Pitchfork has an interview with Silver Jews leader David Berman that, if you're able to get through the questions asked to show that the writer is suitably hip, is illuminating in many respects. Kudos to Ashford Tucker for asking Berman about fellow rocker/poets Jeff Tweedy and Billy Corgan ("These guys are professional musicians. It's kind of like football players in the 70s who started endorsing ballet lessons. Who am I to argue against sharpening agility?"), but questions about whether his dog lacks discipline or wondering about his take on Scientology don't yield interesting answers nor do they seem to be germane to the topic at hand. Tucker asks so many questions, in fact, that at the end of the Q&A (a lazy format that really exposes the weaknesses of the questioner in this case), Berman demurs when asked to take part in a further real-time chat: "Why drag this out any longer? You already got more detail out of me than a grand jury."

What is interesting, however, is Berman's rather frank discussion of his finances. When asked how he can afford to not perform much, he lays out what he makes and from where. He reports that he made about $16,000 last year from his four Drag City records that are in print, while his poetry book, Actual Air, brings in about $1,000 each year. "Multiple" readings at colleges each year bring in an additional $1,000 a pop, while BMI checks and foreign licensees bring in a few thousand more each year. Assuming that "multiple" means at least five, and that the BMI and other licensing checks total at least $5,000, that means he's living on between $25,000 and $30,000 annually. Not great, but, when coupled with whatever his wife might bring in, it'’s probably enough. This year he likely can splurge a bit, because he reports that the year of his last record --– 2001's subpar Bright Flight --– he made about $45,000 from Drag City alone. The advance hype for his forthcoming disc, Tanglewood Numbers, would seem to indicate that sales for it might be even better.

Let'’s hope it'’s enough. Berman'’s music and poetry are both worth supporting. The Silver Jews disc American Water was a revelation. The band occasionally features Pavement'’s Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich, and this 1998 disc offered the right music at the right time for Pavement fans who felt that band was going off the rails. The disc more fully explores the folk-country leanings Pavement hinted at but never adequately mined, while Berman's lyrics were more focused than what Malkmus was writing at the time. As for Berman's poetry, Actual Air is stellar, and his subsequent work --– "The Believer" featured a Berman poem each month for several issues over the past year --– is equally captivating.

More to the point, the more popular Berman gets, the more I'll be able to get someday for my mint copy of the Silver Jews Dime Map of the Reef 7"” (currently selling for $20+ on eBay). The second Drag City announces an odds and sods collection from the band, it's going up.