Life (and Music) after Death

Is listening to music a religious experience?

The autobiographical book Automatic: Girls, Death, and R.E.M., by Matthue Roth--who you might also know as the founder of Jewniverse--is about music, but it's also about friendship.

Growing up Jewish in working-class Philadelphia, Matthue became friends with Patrick, a Catholic kid. Both were social outcasts, bad dressers, and targets for bullies. Patrick had neurofibromatosis, a degenerative skin disease. Matthue was a nerd, hanging out in libraries and at his synagogue, praying with men 80 years older than him. But both boys found solace in R.E.M., a band of misfits and "geek rockers."

The two are on wildly different paths in life--Patrick plays guitar for a band that gets minorly famous; Roth becomes an Orthodox Jew. But the two share an unlikely friendship that perseveres until Patrick's sudden death.

The short book (it's about 50 pages) takes its title from the R.E.M. album Automatic for the People. The structure of the book is also based on this album, with 12 chapters, one for each track. But you don't need to like R.E.M., or even to know who they are, to appreciate this tribute. The book is available as an Amazon download, or you can click here to order a hand-bound edition that Roth designed himself.

Psalms for the Perplexed

As the lead singer of the Israeli band Teapacks, Kobi Oz was a wild, adrenalized vaudevillian. Most famously, in 2007, he scandalized the Eurovision music competition with a song about Iran's nuclear capabilities called "Push the Button." But Oz's new solo CD Mizmorey Nivuchim ("Psalms for the Perplexed") is surprisingly low-key--dominated by acoustic guitars, soft drums, and a string section.

The real treat of Mizmorey is a website with interviews, translations, and videos that explain the puns, language, and background of each song. Some songs are playful--"Prayer of the Secular" and "Zalman" question the piety of both religious and non-religious Jews--while the poignant "Elohay" ("My God") mixes recordings of Oz's grandfather singing traditional Yemenite songs with Kobi's own lyrics.

Still, Oz hasn't lost his ironic sensibility and snarky wit. And thanks to the Mizmorey website, we English-speakers can get the jokes, too.

The Black Bar Mitzvah

Rick Ross’ Mixtape ‘The Black Bar Mitzvah’ Gets Release Date & (Ridiculous) Cover Art

 

Rick Ross on Wednesday (October 3) made a surprise announcement to all his Twitter fans: he’ll be releasing the free mixtape The Black Bar Mitzvah on October 8 via DatPiff. In the process, he revealed the iconic-for-its-absurdity cover artwork. Yes, that’s a fur-clad Rozay superimposed on the Star of David. Does it signify a conversion? An inside joke with Drake? We don’t know, nor do we care; we’re just glad it exists.

The Bawse has been busy this year. In addition to brawling at the BET Hip-Hop Awards, he released the mixtape Rich Forever in January, then the Maybach Music Group compilation Self Made Vol. 2 in June and his #1 album God Forgives, I Don’t in July. Ross will also tour with his MMG cohorts beginning in November. Perhaps they’ll break out “Hava Nagila.”

The Jewish Dictators Who Invented Punk Rock

1977 was the year punk rock — lead by its (mostly) Jewish standard bearers, the Ramones — exploded out of New York’s Lower East Side. But a full year before the Ramones urged us to “eat Kosher salami,” another group was bragging that they “knocked ‘em dead in Dallas…they didn’t know we were Jews.” That group was the Dictators, and they didn’t just embody the wise-guy attitude that would define punk — they invented it.

Lead by the Star of David-wearing “Handsome Dick Manitoba” (born Richard Blum) and guitar genius Ross “The Boss” Funicello (born Ross Friedman), the Dictators were faster, louder, and funnier than anything else happening at the time. But mainstream success eluded them. After landing a slot opening for megastars KISS, the Dictators were kicked off the tour for daring to speak Yiddish to Israeli-born KISS frontman Gene Simmons.

Nearly 40 years after the release of their first album, the Dictators continue to reunite from time to time to remind people where punk rock came from, and where it can still go.