Freshly Poured Pavement

        My mother told me that when I was young chap I had a tendency to say "no" to everything immediately, even if it was something highly desirable for an eight year old. Whether it was ice cream before dinner, a trip to the comic book store or three hours in the torture dungeon a "nay" would fly out of my mouth before she even finished asking the question. As someone who works with children, this is a phenomenon I am thankful to see is not limited to me. After seeing it happen repeatedly throughout the years, it seems to stem from a power struggle. Kids want to be the ones who make the decisions, without having an adult fully script their life at all times. As grown ups, we have the freedom of choice desired by those younger versions of ourselves so we have to figure out a way to rebel in new ways. We say "no" to suggestions we know to be good ones, unlike the children who just say it for the sake of control. This is the best justification I can come up with for friends of mine not immediately becoming full fledged addicts when listening to the Silver Jews American Water.
        The best and more inevitable part? Eventually, it always happens. It's like the kid who realizes he just said no to ice cream and has to weasel his way back. Now, don't get me wrong, I can understand why this album is a little harder to swallow than three scoops of Ben and Jerry's. Friends of mine always seem to be fans of the components that make up the Silver Jews (Pavement, alt-country rock, weirdly fantastic lyrics) but initially they are unable to take the leap. The band is certainly not made to grab your attention with radio friendly melodies and choruses. No matter how much you fight it though, it's a slow, infectious process that will happen. The only question remaining is when the freefall begins.

        None of this is to say that the album shouldn't take a while to get into. Formed at around the same time as Pavement, the SJs have put out six albums.  American Water is their third, released in 1998. Their sound is rarely quantifiable or duplicated, thanks in large part to a rotating cast of members rocketing into the mid twenties with David Berman being the only constant. The key for this body of work is the combination of Steve Malkmus and Berman at a time when no idea seemed too strange to say "no" to. 

        Admittedly, I'm not huge on lyrics. Great lines tend to stick out to me here or there but for the most part, I'm drawn in and entrenched based on the music. Lyrics become a fun little after dinner mint for me. This record, however, may be one of the few in my entire collection that is equally balanced in terms of why I appreciate it. The quirky yet strangely personal lyrical poetry of Berman in combination with the country-funk-shuffle crafted by Malkmus, Tim Barnes, Mike Fellows and Chris Stroffolino is a concoction crafted by the finest of sorcerers. These are not songs aimed at being hit singles (even the actual single, "Send in the Clouds" stretches five and half minutes and has a long guitar jam at the end). But good luck getting the rhythms, phrases and imagery out of your consciousness.

        "Random Rules", the first track, delivers on all fronts. Opening with the wonderfully evocative line "In 1984, I was hospitalized for approaching perfection", the band travels along on a country ditty supported with a fine horn section as Berman attempts to get a woman to simultaneously sleep with him and stay loyal to her would-be husband. From there we are given the spaghetti western, "Smith & Jones Forever", that I swear won't get stuck in my head each time I listen to it. At this I fail, every time. 

         Lest you worry that you won't be able to relate due to the high level of country, "Night Society" slips in as my personal favorite instrumental track of all time. It's little more than two minutes of a jam, cut out and placed surreptitiously in a prime spot on the album. Guitars dance upon each other as I pray each time that I've listened to it enough to unlock the special, ten minute version that surely exists somewhere in the ether. From there, it transitions into "Federal Dust" which has almost a coffee shop poetry-reading feel to it as the two singers meld semi-spoken word verses. "People" on the other hand, is downright sexy with it's strangely danceable groove. You'll catch yourself shimmying to it and wonder how in the world you got there. 

         The creatively strange lyrics ("Oil paintings of x-rated picnics") continue to be the brilliant glue that hold each of these genres and song structures together, but guitar plays a prominent role as well. "Blue Arrangements" has Malkmus doing some of his finest noodling while the aforementioned "Send in the Clouds" let's loose at the end, turning into a Pavement-esque nonsense shout-along as guitars weave alongside. Not one to leave you without a quintessential "mouth guitar part" suited for your finest oral impersonations, "Buckingham Rabbit" uses a repeated phrase that's immediately accessible and impossible to forget. 

       With two powerhouse songwriters/musicians working together to create such beauty, it's obvious that they must have learned to stifle the tendency to say "no". That's the kind of thing that seems to have a hard time being sustained for an extended period of albums. Though there are three other Silver Jews records these two worked on together, it never quite coalesced as well as it did here on American Water. 

Hold tight my lass, things are about to get weird.

       In the pursuit of all things honest and true, I have a confession to make. I was one of those "no" holdouts myself. It took me years to get comfortable with this album, despite the protests of those who knew better. Whether it was a holdout from my childhood years or just the tendency of many music fans to want to "find" something on their own, it took me much longer than necessary to discover what a gem I had in this record. So, who am I to judge? Give it a listen. If you don't like it, give it another listen and another until someday you realize the same thing we all do. Resistance up to a point is acceptable, but inevitably it's futile.  My hope would be that a day may come when I (or you) learn that saying "yes" isn't always such a bad thing after all. 

Final Score: .95 You're Living All Over Me's