kfarcenter.com Blog

Calling all artsy Jews who like to party for a purpose. The Jewish Caucus of PACT (Public Action for Change Today) and KFAR bring you Wide Angle, 8pm on Sunday October 14th @ Lakeview Broadcasting Co.

This is a social event with social action undertones. We will be showing images captured by 3 indy-photographers who teamed up with a group of homeless youth from around Chicago to provide an artisitic view into the homelessness situation through the eyes of those actually facing such issues on a daily basis.

$12 cover at the door, $10 if you if you RSVP. 21 and up.

By Pauline Dubkin Yearwood (09/28/2007) published in Chicago Jewish News
Since he founded Kfar Jewish Arts Center five years ago, Adam Davis says he’s been “living like a shul mouse” while he runs the organization on a shoestring.

Those days may soon be over. Donors are starting to recognize and support Kfar (the name means village in Hebrew), which produces musical and performance events designed for young Jewish audiences. Board members are signing up. And Davis is planning to reach out to more audience members in more demographic groups.

All this may come as a surprise to some observers since Kfar also suffered a major blow (as did the whole Chicago music scene) in the past year: the closing of the HotHouse, the Chicago world music club where the organization put on many of its shows. (continues after the jump)
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Mekhaye
Balkan Espanol
Skrip Klezmerl

Contrary to popular belief, Golem is neither a towering Jewish Frankenstein who defended the Jews of 17th Century Prague, nor a creature from Lord of the Rings. Golem is a 6 piece Eastern European folk-punk band.Golem’s JDub debut, FRESH OFF BOAT, is available now. Produced by Emery Dobyns (Patti Smith, Antony and the Johnsons, the Battles) and featuring Mike Gordon of Phish, Amanda Palmer of The Dresden Dolls, and Lenny Kaye of Patti Smith’s band!

“Stellar! A wild edgy approach with a reverance for Old World tradition.” New Yorker Magazine
“Golem produces the sort of music you’d expect if the shtetl were filled with punks instead of peasants.” Washington Post
“This is not your father’s klezmer band…unless of course Sid Vicious was your father…” NY Jewish Week

Mekhaye
Balkan Espanol
Skrip Klezmerl

Contrary to popular belief, Golem is neither a towering Jewish Frankenstein who defended the Jews of 17th Century Prague, nor a creature from Lord of the Rings. Golem is a 6 piece Eastern European folk-punk band.Golem’s JDub debut, FRESH OFF BOAT, is available now. Produced by Emery Dobyns (Patti Smith, Antony and the Johnsons, the Battles) and featuring Mike Gordon of Phish, Amanda Palmer of The Dresden Dolls, and Lenny Kaye of Patti Smith’s band!

“Stellar! A wild edgy approach with a reverance for Old World tradition.” New Yorker Magazine
“Golem produces the sort of music you’d expect if the shtetl were filled with punks instead of peasants.” Washington Post
“This is not your father’s klezmer band…unless of course Sid Vicious was your father…” NY Jewish Week

Aharit
Areut Yehuda
Ein Yeush
Yerushalayim
Lo Lefached

Aharit HaYamim is an Israeli reggae and world-beat sensation whose groove is rooted in love of Zion they share with their Rastafarian brethren. They proclaim love for “Yerushalayim” and “Holy Mount Zion” in tight harmonies layered over thumping basslines. Their music has attracted mixed multitude of followers, comprised of rastafarians, jam band fans, Phisheads, dissillusioned children of Oslo and Haredi Hilltop youth.

“Aharit Hayamim is here to wake you up and spread the message of unity, love and Israel,” says the band. Wearing brightly colored, home-sewn, hemp clothing with tzitzit, Aharit HaYamim delivers a heady musical mix perfect for party people or spiritual seekers.

“Lush instruments flow through the songs with clarinets, flutes, mandolins and more exotic instruments making appearances… Jamaican icon Bob Marley’s musical and philosophical themes also show up in the band’s repertoire – albeit with a Jewish twist.” Israel National Radio

Mesquitto from Meggido

The Rabbinical School Dropouts are Sun Ra, the Hampton Grease Band, Frank Zappa and the Klezmatics all rolled into one. The music of the Friedmann brothers is fresh, imaginative and the future of Klezmer music. Their big band (featuring oboe, mandolin, bassoon, theremin, toy piano, tablas, etc.) storms through a dozen creative originals touching upon klezmer, jazz, funk, Latin, rock, and varied mishegoss along the way. Jewish garage jazz with a sick sense of humor from Long Beach, California. It’s been called Esoteric Space Klezmer, but mostly its just wild musical fun. With special guests, Lamajamal.

• Rabbinical School Dropouts
  The California big band known as the RABBINICAL SCHOOL DROPOUTS actually does seem to play at a lot of weddings and bar mitzvahs, which is hard to square with their sound. Recalling Zappa at his giddiest and least scatological, the Dropouts seem to have developed a klezmerist form of Sun Ra worship, decked out in kabbalah references and bad Yiddish puns. Vehicles Behind Comets (Ethnic Warrior), released last year, takes their irreverent Semitic space fusion well past the asteroid belt: it’s Exodus as Star Trek, with manna in the form of Guru Guru records. No matter how many metaphors I pile up, though, they won’t capture the band’s exuberant energy, heard clearly in both the dizzy instrumental pivoting of “Yeshiva School Fallout” (at five and a half minutes, it’s the longest song here; they’re jumpy spacey, not epic spacey) and the gusty grace of “Anne Frank’s Ghost.”Opening tonight’s show (presented by KFAR Jewish Arts Center) is LAMAJAMAL, a bunch of locals working a so-called Gypsy-surf style that sometimes feels like they learned it back in the old country—Generistan. But when they’re on, they’re on, arriving at a fuzzy, garagey take on Roma music thanks to a knack for sexy, serpentine grooves and a mean, mean oud player.
  - Monica Kendrick
  7 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, or , $15, $12 in advance.

Mesquitto from Meggido
Mystical New Age Hot Dog of the Covenant
Zegatronic
The Rabbinical School Dropouts are Sun Ra, the Hampton Grease Band, Frank Zappa and the Klezmatics all rolled into one. The music of the Friedmann brothers is fresh, imaginative and the future of Klezmer music. Their big band (featuring oboe, mandolin, bassoon, theremin, toy piano, tablas, etc.) storms through a dozen creative originals touching upon klezmer, jazz, funk, Latin, rock, and varied mishegoss along the way. Jewish garage jazz with a sick sense of humor from Long Beach, California. It’s been called Esoteric Space Klezmer, but mostly its just wild musical fun. With special guests, Lamajamal.

In case you missed KFAR’s May 16 concert by ESTA, WBEZ 91.5FM rebroadcast a 30 minute excerpt of Israel’s most original instrumental band on the Radio M program this past week. Our thanks to Tony Sarabia at Chicago Public Radio and Eric Butkus of Record the World for making this possible. Click on the logo to stream the broadcast.

The show leads off with a tribute on the legendary Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn with appearances by Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder and others. Those familiar with the Renewal movement’s melody for “Kol Neshama Te’hallelya” will recognize the melody in this broadcast as his “Allahu.” It also features “Dung Gate” by Rabbinical School Dropouts who appear @ Empty Bottle Aug 19 with lamajaml for a musical way forward from last year’s Lebanon War, and a special shoutout to KFAR Jewish Arts Center for its work. The show playlist and segment breakdown is here.