Thursday, June 03, 2004

Shake, Shuckel, and Rock!

Menachem Butler over at The Village Idiots posts a link to Menachem Wecker's post "Great music, but not so Jewish", on a recent Blue Fringe/Soulfarm concert.

Wecker comments:
Blue Fringe played some new songs, and put on a great performance. I thought that it was interesting how they seemed to be jamming in time with Talmudic shuckling, whereas Soulfarm seemed to have a much more energetic bounce to them, and much more cyclical motion than Blue Fringe's jerky activity.
Also, Blue Fringe was best not when it was cracking poor attempts at humor and singing psukim, but when it was jamming between attempts at being Jewish. The music was amazing when it was not trying to do anything so much as to just happen. Soulfarm, on the other hand, used the verbal components in a much more compelling and organic fashion, and the music and words appeared wed fairly happily.
The question is: can Blue Fringe be considered Jewish given its failure at successfully integrating text?
Butler quotes Blue Fringe vocalist Dov Rosenblatt at a recent concert:
"Doesn't it stink to be the guy still crowd surfing as the song ends?"