Silver Jews v. Smog?

what a divisive thread. Who knew!

That would have been truly tragic

i mean who does he think he is, jandek? oh, wait, never mind.

smog by a nose btw

and hopping on stage with someone for a few minutes doesn't count. it just doesn't.

obviously, my point is that he doesn't as a rule perform music. that's totally his right and the records are still great, it just unfortunate for the fans, that's all.

well, considering this seems like it's become a berman v. callahan debate, _Actual_Air_ puts Berman on a whole nother level imo. Every page is awe inspiringly brilliant. Should be required reading by something like 8th grade or at least college i'd say.

i think this is true, at least that it was reported, but i think it was in europe somewhere (spain? italy?)

Why not just play Pavement.

Smog runs rings round SJs and the comparison only applies to Callahan's early albums, I think as the tone of his last few is nothing like SJs ,I think as they're more polished-sounding which I view as a good think, though Julius Caesar is truly great.

Callahan's voice has evolved hugely since the early stuff - as much as Tom Waits' but obv. not similarly. I like his voice now much more, as well as how it's produced to be um, close to the ear, not buried in the mix.

anyone recommend a smog album? if i like it you must get american water hee hee!

it's got so many good lyrics "all my favourite singers couldn't sing"
man it's so good, i might listen to it now..!

h

anyway...

good / great smog albums: Wild Love, Doctor Came At Dawn, Red Apple Falls

Decent: Julius Ceaser, Rain on Lens, Dongs of Sevotion, Burning Kingdom (get this one for "My Shell" alone)

Avoid: Knock Knock (Though MANY will disagree), Kicking a Couple Around (snore), Forgotten Foundation (unless you like Sentridoh, though "This Insane Cop" is a must-hear anyway), and the rest I'm forgetting.

Knock Knock has my two favorite Smog songs, Teenage Spaceship and River Guard. And it's a fantastic album nonetheless.

I wouldn't call Smog's entire output suffocating. He covers a range of emotion at least as wide as Berman's. His work from the past, oh, decade has gone way past the emotional submergence of songs like Bathysphere or the Burning Kingdom EP. There are usually a song or two from those albums that reach a kind of emotional transcendence (Red Apple Falls, Finer Days, Revanchism, the aforementioned songs from Knock Knock, Our Anniversary, Driving, Strayed), and emotionally complex songs that have grown up out of the claustrophobic arrangements of tweenage smog (Came Blue, I Break Horses [especially the BBC version on Accumulation: None], Distance, The Morning Paper, and I'm getting bored and have other things to do so I'll be going now). In terms of numbers, Smog's got the win (I don't know if I'd put American Water or Red Apple Falls at #1, but Natural Bridges would be right behind them, then Dongs, Wild Love, Knock Knock, Starlite Walker , and Doctor Came at Dawn finishing out the Classics). Both men are above Oldham/Palace and runner-ups like The Microphones.

Does anyone know the story of him getting his ass kicked? (Circumstances? On tour? (?) Has this been discussed in interviews or something?)

Tennessee is one of the only Silver Jews songs I'm really familiar with (its been on mix tapez, and my friend Austin plays it all the time), but jesus.. what a fuckin great song. OTM. Silver Jews are a band I really mean to listen to more but forget about whenever I'm at the record store.

Smog is kinda boring from the few albums of his I've heard (dongs of sevotion & rain on lens).

I'm miffed that this thread has lasted longer than the Oldham/Smog thread. More Oldham talk pls. kthx.

Callah's discography sounds like a peeper's diary. Berman might be married to one-liners, but they usually connect in an attractive way. Whenever Natural Bridge pops into my head, I can't help but break it out and listen. Can't say that about a lot of Callah's stuff, although I've been known to push Knock Knock.

I can't think of any other lyricist who can sound as cheerfully melancholy as Berman. Maybe it's that country tinge, but Bright Flight seems to occupy its own space in the Melancholic's Cannon. Sure makes melancholia sound like a gas.

Berman, TKO, 4th Rd. Callahan still gets a sizable purse, but Berman finally gets to buy that split-level he's always talking about.

I think the conflict is not only how many layers of remove do you want between the narrator and his subject, but how many layers of remove do you want between the subject and yourself but Callahan is cagey on this one - just when you think you've cracked the nut he'll throw in something like that one-line song on "Supper" ("and the rain washes the price off our windshield")

the question can only be answered if they both make double-albums and release them on the same day

Which would make him John O'Hara, right? This thread is about two posts away from being moved to ILBooks.

I don't think that it's been mentioned yet, but both men's voices are beautiful, though I prefer Berman's cadence to Callahan's ('cept for the vocals on Tanglewood Numbers, where for some reason Berman swtiched his style up a bit, not to the benefit of the songs I think). Both men are able to sing softly (gently would probably be closer) w/o diving into breathlessness. When Berman starts his "Chalk lines around my body ..." verse ... I'll be dead before I get tired of it.

Good call!! I do think Berman's cadence is usually more limber than Callahan's, but Supper is really amazing to me...he really hits that conversation/singing line so perfectly, especially on whassit called "Ambition" I think - "Came by to see you/now I'm on my way," that'n. I think Berman burned up his voice during his last-couple-years-in-the-wilderness - it sounds like they try to address this with doubletracking on Tanglewood Numbers though I'm not tech-savvy enough to say for sure. Callahan on the other hand seems to actually be getting a richer voice as he gets older.

Having said all that I think Berman does wistful in a way that Callahan couldn't conceive - "I Remember You" from I think Bright Flight manages to deploy comedy and pathos in perfect measure.