Loading summary
Transcript14 lines
- [00:00]
Host 1
Foreign.
- [00:19]
Host 2
Welcome back, everyone. Welcome back to Jokerman podcast and to our annual Silver Juice David Berman episode for the year of. Well, when is this coming out?
- [00:30]
Host 1
20. 25.
- [00:31]
Host 2
Yeah, 25. It's his. It's the man's birthday.
- [00:34]
Host 1
That's right, exactly. January 4th, every year, as we've done for the last couple years. You know, we did Lookout Mountain a couple of years ago. We did Starlight Walker last year, talked to Bob Nastanovich and Craig Finn, and this year we're doing. Boy, like, honestly, I think my. My pick for number one, most beloved Jews record, the Natural Bridge. And stoked to be joined by one of the great photogr working out there these days. I'm sure you've seen some of his work from either musicians, you know, Friend of the pod, Ezra Koenig and the Vampire Weekend crew, Charlie xcx, the Dare, or Raucous Disaster. Current events all across this great nation as well. It's Sina Nasseri. Sina, thank you so much for joining us.
- [01:19]
Sina Nasseri
Thank you, guys. Honored to be here.
- [01:22]
Host 1
Pleasure's all ours. Thank you. And, you know, thank you again for agreeing to hop on with us. I don't, I don't know if I've come across any sort of like, writing or like, interviews with you or anything where you explicitly call out your love for the man, David Berman, but, you know, the first time I came across you, you know, online, you've got the, You've got the handle strangevictory, which.
- [01:45]
Host 2
Ding, ding, ding.
- [01:45]
Host 1
You know, that says everything, everything it needs to, right there.
- [01:48]
Sina Nasseri
Strange victory, Strange Victory. Strange victory. Strange dreams to feed. Yeah, I was lucky to, I was lucky to choose that name because it sort of chose it at the outset of my sort of photographic journey. And it can't. You know, it started fitting what I was doing and fitting like my style so perfectly. The Strange Victory. I don't know, it's. It's. I feel really lucky that, that David wrote that song and that I was able to kind of, you know, piggyback a part of that and have it. Have it define part of my work.
- [02:38]
Host 1
Absolutely, yeah. I mean, that's one of the great. I mean, they're all one of the great Silver Juice songs, but some of the Silver Juice songs are even more of the great Silver Juice songs, you know, what's with all the handsome, handsome grandsons? You know, that's a line that I'm going to be thinking about on my deathbed, you know. Well, what's your. I mean, just tell us a little bit here before we, before we begin this. This journey. What's. What's your history with. With the man, with the music, with, you know, just everything that he stood for, made, created.
- [03:08]
Sina Nasseri
Yeah. I think David, there's certain people that just really latch on and connect to. To. To what he was doing, his output, his lyrics. And I was one of those. I mean, from the first time I was introduced to him, I think, you know, I never really looked back. And he became kind of like the. The guiding star of. Of my, My music and musical journey and also just kind of everything artistically that I was. That I was like, reaching towards. But yeah, I was, I guess, you know, a lot of people. I think it's interesting because a lot of people, I think, come to him and the Silver Juice from Different, you know, in a lot of different ways. I think a lot of people maybe slightly, slightly older than me came through the, the Pavement pipeline, but I didn't really know Pavement that well. I. I found Silver Trees before. Before I had heard of Pavement. And I think a good friend of mine, Nicole from, was. She was going to Bard College and she would make me these mixes all the time with kind of the coolest bands. You know, Bard College was kind of this. This, you know, incubator of. Of cool back in the day, you know, back in the early 2000s, especially if you're living on the East Coast. And so I'd go up there and visit her and she would give me these mixes, like, you know, CDs that she would burn and she would make like, collages and. And write track listings and everything. And she would put some of the Berman songs on there. Like, I think Punks in the Beer Light and like, Sometimes A Pony Gets Suppressed I think was on there. Like some of the things that looking back now, it's like. That's interesting that that's. That's what initially caught me. But. But yeah, so it was. I mean, I think it was sort of the age where, you know, you were on a college campus and there was like a hub of music that you could kind of tap into, like via, you know, Napster or Mozilla and that kind of thing. And, you know, certain tastemakers on certain campuses kind of like spread the cool stuff. And I think I just locked in that way.
- [05:28]
Host 2
That's what David Berman, from what I've read, was terrified with his very life would never happen. Like, he thought it seemed that it was for sure that only it was only ever going to get discovered through Pavement. At least around this period that he decided that, like, I'm not ever going to really take this as having been unqualified praise because they were so popular and being an associated artist seemed to be the only way people would find out that he was alive. But of course, he was wrong about that, as he turned out to be, I think. Yeah. In a. A small population. To a small population of people, like the most important person making music.
- [06:22]
Host 1
Yeah, I mean, he. I mean, we've spoken about this before in conversations about him, but self esteem, obviously sort of, sort of a challenge for David, as you see in his music and as you see kind of in the journey of his life throughout time. And I think the twin facts of yes, A being sort of associated almost confusing. Like, I honestly didn't really understand how Silver Juice and Pavement related, you know, when I first kind of. Because I was aware of Pavement before I was aware of Silver Juice. And I didn't really even understand, like, the relationship. I was like, okay, this is like most of Pavement, but then there's this other guy that isn't in Pavement, but he sings most of the songs. Like, it was just kind of confusing to me. And this is all happening kind of during the cut your hair slacker Pavement popularity ascent there in the mid-90s when they kind of reached their high water mark in terms of cultural reach. And here's this just like completely out there poet, frankly. He started playing music and rock songs so that he would get people to read and listen to his poetry. Basically, he was a poet first and a rock musician second. And. And then that paired with the fact that he never toured, at least in this era, you know, so he could never really even see a crowd of, you know, whatever, 50 people at his feet, you know, nodding, tapping their toes, singing along like. It was a very. It must have been a very alienating, you know, kind of experience for him, particularly with a lot of the issues that he, you know, kind of struggled with throughout his life and. But nonetheless, obviously, like you just explained, you know, like there, I'm sure there were thousands of people in these very same circumstances, like trading mixed CDs, talking to people, figuring out like, oh, yeah, this is some of the best shit, best shit ever.