david-berman-tribute-album

listen to David Berman tribute LP ft Dean Wareham, Adam Green, Jeffrey Lewis, more

David Berman died two months ago today and, as Stereogum points out, French website Section 26 has curated a tribute compilation titled Approaching Perfection : A Tribute to DC Berman. It includes new covers of Silver Jews and Purple Mountains songs by Dean Wareham, Adam Green, Jeffrey Lewis, Pete Astor (The Loft), Robert Scott (The Bats), Jad Fair, Business of Dreams, Kyle Forster (who played on the Purple Mountains album), Jeremy Jay, Diane Cluck, Daisies, Holy Wave, Caged Animals, Bill Baird, and more. Here’s Section 26’s Xavier Mazure on how it came together:

The idea came from my friend Baptiste Fick, who taught me two decades ago how to play How To Rent a Room on a guitar. “What if we organized a tribute compilation of David Berman?” As is customary at Section 26, I responded : “Let’s do it. We’ll think about it afterwards.” The musicians we started to contact reacted the same way, with short and direct answers. We often got a modest : “I’m in, buddy!” Sometimes, we’d receive whole testimonies of an encounter, an interaction with David Berman around Jewish mysticism, or teenage memories which obviously struck a chord with Baptiste and me. Even the most legitimate refusals were encouraging.

Listen to the whole tribute, and check out the full tracklist, below.

Approaching Perfection : A Tribute to DC Berman tracklist:
Business Of Dreams – Snow (poem)
Dean Wareham – Snow Is Falling On Manhattan
Adam Green – Black and Brown Blues (Musical Ladders Mashup)
Kyle Forester – Rebel Jew
The Reds, Pinks & Purples – Living Waters
The Wendy Darlings – Honk If You’re Lonely Tonight
Jeremy Jay – Self Ignition
Turner Cody – Sleeping Is The Only Love
Awkward Energy – Introduction II
Black Bones – Advice To The Graduate
Elva – Strange Victory, Strange Defeat
Garciaphone – Pet Politics
David West – Inside The Golden Days Of Missing You
Bill Baird – Dallas
Lauren Hoffman – Death Of An Heir Of Sorrows
Pete Astor – Suffering Jukebox
Diane Cluck – People
Caged Animals – Ballad Of Reverend War Character
Fortuny Roché – Random Rules
Daisies – All My Happiness Is Gone
Zach Phillips & Ryan Power – Cassette County (poem)
The Pheromoans & R. Elisabeth – Horseleg Swastiskas
Jimmy Virani – The Silver Pageant
Zombie Zombie – New Orleans
Lisa Li-Lund – The Frontier Index
Jad Fair – Pretty Eyes
Robert Scott Featuring Jared Smith – Room Games And Diamond Rings
Holy Wave – Buckinghman Rabbit
Night Control – Time Will Break The World / Night Society
The Shifters – We Could We Could Be Looking For The Same Thing
Shore Loser – I’m Getting Back Into Getting Back Into You
Coming Soon – Tennessee
Drink Water – We Are Real
Simon Love & The Old Romantics – That’s Just The Way I Feel
Jeffrey Lewis, Julie & Pip LaMendola – Punks In The Beerlight