Six Points Fellowship Recordings (Sway Machinery, Clare Burson, David Griffin, Divhan)

I found another cool Jewish music source this week. The site is called Imeem and claims to be a "social network where millions of fans and artists discover new music, videos, and photos, and share their tastes with friends." One nice feature of Imeem is playlists, user defined song collections. I haven't played around with creating any yet, but I spent a week in the office listing to a variety of different Jewish music themed playlists including this great one featuring musicians from the Six Points Fellowship.

About a year ago I mentioned the Six Points Fellowship when writing about Jeremiah Lockwood's Sway Machinery and David Griffin's Hebrew School, two good musicians and good guys who have gotten some grant funding through the Six Points fellowship. A year later, I'm still waiting patiently. As far as I'm aware, none of the Six Pointers have released the albums that they've been working on. Ah well. I'll tide myself over listening to these tracks. They're the same ones features on the Six Points website, but it's a lot more fun to kick off the playlist and dig back into the telemetry control system design tool I've been working on. (Yes, I consider that fun.) I get a bit of whiplash going from Burson's throaty barstool Americana to Griffan's understated tickity Casio keyboard pop to Lockwood's deep mystical funk to Divahn's whirling, growling, Mizrachi chanting, but it's a good whiplash. It'll have to do until the albums come out.



Hat Tip to Imeem user Lila Dobs for compiling the playlist.

Jewish Waves: What they're listening to in Wisconsin

WTKM 104.9 out of Hartford, Wisconsin, is my kind of station. Polka first. Polka second. And then everything else. And that everything happens to include Jewish Waves, a weekly radio show hosted by Marge Eiseman and Andy Muchin. Jewish Waves provides a "blend of music, commentary, interviews, maybe a recipe, a story or a studio visit with a musician." Those of us not in the Wisconsin listening area can listen to recorded shows. Right now the website only has about 15 shows from February 2007 to May 1 2007. I'm going to email them and see their still on the air.

I heard from Marge Eiseman, one of the show hosts, and they are still broadcasting. They'll either catch up on posting their shows or switch over to a podcasting format sometime soon. By the way, it turns out that Eiseman is singer with one album sold-out on CD-Baby and available for download on OySongs and a new one on the way.

Here's a playlist from their March 4 show. (note the Kinky Friedman. I love these folks!)

Yiddishe Cup - Knish Doctor from Meshugenah Mambo
Joel Chasnoff - The Purim Song from Hannukah Guilt
Carol Reiner & Mel Brooks - Famous People from The 2000 Year Old Man In the Year 2000
Lil Rev (Marc Revenson) - Az der Rebbe Zingt from Can’t Keep the Past Behind Me
Kinky Friedman - The Top Ten Commandments from Sold American
Joel Chasnoff - Haman on the Couch from Hannukah Guilt
Yiddishe Cup - I Am a Man of Constant Blessings from Meshugenah Mambo
Terry Lieberstein - God is in the Checkout Line from Center of the Storm
The Kabalas - Photograph of Aunt Rachel Doing the Cha-Cha-Cha at Cousin Ira’s Bar Mitzvah (circa 1963) from Time Tunnel
Judy Caplan Ginsburgh - Nosh, Nosh a Hamentash from Amazing Songs for Amazing Jewish Kids
Jack Gabriel - Doobie Dance from Living Tree
Joel Chasnoff - My Name is Elijah from Hannukah Guilt
Robbi Sherwin - Eliyahu from Todah LaChem (Thanks Y’all)
The Kabalas - Freilach 2 from Time Tunnel
Kenny Ellis - Celebrity Seder from The Man Behind the Matzoh Ball

(By the way, I grew up a bit south of Hartford, Connecticut which is the Connecticut state capital. I was always amused that name Hartford is just a polite way of saying 'damp deer crossing'. Yes I know that's a really obscure joke. I was an English major in college and it scarred me. Maybe some day I'll tell joke about the cat and the comma. Or maybe not...)

What they're listening to in South Central (Florida)

South Central Florida is Jewish World Radio territory. I got hip to JWR thanks to Mort, the manager of "Levitikus, a Jewish-American rock band that bases its music on classic and modern rock". It seems that Levitikus is JWR's band of the month. He also sent me copy of the first Levitikus album. I started listening to it today and will let you know what I think once I've had time to live with it a bit.

Jewish World Radio is joint venture of Sephardim and Ashkenazim Othodox Jews in Orlando, Florida. According to the JWR website "Jewish World Radio is the first Jewish bilingual, English and Spanish, Internet radio station for all the Jews. We netcast Jewish music, news and Torah teachings in English and Spanish through the Internet 24 hours a day, 365 days a year."

JWR polled their listeners recently and put up a "billboard" list of their favorite tracks. I always love seeing what other folks are listening. Particularly when I don't know so many of the groups. I've been listening to the Orthodox/Chassidic side of Jewish music enough now that I can tell Avraham Fried from Eli Gerstner (Fried sounds like Las Vegas R&B and Gerstner sounds like contemporary disco)(No I don't care for either much. Could you tell?). I'll report back if I hear anything interesting from these groups.
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	Song	Artist	Album/Source
1	Gorito Cosmico	Hip Hoop Hoodios	The You Tube
2	Jerusalem	Alpha Blondy	The You Tube
3	Am Yisrael Chai	Yehuda Glantz	Na'ale
4	Habibi	Yehzkel Suib	Ahaba Ve Ahava Boys Choir
5	Ani Maamin	World of Belz	World of Belz
6	Australia Tour	Sheva	The You Tube
7	Ani Lo Mesugal	Yehuda Glantz	Gotta Dance
8	Adon Olam	Yeshiva Boys	YBC
9	Judgement Day	Jordan Chaviv	Baal Teshuva
10	Veahavta	Miami Boys Choir	Around the Campfire
11	Shabbat Shalom	Pey Dalid	Garden of Eden
12	Sea to Sea	Matisyahu	Live at Stubbs
13	Azamer	Jeff Horvitch	Jewish Jazz Cafe
14	Klezmer Chicas Tsimbi	Chicas Tsimbi	Radio Sefarad.com
15	Kadus Kadus	Blondie	You Tube

Speaking of Faith: Children of Abraham

I was listening to the February 8 installment of Speaking of Faith "Children of Abraham" on the drive into work this morning. SoF is a weekly public radio show that I listen to via podcast. Here's the blurb:

The sacred story of Abraham traverses the geography of the most bitter political conflict in the modern world — beginning in what is now southern Iraq and ending in the West Bank city of Hebron. Yet Abraham is the common patriarch of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. We explore the story of Abraham in several traditions and why he might be important for people in our time. The hour also includes readings from the Bible and the Qur'an as well as music from the likes of Bob Dylan and Benjamin Britten on the figure of Abraham.

I really enjoy the SoF though I get annoyed by the "I'm more clever than religion" attitude of some of the guests. This week's guest Bruce Feller, author of "Abraham: A Journery to the Heart of Three Faiths" wasn't too bad in that regard.

Anyway, I was struck by the sound track. The SoF music producer had pulled together a number of interesting pieces that referred to Abraham and Issac. While the pieces came from the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian traditions, the tracks that interested me (surprise) were from the Jewish composers Steve Reich and Bob Dylan. While neither of them normally produce what I would consider "Jewish" music, they're both obviously heavy hitters in their own musical areas and the tracks are wonderful. You can see their contribution and those of the other musicians on the SoF Books and Music page.

You can listen online to the Children of Abraham soundtrack on the "SoF Playlist"

Something Jewish Podcast

They're back! After a 7 month hiatus Leslie and Caroline have started producing their weekly Jewish Music radio show Something Jewish again. SJ is actually a radio show on Resonance101.4fm in central London, but they thoughtfully also put it out via a podcast feed.

Here's this week's playlist:

Gershon Kingsley, Jewish Experience (Remixed by Mexican Institute of Sound) from the album God Is A Moog.

Under the Matzos Tree by Ada Jones remixed by Mocean Worker’s from the album album Jewface.

Shiru L’Adonai by Dan Nicholls and E18hteen from the album My Heart Is In The East.

Saudade by Elisete from the album Elisete – Remixes.

Bublichki by Golem from the album Fresh Off Boat.

My Garden by Y-Love

Shushan by Balkan Beat Box from the album Balkan Beat Box.

Mike the 2600 King – Dreidel Day

(And Caroline, if you happen to read this, I'm "Jack from Ann Arbor." Glad you're back on the air.)