Check out my blog posts recapping all the times I’ve seen Golem, Moshiach Oi!, and the Shondes. Last night, I saw Daniel Kahn & The Painted Bird, which calls its music “Radical Yiddish Punkfolk Cabaret,” at Joe’s Pub in Manhattan. It was my eighth time seeing Berlin-based Kahn perform, including with Daniel Kahn & The Painted Bird, with other musical outlets, and as an actor. Below is a recap of all eight shows. (Update: The tally is now eleven!) While some Daniel Kahn…
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Michael Croland
Klunk: Klezmer-Punk from Paris
Posted on April 12, 2017I was happy to hear from Jean-Gabriel Davis a few months ago. Davis is the lead singer and pianist of a band called Klunk (short for “klezmer-punk”) in Paris. He also works at the European Institute of Jewish Music, and I was grateful for his nice review of Oy Oy Oy Gevalt! Jews and Punk. Klunk released their debut EP on March 23. Klunk takes Old World, klezmer songs in Yiddish and mixes them with punk rock and metal. It’s fusion…
Golem’s Fake Wedding
Posted on April 2, 2017On March 23, Golem, a klezmer-rock band with a punk edge, staged a fake wedding. It was an opportunity for Golem to perform a wide variety of songs and styles that they play at weddings but not their concerts. Golem also adapted a Jewish tradition of fake weddings from the Catskills. Singer/accordionist Annette Ezekiel Kogan told Hollywood Soapbox: I was actually reading a book about the Jewish hotels in the Catskill Mountains that were flourishing the ’50s and ’60s. So…
Punk Rock and the Book of Job at Artists’ Beit Midrash
Posted on March 19, 2017There’s an artists’ beit midrash (study hall) about the Book of Job at Town & Village Synagogue in Manhattan, led by rabbinic intern Bronwen Mullin. Students study Job, discuss art based on Job, and then create their own Job-related art. I was a guest lecturer for several sessions this month, focusing on punk rock songs about Job by two artists featured in Oy Oy Oy Gevalt! Jews and Punk: Steve “Gangsta Rabbi” Lieberman and Bad Religion. Gangsta Rabbi On March 1, the…
The Klezmatics: Apikorsim (Heretics)
Posted on March 11, 2017Three decades into their career, the Klezmatics released the album Apikorsim (Heretics) in November. In Oy Oy Oy Gevalt! Jews and Punk, I noted: The Klezmatics was also the first klezmer band to explicitly incorporate punk sensibilities into some of its music, albeit not as a defining quality that applied to all songs and not as a punk rock band. From the get-go, the Klezmatics looked to create “a new klezmer with a punk attitude,” as one album’s liner notes put…
Sam Miller of Yidwise and Jewish Music Underground
Posted on February 25, 2017In the Introduction of Oy Oy Oy Gevalt! Jews and Punk, I talked about how Jewish punk fit into a larger context of overtly Jewish music in the 21st century. Over the last decade and a half, the way that people have viewed the context of Jewish music across genres has evolved. I was intrigued this past August when Sam Miller, a college student in LA, launched a blog called Yidwise. He wrote on the site, “Yidwise looks at ALL Jewish…
The King of Jewish Punk: Steve “Gangsta Rabbi” Lieberman
Posted on February 4, 2017In January (while he was in a medically induced coma, no less), the unstoppable Steve “Gangsta Rabbi” Lieberman released The King of Jewish Punk. It’s his milestone 30th album (#68 if you include his 38 cassette recordings). He figures that he’s been calling himself the King of Jewish Punk for about a decade, and if no one has challenged the term by now, it’s accepted. The album’s overtly Jewish content includes “Jewish Boy in the Mosh-Pit,” “Punk Rock Chanukah,” and “Exiled to the…
Guest Post: From Punk Rocker to Rabbi
Posted on January 29, 2017The following guest post is by Rabbi Patrick. Rabbi Patrick is in Oy Oy Oy Gevalt! Jews and Punk in Chapter 3, as the front man of CAN!!CAN, and Chapter 6, as the executive director of PunkTorah. Here he explains how lessons from being a touring punk rocker helped him as a rabbi. Living in a Dodge conversion van was great preparation for being a rabbi. Seriously. Mind you, I had no interest in being clergy at the time. I was the…
10-Year Anniversary: The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB’s
Posted on January 6, 2017In October 2006, Steven Lee Beeber’s The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB’s: A Secret History of Jewish Punk was published. While both that book and Oy Oy Oy Gevalt! Jews and Punk featured the Ramones and the Dictators, Beeber included original interviews with key people involved with both bands. He also painted a much more comprehensive picture of the 1970s New York proto-punk/punk scene as well as other important figures, with chapters on Lou Reed, Jonathan Richman, Richard Hell, Suicide, Lenny Kaye (Patti Smith Group), Chris…
Nederlandsch-Israëlietisch: Tracing a Sliver of Family History in Rotterdam, Holland
Posted on January 1, 2017In 1921, my great-grandparents were emigrating from Russia to the United States. On April 1, when the ship was docked in Rotterdam, Holland, my maternal grandfather, Max Schwartz, was born. On April 8, he had his bris in Rotterdam. Twenty-three days after he was born, they reached the U.S. He wasn’t a Dutch citizen, he never identified as Dutch, and he never had any desire to return. He’s the only one of my grandparents not born in the U.S., even…