Silver Jews tonight; a week of greatness at The Waiting Room…

Category: Blog — @ 12:29 pm October 7, 2008

The live review for this past weekend’s shows (Upsets, Officially Terminated, Shanks) will appear tomorrow as this week’s column (which means they’ll also appear in this week’s issue of The Reader). Look for that.

But tonight, get your ass to The Waiting Room for The Silver Jews. I can say without restraint that their new record, Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea, is one of the best albums of the year. For those of you who missed it, here’s my Aug. 20 review:

Silver Jews, Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea (Drag City) — The album can be summed up in one perfect song: “San Francisco B.C.,” where drawling frontman David Berman croons a story of a break-up with a “local martyr in the vegan press,” a crime story that finds our hero “in the possession of burglary tools” only to confront the bad-haired murderer who orphaned his true love. Along the way there’s plenty of “fist cuisine” and “insignificant shit” and other tossed-out genius that makes this one song better than Tarantino’s last three films. Musically, it’s laid-back, rolling, countrified slacker rock, with Berman sounding like the second coming of Johnny Cash, and wife, Cassie, providing the June Carter harmonies. Rating: 4.5 stars.

Silver Jews rarely tour, rarely play live. The couple are notoriously private and in years past rarely did interviews (Here’s Chris Aponik’s e-mail interview in the current issue of The Reader). It’s very likely that you will never get another chance to see this band in Omaha. A very good chance. Don’t miss it. $14, 9 p.m. Get there on time to catch the return (since April 2007) of Israeli garage band Monotonix representin’ Tel Aviv.

Tonight is day one of a week filled with amazing shows at The Waiting Room. The STNNNG plays tomorrow night, UUVVWWZ plays Thursday opening for A Place to Bury Strangers, McCarthy Trenching has its CD release show Friday with Neva Dinova and Ted Stevens, Coffin Killers open for School of Arms Saturday, then the place gets burned down Sunday night by Bloodcow and stoner rock kingpins High on Fire. Get the details at The Waiting Room website, and thank Marc and Jim the next time you see them, which better be tonight.

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