you've got Tennessee tendencies, and chemical dependancies

so the silver jews were just as totally awesome as i hoped they would be.  david berman was standing like 15 feet away from us while the opening "band" did their thing.  i am kinda at a loss to describe what that was all about...  so i will refrain from comment other than to say, there was a very dicey few moments where i was very, very concerned that i was about to get a full-frontal view of the charles manson-esque lead "singer" and i can't tell you how relieved i was when he settled for dumping someone's beer on his (clothed)crotch instead.  whew!

anyhow, the jews were killer.  d. berman and c. berman, his wife, are totally meant for each other.  it's so cute.  i really liked when they sang tennessee together.  i am sure they have sung that song a hundred thousand times but it still seemed like new, and the way they kinda gave each other they eye during lines like "marry me, leave kentucky, come to tennessee..." and "i've looked through offices and honky-tonks for men man enough to be... mr and mrs tennessee."  and he looked so happy for her when she was belting out the chorus of suffering jukebox...  awww... i am such a sap.

they played a bunch of great songs that i was so happy to hear, it was just as i wanted it to be.  except for the inevitable hipster annoyances, like shouting out song titles in between songs.  nothing says "i am insecure in my level of coolness, which is a situation i will try to compensate for by yelling out the most obscure title in this band's catalogue repeatedly during any relative silence" like yelling out obscure song titles from the band's catalogue repeatedly during any relative silence.  that shit drives me insane.  

a) i didn't come here with preconceived notions of what i must hear in order for this to be a good show, and you shouldn't have either, because that is essentially the most asinine reason for coming to a live performance.  which brings us to...

b) it is a "live" performance.  a "happening" if you will.  so let it happen!  let dave berman do whatever it is dave berman is going to do!  observe what it is he does!  do not attempt to force feed your own desires to him or the band or the audience because you feel it is important that everyone know what your favorite songs by the silver jews are, and that they are obscure!  i want to murder you!

c) if you want to hear certain songs so desperately, please do stay home and listen to the record!  that will also take all the fun and anticipation out of the experience, but at least you won't be shouting in my ear!

sheesh.  oh, and the hipster attention span is about four songs, or beers, as it were... which means that after four songs, they reserve the right to start talking to the people around them about themselves rather than shutting up and listening to the band they have paid to see.  so you can usually count on hearing all about their job, their dating adventures, their other concert experiences, any old thing really... their i phone, their laptop, their bicycle, their total lack of ANY REDEEMING QUALITIES.  that kind of thing.

but.  all in all it was just wonderful, and i am so glad i got to go.  thanks kels and trey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  you guys rock.  mountain goats are up next!!!!  i will get on that right away!

we're comin' out of the pocket...

so, tonight i am going to see my boy d. berman and the silver jews play in williamsburg, which is pretty much the only thing that can get me to go to that strange land, aside from d. berman's boy, s. malkmus, who i saw play there in the springtime.  oh, and also my awesome hair stylist and curly hair aficionado, jeff.  i go to williamsburg for him too.  but no one else!

i fucking love the silver jews, pardon my french.  and i have to say, i haven't really been this excited for a show maybe ever.  that's not entirely true, but close enough.  d. berman is like no one else in the whole musical world, and i am really looking forward to finding out what kind of faces he makes when he is delivering lines like:  

"i've been workin' at the airport bar, it's like christmas in a submarine..."

-From I'm Getting Back Into Getting Back Into You

"goodbye you suckers and steady bad-luckers, 

we're off to the land of club soda, unbridled

we're off to the land of hot middle-aged women

off to the land whose blood runneth orange"

-from Tennessee

"what's with all these handsome grandsons in these rock-band magazines?  what have they done with all the fat ones?  the bald and the goateed?"

-from Strange Victory, Strange Defeat

"God must be carvin' the clouds into animal shapes."

-from Animal Shapes

it's gonna be totally awesome, i am sure of it.  and i must thanks kels for the serious look on getting these tickets.  i didn't even know they were playing 'till she bought them and told me we were going.  i almost missed my boy!

kels, remember when we used to drive around RVA in Alice singing Tennessee?  Punk's not dead...  Punk's not dead!

see you later, d. berman.  

one more quote:  

"like a brown bird nesting in a texaco sign, i got a point of view..."

if not for jon stewart...

...i would truly be lost.  i am well beyond my threshold of tolerance for the dumbassedness that consistently defines our country and its political process, especially with the new addition of the moosehunting, lipstick-wearing pitbull-impersonating, hicktown-governing, abstinence-happy-pregnant-teenager-having, insulting to the 99.9999% of humanity who aren't "hockey-moms", definition of cliche and hypocrisy that is the republican vp nominee.  i want to scream!  

but this makes me laugh, and for a second, i can forget that i can't take it anymore.  thank you jon stewart, and thank you daily show.