on social media; according to Pitchfork's Sam Sodomsky: "In the wake of Berman's death ... His voice never felt louder or more vital". The 62nd Annual Grammy Awards omitted Berman from its in memoriam segment, drawing criticism from some viewers.

After his son's death, Richard Berman released the following statement: "Despite his difficulties, he always remained my special son. I will miss him more than he was able to realize."

Discography

Other credits

Books

• Actual Air (1999)
• The Portable February (2009)

See also

In Spanish: David Berman (músico) para niños