Wedding Venue Update

A Monsey Yid is recommending Beis Yaakov of Monsey as a wedding venue because affairs must be over by 11PM. He's also complimenting their remodeled bathrooms.

Rabbis Rule On Illegal Music Downloads

The Rabbinical Council of America (RCA)has issued a statement calling on the community to refrain from illegaly downloading music online.

Whereas the Internet has improved our lives by allowing people to communicate with one another around the world with astounding ease, access fast-breaking news reports, and conduct scholarly research from the comforts of our homes; and yet,

Whereas the Internet has also enabled people to illegally download intellectual property covered by copyright, particularly music, thereby depriving record companies and artists of royalties due them by law; and,

Whereas such downloading and deprivation of royalties constitutes theft which is clearly prohibited both by secular law and Halacha for both Jews and non-Jews;

Therefore, the Rabbinical Council of America hereby calls upon our entire community, including Jews of all ages, to desist from illegally downloading music, Jewish as well as secular, and other forms of entertainment, in order to comply with the requirements of Halacha and the law of the United States.

Via Hirhurim

Peeps from Da Hood - The NY Simcha Scene

Here are short sketches of some of the characters we've run across recently who populate the NYC simcha scene.

1) The Carlebach Purist
2) The rude Yeshiva Bachur
3) The drunk Yeshiva Bachur
4) The spaced-out bandleader
5) The pompous Rosh Yeshiva
6) The dance Nazi

1) The Carlebach Purist is the person who comes over to criticize the band for playing/singing a Carlebach tune differently than Shlomo did. They are especially notable for the smug self-righteousness they feel at being able to impart this criticism; nevermind the fact that the song has become well-known in a slightly variant form over the years.

Recently, a Carlebach purist approached the band we were freelancing with to take issue with the way the vocalist had sung "David Melech" The purist felt that the last two bars of the A section needed to be phrased "David melech yisrael chai v'kayam" and the singer had sung those bars as "chai, chai, chai vikayam." "Listen", he said singing it his way, "the words make much more sense this way." Whatever.

Incidentally, Itzik Aisenstadt, a long-time Carlebach associate, who regularly corrects performers at the Carlebach Shul claims to have corrected Shlomo as well. If Shlomo sang the songs differently at different times, than arbitrarily deciding on an "authoritative" version seems both pointless and silly. In any event, it is the nature of folk melodies to evolve over time.

2) The rude yeshivah bochur we most recently came across was of the type who yells at the bandleader mid-song for not immediately handing over the microphone to his friend who "sang on Baruch Aboud's album." A pleasant specimen.

3) The drunk yeshiva bocher is the one who grabs the mic on "Moshiach" to yell "Oy, the Lubavitcher Rebbe" in place of the "oy, yoy, yoy" echo on the B section of that tune. Much fun is then had by the rest of the bochurim present who are thereby granted permission to yell "kofer", "yechi", etc. Nota Bene: This did not occur on Purim.

4) The spaced-out bandleader is the one who forgets that the affair is booked 'till 11 and tacks an hour-long set of "American music" requests to the end of a one hour simcha music set, so that he can get all the song requests played by 10. Needless to say, after a two hour second dance set, there was no more dancing and the affair actually ended early. Not that we're complaining about a party ending a little early after a two hour dance set.

5) The pompous rosh yeshiva is the one who insists on being introduced to be mesader kiddushin as "one of the gedolei hador." Personally, we'd be embarrased to be introduced like that. We've run across similar characters in the past too, like the out-of-town Rosh Yeshivah we've run into a few times, who stands near the band in the back, even though it's pretty obvious that if he's made the trip into NY for the wedding he'll be receiving some kind of honor under the chuppa. This way, he gets to make the long stroll down the aisle when his name is called. We particularly like the way he adjusts his frock before doing "The Rosh Roll" TM down the aisle to the chupa.

6) The dance Nazi is the woman who has requests for line dances no one else in the room knows, and who wants them played at much faster than normal tempi. She has a huge repertoire of "hits" from the early to mid-nineties that she wants to dance to, and there's no way she's going to let the musical needs of the party prevent her from getting all of them.

Chopped Liverpool

From the Shlock Rock newsletter:

The 26th Shlock Rock CD is now in production. This is the ultimate Shabbat CD. A combination of Shlock Rock, The Beatles and Shabbat. It is due out August or September and it will have all of the traditional Shabbat Prayers and Zmirot set to the melodies of the Beatles. This album was the concept of "The Kraz" and he had to convince Lenny to take the idea seriously. But as Lenny started working on it he saw more and more how beautiful the melodies of the Beatles were and how they work with the words of Shabbat both in the synagogue and at home. Then, after the fact, Lenny was faxed a rabbinical ruling claiming that not only is it a Mitzvah to take secular songs and place them into the liturgy but it is an obligation. So everyone stay tuned as Lenny goes into the studio and comes out with Shlock Rock 26: A Shabbat in Liverpool. Please stand by!

Whatcha Looking At, Punk?

Here's a Commentator article on punk rock and Orthodoxy.

The concluding 'graps:

The best punk music drives 3 chord chops and screaming into your head with the ferocity of a riot. This leads me to a second anecdote. I heard from a Rabbi in the same Yeshiva mentioned above that Rav Aaron Kotler used to passionately scream at his students when he disagreed with them. One time, his student walked out of the room rather than continue the fight. Too impassioned to notice, Rav Kotler told the other students to throw that one out. They coughed nervously and explained that he already left, about ten minutes ago. "Well then drag him in and throw him out again!" Rav Kotler screamed.

Judaism and punk culture are completely compatible. That is Punk Rock.

Play It Again, Only Better

Musical Perceptions has an interesting post on using HD MIDI technology to recreate classic piano performances on better tuned/voiced pianos with superior recording equipment.

Destiny's Child To Play Bar Mitzvah

BBC News reports on the estimated $7.4 million dollar affair.

Update:Bloghead has more.

They're Listening, But Not Buying.

John Buckman writes about his recent experiment with marketing musc via internet radio station.

The Nightingales

Bloghead is asking for more about "Los Biblicos", but the commentors have already provided information.

Economics Lesson

Here.

Music-Free Music

Sefirah at the Nachum Segal Show."Music-free music"???

The Wonder of It All

The Jerusalem Post reports:

Fifty thousand Germans have never before serenaded Israel with the Stevie Wonder version of "Happy Birthday" – but they will on Thursday.

More Basque Perspective

Here's another Basque commentary on the Jerusalem of Gold story, "Basque Lullaby for Jerusalem." Go and learn some history.

Sadly, the anti-Semites are coming out of the woodwork. Here's a post called Jerusalem of Goldberg. Ironically, the blog this appears on is named Thoughtcrime.

Basque Perspective

Luistxo Fernandez emails a link to his
"Basque Country" perspective on the revelation that Jerusalem of Gold is a Basque melody.

More on Jerusalem of Gold

Bloghead weighs in with a post titled "Gold-plated Jerusalem?"

The Source of Jerusalem of Gold's Melody

Haaretz reports:

A few days before her death last June, songwriter, poet and Israel Prize laureate Naomi Shemer confessed to a friend that she had based the melody to her renowned song from 1967, 'Jerusalem of Gold,' on a Basque lullaby...

...In her letter to Aldema, Shemer wrote that she had heard the Basque lullaby sung by a friend, Nehama Hendel, in the mid-1960s. "Apparently, at one of these meetings, Nehama sang the well-known Basque lullaby to me, and it went in one ear and out the other," Shemer wrote.

"In the winter of 1967, when I was working on the writing of 'Jerusalem of Gold,' the song must have creeped into me unwittingly," she wrote.

"I also didn't know that an invisible hand dictated changes in the original to me. ... It turns out that someone protected me and provided me with my eight notes that grant me the rights to my version of the folk song. But all this was done, as I said, unwittingly."

Via Jewschool

Remembering Arnie Lawrence

The Jewish Week remembers Arnie Lawrence.

Catching Up

Last week, the Jerusalem Post reviewed Adi Ran's recent release "Ma Yesh Lachem Lid'og."

Ran's vocal style is what George Thorogood might sound like when he first rolls out of bed after a long night - a sound well-suited to the album's mood.

The tracks range from thrashy fast songs about Ran's love for the Almighty ("Ani Ohev") to slide-acoustic-guitary mid-tempo tunes about Rabbi Nahman ("Mitbonen" and "Haniggun Hamushlam," which is reminiscent of 4 Non Blondes' 1992 mega-hit "What's Up") to slow, soul-ish numbers like the breathtaking Hammond organ-driven "Odcha."

Blog in Dm reviewed this album as part of our Israeli CD roundup here.

Dschingis Khan/Yidden

Ben Bresky emails:

This week on The Beat with Ben Bresky, interview with The Klezmatics and an in-depth discussion on "what is Jewish music". I will be playing Yidden by Mordechai Ben David back to back with the Ghengis Khan song as requested by The Klezmatics.
Israel National Radio. Archived all week starting Sunday May 1st.

It's Time For Some Afikoman Presents!

Here ya go!

First, here's a free sample libraries of orchestral sounds and effects. An interesting idea!

Second, via Jewschool comes a link to emusic.com. They'll give 50 free mp3's to start and they've got some interesting stuff. Worth checking out. In addition to albums by Matisyahu and Hassidic New Wave, (I recommend "Kabology"; I seem to have misplaced my copy of it), they've also got interesting releases by Adrian Greenbaum, Theodassi Spassov, David Grisman AND Denny Zeitlin, Medeski Martin & Wood, Brad Shepik, and Veretski Pass among many others. Note: these are not all "Jewish" or klezmer recordings. Your tastes may vary!