10th Anniversary Coming - Help needed
As near as I can determine, the first version of the KlezmerShack came online on June 19, 1995, hosted on the WELL, as "Ari Davidow's Klezmer Page". It accompanied an article I wrote for the late Whole Earth Review. It was titled something like "Six Essential Klezmer Albums" and I can't currently swear what all six original reviews were. (The magazine had been running a series on interesting world music, and six was their magic number.) The web was new, and it seemed like anyone writing such an article would naturally put up a webpage where updates and news could be noted.
I'll talk more about that original website as the anniversary approaches. (You can view the earliest web-archived klezmershack at the "Wayback Machine" at any time.) The KlezmerShack, itself, will celebrate with a new series of database-backed services over the next few months, starting with the recently innaugurated e-mail database that now protects almost all e-mail addresses on the website from spammers. I have promised to come up with a 10th-anniversary t-shirt and to actually make it available.
I'm also thinking about hosting or co-sponsoring a live event(s) here in Boston. But, I am also the person who explains to visiting bands that I have yet to succeed in getting one a gig. So, if you have ideas or expertise, now is the time to contact me. June isn't so far away.
E-mail Ari Davidow.
Comments
For the record, here are the six reviews that (I think) appeared in the Whole Earth Review:
Brave Old World / Beyond the Pale
Kapelye / On the Air
Klezmatics / Jews with Horns
Shirim / Naftule's Dream
Andy Statman and David Grisman / Songs of our Fathers
Dave Tarras / Yiddish-American Music
Posted by: Ari Davidow | January 4, 2005 10:05 PM
This is probably of interest mostly to me, but some research on the actual article in Whole Earth Review reveals that my memory of waiting for the release of "Jews with Horns" must have been in error! In actual fact, I am told that Frank London's soundtrack, "Music from 'The Shvitz'" was reviewed, and that "Jews with Horns" was mentioned in an "other great recordings" list.
I remember enjoying the movie, and being blown away by this totally strange music on the soundtrack, so I can see how I might have included it in the list for range, just as the Statman/Grisman, not one of my favorite albums even then, was included because it spoke so strongly to fans of bluegrass and accoustic music, especially in the Bay Area where I then lived.
This was, remember, before there was even a Tzadik label, so "The Shvitz" would have been as close to "Radical Jewish Music" as things got at that point.
Certainly fascinating to me!
There was also a blurb on Global Village Music, now best known as a vendor that seems to have the worst possible relations with its former artists, but then known as the place to find klezmer revival music.
Posted by: Ari Davidow | January 7, 2005 7:24 PM