JDub Records

Well, we’re back from vacation, and it’s time to catch you all up on what you might have missed over the break.  Here ya’ go:

• The Faster Times included The Sway Machinery and Girls in Trouble in their Best of 2009 Music list.

• The Boston Survival Guide chose Girls in Trouble to include in their 2009 Band Roundup.

• Made Up Disease (MUD) posted a really nice and very thorough ode to JDub, including a whole bunch of our artists, like The Macaroons and Balkan Beat Box.

• Music magazine Blurt included Alicia of Girls in Trouble in their The Artists Have Spoken: Best of 2009 feature.

• JTA’s The Fundermentalist shed a little light on the recent Jdub/Nextbook partnership.

• The Forward listed Soulico and The Sway Machinery as picks on their 2009 Forward Fives list.

• The University of Oregon’s Oregon Voice had a great writeup on Soulico’s Exotic on the Speaker.

• DJ Anjali listed Soulico’s Exotic on the Speaker as part of his Top 5 of 2009 in the Portland Mercury.

• Digital City has a fantastic interview with Dave Schneider of The Macaroons — conducted by Corn Mo’!

• The Sway Machinery is one of LimeWire’s Best of 2009 Staff Picks!

• Jeremiah Lockwood, of The Sway Machinery, published an op-ed in The Forward about the band’s trip to Mali.

• Contrarian Media picked Golem’s Fresh Off Boat as a Best of the Waughts disc.

• Our friends over at Tablet Mag talk up The Macaroons in a podcast dedicated to the best family-friendly music of 2009.

• New York Times‘ Urban Eye listed Jewltide as one of their Christmas Eve picks.

Last but not least, I’ve posted more photos from Jewltide 7 under the cut!  All credit goes to Dan Sieradski.

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Here is some footage from DeLeon’s performance at the Knitting Factory during the Sephardic Music Festival.  If you’re in New York, you can also check out Dan from DeLeon performing 1 night only with Dan Saks & The Funkadeli All Stars at JDub & Jewcy’s XMAS Eve Jewltide party. Details Here

The DeLeon CD and T-shirt are on sale in the JDub store.

We’re back with our 7th annual XMas Eve Jewltide party and this year promises to be the funkiest!! It’s going down at Southpaw in Park Slope on December 24th, boasting a fresh set of funk classics by Dan Saks (of DeLeon) & The Funkadeli All-Stars and funky rock n soul beats spun all night  courtesy of New York Night Train’s Mr. Jonathan Toubin.

JDub Records & Jewcy Present: Jewltide 7
Thursday, December 24th (Christmas Eve)
@ Southpaw (125 5th Ave)

Featuring:
Dan Saks & The Funkadeli All-Stars
New York Night Train’s Mr. Jonathan Toubin

$10 Advance / $15 at the door (ticketweb.com)
Donuts & Drink Specials!
Doors 8 pm / Show 9 pm

If you don’t have a tree, you don’t have an excuse.

Co-Sponsored by Brooklyn Vegan, Jewish Book Council, and Brooklyn Jews

I hope you will join me (Daniel of DeLeon) this Halloween at Union Hall in Brooklyn with the spookiest man I know, Tim Fite.  I’ll be supplying the eerie organ behind his terrible tales.  I’ve seen the show.  You will laugh, you will dance, you will be horrified.  A message from Tim Fite:

Hello everybody,
It’s that time of year again!!! When the diabetics rise up from their Craft-Matic beds and crawl through the neighborhood begging for treats. That’s right kiddos… it’s October, and Halloween is on it’s way. This means three things for you to note on your calendar.

1. I will be releasing the final album of my free Halloween trilogy on the 31st.
2. I will be celebrating the BLOOD HARVEST with all who care to join me at the Union Hall in Brooklyn, NY on the 31st.
3. I will be digging a very small grave on the 31st.

Of these three things, the most pressing for you is the show at the Union Hall which is shaping up to be a magical night. I will be playing all of the goriest hits from my Halloween albums accompanied by the (blood soaked) [Daniel of DeLeon]. Via Audio will dress up and play their lovely songs under the shadow of cornstalks. BUT, Halloween at the Union Hall is about more than just music. There will be pumpkins to carve, pinatas to smash, apples to bob for (possibly in beer), a costume exchange booth for switching costumes with a friend, hayrides, and a myriad of other spooky treats. DON’T MISS THIS ONE!

For those of you who live far away, get on your broomsticks, and come anyway!!!

I like it raw,
Tim Fite

DeLeon is back in NYC after 20 cities and 8000 miles with the magnificent Brazilian band Os Mutantes.  As is our custom, we like to share a short video at the end of each tour to give you a peak at what life on the road is like.  This time around, in honor of the pared down set we were performing, we shot ourselves playing a simpler version of our song “Almond Trees” in various locales around the country.  Plus, our new friends in Os Mutantes joined in too!

Calling all you iPhone and iPod touch heads out there, the JDub Radio App is now available!! For the low price of $1.99, you can have instant and unlimited access to 100+ streaming tracks from the JDub Records archive directly on your iPhone.  Features tracks from Balkan Beat Box, Michael Showalter, Golem, Soulico, DeLeon and all your other favorite JDub artists. 

Download the app HERE

I’m sitting backstage at the Culture Room in Ft. Lauderdale, the sounds of Os Mutantes bouncing off the walls.  I think I mentioned in a previous post how grateful and excited we are to be touring with a band whose music we cherish so dearly.  Well the feeling lingers.  I would never have the gall to compare us to Mutantes, but the gracious comparison has come up more than once in reviews of DeLeon so I’ve been trying to figure out what it is that people are hearing.  I think the answer may lie in the word “mutant” itself.

Very early on in DeLeon’s time line a prominent Sephardic music scholar asked me if I thought our music was authentic.  I told him that he’s the scholar so I’ll leave such classifications for him to sort out.  We play these traditional songs with the utmost sincerity and respect but authenticity is a more nuanced term.  Well, having seen Os Mutantes a dozen times this month and having time to talk to Sergio and the other members about their music and inspirations I’ve come to realize that on this tour we are all mutants.  We come from a place, and we love the place that we come from, but at some point we started changing.  Our chromosomal makeup mutated as a result of our environments and fighting such an organic evolution would be unnatural.

In a way this fundamental commonality has created an air of brotherhood backstage and after hours on this tour.  Whether romping in the pool after our show in Tampa (patio furniture in tow…ssh..) with our tour mates or trading banjo licks for flamenco strums with Mutantes member Vitor there has been a mutual mutant affection and understanding.

A couple days ago Sergio was telling me what a strange and wonderful trip this has been and how he is already nostalgic about it.  That means a lot coming from a man who has been a part of so much, and we just feel lucky to be a part of it.   Well folks, it ain’t over yet.  We got a week to go and we’re going to enjoy every minute of it.  Hope to see you out there…

Someone in Florida really loves DeLeon, because there’s a very nice preview of the band’s upcoming show in Ft. Lauderdale in Miami New Times today.  An excerpt, with the full text below the cut:

“When a newly reformed legendary Brazilian psychedelic band calls upon you to open up for its national tour, it’s probably best to simply say yes. Of course, leave it to those wacky Os Mutantes to go ahead and dig up the only group that describes their sound as “Spanish-Jewish indie rockers” to be that opener.”

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DeLeon’s In Studio Podcast @ The National Post 10/2/09

DeLeon is playing Toronto TONIGHT with Os Mutantes, but they had some time while in town to stop into The National Post’s office to do a performance podcast for their site.  Listen as the band chats with online arts editor Brad Frenette about their music, JDub and whether or not there is such a thing as too-many-instruments for a 3 person band!  Check it.