David Berman (musician)


David Cloud Berman was an American musician, singer, poet and cartoonist best known for his work founding and fronting the indie-rock band the Silver Jews. Although the band primarily existed as a recording project for most of its existence, the Silver Jews toured regularly from 2005 until 2009. In January 2009, Berman announced his retirement from music in hopes of finding a meaningful way of undoing the damage that his estranged father Richard Berman, a lobbyist and public relations executive for the alcohol and tobacco industries among others, had brought upon society.
In addition to the six full-length albums that Berman wrote and recorded with the Silver Jews, he released two books: Actual Air and The Portable February. In early 2019, Berman returned to music under the new band name Purple Mountains, releasing a self-titled debut album in July 2019. He died of suicide on August 7, 2019.

Biography

Beginnings

Berman was born January 4, 1967, in Williamsburg, Virginia. His father was Richard Berman, a lobbyist who represents firearm, alcohol and other controversial industries. He attended high school at Greenhill School in Addison, Texas, before matriculating at the University of Virginia. While in Charlottesville, Virginia, Berman began writing and performing songs with his loose band, Ectoslavia, primarily composed of UVA classmates Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich.

Bands

Upon graduation from the University of Virginia, the trio moved to Hoboken, New Jersey, where they shared an apartment and adopted the moniker Silver Jews recording discordant tapes in their living room. At this time Berman was a security guard at New York's Whitney Museum of American Art. Working in this environment influenced him artistically; Berman spoke about this time saying "We were working at the Whitney with all this conceptual art, and we were learning about it … and so I thought, 'Well let's just make this record that looks like a record, and has song titles and everything, but the songs would be the ones we make at home that sound terrible.'"
Before moving to Hoboken, Malkmus had also founded another band, Pavement, with his childhood friend Scott Kannberg. As Pavement's acclaim and visibility grew, the notion arose that the Silver Jews were a "Pavement side-project," despite the fact that the Silver Jews preceded Pavement, and Berman's writing, singing, and guitar playing led the Silver Jews' music. On the band's early recordings, Berman even tried to protect the Jews' individuality by listing Malkmus and Nastanovich under aliases, but it backfired when people learned who "Hazel Figurine" and "Bobby N." really were.
Not long after the success of Pavement's debut album, Slanted and Enchanted, Dan Koretzky, founder of the Chicago-based indie label Drag City, met Berman at a Pavement show. When he heard of the Jews' tapes, Koretzky offered to release them. On their first single and EP for the label, 1992's "Dime Map of the Reef" and 1993's The Arizona Record, respectively, the band held to their ultra lo-fi aesthetic in these albums.
After the release of the EPs, Berman entered a graduate-level writing program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and met like-minded members of local bands—the indie-rock/alt-country hybrid Scud Mountain Boys and New Radiant Storm King. Writing at the university allowed Berman time for songwriting. Soon, he had enough material for an album, which became 1994's Starlite Walker. The album reunited Berman with Malkmus and Nastanovich.

1996–2008

Along with writing and working with other performers like the War Comet, Berman recorded the Jews' second album, The Natural Bridge, in the summer of 1996 with members of New Radiant Storm King and Drag City artist/producer Rian Murphy.The Natural Bridge continued to streamline the Silver Jews' sound and let Berman's rich, abstract lyrics and reflective vocals take center stage. Malkmus returned for 1998's American Water, and his guitar and vocal interplay with Berman places it among the Silver Jews' strongest efforts.
In 1999, Berman's first collection of poetry, Actual Air, was published by Open City Books. The Silver Jews returned in 2001 with Bright Flight and the EP Tennessee, which also features Berman's wife Cassie Berman on a few tracks. In early 2003, The Houston, Tx.-based theater group Infernal Bridegroom Productions staged a theatrical interpretation of Actual Air, which featured selected poems from Berman's book, as well as three live covers of Silver Jews songs, with Berman's blessing.
Following the release of Tennessee, Berman struggled through an intense period of depression and substance abuse. In 2003, he attempted suicide by using crack-cocaine, alcohol, and the prescription drug Xanax. Berman would later refer to this time as "an incredible blessing", because he became more deeply involved with Judaism.
In 2005, Berman reunited the Silver Jews—with a lineup including his wife, Malkmus, Nastanovich, Will Oldham, and Azita Youseffi among many others—for a new album. Tanglewood Numbers was recorded in Nashville and narrowly avoided being destroyed in the electrical fire that engulfed Memphis' historic Easley-McCain studio, where it was supposed to be mastered. Drag City released the album that fall.
Berman surprised fans in 2005 by announcing the group's first ever tour.
in 2006
Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea, the Silver Jews sixth studio album, was released June 17, 2008. It was recorded at Marble Valley of Lexington, Virginia and Lake Fever Productions of Nashville, Tennessee. It was followed by an American tour. The band toured the UK and Ireland in May prior to the release of the album.

Hiatus from music: 2009–2017

On January 22, 2009, Berman announced via the official Drag City message board that he would be retiring from making music, and would play a final show at Cumberland Caverns in McMinnville, Tennessee on January 31, 2009. The caverns are located 333 feet underground, and only 300 general admission tickets were made available. The concert aired on Nashville's famed WSM AM radio station, and was also available via a streaming format on their website. Berman stated that he would play his 15 favorite Silver Jews songs. He also wrote that his intentions were to move to "screenwriting or muckraking." He closed the entry by saying, "I always said we would stop before we got bad. If I continue to record I might accidentally write the answer song to 'Shiny Happy People'."
On the same day, he made another post on the message board revealing that he is the son of lobbyist Richard Berman. The two have been estranged since about 2006, when the younger Berman demanded that his father halt his work supporting guns, alcohol, union-busting and other industries of the like, or else he would sever their relationship. Richard Berman refused, and the two have not spoken since. In the message board entry, he called his father "evil," a "human molestor," an "exploiter," a "scoundrel," and "a world historical motherfucking son of a bitch." Berman ended his post by saying, "I am the son of a demon come to make good the damage."
In 2010, Berman spoke at the Open City Summer Writer's Conference. In his talk he discussed his difficulties with a book he had been attempting to write about his father. He also revealed that HBO had expressed interest in turning the book into a one-hour series. A screenwriter was hired, a pilot scripted. HBO wanted to begin production but Berman canceled it, saying he did not want to glamorize his father.
In January 2011, Berman launched his blog Menthol Mountains, on which he posted poetry, essays, and photos/collages.
Berman has collaborated with The Avalanches on two songs: 2012's "A Cowboy Overflow of the Heart" and "Saturday Night Inside Out", which was featured on the band's 2016 Wildflower album.

Purple Mountains and return to recording: 2018–2019

Berman returned to music in 2018, co-producing Yonatan Gat's critically acclaimed album Universalists. In May 2019 Berman released his first music in over a decade, a single entitled "All My Happiness Is Gone", using the moniker Purple Mountains. An eponymous debut album was released in July 2019, and an accompanying tour was scheduled at the time of Berman's death.

Personal life and death

At the time of his death, Berman lived in Chicago, Illinois. He was separated from his wife Cassie Berman, but the two still owned a house together in Nashville, Tennessee and remained very close and supportive of each other. Berman described their separation as a slow process with "no inciting incident."
Berman dealt with substance abuse through the 1990s and early 2000s, using crack, heroin, and methamphetamine. He unintentionally overdosed twice, including one occasion in Manhattan on an unspecified drug following the album release party for Bright Flight.
On November 19, 2003, Berman attempted suicide in Nashville by attempting to consume 300 Xanax pills combined with crack cocaine. When he was discovered by his wife Cassie, he refused hospitalization, and instead demanded to be brought to the Loews Vanderbilt Hotel. At the front desk, Berman demanded the "Al Gore suite"; while riding the elevator up to the room, told the bellhop, "I want to die where the presidency died!" He was eventually taken to Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Around a year later, he checked in for drug rehab at the Hazelden Foundation. The episode was later detailed at length by Nick Weidenfeld in an article for Fader titled "Dying in the Al Gore Suite". When asked about his sobriety during a 2019 interview, Berman stated, "I was only 100% sober for Tanglewood Numbers. Touring made me a daily pot smoker. It was the only way I could cordon myself off from the fuss, and endure the boredom. I was a daily smoker from 2006 to 2009." However, he never again used hard drugs following his recovery. He also noted that "Alcohol on its own doesn't appeal to me much."
After the death of his friend Dave Cloud in 2015, Berman changed his middle name from Craig to Cloud in his honor.
In 2019, Berman revealed he had amassed over $100,000 of loan and credit card debt, which he said was always over his head and "draining to worry about". However, Drag City disavowed any connections made between Berman's suicide and his debt.
Berman died on August 7, 2019, by hanging himself in an apartment in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. He was 52 years old.

Discography

Silver Jews
Purple Mountains