Apparently the Silver Jews are done. And the message from David Berman seems to be that he is done with music--this isn't like the sort-of weird abandonment of the Guided By Voices band/brand by Robert Pollard.

There is news of a book of cartoons by Berman coming out later this year from Drag City, which should be neat. The farewell message is typically interesting from Berman--his r.e.m. fascination and apparent fear of "writing the answer song to shiny happy people" makes some kind of sense to me. It's a bit disappointing? that Berman seems to have some issues reconciling his age with making music, but I think that the whole making music/band lifestyle/self-image of himself as writer/songwriter/musician/poet/artist has been a longstanding thing of tension.

Anyway, there are certainly enough great songs from the Silver Jews out there to enjoy, and I'm happy now to have seen them play live every time that I was able. A few years ago, if someone had told me I'd see the Silver Jews play 3 shows, I wouldn't have taken that bet. And it will be great if Berman gets more writing done. I subscribed to the Believer Magazine originally under the soon to be proven false premise that Berman was going to contribute poems regularly. I think there were maybe two or three over all the years...