Recorded by JDub, the following videos are only the first two in a four-part documentary series meant to give fans an inside look into how the Gangsta Rabbi came to be, and how he has evolved both as a musician and a man living “against the grain.”

PART ONE: ORIGINS

The Gangsta Rabbi has opened for the madcap Andrew WK and Jackass’s Ryan Dunn– he’s even played flute onstage at Madison Square Garden with Weezer. We’ve seen him shine in front of a crowd of thousands, but we’ve never, ever, seen Jewish punk’s self-proclaimed “most original bassist” do this…

PART TWO: TWO FLUTES, ONE NOSE

Stick around for more badass finger stylings when part three hits next week! Check out more music on GangstaRabbi.com

I can see those JDub CDs sitting in your virtual shopping cart, waiting to be purchased. Hey, I get it! It’s been a busy spring at JDub, you have 5 new albums to check out, and they are all awesome. Tough decisions…

Allow me to solve your problem: now when you donate $25 to the I AM JEWCY fundraising campaign, you get a FREE album download in JDub’s store. Get that album you’ve had your eye on, plus donate to a great cause.

-Donate $100, get a FREE album download plus a Jewcy t-shirt.

-Donate $500, get a FREE download, a Jewcy t-shirt, and your name listed on the Supporters page of Jewcy.com

-Donate $1,000, and you’re baller. And you get the entire JDub Records catalogue. And you’re baller. Way to donate to a good cause, amigo.

A donation to Jewcy means we keep bringing you creative, fun, thought-provoking Jewish content year ’round. Yes, we cover everything from interfaith families and Israel to sex and bacon. And we can only do this with your help.

JDub adopted Jewcy almost two years ago. We were thrilled to expand our mission and we are proud of it’s growth thus far. Please help us keep writing about Jewish cat costumes, 100 great works of Jewish fiction, and ways to make your seder not suck. Donate today!

Download the album’s first singles for free below!

“What DeVotchKa has done for Eastern European gypsy music, DeLeon aims to do for the sounds of Sephardic Judaism” writes Metromix.

“Casata… may be my favorite not-quite-world-music album of the year” writes SoundRoots.

Since releasing their self-titled debut, DeLeon has gone on tour with Gogol Bordello, Os Mutantes, Ozomatli and Balkan Beat Box, amongst others. CASATA was created for the dancing crowds on these tours, influenced most by their electric energy: it brings traditional folk tales of wedding celebrations, forsaken lovers, and forbidden romance to life through upbeat, roaring, rocking melodies.

To preview more songs off the album, check out Nat Geo Music, where they’re giving away “Mansevo del dor” for free all this week, or head over to Afropop Worldwide, where “Yo M’enamori” can be found streaming on their June Mixtape!!

The track’s only lyric, “nothing makes the world cry more than wine” (sung in Ladino and English), is an old Judeo-Turkish proverb. Says bandleader Dan Saks, “I’m frequently drawn to music with simple, repetitive lyrics. I like how a simple phrase can shift meanings the more you hear it until you no longer hear it and it just becomes another melodic or percussive element to the song.”

Listen to this catchy new summer tune below and you’ll find yourself moving to the beat just as Dan promises!

Things are getting steamy up here in NYC- which means it’s time to pump up those summer jams. Cue CASATA, DeLeon’s new album out June 14th! You can now pre-order your very own copy for $8.99.

CASATA is DeLeon’s re-imagining of ancient melodies into contemporary indie-rock pieces. The band’s groundbreaking global pop sound successfully marries ancient Sephardic melodies with the celebratory symphony of modern life. DeLeon is front-man Daniel Saks, along with bandmates Kevin Snider, Justin Riddle, Amy Crawford and Andrew Oom.

Elements of African guitar funk and doo-wop come together in one song, while Ladino-English lyrics preside over another– one song even manages to find the unlikely common ground between El Guincho’s tropical grooves and Tom Waits’ clangs. Stories of wedding celebrations, forsaken lovers, and the births of biblical prophets are all told through upbeat, roaring, rocking melodies that even at their quietest banjo-picking moments, still make you move.

To be released June 14th, 2011 on JDub Records, CASATA features stomping, whooping, soaring trumpet and sensual slow jams. Pre-order today!

After speaking with AJMF representatives, we came to the conclusion that our supporters in Atlanta deserve all we can give them– for this reason, The Sway Machinery’s new album is going to be available for the discounted price of $7, when paired with the festival’s Closing Night party ticket (total $25).

Details for the festival are below: if you’re in the area, go and support great Jewish music!

“One of the year’s stellar albums. Alicia Jo Rabins is one of my favorite singer-songwriters, and her storytelling skills continue to amaze me.” - Largehearted Boy

HALF YOU HALF ME is the sophomore debut of folksy indie pop group Girls in Trouble!

“Girls in Trouble is Brooklyn songwriter, violinist and Bible scholar (yup) Alicia Jo Rabins, who pens songs based on stories of Biblical women. Fans of Andrew Bird and Joanna Newsom are likely to dig her (no theological expertise required)” writes Time Out New York.

Alicia gives voice to unrecognized Biblical heroines, so that they might “tell their side of the story:” her lyrics bring these overlooked women to life with tales of androgynous storm demons, jealous sisters and knife accidents. Played out amidst an upbeat orchestrated background, Girls in Trouble utilizes their full band to bring life to each song, featuring upright bass, drums, accordion, electric guitars, and front woman Alicia Jo Rabins on violin, guitar and looping pedals. Says the Jewish Daily Forward’s Arty Semite blog, “Half You Half Me” [puts Alicia Jo Rabins] in contention for the most prolific Jewish artist of the last few years.”

HALF YOU HALF ME diverges from the themes of the band’s original album in that on their self titled debut, the women featured as passive heroes: on HALF YOU HALF ME, they fight back. Lyrical and musical horizons expand past sweet story telling into more complex terrain– on this album, for example, Alicia gives voice to Lillith, the first woman who dared to stand up for herself against man on the album’s first single, “We Are Androgynous.”

To hear more and to purchase this just-released album, visit the JDub webstore!

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Girls in Trouble’s HALF YOU HALF ME is now available on Amazon, iTunes, and in the JDub store for the special price of $8.99!

Welcome to a JDub Kids and Kveller Passover movie production, “starring a talking, walking, fame-obsessed and more-glam-than-glam seder plate.” Your kids just might pause in their hunt for the afikoman to catch a glimpse of Seder Plate and his fabulous friends, Maror, Charoset, Karpas, Z’roa, and Beitzah!

For more music by The Macaroons, check out the big SEDER SALE on the JDUB and JEWCY store!

Girls in Trouble’s Upcoming Album

Half You Half Me

Brings the Stories of Biblical Heroines to Light

“I find myself often going back to that record [Girls in Trouble] and marveling at the storytelling skills of Alicia Jo Rabins… Half You Half Me is another captivating collection of first person tales of women in the Torah.”– Largehearted Boy

On May 17^th, 2011 JDub Records will release Half You Half Me, the sophomore album from “hauntingly lovely” (LA Weekly) group Girls in Trouble. Through Girls in Trouble, unrecognized Biblical heroines are given a voice to tell their side of the story. Brooklyn poet and multi-instrumentalist Alicia Jo Rabins’s lyrics bring these women to life with tales of androgynous storm demons, jealous sisters and knife accidents.

The album is already available for pre-order through iTunes! California tour information below!Hailed by Largehearted Boy as a “Favorite Album of 2009,” the band’s self-titled debut was “filled with stories of women from Jewish history that resonate strongly in today’s world.” In one song, Moses’s sister Miriam is exiled and struck with leprosy—in another, a little girl is sacrificed by her father. On Girls in Trouble’s debut, the women featured as passive heroes: on Half You Half Me, they fight back.

Half You Half Me is the logical next-step from the band’s debut: on Half You Half Me, lyrical and musical horizons expand past sweet story telling into more complex terrain.

Rabins gives voice to the first woman who dared to stand up for herself against man on the album’s first single, “We Are Androgynous.” Before Adam and Eve, there was Adam and Lilith, and they (literally) could not be separated. In one version of this creation myth, the pair originated as a two-headed being. After being split, Lilith acted as if she was Adam’s equal– and was banished from the Garden of Eden as a result.

Preview “We Are Androgynous” HERE!

Through Half You Half Me, the stories of these embattled Biblical women play out amidst a spirited orchestrated background. Girls in Trouble utilizes their full band to bring life to each song, featuring upright bass, drums, accordion, and electric guitars.

Learn more about Girls in Trouble through their MySpace page and follow their “California Exodus Dreaming Tour” on Facebook!

Catch Girls In Trouble when they perform LIVE in your city:

4/13/11                        San Francisco                 Viracocha
4/14/11                        Davis, CA                       Sophia’s Thai Kitchen*
4/15/11                        Berkeley, CA                  Subterranean Art House*
4/16/11                        Los Angeles                   IKAR
4/17/11                        Los Angeles                   The Smell
4/20/11                        San Diego                     Tin Can Alehouse
4/23/11                        Santa Barbara              Biko Garage
5/4/11                         Columbia, MD               Oakland Mills Interfaith Center
5/5/11                         Raleigh, NC                    Pinhook
5/7/11                         Atlanta, GA                   Highland Ballroom
5/8/11                        Carrboro, NC                 Leo Gaev Metalworks
5/11/11                       Baltimore, MD              Windup Space
5/19/11                      New York, NY                Joe’s Pub
5/20/11                    Hudson, NY                   Spotty Dog
5/29/11                      Beckett, MA                   Dreamaway Lodge

* with Mirah

For press inquiries, please contact sharon@jdub.org

DOWNLOAD SABBAPATH FOR FREE THROUGH JDUB DIGITAL’S WEBSTORE

Walking around a small and dusty record store in Brooklyn one weekend, something odd caught Rob Markoff’s eye as he dug through old vinyl: “Sing Out it’s Shabbos” was described as “A folk rock Sabbath celebration by the young people of Temple Shaari Emeth, Englishtown, New Jersey.” Rob had never seen a record like this before, and he was instantly attracted to the colorized photos splayed across the sleeve in yellow, red and blue, depicting Chuck Taylor-clad teenagers strumming guitars against a curtained backdrop– a sign above them reading “Give God the Nod.” Markoff felt immediately nostalgic for the ‘70s synagogue of his youth, in which the congregants feathered their hair and the rabbis played guitar and sang in harmony, so he opened his wallet, forked over two bucks, and rushed home to listen.

Expecting a low-fi, folk rock album, Rob was disappointed to find that “Sing Out’s” packaging had been misleading.  The recording quality of the album was poor, and the songs were all acoustic, rather than the ‘70s-era group chanting and singing style he had hoped for. Nonetheless, Rob was oddly struck by the Rabbi leading the service, whose voice was never credited on the record. He felt a mysterious connection to this unknown Rabbi’s declaration that everyone is affected by an “unseen dimension” in their lives.

Having played in indie bands since the mid-‘90s, Rob recognized that he had the means to create a work which would live up to the “folk rock Sabbath celebration” touted on the cover. He decided to produce his own album, using as its framework the Sabbath ceremony of 1974 and the unknown Rabbi’s theme of “the unseen dimension.”

In order to achieve a lo-fi sound, Markoff recorded Sabbapath on cassette through a Tascam 8-track, ultimately re-creating almost every song and prayer. He kept the voice of the Rabbi on Sabbapath, using reverb effects to give the Rabbi’s voice an otherworldly and nostalgic quality. Calling on musician friends James Botha (”Francis Friday”) and Kevin Kajetzke (”No Band for Lluvia”) to help him with vocals and instrumentation including harmonium, flute and autoharp, Rob was able to make Sabbapath into the alternative Shabbos music he had always imagined it would be.

After Sabbapath was mixed, Rob sent his creation to Kramer, founder of New York record label Shimmy Disc, and producer of Galaxie 500, LOW, and Pulp Fiction’s “Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon.” Struck by the album, Kramer agreed to master the recording and inspired the group to release the album on a wider scale.

Sabbapath, through Markoff’s vision, remixes and re-contextualizes the traditional Friday night service. It features spirited singing, droning voices, flutes, harmonium, strum stick, guitars and autoharp to create a singular, psychedelic, celebratory freak-folk album. Sabbapath is the Shabbat service Rob Markoff had hoped to hear when he first discovered “Sing Out It’s Shabbos” in the little record store in Brooklyn three years ago.