All posts tagged as: the forward
Jeremiah Lockwood for The Forward
The Sway Machinery’s Jeremiah Lockwood recounted his trip to Mali for Festival Au Desert to The Forward this morning. You can check out that awesome article HERE.
“Ag Mohamed invited me into a Tuareg tent, where men were singing together in call and response. He nudged me into the circle, and we clapped and sang along. Two little girls were accompanying the group with drums, under the watchful eye of their mother, who was coaching their playing. Everyone was laughing and applauding each other’s creativity with raucous catcalls. In my mind’s eye, I saw the needlepoint on my grandparents’ wall, and I could hear the singing of zemiros, or Jewish hymns, and the sound of nigunim, wordless melodies, with my grandfather and my cousins at my grandfather’s tish. I looked around the faces in the tent and saw the kindness born of mutual respect. And I was grateful because I had been blessed to fulfill a verse of scripture: “Behold how good it is to sit in the unity of brotherhood.””
What We Did With Our Winter Vacation
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.
- Our friends over at Tablet Mag talk up The Macaroons in a podcast dedicated to the best family-friendly music of 2009.
Last but not least, I’ve posted more photos from Jewltide 7 under the cut! All credit goes to Dan Sieradski.
The Forward Chats with Soulico
The Forward is currently running a super-thoughtful article on Soulico, the new record, and the deeper political and ideological ramifications of a project like Exotic on the Speaker. You can read that HERE, but I have included an excerpt below and the full text under the cut. Enjoy!
“Soulico represents the “global urban” sub-genre of hip hop: Their music comes from the sounds all around them, and since what is all around them are different cultures, the songs become pied amalgams from diverse sources in the city. On the same corner in Tel Aviv, an Arab peddler stands outside a Jamaican juice shop, next to a Thai restaurant owned by Californian transplants whose underpaid workers buy their mango juice at the doughnut shop stand next door and joke with underdressed young Israeli girls. Soulico, and global urban music in general, draws from these rich and cacophonous streets.”
Eli Valley vs. The Temple Of Everything We’ve Come To Know
Last night a bunch of us had the pleasure of heading to legendary NYC venue Joe’s Pub to catch a set by Girls in Trouble, followed by the mind-boggling antics of Eli Valley vs. The Sway Machinery in the Temple of Self Hatred. Of course, no one among us had any idea exactly what that meant until the show began, but the clip above should give you some idea. Quite the renowned cartoonist, Valley let the audience look upon his tumultuous (and at times, hilarious) personal history, which is irrevocably tied to the plight of Jewish American cartoonists and illustrators. Several times during the set, The Sway Machinery lent their jarring and strange brand of funk and blues to Valley’s stories, injecting a rich and complex blend of sounds into his memories and illustrations. Thanks to the FJC and The Forward for putting on such a killer show! Want to see more? Photos and videos courtesy of Dan Sieradski.
Eli Valley vs. The Sway Machinery
If you’re in NYC and you love amazing music, biblical indie rock or cantorial afro blues, prize-winning authors, underground comics and scathingly accurate critiques of contemporary Jewish, Israeli and American attitudes, than you’re gonna want to check out this show at Joe’s Pub next Monday, November 2nd.
The Foundation for Jewish Culture & The Forward Present:
Eli Valley Vs. The Sway Machinery in the Temple of Self Hatred w/ a special performance by Girls in Trouble
Monday, November 2nd @ Joe’s Pub (425 Lafayette St., NYC)
7 pm / $15 / Buy Tix
The Forward Loves DeLeon
After seeing them open for Os Mutantes in Denver, Adam Rovner of The Forward wrote quite the complimentary article about DeLeon’s Sephardic musical stylings. You can read the entire thing HERE. If not, here’s an excerpt with full text under the cut.
No one strums more sexuality from a banjo than Dan Saks. And no one squeezes more soul out of a Glockenspiel than Amy Crawford. The duo, two-fifths of Brooklyn-based alt-Sephardi indie band DeLeon, flew through an energetic set on September 24, the gig that started their 18 nights opening for Tropicália psych-rockers Os Mutantes.
Kosher Bikes
The Forward’s Nathaniel Popper has a killer article on Baruch Herzberg, an Orthodox Brooklynite living and working in Williamsburg. Herzberg runs a bike shop, one that he hopes will bridge the gap between Hipster and Hasid. Each respective community has been divided on the issue of biking, especially on the streets of Williamsburg. Check out the article here, and below, my favorite excerpt:
“Herzfeld thinks that if he can get a few Hasidim riding bikes, it could ease some of the tension.
“The goal is just to make it acceptable. I’m not doing it because I want to change the world — I just think it would be a healthy thing for the whole city if some of these guys got on bicycles,” he said.
Or put differently, in Herzfeld’s rapid-patter style: “For the love of God — I’m Jewish, you’re Jewish, borrow a bicycle. Who are we hurting?”
It’s an improbable plan with a number of barriers to overcome. On a recent afternoon, a black-hatted Satmar man walked by and noticed the sign; Herzfeld told him to come by for a bike, but the man just laughed.
“Usually over here, the adults don’t ride. Over here nobody takes two wheels,” said the man, who declined to give his name.
If anybody can break these barriers, though, it’s probably Herzfeld.“
“Entrancing one-woman string quartet” - The Forward
Great review of Girls in Trouble’s performance at the “Emerging Jewish Artists” show downtown in this week’s Forward.
“By the time she wrapped up things with “Hunter,” which revisits the story of Samson and the lion from the perspective of the Philistine woman with whom the Jewish strongman slept, Rabins pretty much had the crowd in the palm of her hand.”
Read the full review HERE
Follow Girls in Trouble on Twitter
Girls in Trouble is out October 29th on JDub!!!