Rebellious Jukebox: The Silver Jews

American Water was the album that introduced me to The Silver Jews and the wonderful mind of David Berman. I had been buying Uncut magazine and they had just started with their obsession for new country music and had put out a compilation called \’Sounds Of The New West\’ and Random Rules was on there. I was hooked. I thankfully by-passed the whole thing where the band was unfairly considered a side-project of Pavement with whom it shared some members. They seem very different in character to me than Pavement — they have a sense of humour but they are not whimsical and clever-clever in the way that Pavement could sometimes be. My favourite song at the moment is a tune called \’Sometimes A Pony Gets Depressed\’ off the album \’Tanglewood Numbers\’.

The lyrics are great, the music hits all the right notes. Don\’t let the country association scare you off — this is a rock and roll band. Check out their website below.

http://www.silverjews.net/