Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Interviews David Berman: Cream Writer? Probably Not.
Posted by D Patrick Rodgers on Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 11:54 AM
You can pick up a copy of this week's paper or click here to read my sidebar on Silver Jews' final show in McMinnville this weekend. And you know, if Berman is truly planning on disbanding the Jews, he'll likely have a lot of spare time on his hands. Gold has suggested getting the man a Cream login and having him contribute for us. Hey, he's gotta exercise those writing chops somewhere, right?
OK. So Berman isn't likely to start contributing to this blog. But he did give me a wealth of quotes--far too many to squeeze into a 500-word sidebar--so why not run them here and make believe the Poet Laureate of Nashville Rock has joined our modest team of bloggers? Here's a little taste of what Berman has to say about the excesses of the music industry:
There is something about participating in the music economy that makes me uneasy. You see it a lot in Nashville, Supply down on its knees begging, whoring for Demand, but I didn't ever expect it to infect what was once called "underground music," the vague world I've been working in for fifteen years.
Berman bares the tattered remains of his weary soul after the jump.
Scene: Were you a fan of the previous Bluegrass Underground shows and WSM country and bluegrass programming in general?
David Berman: I found it over the Internet! But I am always apprised of what is going on at WSM. I even go over to Opryland Hotel and watch them broadcast through the glass wall. The thing was, I didn't want the show to be on WSM! I don't want to bathe nude in the mainstream! I just wanted to do a concert in a cave.
Scene: Will the lineup/material be mostly the same as your Exit/In show (and presumably others on that tour)? Care to expound on the "what we do is symbolic" tidbit you gave me from a few weeks ago?
DB: I think we will play all the Joos songs we know. We will play some that have never been played.
Playing live has been rewarding. It has been lucrative. But it has been creepy. There is something wrong with the current practices of media consumption. There is something about participating in the music economy that makes me uneasy. You see it a lot in Nashville, Supply down on its knees begging, whoring for Demand, but I didn't ever expect it to infect what was once called "underground music," the vague world I've been working in for fifteen years.
Bands are so desperate for economic and cultural capital, it's frankly embarrassing. And business as usual performs a social function. It legitimizes the way things are done. The money is amazing and no one talks about it.
Unrecognized power relations go unnoticed. The Internet has become a giant premature discussion of canonicity. The top ten list, a stupid try at creating your own system of domination.
The anti-major label discourse has taken focus off the weirdness of expecting musicians to follow an entrepreneur's model. Self-aggrandizement. Postures of vanity. It all goes uncriticized. Adolescent fixations. Regressive phenomena.
Perhaps government funding of the arts could have fended this off, but everyone who makes music today contributes to the media trance. We are all just downstage from American Idol. The socio-historical mission of pop music is finished, at least until society/history changes again.
I know there is a relationship between music-making and broader social practices that feels terribly wrong. I want to opt out and resist, but the money offered for shows and festivals is irresistable.
Calling this a last show will probably just [increase] its overvaluation, which is what I'm trying to get away from, but sometimes you have to announce out loud that you are through with something in order to drop it. Pride will push you to meet your self-announced destiny.
By "what we do is symbolic" I simply meant that I plan to bury the band. And that's the last thing I'll say about it.
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if our government wasn't so big, maybe music would still be
alive. there will be no change. it's just an illusion.
Given the dodgy financial path this country is on, I don't know of anyone trying to make any sort of huge career change, especially if they define their current job as lucraive. Most folks have to be content to hold tight, at least for the time being.
Of course, DCB ain't most folks... I wish the ol' boy all the best.
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