Shiru Lanu Mishir Tziyon

Andrew Silow-Carroll on politics and Israeli songs.

Klezmer With A Slice Of Wry

Bert Stratton and Yiddishe Cup are stand-up guys... in classic Borscht Belt style.
I've been listening to their latest release "Meshugene Mambo" courtesy of Mr. Stratton, and it's a hoot! If the late king of Klezmer Comedy, Mickey Katz and "Weird" Al Yankovic could have collaborated, the results might have sounded something like "Meshugene Mambo."

Album highlights include a version of "My Yiddishe Mama" with sneering vocals any punk rocker would be proud of and an arrangement that segues through the blues, "Goldfinger", "Little Darlin'", and the theme from the "Patty Duke Show!"

"Play, Klezmer Play!" could be the anthem of klezmer club-date musicians. Here's a taste:

The klezmer tunes of yesterday are replaced by "YMCA".... But then I hear the clarinet and it almost makes me forget the uncle from Detroit who wants to sing "Sunrise,Sunset."

Full of idiosyncratic characters, the klezmer complains about the "cerebral" guest who requests "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" (which segues into "Yesh!"), the videographer who misses the motzi, and of course, the “shmendrick” who must make a toast just as the band is about to begin a medley of freilachs by Dave Tarras.

In addition to covers of Katz’s classic parodies, the album is full of pop culture references -- like when the first few bars of "Tanz, Tanz Yiddelakh" are played on synth as the theme from "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" during a sketch on "Essen". On "Nudnik, the Flying Shissel", a theremin plays the "Theme from Star Trek" over a freilach groove as "Nudnik" seeks to discover new frontiers in kosher buffet lines and desert tables. And on “Knish Doctor” a chorus sings “aweem-oy-vey” as somewhere in the jungle the lion fresses Yankel tonight.

But it's not all comedy. The group’s instrumental versions of klezmer classics like Abe Ellstein's "Second Avenue Square Dance", "Trombonik Tanz", and "Li'l Gypsy" --which I know as "Khsidim Tants (Ben Mandelson's Honga Onga Mix) " recorded by the Klezmatics --are tighter than the vest on the head waiter at a Catskills hotel. (Ouch! I know, but who could help it?)

You can listen to sound clips and purchase the CD via CD Baby here.

Ethnic humor isn’t for everyone, and there are one or two jokes that aren’t for the yeshiva boys, but if you like “neo-Borscht Belt” style humor and klezmer, you'll enjoy "Meshugene Mambo."

PSA

Always remember to blow the candles out!

Baron Down

Abe Foxman is on the case.

Khusen Kalleh, Mazel Tov (with the klezmer B section)

It's a klezmer shiddukh!

"If music is the food of love, then klezmer must be the schmaltz on the herring."

Name That Tune

A reader writes:

I enjoy your blog and hope that you can answer an burning question for me. I'm looking for the source of a tune that's been a popular nigun for the last 5-10 years. It's usually sung as "Ein Kelokeinu" or "Asher Bara". Unfortunately the best example I have at hand is "Time for Shabbos" on Uncle Moishy Vol. 9 (wish I had a better example but Uncle Moishy is pretty much all the kids will let me listen to these days :).

The reason I'm asking is that I'm pretty sure I once heard this tune on the "Thistle and Shamrock" Irish music show on NPR. Even if I'm inventing this memory, the tune sounds very Celtic to me, although it could just as easily be Chasidic in origin. Can you help me find the true origin of this tune?

Any Uncle Moishy experts out there??? Our taste in children's music runs more towards "Captain Dovid and the Rebbes of Rhythm", Neshoma Orchestra's "Let's Sing The Alef-Beis", and "Shlock Rock for Kids".

We Make Up For It In Volume

Here's a rant about the music volume at weddings.

Would that this is so:

Chances are that the members of the band think they are impressing their audience with their talent by equating earsplitting with "cool." In a misguided attempt to win over fans and potential bookings, they blast their music. But their reasoning is totally off. If anything, they are ruining their reputations and a chance to get hired by guests who are planning their own simchas.

The reality, unfortunately, is that people DO NOT appear to take this into consideration when booking a band for their own simcha.

In fact, we recently talked with one Chosson who had only one request for the music at his wedding: "It should be loud!" We didn't book the gig.

If bandleaders felt that they would pay a price for playing too loud, namely, in reduced bookings, the situation would improve dramatically. Sure, there would still be problems... but not like what's out there now.

All Yaron, All The Time!

... and the winner is Blue Fringe. Psycho Toddler on studio musicians.

Manchester Concert Update

David Holder, who promoted the MBD concert in Manchester this past June, writes:

It's been a while but during the last couple of weeks the Press Complaints Commission in the UK has obtained transcripts of my interview with the Sunday Telegraph. The commission adjudicated last week and found that the interviewer had indeed distorted my words and placed comments out of context in order to sensationalise her story.

They instructed the Sunday Telegraph to print a clarification in a prominent area of the newspaper and this happened on page 2 of the issue of Sunday 8th.

It can be found here: Telegraph | News | News in brief

The text reads:

Further to our article of June 20 headlined "He's the Jewish Michael Jackson - so why does a group of rabbis want to ban his concert?", we would like to clarify that remarks made by the concert organiser, Mr David Holder, about troublemakers in the Jewish community, were aimed at a Right-wing religious group in Israel rather than a separate group of eight Manchester rabbis.

(Blog in Dm's earlier posts on the subject are here and here.)

Radio Head

Benyamin Bresky emails:

I do a new music show called The Beat with Ben Bresky on
IsraelNationalRadio.com. I explore various music in Israel.
Thought you might be interested. I used to do Jewish Community Radio in
Cleveland, Ohio. Hopefully I'll hit the klezmer festival in Tzvat next week.

The Beat is one hour a week of interviews and music on
IsraelNationalRadio.com. We explore all aspects of the music of Israel
including classical, jazz, Carlebach, pop and more. There is a new show every
Sunday and the show is archived weekly on the web.

Wuthering... er... Washington Heights

Who'd a thunk this would be posted on Hashkafah.com. The times they are a changin'. Jason Caplan's been booking some serious musicians to play at the Bridge Shul. Next month, its John Zorn's Masada String Trio.

Rappin' Jewish

The New York Times reports on jailed rapper Jamaal "Shyne" Barrow:

With the performer behind bars in upstate New York, a concert tour is out of the question. So is the customary swing through radio station studios in the biggest markets. The New York State Department of Correctional Services has started to enforce rules limiting the number of reporters who can visit. And whatever modest publicity efforts Shyne can undertake will not take place on Friday nights or Saturdays - he recently began observing the Jewish Sabbath, a nod, he says, to his great-grandmother, an Ethiopian Jew."

There's no word as to whether Barrow's conversion was an attempt to enable the rest of his sentence to be served at Otisville Federal Penitentiary instead of the Clinton Correctional Facility where he is currently incarcerated. V'Dai L'chakima b'rimiza.

But They're Not On The Bill!

The Jerusalem Post 'splains klezmer in an article titled Brave Old World.

eBay Item

Own a piece of J-rock history!

It's Mincha Time

Margot Leverett and Marty Confurius play the soundtrack for Manhattan Mincha photo exhibit.

Here's the artist's statement by photographer Jaime Permuth which includes this:

In a recent issue of “Torah Times”-- the self-declared “largest Jewish weekly shoppers guide” -- I found eight pages of listings devoted to “The Manhattan Mincha Map.” Together, they provide a listing of all the places in Manhattan where professional Jewish men may come to pray among their fellows. Some of the locales are synagogues or houses of study. However, most of them are actual workplaces, such as pizza parlors, shipping offices, printing shops, jewelry shops, and so on. I will produce a photographic document of these places, and the people who pray there, exploring this unique convergence of the sacred and the mundane.

From The Parody Websites to the Greedy Companies...

Mixolydian Mode quotes 2 Cents Worth:

This Land Isn't Your Land

JibJab is now being threatened with a copyright lawsuit by the rights holders of "This Land is Your Land." The song, written by renowned leftist folk singer Woody Guthrie in 1940, is apparently still under copyright. And the copyright is now in the hands of Ludlow Music Inc. Guthrie, incidentally, often put this copyright notice on his songs: "This song is Copyrighted in U.S. for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do." The song was part of a book of songs that Guthrie himself privately published and dedicated to the public domain. After Guthrie became famous (and thus his songs worth money) Ludlow Music unleashed its lawyers to have them withdrawn from the public domain. Aside from the assault on Fair Use, this episode provides further proof that copyrights last too long. If the original 28-year copyright maximum still existed, "This Land is Your Land" would have been in the public domain where it belongs long ago. Woody Guthrie is dead. He cannot be encouraged to keep creating through copyright protection.

I'd say its Fair Use.

Here's a CNN Money article on the dispute.

NY Jewish Music and Heritage Festival

This could be interesting.

This Just In!

Pop music is bad for business.

Organic Halacha

Hirhurim quotes R' David Zvi Hoffman, Rav Kook, and R' Yekhiel Yaakov Weinberg (Seridei Aish) on the matter of playing organ in shul.

No Punk Music During The Three Weeks!

Rabbi Avi Shafran and the anonymous "neo-punk rocker."