MC Atzilut

I have been negligent - no updates in four days. That is most sincerely my bad. But I blame it on the appearance of Purim - the holiday when Jews celebrate a Persian genocide attempt upon them, and God (and Queen Esther's) intercession of their behalf. They get completely plastered, eat great food, and dress up in costumes. The most diligent students drink so much alcohol that Hatzolah (the Jewish ambulance service) has to drag them to a Hospital for stomach-pumping. In the past (ie: four-five years ago) I was quite diligent in performing this custom. This year, though, I suddenly don't feel the need to completely black out on the streets of New York. The only thing that has changed from last year was my marriage. I blame Charlotte for my moderation in alcohol consumption.

I did dress in my perennial Purim costume, though. A Dashiki and a dreadlock cap that I tuck my curly black hair into. Yes, I go as a Chabad Rastafarian (this is funnier if you're familiar with Chabad beliefs about their Rebbe and his eternal life). This is fitting, because tonight's album - Paul Simon's Paul Simon - begins with the song "Mother and Child Reunion," with a rasta-kinda-beat. Another Jew adopting the noise of a foreign culture. The next song, "Duncan," is standard Paul Simon song-writing, but this album marks an emergence of Simon's interest in foreign cultures.

I peg his trek as a flirtation with the Other in life. Far more than Leonard Cohen, who mines his own soul for content, or Bob Dylan who looks into the heart of Society like a prophet, Paul Simon is a ambassador to the world. Graceland solidified that depiction, but even here you can hear the roots of his attempts to embrace the Other in his music. Consider this Jewish kid from Cherry Hill, NJ, who writes lyrics like: "A young girl in a parking lot / Was preaching to a crowd / Singin sacred songs and / Reading from the bible / Well I told her I was lost / And she told me all about the pentecost / And I seen that girl as the road to my survival."

What does it mean in response to that stanza when Simon sings, "I know, I know, I know, I know." Who is he reassuring? What does he know? Does he know that he's dancing with an outsider? Does he know that he's mouthing language that isn't naturally his own? Is the "young girl in the parking lot" the Virgil for Simon's journey, or is Simon our own Virgil? Though you can still hear traces of the work he did with Garfunkel on the album, he introduces Dante here. He even looks like an intrepid adventurer on the cover - about to scale Mt. Everest, no doubt.

Who is Julio?

Another reason I've lapsed updating in the last couple days is because I had to get a new Arts & Culture section in the Commentator out. The issue comes out this week, and I've got two music reviews in it (which I'll link to when it launches). Also because I needed to write another piece for the Rollingstone prompt - to promote a new artist. Unfortunately, that was in vain. Rollingstone completely ignored my contribution. So I'll post it here. I really like it, so if someone has an idea of where I can place it, let me know.

by MORDECHAI SHINEFIELD

If the Disney Channel has become Motown Records for the teenpop set, Miley Cyrus makes hits like Diana Ross did - with verve, style and attitude. Save the fact that Cyrus, who performs with the name Hannah Montana on the Disney show of the same name, is only fourteen. Born in Franklin, Tennessee - a town best known for a Civil War battle and retired NASCAR legends - Cyrus has country pedigree. Her father, Billy Ray Cyrus, wrote “Achy Breaky Heart.” On a recent episode of her show, Nashville royalty Dolly Parton guest-starred as her godmother.

The country prodigy pulls her own weight, though. Last year she propelled the Hannah Montana soundtrack to the top of the charts. The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 - beating out My Chemical Romance’s emo-opera for the top spot. On the strength of Cyrus’s syrupy melodies and the 8-15 year old tweens that comprise her fanbase, the soundtrack was the year’s 9th best-selling album. When her solo album is debuted on June 18th this year, label Hollywood Records will let her flirt with the kind of mainstream success Disney predicted when they compared her stage presence to Shania Twain - the number one selling female artist of all time.

Cyrus combines her Nashville twang with young Spears-styled bubblegum pop and her father’s country chops (and his sense of the ridiculous). Her husky voice explodes with joy when she sings in her drawl, “Living two lives is kinda weird!” Sometimes she strips down to an acoustic (she plays a Daisy Rock Guitar) and plays confessional rock more suited to MTV. If she can straddle Nashville, TRL and Disney at the same time, she’ll be living in three worlds - which, she’d probably admit, is pretty weird.

Article I wrote for Lubavitch.org on the use of Chassidic tunes in non-religious Jewish music went up today.

Excerpt:
"The last few years in mainstream music have seen an explosion of bands influenced by Eastern European melodies and songs. From Jdub Record bands Balkan Beat Box and Golem to indie bands DeVotchKa and Beirut, everything from Roma lautari to klezmer music has been fair game. Recently, though, artists have been finding inspiration from a more mystical source - the niggunim of Chabad Lubavitch. Artists as diverse as jazz virtuoso Tim Sparks, rockers Soul Farm and roots reggae stars 12 Tribe Sound have found inspiration in the compositions of the Rebbes of Lubavitch."

This is the second time I'm writing about Jeffrey Lewis's "Williamsburg Will Oldham Horror." The first was, I suppose, a justification for its placing on my Top Singles list for Jackin' Pop. This is about why it made my top 10 Jewish music list for 2006. Its impetus was Frank Kogan's comment on my top Jewish music list: "Wish you would talk about Jeffrey Lewis, since I've actually heard the song but nothing else by him. I presume it's Jewish by association with some of his other material. It actually reminds me of "The Ice Of Boston" by Dismemberment Plan, which makes it Emoish by association."

Which is a totally fair request - as I think my reasoning behind picking Lewis's song is fairly obscure. Obviously Moldy Peaches has been something of a Jewish hipster band - HEEB magazine listed them on their Jew list in one of the early issues. But I didn't pick the single because I thought there is something quintessentially Jewish about Lewis - it really had to do with the song. And if I wasn't in the middle of reading Greil Marcus's 'The Shape of Things to Come' where he discusses Philip Roth's books at length, I might not have noticed. The point he tries to make is about how Roth's books (from I Married a Communist through Plot Against America) are really about trying to tell our own narratives of America. He describes American Pastoral's protagonist as tragic because he neglects to tell his own story - and instead escapes to the side, embracing a quiet pastoral. He only enters America when his life is shattered by his daughter.

But of course, ask any Jew, and they'll say Philip Roth is a Jewish writer before he's an American one. But there's this convergence of stories between the Jewish narrative in America and the general American narrative. And I feel like at least some of Marcus's book is about how these narratives combine, how they reference history - both history unique to America and history that transcends it.

And here's this song about a young artist searching for a prophet to help him. He wants to know if writing music is worth it - or if there is a "better way to help humanity" - and he settles on Will Oldham. Ostensibly he settles on Oldham because Oldham is the "King of a certain genre," but really it feels like he settles on him because he's the artist he chances upon on the L train. So he'll do with what he's got. And the entire question: Do I make music or feed the hungry? It such a stressful one for him - that he demands an answer over and over again. He even brings in a Jewish sounding mother who's very proud of him (or is she? 'honey, that's great. you're really famous.' Of course that sounds sincere, but my mother could say the same words and I'd be sure she'd be mocking me.) So he interrogates this prophet to give him guidance, and he ends up getting punched, beaten and raped by said prophet. Which is to say; he gives him an experience, not an answer. And I feel like the history of being a Jew, and particularly being a Jew in the diaspora, where there are no ready prophets who are clearly taking the word of God from God, mimics this. My experiences in searching for spiritual guidance have always felt similar - you pick the person in front of you (the person who's handy), because you want to know that what you're doing is valuable. And if you're lucky, what he has to give you is experiential, it's something to 'break your teeth' upon.

And so much more in New York. Where we're being taught lessons about God on the L Train.

I was... um... contracted to do a mix for a party Saturday night. The attendees are generally sophisticated Modern Orthodox Jews. So all the songs need to be "Jewish" without being Yeshivish (read: super right-wing). Here's what I've got: 2 hours of Jewish music.

C. Lanzbom and Noah Solomon: Shomer Yisrael/Irish Melodie
Tim Sparks: At the Rebbe's Table
Adonai and I: Kel Rachum
The Klezmatics w/ Chava Alberstein: Ver es Hot
Golem!: Warsaw is Khelm
Ayelet Rose Gottlieb: Tapuah
Yidcore: If I Were A Rich Man
Adi Ran: Ein Ye'ush
Socalled: You Are Never Alone
Remedy: Reuvan ben Menachem
Chaim Dovid: Track 11 from Grateful
David Gould: V'nemar Dybbuk Dub
The Klezmatics: Goin' Away to Sea
John Zorn: Hadasha
Blue Fringe: City of Gold
Espers: Children of Stone
Soulfarm: Wild & Free
John Zorn: Rimmon
Jamie Saft: Ballad of a Thin Man
Golem!: Bublichki
Adi Ran: Al Takeh Basela
Socalled: Ich Bin a Bornder by Mayn Vayb
Tim Sparks: Beautiful City
Soulfarm: Havdalah

Things I want: Adi Ran's V'ata Kadosh (featured in the movie Ushpizim), a copy of Reb Shmuel's Protocols of the Elders of Zion (that I can use), a copy of Y-Love's DJ Handler mix, a copy of the new Rashanim album. I left all my Jewish music in NY, so I've only been working off what I have on my iPod and my computer. Needless to say, there are a lot of gaps I wish I could fill. (And I haven't listened to this much Jewish music in awhile - so I've forgotten a ton of stuff I would've normally included.)

I know this is the list everyone is totally waiting for. Ha. Anyway, criteria for inclusion (inspired by Frank's disclaimers): I felt it somehow added to Jewish music, or made an impact on Jewish music or Jewish listeners - even if it wasn't overtly Jewish. An album in 2005 that I listened to mostly in 2006 qualified - as did a single that didn't get wide-release (Myspace babies). Otherwise, it's what I want - and since it's one of the few of its kind, you'll take it and like it. I kid! Oh, and because it's Jewish music, it's a list of everything - singles mixed with albums mixed with artists. Deal with it! (Plus, except for the first choice - which is far and above the best thing released this year in Jewish music, in no particular order.)

1. Ayelet Rose Gottlieb - Tapuah
2. Golem - Warsaw is Khelm
3. Socalled - You Are Never Alone
4. Rashanim - Shalosh
5. Jeffrey Lewis - Williamsburg Will Oldham Horror
6. Y-Love (DJ Handler Mix)
7. John Zorn
8. Bob Dylan - Modern Times
9. Say Anything - Alive With the Glory of Love
10. The Klezmatics - Wonder Wheel (Songs of Woodie Guthrie)
11. Matisyahu - Cut 'Em Down
12. Nehadar - Signs

Ayelet Rose Gottlieb is the most amazing person in Jewish music today. Her show with Basya Shechter (Pharoah's Daughter) and Jewlia Eisenberg (who I adore), was the Nirvana-Soundgarden-Pearl Jam show of Avant Jewish Women music. Nirvana = Jewlia, Pearl Jam = Ayelet, Soundgarden = Basya. Tapuah is the greatest song off an amazing album.

Golem's 'Warsaw is Khelm' isn't punk, but I'm not sure it's klezmer either - it certainly is the freshest and most debatable entry into the genre (whatever genre that might be), and it's more cohesive than Beirut. Socalled's hiphopkhasene was disappointing, but 'You are Never Alone' sounds like an artist actually coming into his own - figuring out what his music is trying to say, as opposed to just mixing and matching genres. It's the Girl Talk Jewish song.

Jeffrey Lewis and Bob Dylan are tricky choices, and I don't want to justify them here. Modern Times is probably Dylan's least Jewish album - and the Root's cover of Master of War is probably a more interesting "Jewish" song than anything on Master of War. But anything from Dylan redefines previous assumptions about him, and by now his status as a Jewish artist is a given. Possibly I should've put Jamie Saft's Trouble on the list instead, but it isn't as good on its own as Modern Times is. And I'd rather give the spot to a great arguably Jewish album than an okay definitely Jewish album.

Say Anything came out in 2003, I think, but I didn't hear it until now - and it's frankly incredible. It's the greatest Holocaust love song ever written.

I'm loathe to include Matisyahu, but I can't really debate his influence - and Chop 'Em Down is the only song of his that I can stand (or even enjoy). And it's current, even though it was released before, because it just got a rerelease on his new EP.

Great album.

But what does "the Pyrex is Jewish" mean?

This project will hopefully span some time, but the current timeline is: I post these ten, which I'd argue are the ten greatest Jewish albums of all time. You argue with me. I try to defend my choices. Eventually, I clean it up, and post the final selection (which may or may not be entirely different), with a defense of each choice. In this list, I've taken into account influence, significance, meaning, resonance, and whether I personally loved it. Feel free to argue with any choice, and whether it doesn't belong because it isn't great, or because it isn't Jewish.


Ten Best Jewish Albums Ever (In Progress, Not in Order)

Jewlia Eisenberg, Trilectic
Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited
Shlomo Carlebach, Shuva
Soulfarm, Live In Berlin 2 ( Alternatively: C Lanzbom, Butterfly )
John Zorn, The Masada Projects
The Klezmatics with Chava Alberstein, The Well ( Alternatively: Rise Up )
MBD, Jerusalem is Not For Sale ( Alternatively: Avraham Fried, Chazak)
Simon and Garfunkel, The Graduate Soundtrack ( Alternatively: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme )
Beck, Mellow Gold
Leonard Cohen, The Songs of Leonard Cohen

Also, I'm sure I'm missing obvious choices. Feel free to submit them.