the KlezmerShack

Okay, here's a treat. Frank London being interviewed by Benjamin Bresky on the latter's show, "The Beat" (streamed live on 11-12am on Sundays). The Klezmatics are currently touring Israel with Ehud Banai—I'd give a lot for tapes of the concerts, because just as the Klezmatics mix punk and rock and avant garde with klezmer and Yiddish; Banai got his start as an Israeli Mizrahi punk rocker and his albums have always featured a wonderful mix of interesting music, strong, proud Mizrahi roots, and interesting words. As I listen to the interview, London is having a lot of fun dissecting klezmer as practiced in Israel, Europe, and the US. (Israeli klezmer, except for Moussa Berlin and his Meron-derived melodies to which London offers considerable props, is dismissed for being something that sounds suspicously like "they're still stuck in playing klezmer as mere dance music". What London actually says is more subtle, and truer.) Also discussed is Woody Guthrie's Jewish music, the factoid that Rabbi Meir Kahane officiated at Arlo Guthrie's bar mitzvah and Mordechai Ben-David's Yidden. London even manages to get a welcome mention in of Kruzenshtern and Parohod, that amazing trio of avant gardeists based in Tel Aviv.

The interview should be available for at least a week at www.IsraelNationalRadio.com.

I do need to note that while I really enjoyed Bresky's show, it seems to be in odd company. Israel National Radio as a whole (based on the show that preceded Bresky's, the website, and the house ads with which his broadcast was peppered) seems to have much more in common with the loony intolerant international right wing fundamentalist conspiracy at its scariest than anything else. So it goes. I'll continue to brave indications that right wing crazies are alive and well in order to listen to future shows by Bresky, now that I've found the show.