She-mix-ni Atzeret

Tonight starts Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, the final round of Jewish holidays -- for this month, anyway! Here's a little mix that I stumbled into putting together, song by song. This morning at synagogue I was getting ready for Shemini Atzeret, which starts tonight, looking ahead in the prayerbook -- you know, like peeking at the ending. One thing I always forget is the Prayer for Rain, Tefilat Geshem, which is the beginning of the rainy season in Israel. Which immediately stuck this song in my head. It's not exactly a part of the traditional liturgy, but I've been singing this song longer than I've been praying:

The celebration kept coming, and so did the songs. The new Y-Love video, the first song from his upcoming album, is out today. (And the album has a shout-out to my book! And it features Andy Milonakis, who's the weirdest and most original thing on MTV right now.

And, just to tie everything together, our house guest just wandered through the room and heard the song. "Oh!" he said. "Is that the new Drake video?" I had no idea what he was talking about. "I thought you'd know," he said. Apparently, the platinum-selling hip-hop artist Drake has a new single, too, and in the video, he and his companions are drinking Bartenura Moscato D'Asti -- which my older daughter calls "blue wine" and which is the only kind of wine my mother drinks. It's bubbly and sweet and basically like alcoholic soda. It makes family meals tons more fun...and is there any wonder that it's the beverage of choice among Jewish soul singers?

Once again, here's the money shot: Happy Shemini Atzeret!

Eprhyme's "Punklezmerap" Video Deciphered

Eprhyme's new music video is getting all sorts of play -- at least, among the world of Jewish YouTube videos. But what's it all about? We asked Eprhyme as well as Shemspeed founder Diwon, the Yemenite DJ, to tell us.

The "Punklezmerap" video, shot by hip-hop and R&B director Lenny Bass (Fantasia, De La Soul), incorporates a crazy cast of characters from the sacred to the profane, to the profanely sacred. There are several fun cameos, both of other awesome artists in the Jewish world and of people who you wouldn't expect to find there, and some cool allusions to Jewish tradition and ritual.

First, watch the video. Then, read below for our exegetical commentary.



1 A.M. Eprhyme says: "The video was filmed in the basement of Levi Okunov's boutique, The 1929, in SoHo." Okunov is a fashion designer with Hasidic roots who's made a name of mixing Hasidic fashion sensibilities with radical couture.

Eprhyme: The video opens with Shir Yaakov gettin' his freak on in a boa....Shir is an amazing singer/songwriter, and the other half of my newest project, Darshan."

Elke Reva Sudin, a NY-based Orthodox artist and comic book creator, sketches away. (And, yep, her hair's covered.) "No one expected the energy to be quite so insane," says Diwon. "I think Lenny did a great job of capturing the energy that was there and the energy in the song and getting that across on film."

Y-Love, another Orthodox rapper and Eprhyme's labelmate, can be seen goofing off throughout the video. Here, he's wrapping up a wine glass in a cloth napkin, a common practice at Jewish weddings. "Twelve cheap wine glasses were smashed during the making of this video," Eprhyme notes. Also in the background is DeScribe, a.k.a. Shneur HaSofer, who recorded the Change E.P. with Y-Love. "Shneur just dropped by to see how the next video was coming out," says Diwon. "He had no idea what to expect."

Eprhyme: "Arrington de Dionysion (Old Time Relijun, [a band on legendary Olympia indie-rock label] K Records) plays bass clarinet. He brought along two of his free jazz buddies for the shoot." K Records, Eprhyme's former label, also released Beck's first album, as well as the Moldy Peaches, from the film "Juno."

On the turntables throughout the video is Diwon, the Yemenite DJ, who also owns Shemspeed Records. What record is he holding? "Eprhyme's single," he says. "It's the original vinyl of the song from K Records, on their international pop underground series."

Eprhyme: "We basically wanted to recreate an Olympia basement party. We were representing underground music...literally underground. This is what hip hop looks and feels like outside the club. It's a freakshow of religious fun addicts! [Someone named] Segulah was sportin' an Ecudorian spirit mask. My homeboy Moshe the Peddler, who was a wine distributor at the time, had a kosher wine tasting during the shoot. Look out for Emily Peck on stilts!"

The video concludes with the boys sitting around on the floor, getting ready to smash a glass. MJL's guide to Jewish weddings says: "The wedding ceremony ends with the breaking of the glass, which symbolizes that even in times of great joy, we remember that there is still pain in the world (which Jewish tradition relates to the destruction of the Jewish Temple). In most weddings, after the glass is broken it is time to jump up and yell, 'Mazal Tov!'"

Flying Freak Flags

Back on Nextbook: Blanket Statementstein revolutionizes jam-band music for punks (not to mention synagogue fashion fause pas), Y-Love loves Obama, and Nosson Zand comes off tour with Matisyahu for his solo debut:

Blanket Statementstein is a band that shouldn’t work as well as it does. When you put 12 hippies on stage, you don’t expect them to play their instruments in sync, much less make actual music. Not even their name makes sense.

Collected on stage, the band resembles the kitchen of a Manhattan apartment during a particularly crowded party. But there must be some Nightmare Before Christmas-like magic that makes everything turn out perfectly at the last second. The violinist in the knee-high cowboy boots is perfectly in time with the drummer, for whom Animal the Muppet is probably not only a musical guide but a fashion icon.

Through it all, lead singer Ahron Moeller — who sometimes wears a junior high school gym uniform, and sometimes dresses as Alec from A Clockwork Orange — acts as a barely-in-control MC, introducing the numbers with random stream-of-consciousness thoughts as well as occasionally kicking a rhyme or a hip-hop verse.

READ MORE >