Urban Folk the zine on the acoustic scene

Ben Godwin

the Fools Rav Shmuel

Urban Barnyard

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 UF X - the tenth issue of the number one fanzine
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IN THIS ISSUE

COVER ALL PHOTOS BY A MISTER HERB SCHER 1

MY DINNER WITH THE FOOLS DAN COSTELLO HAD DINNER WITH FOLK-DUO THE FOOLS. YOU READ IT HERE FIRST! 4
URBAN BARNYARD URBAN BARNYARD IN URBAN FOLK, COVERED BY URBAN BOY JUSTIN REMER . 8
AFTER THE ELECTRIC MOON CHRIS MAHER CONTINUES CHRONICLING HIS 2006. IN GLORIOUS BLACK & WHITE. 11
BEN GODWIN BEN GODWIN SINGS, PLAY S, PRODUCES. TOM DRAKE WRITES ABOUT IT. 14
SUBW AY STORIES EVER RIDE THE SUBW AY ? THEN THESE STORIES ARE FOR YOU ! 16
ISH MARQUEZ DEENAH VOLMER CHRONICLES THE PERFORMING RETURN OF AN ANCIENT ANTI FOLK STAR . 18
RAV SHMUEL DID YOU KNOW THAT R AV SHMUEL WAS JEWISH ? JJ H AYES DID , AND MORE. 22
EXEGESIS RAV SHMUEL TALKS ABOUT THE TITLE TRACK OF HIS ALBUM. ONLY IN URBAN FOLK! 24
PAUL'S PERSPECTIVE ZACH JAMES IS GONE. R EAD ABOUT THE REPERCUSSIONS. 26
ANTI COMPS JONATHAN BERGER CONTINUES SURVEYING THE ANTI FOLK THAT MADE AMERICA GREAT. 27
ADAM GREEN WHICH ANTI FOLK ALL-STAR CAME BACK FROM SELF -IMPOSED EXILE? (HINT: READ THE HEADER ) 29
FREDO'S FOLK FREDO FLINTSTONÉ ON SHITHOLES AND REDHEADS. 30
COSTELLO'S WEB DAN COSTELLO LISTENS TO MUSIC ONLINE, THEN WRITES ABOUT IT. 32
RECORD REVIEWS THEY MAKE RECORDS; WE REVIEW RECORDS; YOU READ REVIEWS OF RECORDS. 33

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 My Dinner with the Fools
Dan Costello photos by Herb Scher
“Even Fools know in spite of your trying bands I am in. I thought he’d make a good addition and
You can’t grow a tree by screaming at seeds. ask some interesting questions.
So go with the flow, quit all that crying Uchenna brought two bottles of red wine. So did Alex.
Take it so slow, cuz that’s how trees grow, so slow.” Coupled with my supplies, all the bases have been ex-
- the Fools, “Even Fools Know” ceedingly covered. Jen brought Coors Light, and asks if
I mind that she drinks beer instead of wine. I encourage
The beautiful musical duo The Fools arrive at my house her to drink whatever she likes. Nothing’s being written
just past eight o’clock. I’m cooking asparagus risotto, down, but everything is on the record. I ask, is there
which is the last element of what aims to be a balanced anything that’s off limits? Ah, the first reminder that I will
and complete meal. You can’t leave risotto sitting to cook; be documenting some portion of the evening. Uchenna
it gets lonely and uninspired. Mike has not yet arrived. tells me she’ll let me know if we get there.
My roommate Alex is out buying candles.
I’ve been psyching myself up for this event for
weeks. And now that it’s finally happening, there’s
a dual layer of anticipation and stress as we
embark on our dinner. When Alex arrives home
from his quick bodega run, he offers the Fools a
tour while I finish at the stove. This is the living
room, these are the messy bedrooms, this is
the neat musician’s bedroom, this is the bong,
etc. The whole tour takes thirty seconds. Mike
arrives, parks a seat on the couch and gets started
on some french bread and smoked gouda
munchies I’ve set out.
We’re having dinner because I’m writing about
The Fools for Urban Folk, and I didn’t want to
have a plain old Q&A style interview with them.
This band is too chill. Jen Tobin, who sings and
plays guitar, has a nervous offstage energy when it comes
Jen and Uchenna have known each other for ten years,
to being the center of attention, a rattle that sits just
since they met playing soccer as students at Rutgers.
below a calm demeanor. Uchenna Bright, who plays bass,
They have a synergy on and off stage which is rare and
is the smart, level-headed, girl next door. As a musical
intriguing. They’re in constant consultation. Uchenna
unit The Fools offer nothing superfluous. Just ease, pure
seems to be the wiser, apt to play devil’s advocate or to
emotion and – aside from the fast, percussive flutter of
share a larger world view. Jen appears more addled at
the six string – a complete lack of aerobics. Their perfor-
times, somewhat brooding, perhaps struggling for com-
mances appear effortless. When Jen sings, it’s the most
plete clarity, second guessing her impulse, or at least
relaxing feeling. Like the wind picked up just slightly,
just trying to make sure she didn’t upset anyone. She’s
and tossed a melody into your ear. Not everyone’s ear,
also one of those people who feels very strongly, it’s clear
just yours. Uchenna’s bass lines alternate between twist-
in her songs and in conversation that she has a genius’s
ing around the melody and providing a powerful root foun-
intensity. She is fascinated by things. When I first posed
dation. Their music is personal, it’s familiar. It’s quaint,
the idea of an interview, Jen told me, if I was writing an
and it’s anything but formal. A sit-down, tape-recorded
article on her band for a music magazine, that I was
conversation, to be edited down to its most factual core,
making a dream come true. That sort of gratitude per-
was simply not going to work for them. Or me. Just the
vades her spirit. I get the impression she is not easily
presence of a recording device would impede the vibe.
impressed but is easily moved. I’ve known these two for
So I invited them over for a dinner party, and also invited
about six months, and every time I see or talk to them
one of the most talented and smart people I know, Mike
they are the sweetest, most caring people I know. It’s no
Campbell. He goes by the musical moniker A Fermata,
wonder they came together. Everything about the two of
and also plays drums in Creaky Boards and the various
them seems to line up, to fit perfectly. Aside from the
wine/beer thing...
Mike picks the first bottle to open, a Chilean Carménère.
Uchenna reaches for the wine key and Jen opens a Coors
Light. We all toast. Dinner’s ready, and after a brief con-
versation where it’s understood that everyone smokes,
we spark up a pre-dinner joint. There are no rules to-
night, no schedules. Low Key. Chill. Alex, having toasted,
migrates to his bedroom to play Warcraft.
I ask Jen and Uchenna if they brought over any music,
as in preparation I asked them to provide our soundtrack.
Stuff they like. Yes, we brought music, but it’s probably
all the stuff you avoided in high school. The Fools listen
to mainstream music, stuff like Nirvana and Pearl Jam.
Jen considers Clapton a big influence. Uchenna favors
classic R&B. I meet them somewhere in the middle, and
put on an iPod mix of Paleface, Clapton, Nirvana Un-
plugged, Morrison Hotel and Nina Simone. Plenty stoned,
we congregate in the kitchen to serve ourselves buffet
style. We all sit at the table with heaping plates of lemon
herb chicken, asparagus risotto, and baby spinach salad.
Bread, Wine, Candles. Another toast. Let’s eat.
Jen and Uchenna have been having trouble making their
new album, seven songs called “Lost and Found”. Hav-
ing worked with one engineer for a while, they just started
with some people associated with Bowery Poetry Club.
They are working once per week in a cold basement,
which Jen says makes it hard to sing and hence, to record.
Mike concurs, there’s nothing worse than recording when
your voice feels sub par. I ask Jen if she’s a perfectionist.
She is. And also, she’s excited and impatient to have
something completed. They’ve had four or five sessions
and she’s disheartened that there aren’t any finished
tracks yet. Uchenna asks what do you expect after four
or five sessions? I don’t know, Jen says as she takes a
breath, I guess I thought there’d be something to listen
to. Uchenna tells her that she thinks the vocals sound
great, and reminds her that you can’t rush things like
albums. Jen remembers her song “Even The Fools,” which
describes the same notion. She says she writes her songs
to sing to herself. And while recalling the four short lines
of the song, she embodies the calm patience advocated
in the lyric.
I refer back to a conversation I had with Uchenna a
week earlier, about using found sounds (i.e. pots and
pans, passing trains, etc.), Jen doesn’t seem convinced
it’s a good idea. “Do I Move You?” comes on. Uchenna
asks, is this Nina Simone? I nod. Uchenna smiles, and
professes love for Nina. Sometimes it takes a symphony,
Jen says. Sometimes it doesn’t. Whatever serves the
song. I mention that I like the brevity and simplicity of
their music. Two nights later, Mikey will insist that I write
about their wisdom, both of them, and then their ability
to be just chilling. He considers it a profound and unex-
pected duality. Our dinner was very talkative. Suddenly,
very concerned, Jen asks about Alex, as he’s not at the
table. Oh, he’s playing his computer, he’s OK. She asks
Is he going to eat? Yes, but he’s a die-hard Warcraft
player and can’t put down the controls just yet. But he’ll
eat, I promise. I open wine bottle three.
Jen finishes eating first. I’m still wolfing down bread
and butter. I get more risotto. I can’t stop! Mike gives the
meal four stars, and when we retire back to the couch,
we get started right away on joint two. My roommate
Greg comes home, ready to meet everyone and hang
out. After those introductions, Mikey suggests we pass
the guitar around. I start, with a rousing (if very forced)
version of “I’m Sorry.” Sometimes when the moment hits,
out of some self-assigned pressure, you pick the wrong
song to start a jam. I finish, lost in my head, and hand
the guitar to Jen. Do you want Uchenna to play too? I
pull the bass and the near-broken amp from my pile of
musical toys, jiggling the cord so it sits in the jack, and
secure the connection. Uchenna owns a beautiful red
Fender bass, but this one is Greg’s – one of those heavy
metal, jagged shaped ones, like the hybrid of a Flying V
and a swastika. Uchenna is polite and smiles, but I can
see her dismay at its strange shape.
Jen and Uchenna play a soothing ver-
sion of “The Well,” which perfectly dif-
fuses the tension of my rushed, hokey
first song. Jen comments that the gui-
tar (my partner Rachel’s Martin) is the
nicest she’s ever played. Jen passes
the guitar to the left and Greg pretends
for a minute he knows how to play,
then passes it over to Mike who
charms all of us with his wonderful
song “Glass Cockroach.” Jen’s in love
with the imagery and tells him so. She
also likes my song “Lady Which Way,”
which I play by request. After that I
ask for her version of “Only the Fools,”
a song she never plays anymore and
I have covered at Sidewalk having only
heard recorded. We discuss the lyr-
ics. It’s all about love. Uchenna mentions that even their
sad songs are hopeful. I like the lyric “you should get
back on that staircase honey” and it’s imagery of ascen-
sion. Jen comments that when she was a kid, if she got
in trouble her punishment was to sit on the stairs. She
turned a negative memory into a positive lyric when she
changed the original “sit back on that staircase” to the
more persevering “get back on that staircase.” I com-
ment on the beauty of their language and its effect on
me. Jen says she listens to her songs all the time. I
write them to make myself feel better, she says.
We open wine bottle four and I serve dessert. – brown-
ies and vanilla ice cream. A perfect combination, a meld-
ing of light and dark, crumbly and creamy. The brownies
are a little overdone, which I attribute to the small print
on the Duncan Hines box and my inability to read it. No
one seems to mind. Jen chastises me for cutting around
the burnt edges in the pan. That’s my favorite part, she
says. I play some of the Reservoir Dogs soundtrack,
including the song “Fool For Love.” The Fools LOVE songs
with the world “fool” in them. They celebrate those songs
like ecstatic children celebrate new puppies on Christ-
mas morning.
At this point, with all the serving done, and all the food
consumed, I become much calmer. We discuss Rachel,
abroad in New Zealand. I play them a brand new song.
Mikey decides that the words inside and outside his head
no longer make enough sense and decides to head
home. Alex does some dishes. I’m reclining in a chair,
intensely writing the first few lines of the article in my
head. Then I start my fact listing. They are in their late
twenties. Uchenna works on a website called
GoodToBeGreen.com, which connects property owners
with eco-friendly suppliers and professionals. Jen didn’t
want me to forget the website. I know one of them’s from
Seattle, one’s from Ohio; will I remember which is which
in the morning?
At some point around 12AM I turn to the couch and
Jen and Uchenna are deciding how to politely leave. They
think I’m sleeping. Maybe I was. I muster enough energy
to sit up, trying in vain to reclaim my hosting skills. But
this has been such a low key evening and we’re all wiped
out – from the wine, from the smoke, from the food. And
now, just like at a Fools show, you could hear a pin drop
to the floor. I feel great about the evening. Like their mu-
sic, the meal felt familiar and easy. I like that they are
unusually beautiful people, artists, and performers. That
they find hope in the darkest images. That the best is
yet to come, and you have to throw the lies away in order
to see it. And I start to feel impatient. Like Jen, I can’t
wait for their album to be done.
But tonight is over. These two have the long train ride to
Harlem ahead. We drink the last of bottle four. Hugs go
around; we have a thank-you-no-thank-you moment. They
hope I have enough to write about. I assure them I do,
and not to worry. The door closes, I turn the deadbolt,
heap ice cream onto one more brownie, find my slippers,
and sit down to write. Ah, fuck it. I’ll write tomorrow. I’m
turning on some more Nina Simone and smoking a ciga-
rette out the window.
myspace.com/thefools_lostandfound
 Urban Barnyard
fit for man and beast
Justin Remer photos by Herb Scher

Urban Barnyard was originally a trio consisting of AntiFolk scene staples Phoebe Kreutz, Dashan Coram, and
Dibson Hoffweiler, aka Dibs. The idea was to do all songs about animals in the city (like the name implies.) The
approach is a mixture of silliness and sweetness, with stories often pulled from recent news story headlines, like the
early effort “A Tiger in Harlem,” based on the incident where a man was busted for having a menagerie in his
apartment. Another early crowd favorite is called “Horseys in the City.”
Soon, the trio recruited Daoud Tyler-Ameen to play some drums and Casey Holford to play bass (However, at this
point, the multi-talented musicians are just as likely to swap instruments with each new song they play). The quintet
recorded the lo-fi album Nay, Whoa, Let’s Go!, which includes songs about, among other things, the Natural History
Museum’s fake whale going on vacation and Casey Jones’s envy of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Dashan departed from Urban Barnyard in 2005, before the recording of the group’s second release, the genre-
hopping polished pop EP That’s The Idea, which includes a surf-rock song about sewer rats surfing on human refuse
and a Christmas song from the point of view of the rams in the manger.
Sitting with the four current members of Urban Barnyard is to witness a group of talented friends goofing off. The
conversation naturally hops from the singing oeuvre of Cookie Monster to Elliott Smith. An impromptu group
singalong, where everyone garbles their words in mock-Eddie Vedder style, immediately shifts to a discussion of
song structure. It’s sort of a shame I had to break the fun up by asking questions.

Urban Folk: It seems like a lot of people on the scene –
and a lot of people in this group – form bands that last a
short time, sometimes a gig or two. Why does Urban
Barnyard stick around?
Casey Holford: Probably because it’s so much fun.
Phoebe Kreutz: Yeah, I think there’s something sort of
magic-y about the concept –
Casey: Not magical; magic-y.
Phoebe: Gah-dammit, Chach!
Casey: [chuckles] Sorry.
Phoebe: Anyhow, it’s just such a silly thing to do that…
you can just do it. It’s less pressure, I think. And then
because you can do whatever you want, you end up
wanting to do it more. Plus we’re always hanging out
with each other anyway, we might as well be practicing.
UF: How did the group start? I get the impression the
genesis is mostly to do with you two [Phoebe and Dibs]
and not so much with you two [Daoud and Casey].
Daoud Tyler-Ameen: Yeah, you guys should tell him
about starting the band, because I don’t even know how
you got the idea.
Casey: I do! But I’m not telling. [Phoebe laughs.]
Dibson Hoffweiler: Phoebe and I were hanging out in
Central Park, and we saw horses… in the city.
Casey: But in the park.
Dibs: It was the city! City park.
Phoebe Kreutz: That’s right, and we actually had a con-
versation: “Where do they keep the horses?”
Dibs: Yeah, that song is very much what we said, us
hanging out in the park. But I think it was between the
park visit and actually writing the song that you came to
Dashan and me and you said, “I have this great idea for a
band.” Then we wrote the song “Horseys in the City.”
Phoebe: I remember that we wrote the song and then we
performed the song at Sidewalk at some point, and then
afterwards I said – or maybe even on stage I said – “Hey,
we should make this a permanent band.”
Casey: I like the “on stage” version.
Phoebe: It’s more dramatic.
Casey: Yeah.
Phoebe: For when they’re making the movie of Urban
Barnyard.
UF: So how did the rest of the band come in?
Casey: I was the last person to join. Phoebe, Dibs, and
Dashan recruited Daoud and then they recruited me.
Daoud: I started hanging around Sidewalk in June 2002,
and I met Dashan, Dibs, and Phoebe briefly in the sum-
mer of ’03. And then that winter, there was the Dibs-
And-Dashan-Have-Been-Friends-For-A-Year Show, and
I came down for that and played.
Casey: That’s so sweet.
Dibs: It was our anniversary show.
Daoud: There must have been like 10 acts.
Dibs: There were half-hour acts starting at 7:30, and Ur-
ban Barnyard played at 1am.
Casey: Holy crap.
Daoud: That was the first night of the cardboard-box bass
drum. I had to be at school, but I heard about that show,
and I was like “I’m cashing in on this friendship, come
hell or high water.”
Dibs: And it worked!
Daoud: Yeah. I didn’t want to bring all my stuff, so I
stuffed a cardboard box with newspaper, folded over an
edge, and screwed the bass pedal onto it. I wrote “Ur-
ban Barnyard!” on the front. But I spaced it out wrong,
so it read “Urban Barny” dash “ard.” Exclamation point.
Casey: Actually, the way I joined the band is kinda bor-
ing. I think Dashan just walked up to me and was like, “I
want you to play bass in Urban Barnyard,” and I was
like, “…Oh… okay.”
Daoud: Dashan actually did send one email though where
he wrote, “I don’t think that bastard Casey’s gonna join
the band.” [Everyone laughs]
Casey: That’s awesome. That was definitely the begin-
ning of Dashan’s and my friendship. We weren’t really
friends before then.
UF: Why isn’t Dashan in the band anymore?
Phoebe: Um… at some point, we just started being more
poppy and less experimental. And I think it was just sort
of a natural thing. Dashan didn’t really want to be in a
pop band, and I think rather than fight that – I mean, he
still liked us – he just said, “I’m not gonna do it any-
more.” But, it was an amicable split.
Casey: Yeah, totally amicable.
UF: You four are working on a new album, right?
Daoud: Yeah, we gotta get back to that.
Phoebe: We did all the instrumentals for the most part.
Casey: A lot of it’s done.
Phoebe: It’ll be good to have the new one because it’ll be
more representative of what we do now. Although the
That’s The Idea EP is pretty close.
UF: How was Nay, Whoa, Let’s Go! recorded?
Casey: At Dashan’s house, at his studio.
Dibs: When he was up in Harlem.
Daoud: In an afternoon. And they’re
all first takes.
Dibs: What?
Daoud: And it sounds like it.
Dibs: I know it SOUNDS like it, but...
Daoud: Well, maybe we did one re-
take or something, but I think the main
idea was to just record as much as
we could with me, since it was Au-
gust and I had to go back to school in
like a week. So we did my drums and
my vocals, and you guys filled in other
stuff later.
UF: I heard Nay, Whoa, Let’s Go after
hearing your more recent EP That’s
The Idea, and I thought it was like night
and day, with the newer disc being
much more polished. Is that just a
result of you guys doing this for a longer time, or be-
cause you started to care more or…?
Dibs: I wouldn’t say we care more or less, just different.
Daoud: Well, we probably wouldn’t make a record like
the first one anymore.
Dibs: I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised if we made
something as crazy and noisy and as hastily put-together
as that again.
Daoud: I guess the track that we have on the Anticomp
Folkilation – that’s sort of like that.
Dibs: Right. It’s like these people asked us to record a
song, and then we basically didn’t do it. [Everyone laughs]
So what do we do? We have a show, so let’s record a
song live that we don’t have recorded yet and give that to
them.
UF: What’s the deal with one of the other tracks that’s
on the Anticomp listed as being by a group called “The
Real Urban Barnyard”? [Everyone laughs]
Phoebe: That’s Dashan’s band.
UF: What distinguishes the R.U.B. from the O.G. U.B.?
Phoebe: I haven’t heard the R.U.B. yet.
Dibs: You haven’t? It’s amazing! I was talking to Dashan
the other day, and we came up with an idea for a Real
Urban Barnyard song.
Casey: Whoa, are you conspiring—?
Daoud: Are you joining the Real Urban Barnyard?
Dibs: I might join the Real Urban Barnyard, I don’t know.
Phoebe: Wow.
Dibs: I don’t know how you guys’ll feel about that.
Casey: You might implode if you join the Real Urban
Barnyard.
UF: So why just songs about animals?
Daoud: People have said, “You guys play so well together,
have you ever thought about just playing… some songs?”
Dibs: [chuckles] Why would we do songs?

Daoud: Working in that narrow frame – songs about ani-
mals – has allowed it to continue.
Phoebe: Yeah, it seems if you could walk into a room
and you can write a song about anything you want, then
I don’t even know how you’d start. Collaboration is so
hard, and I think having a concept we can all focus on
makes the collaboration process easy.
Casey: Yeah, I wouldn’t like to think about what would
happen if we tried to write about, like…
Dibs: Feelings?
Daoud: People breaking up with us?
Casey: Yeah.
Phoebe: But the songs kind of end up being about those
things anyway. That’s sort of the magic-y part.
UF: Do the words come first, or do you fuck around with
the tune and then see what words stick?
Daoud: It comes both ways.
Casey: And, on prior occasions, Dibs and Daoud have
brought fully-written songs and said “Here’s an Urban
Barnyard song.”
Daoud: The stories are everywhere to be found. Dibs
and Phoebe are the most watchful eyes in that depart-
ment. They’re the ones who will email the rest of us stuff
they found on the AP wire about, like, a whale that swam
all the way up the Thames or…
Casey: Yeah, we actually do research, which you
wouldn’t expect. The cricket song started because of a
news story Dibs found.
Dibs: Yeah, we were playing in Toronto, so I was looking
up Toronto news, and I found an article about a cricket
being the world’s most virile sex machine. It can have
sex more than any other creature on—
Casey: Yeah, it can have sex like 60 times an hour—
Dibs: Four times a minute, something ridiculous like that.
Casey: And when I got that, I wrote
back saying, “Can we write a funky,
like…”
Dibs: James Brown tribute.
Casey: Yeah. About a sexy cricket.
So then we got together knowing
how we wanted the song to sound.
We messed around in, like, the funk
idiom, and then we listened to some
Motown, and we kind of combined
the two. And, meanwhile, Phoebe
generally writes most of the lyrics.
Phoebe: I’m not holding any instru-
ments, so it’s easy for me to keep
the pad and pen. [Everyone laughs]
Casey: But also it comes really natu-
rally to you to write the stuff. You’re
the voice that most people are famil-
iar with when they listen to the lyr-
ics of our songs.
Phoebe: I think the way the band writes songs now is all-
inclusive. Everyone’s just jamming around, and you just
pick up on some little thing and think, “Oh that could be
a cool moment in a song.” Consistently, I think we’ve
written a lot of songs that we like just by farting around.
UF: How do you go back and write your own songs then?
Casey: We don’t.
Phoebe: I don’t write any of my own songs anymore.
Dibs: Actually, have we all kind of stopped?
Daoud: Oh, that’s no good. I thought I was the only one.
Casey: But I’m used to my personal songwriting coming
in waves. Before I knew you guys, there was a period
where I didn’t write a song for 1 1/2 to 2 years. And I’ve
learned to be fine with that.
Daoud: It’s the sort of difficulty we just never face. Our
songs are written in a sitting, in a practice, or they’re not
written at all.
Casey: Daoud, do you have long underwear on?
Daoud: Yeah.
Dibs: And the great thing with the band is you can just
add ideas – part of a guitar line, or a few lyrics – and in
the end you’ll have a song anyway. And they’re songs
that none of us could write on our own usually.
Phoebe: Yeah, a lot of times I would want to write a cer-
tain type of song, and I just don’t have the skill set to
play a guitar like that or something.
Dibs: It allows us to be lazier & better at the same time.
UF: Cool. Any other thoughts?
[Everyone shrugs]
Phoebe: I think that’s it. I don’t think I have anything left
to say.
Casey: Yeah, but how about anything right to say?
Phoebe: Chach, Gah-dammit!
urbanbarnyard.com
 After the Electric Moon
travelogue 2006 (part 2 of 2)
Chris Maher
In late-Spring, after my return from the April Fools’ Tour,
I hibernated. Bears hibernate in the Winter; I hibernate
at various points throughout the year. My excuse in the
Spring: Hay fever. Spring pollens hit me hard. At their
worst, I’m forced to lock myself inside, shut tight the
windows, and dope myself with antihistamines. This year,
my normal Spring hibernation was compounded by ex-
haustion. I stayed in for weeks, read books, wrote emails
and before long, crossed the month of May off my list of
things to do. By June, I realized that I had been wasting
my time, sitting on my ass and, motivated by a fear of
dissipating time, I recommenced work on my first al-
bum, Epigram on the Death of a Feeling. Simultaneously,
I worked with Huggabroomstik on their follow-up to
2005’s Sloppy Kisses and Serious Guitars. For a few
weeks in June, Emandee’s owner Mark Ospovat had to
see me almost every day. At the end of those weeks,
seventeen new Huggabroomstik songs were in the can
and my record was nearing the mixing stage.
With Epigram so close to completion, I decided to travel
West and spend late-July through early-September in
Seattle, mixing the album away from the humid bustle
of a New York Summer. Mark didn’t have time to trans-
fer the session files before my departure so he agreed
to send the files to me as soon as they were ready. By
July 12th, I had started basking in the gorgeous Seattle
weather. My first weekend out West, I drove North to
What the Heck! Fest in Anacortes, Washington and saw
many great performances, including a wonderful set by
a very pregnant Kimya Dawson. I went swimming in
lakes, drank wine, enjoyed the company of some great
friends and slept in my old Honda Civic.
Back in Seattle, I spent my days drinking coffee, wait-
ing patiently for Mark to send me the Epigram files. Then
I received the call that changed the rest of my year: The
main Emandee hard drive had crashed and the bulk of
the work we had done had been erased. To my dismay,
the only complete album back-up was from back in De-
cember 2005. This dashed my hopes for a Fall release
and rendered my trip to Seattle somewhat pointless.
Still reeling from the data loss, in early August, I played
a radio show called ‘Phoning It In’, on WMBR 88.1 FM
in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The gist: An artist calls
up the show’s host, Nadav, and plays a short set through
photos by Dibson T. Hoffweiler
the telephone. My appearance was hampered slightly
by my use of a cel and my decision to play newer, less-
perfected material. Still, the response was positive and
Nadav invited me to play again sometime when I had
access to a landline.
Several weeks later, I threw my guitar in my trunk and
drove down to Rochester, Washington for the 2nd An-
nual K Records Sleepover. The intimate two-and-a-half-
day concert was held on an organic, community-sup-
ported farm called Helsing Junction. This was my sec-
ond year in attendance and my second year playing an
impromptu set at the event.
Upon finding out that songwriter Beau Johnson and I
would both be there, Danny Kelly, scheduled to play a
full set, asked Beau and me to join him for an ad-hoc
incarnation of The People’s History of the United States
- a band Danny had first assembled in New York a few
years prior. Unfortunately, we never found the time to put
a set together, so Danny graciously gave us both a
chance to play some songs during his allotted time. We
were playing before the idiosyncratic Scout Niblett and I
felt that the two songs I chose to play, “Heather” and
“Wires & Sheets,” sounded a bit out of place. I received
some reassurance, however, when K head-honcho Calvin
Johnson came up to me, lightly punched my arm and
said in his trademark baritone: “Sounded good up there.”
On the 18th and 19th of August, I played back-to-back
shows in Portland, Oregon and Seattle. In Portland, I
played a small venue called the Red & Black Café with a
college friend, David Knowles, who performs as ‘...ship.’
The following day, I performed at a house-show held at
my place of residence, The Delaware. The event was
called ‘Baskerhoot’ (a play on the Bumbershoot Festi-
val, happening several days later) and boasted a full
day of music, BBQ-ing and booze. I played a wildly en-
joyable but modestly drunken solo set and joined my
housemate’s band, Throw Me the Statue, on bass. It was
our last hurrah as Delaware residents: Our lease was up
on September 1st. After moving out, I spent two weeks
couch surfing, ditched my car at an airport parking lot
and flew East to spend early-Autumn in New York City.
During the April Fools’ jaunt, I laid the groundwork for
an October tour through Germany and France, should I
decide to return. My friend and fellow NYC songwriter,
Phoebe Kreutz, had similar plans to tour the United King-
dom and at some point, we decided to join forces for a
two-week October tour through
England and Germany. Knowing
that I would be in Europe, I ar-
ranged to meet Jack Lewis and
the Cutoffs (a band I sometimes
play in with Simon Beins and
Raphi Gottesman) for a two-week
tour of France and England, im-
mediately after my dates with
Phoebe.
In preparation for the tour, I
started attending the AntiHoot on
a regular basis and two days be-
fore my flight to London, played a
show at Sidewalk Café that fea-
tured a group of friends singing
some songs with me under the
name the Census Singers. The
show – featuring Simon Beins on
trumpet – was shambolic but fun.
48 hours after the Sidewalk
show, I was disembarking a Vir-
gin-Atlantic 747 at London-
Heathrow, hoping that the notori-
ously strict UK Customs Officials wouldn’t turn me back
to the United States for my lack of a work permit. I made
it through with no trouble and took a train from Heathrow
to Paddington, switched to the Tube and met up with
Phoebe Kreutz.
The next day, our ‘Fall Into Europe Tour’ began in ear-
nest. Phoebe and I were traveling by rail and mid-after-
noon; we took a train to Brighton for the first show of the
tour. We were playing The Hope, an upstairs venue just
a short walk from the train station. Upon our arrival, we
noticed that the club was peppered with posters adver-
tising a Schwervon/Toby Goodshank/Lisa Li-Lund show
that was taking place a few days later. Our tour and
their tour were occurring simultaneously but, unfortu-
nately, wouldn’t coincide. A guy named Dillon recorded
our sets for his local radio program and although the
show was poorly attended, we considered it a good warm
up for the weeks to follow.
The following morning, we said goodbye to our hosts,
Mertle and Larry, and boarded a train bound for Oxford.
We arrived in time for a late-lunch at a quaint spot called
The Vault, an Organic eatery featuring home-cooked meals
served cafeteria style. The restaurant was located in the
basement of a centuries-old Church and we ravaged our
meals in the adjacent courtyard. It was Phoebe’s birth-
day and so we indulged in some desserts.
As we walked through town, I became instantly smit-
ten with Oxford. Our show was at another upstairs venue
above a beer-soaked bar called the Port Mahon. The bill,
booked by a quiet college-age fellow named Jamie and
his friend Cat, was shared
with two other acts, one of
which was a guy who plays
under the name King! Phoebe
and I agreed that he was an
uncanny amalgam of Dibson
Hoffweiler and Jack Lewis.
The show was well attended
and afterwards, we further cel-
ebrated Phoebe’s birthday
with cake and Jell-O and
crashed at Cat’s house.
Early the next day, we
hopped a train to Sheffield
and another to Hull, then a
cab to the club, a dank place
called the Adelphi. Our cab
driver spoke like a Beatle and
through his radio, we heard
Roy Orbison and Elvis songs.
At the club, I spotted a Non-
Horse drawn in the bathroom,
a Thomas Truax sticker on
the door and graffiti on the out-
side wall that read “Who’s
Got the Crack?” The show went well, despite Phoebe’s
malfunctioning guitar pickup. Gregg Weiss, a former New
York-based musician, was at the show, having had a night
off from his own, concurrent tour, and shared his wine
with me.
On the 20th, we had a day off. After going to a guitar
shop to get Phoebe’s pickup fixed, we decided to track
down Schwervon, Toby and Lisa at their show in Coven-
try. Coventry was two trains away from Hull but we had
little else to do. After a long day of travel, we reached the
scheduled venue, The Tin Angel, only to find out that the
show had been moved to a place called Taylor John’s
House. After a short goose chase, we found the new
spot and spent the rest of the night hanging out with the
pleasantly surprised Major Matt, Nan, Toby, Lisa and
Gregg Weiss, who also happened to be on the bill. Toby’s
set included covers of Casey Holford’s “On the Map” and
the Rolling Stones’ “Dead Flowers,” which featured the
Major on guitar, Nan on keyboards and me, unrehearsed,
on drums.
We all crashed at the same house and the next morn-
ing, after a fun slumber party, we said our goodbyes.
Phoebe and I then headed off to York to play The Black
Swan, an inn and bar that sometimes hosts shows. I
was very excited to visit the city that gave my beloved
hometown its name. Though York seemed geared to-
wards tourists, I liked the place. We dropped our things
off at the venue and walked around, eventually grabbing
dinner at a vegetarian restaurant called El Piano. After-
wards, we both played ridiculously fun sets to a packed
room that seemed to think we could do no wrong. After
the show, until closing time, we sat around drinking with
some audience members.
The following morning, we traveled back to London for
a show at The Spice of Life, relatively new venue in
London’s West End. Because it was the start of a holi-
day week, every train car was packed tight with travel-
ers and we were forced to stand for the majority of our
trip. Things didn’t get much better when we arrived in
London: It was pouring rain and the show was poorly
attended. I played my worst set of the tour, during which
I sparred with a bunch of unruly teenage punks after
suggesting that the most ‘punk rock’ thing they could do
was embrace quietness.
After the disappointment that was London, Phoebe and
I were anxious to get to Germany. From Stansted Air-
port, we boarded a Ryan Air flight to Berlin. Stansted
was completely overwhelming: Enormously large,
crowded and chaotic – I imagined it was what old ship
ports must have been like before air travel became the
preferred method of crossing large bodies of water. We
landed safely at the small Schonefeld Airport where we
were greeted by our wonderful friends Sebastian “Sibsi”
Hoffmann and our hostess, Charlotte Bartels.
Our first show of the German leg of the tour was at
Hotelbar, the same place where the April Fools’ Tour kicked
off. Phoebe and Heiko “Le Horror Me” Gabriel both played
great sets and though I was feeling exhausted and had
to battle an inattentive crowd, my set went well, too.
The next day, Phoebe, Sibsi and I took a hi-tech, hi-
speed commuter train to Hamburg where the three of us
played at Hasenschaukel, another venue from the April
Fools’ Tour. Shortly after arriving in Hamburg, as we made
our way to the Reeperbahn, a small, mangy dog came
barking at our heels and bit me in the shin. It felt like he
broke the skin but when I got to the club and looked, I
found no indication that he had. Just in case, I used a
wet paper towel to wash off the potentially affected area.
Tanju and Anja, the couple who run Hasenschaukel,
treated us to a delicious meal that got us ready for a fun
night of music. It was great to see Sibsi play a stellar set
of mostly new songs.
The following afternoon, our trip back to Berlin was de-
layed when the Hamburg police were called to inspect a
train window fractured by gunshots. We were lucky
enough to sit near the affected window and got to watch
the police reinforce it with an adhesive piece of clear plas-
tic. When we finally reached Berlin, we rushed to join our
New York friends, Ching Chong Song, for a show at
Schokoladen. What a party! Melissa, the woman who
set up the show, cooked us an amazing dinner and filled
us up with wine. Unfortunately, when it was time for my
set, my head was elsewhere and I played poorly. Phoebe
and Ching Chong Song were both in top form and after
more wine, I danced away my cares.
The next afternoon, Charlotte brought me to a small,
remaining section of the Berlin Wall, and Heiko to a
breathtaking Soviet War Memorial hidden away in the
enormous Treptower Park. The Memorial was unlike any-
thing I’d ever seen, both in size and scope. That night
Phoebe and I played our third and final Berlin show at an
American-style restaurant called Hazelwood, also booked
by Melissa. At the venue’s expense, we were able to
invite four friends to come have dinner with us. Although
the place was more of a restaurant than a venue, it was
packed with an attentive audience who gave Phoebe and
me a very warm reception.
The next day, after a goodbye breakfast, Phoebe,
Heiko and I took a series of connecting ‘slow-trains’ to
Hannover with Josepha and Philipp of the duo Crazy for
Jane. The five of us were playing together at a venue
called Kulturpalast-Linden. Phoebe and I were booked
on an overnight to Paris and so we had to play fast,
early sets in order to make it. It was a quick getaway,
and we were sad to say goodbye to our foreign friends,
but we made the train with time to spare. Despite a cry-
ing baby in the neighboring sleeper compartment, the
gentle rocking of the train lulled us quickly to sleep.
On the morning of October 29th, as we sped towards
Paris, Phoebe and I woke to a complementary breakfast
of yogurt and croissants. We were near the end of our 2
weeks together, a little rugged and worn out. I was dirty
as hell – so were my clothes. Later that day, I was sched-
uled to play my biggest show of the tour, opening for M.
Ward at Le Point Éphémère. Phoebe had the night off.
After our train pulled into Gare du Nord, Phoebe and I
split up for the afternoon. She stowed her bag and guitar
in a train station locker and went sight-seeing. I went
looking for a laundromat, hoping to wash my clothes
down. After a lengthy search, I found one near the venue.
For the next several hours, while my clothes were spin-
ning and sudsing, I plotted that night’s set and tried not
to let my nerves get the best of me...
to be continued...
myspace.com/chrismaher
 Ben Godwin
Down to Skin and Bone
Tom Drake photo by Herb Scher
New York greeted Ben Godwin as it does many artists: hour train ride, rats coming too close to the third rail, and
in the middle of a rainstorm, the polite Englishman ar- how it pushes the imagination. If you’re open to it, there
rived, umbrella-less and soaked to play his first show at are songs, he says, “landing on your face like a big fuckoff
the now defunct C-Note. No one was there. He soddenly custard pie in the face.” Lach, the host and booker at the
played to a few neighborhood patrons and the other per- Sidewalk Café, has been an inspiration, too. “He has so
formers. Within months, Ben would migrate the few blocks many ideas on how songs work, how they happen. He
to the Sidewalk Café, playing the AntiHoot, hoping for a lives for the music.”
show. He had no idea of how his life and art would change “In London, most of my musical interaction was with
as he entered the AntiFolk world. artists’ recordings. Here most of it is at shows. You would
After spending his late teens and early twenties play- hear the word AntiFolk or about the Sidewalk Café be-
ing in Glasgow’s burgeoning alternative rock scene, Ben cause of the Moldy Peaches success, but there was no
grew tired of the “rock band” world for many reasons, community like this.” He continues, “In London, there
but mostly the consistency with which the songs got lost were always some people waiting for a big break. Here
to the fashion, noise, and theatrics of rock shows. He everyone is out doing it for themselves. There was some
finds solo performance to be the most honest way to of this, like playing squat parties, but for the most part it
present a song to people. “There’s more available dy- wasn’t this sort of culture coming up through the cracks.”
namically to the singer. It’s easier to reach people with Godwin credits this sense of community as the main
the ‘no frills, putting the song first’ approach.” He re- catalyst of his transformation as an artist. Something as
turned to his home of London and began focusing on life simple as sharing a cab back to Brooklyn after an AntiHoot
as a solo performer. He worked with Dan Costello resulted in
over the next several years, land- the 13-track Halloween Baby,
ing a day job as a studio engi- which Ben produced. Soon
neer; improving the skills that the Dan and Godwin had re-
would help him create the now corded innumerable demos at
bundled EPs, Shiny Shiny and a friend’s loft, and filtered
Lighter than the Atom. them down during the many
In his four years in London, Ben long recording sessions at
only produced 12 songs he liked Seaside Studios in Brooklyn,
enough to record. After a year in where, only months later, Ben
New York, he’s already come up would record his own new
with the same. When first arriv- record, produced by Dan.
ing in the City, he would write only “People here aren’t waiting
about his own experience. “I was for the right inspiration, or the
doing one of those writing exer- right gig. They’re taking
cises where I’d wake up and write what’s in their hands and
about 1,500 words or so every making great art with it.”
day. I found that I kept writing the There are so many artists in
same shit every day. I just got the City that inspire him. He
tired of what was in my own head talks about them with the
and started more, recording the same smile a five year-old
images around me.” New York is has looking at his birthday
the most inspiring – yet menac- cake or a teenager has after
ing – landscape he’s seen. getting laid, and he begins
“There’s urgency here. It’s like a the AntiFolk name drop: Joie/
sense of constantly escaping Dead Blonde Girlfriend, Brook
some impending doom,” he says, Pridemore, the Bowmans,
describing the daily life of the rush Eric Wolfson, The Creaky
Boards, Lach and, more intimately, Dan Costello. “Dan’s
a real inspiration to work with. In London, I did studio Herb Ad
work with whomever I could, but making this (Halloween
Baby) was something personal.” He’s learned that when
you work with people that really care about music, their
contributions will go beyond whatever sound you had in
your head. “You find out where your weaknesses are and
you can open yourself up.”
The songs Ben Godwin writes seem to be as much a
part of his life as they are a product of it, and this is the
difference between the bundled Shiny/Atom releases and
the forthcoming Skin and Bone. All are apt examples of
quality songwriting and musicianship, but Skin and Bone,
as the title denotes, feels more open and settled in a
way that’s honest. It sounds less polished and more like
one of those artists finding his/her voice clichés – soaked
in the dirt, gasoline, and restaurant grease on the side-
walks and subway platforms of his new home. The al-
bum opens with the glorious “Drinking Gasoline” and
continues with “New World City,” which moves with the
same urgency and impending doom he sees in the City
each day. The album continues with rich, buttery tones,
captured at Seaside on highlights like “Skin and Bone”,
“Paper Thin Walls”, and “Outsize Shoes.” The album,
over all, has a dramatic, upbeat musical feel that is well
versed in American post-war blues/early rock and roll,
jazz-influenced harmonies, pop melodies with an eye for
the theatrical. His voice comes across strong, soulful,
and present in each and every verse.
His presence in song continues in his day job, working
view party for Skin and Bone (promoting the pre-release
for the non-profit Lifebeat, a music industry charitable
on antifolk.net and iTunes) on February 15th at the Win-
organization dedicated to AIDS awareness. As in any
ter AntiFolk Festival, with several guests joining him
non-profit profession, Ben performs varied tasks, but fo-
onstage.
cuses on the Hearts and Voices program, arranging
“I’m having too much fun. I’m just excited to see what
musical performances for patients bound to residential
happens next, not just with my own record, but with
facilities. “I get to watch miracles every day. These pa-
Dan’s, Eric’s, and Vin’s new records coming out.” It is
tients become, not just a person living with this illness,
these themes of awe and excitement that are most in-
but a member of the audience community,” he says with
triguing about Ben Godwin. It’s not that he’s one of those
a glimmer of awe, “I’ve seen people get out of their wheel-
happy cheerleader types you want to beat to death with
chairs to dance.” He sees the power of song to be a
a whiffle-bat, or his songs are unnecessarily joyous like
living and active part of people’s lives, and health.
some Bible camp sing-along of “Kumbaya” with every-
Ben spent a few weeks this winter touring in the UK,
body on ecstasy; in fact, most of them contrast this. His
and visiting friends and family. “The tour was such a blast.
pure wonderment with the nature of what a song is, can
I saw people I hadn’t seen in ten years, who had never
be, and what it can mean to people; can easily make
seen me without big rock poodle hair! I’m going back in
one feel like maybe there’s something they’re missing
the summer to do a bigger tour.” Looking forward, 2007
out on.
holds many exciting things for Ben. He’s seen the pre-
www.bengodwin.com

Our regularly scheduled programming has been pre-empted by a commentarial interlude from Dan Costello
When I met Ben, I had no idea we’d embark on such a close friendship and collaboration. Early on, he simply
asked me, “Why don’t you have a record?” and I said “I don’t know” and he said, “Well, let’s make you a record.”
Without Ben, I probably wouldn’t have made an album, certainly wouldn’t have made Halloween Baby. I just didn’t
know enough to do that myself. Producing his album (Skin and Bone) was a joy and a challenge. We are different
writers but both striving for the same things through our songs. I think New York is having a wonderful affect on his
songwriting, the grit and gristle of the concrete jungle is all over this album, as is the air of revelation. I’m glad to
know him (we are both quirky mother fuckers!), and proud of our work on both albums. Go Godwin Go!!!!
 Subway Stories
...goin’ underground...
XVII.
So I drop off copies of Urban Folk when I’m riding the
rails. I consider it a literacy-building act, and a way to
eventually rid my apartment of the thousands of copies
of the paper. Sometimes, I see results.
I’m sitting on a downtown 6 train, heading to the East
Village for some musical act or another. There are only
four seats in my row, and I’m in one of them. There’s no
one sitting next to me, so I drop a copy of the zine to my
side, and then go back to whatever mildly pornographic
science fiction mystery I’m reading. But I’m peripherally
aware of the magazine by my side, and I spy, from the
corner of my eye, someone touch it, then finger it.
“May I see?” she eventually asks.
Inwardly, I grin. Someone wants to look at my zine!
Whoo hoooO!
“It’s yours,” I reply, eyes remaining focused on my book.
A few stops roll by as she reads the paper and I get
that warm feeling of embarrassment and pride that
comes over when my work’s being observed. She hasn’t
dropped it yet. Normally, when I leave a copy on a seat,
I have the distinct honor of some B-Boy picking it up,
leafing through a couple of pages, realizing that Urban
Folk has nothing to do with Urban Fiction or any other
Urban marketing, then disdainfully toss it aside. Why
did we name this fanzine with a specific word that trans-
lates to just everybody in New York City as “black?”
But that’s besides the point. The girl to my left is read-
ing what I wrote. Maybe she’ll marry me. My superhu-
man side-vision tells me she’s not alone on the seat
beside me, but still…
Eventually, I steel myself and glance slightly to the left.
Yep, she’s reading an article I wrote. This is great...
We reach Grand Central, and she gets herself ready
to go, and she leaves the copy
behind her. Damn…
But I get a better look as she
and her tall dark companion
abandon the 6, and I realize,
“Hey! That’s Julia Douglass.
JULIA DOUGLASS!”
OK, now maybe that name
means nothing to you, but Julia
Douglass is one of the best
singer/songwriters I’ve seen on
this scene in all my years.
She’s a character stylist with a
beautiful voice and a hilarious
stage manner. Some of her
songs include “My Boyfriend is
a Genius,” and she did a haunt-
ing version of the already-
haunting “Ode to Billie Joe.”
Her LP, Fetish for the Under-
dog, debuted in, like, ’98, and
got great write-ups most every-
where, including AntiMatters,
the only paper that matters.
A paper that didn’t write about
her, though, was New York
Magazine, which did a feature
on the AntiFolk scene back in
1994. It was written by Martin
Kihn, Julia Douglass’ husband,
presumably the guy escorting her off the train.
Of course she’d been interested. They both were.
Maybe they were looking for her name. It wasn’t in that
issue. But you should see Julia Douglass if she ever
plays again. She does like a gig a year now, which is
criminally negligent, but maybe if her crowd grows, she’ll
up the ante. It ought to happen. Her last album came out
in 2003, so the next one should be released any day
now. They come around about as often as the downtown
6 train. (Jonathan Berger)
http://juliadouglass.com/
spoke with the children as people and did not patronize
them for their youth or their size.
For some, she was just another beautiful woman riding
the train into Manhattan. Some may not have noticed
her at all. For some she was just killing time between
points A and B. For some she inspired soft smiles to
crawl across tired faces, if just for a moment.
For some it might matter that her name is Regina
Spektor.
For some it may not. (Satchel Jones)
reginaspektor.com

XX.
The train stopped at another sta-
tion. People got on, people got off.
About then she started bopping her
head to an invisible beat. There was
no audible music on the train but she
was moving to a subtle groove in her
seat. She started singing silently to
herself as if she had headphones on.
The train stopped and a woman sit-
ting across from her exited through
the double doors of the subway car.
In her place a woman sat down with
her two small kids.
As she saw the woman with chil-
dren she stopped singing. She got
up from her seat and crossed the
train to speak with the mother and
play with the kids. They were laugh-
ing and talking and telling her about
school and their teachers.
At Union Square, she waved
goodbye to the mother and kids like
they were her own aunt, niece and
nephew and stepped lightly off the
train into the station. They were not
her family, though. They were strang-
ers to her and she was strangers to
them just as we were all strangers
to each other on the L train that day.
It may be wrong for me to docu-
ment these private moments we all
shared together that day on the L
train. But, too often it seems to be
that random acts of kindness and
beauty too are unnoticed and un-
mentioned.
It felt good to see someone taking
time to remember to sing, if only to
themselves. Or to risk sharing a
fragile compliment that might make
a woman feel good about the
sweater she wore that day. She
 Ish Marquez
On a Two-Way Street
“You shall call his name Ishmael because The Lord has given heed to your affliction. He shall be a wild donkey of
a man, his hand against every man and every man’s hand against him.” Genesis 16:11-12
Ish Marquez smiles like the devil. His shifts and spasms
send the microphone back and forth. Head cocked up,
he quickly turns to the side and returns to the micro-
phone as if to eat it. He shakes on and off the stool,
almost standing, never exactly sitting. He moves the
guitar around like he doesn’t know where to keep it, but
plays like it’s his only tool to ward off haunting spirits.
He sings, howls, and cackles, projecting loudly in a
nuanced wide range. His performances are tortured tran-
scendence, and the audience feels it through every lyric,
every beat and every cadence. His music is painful and
sweet, spooky and ethereal, aggressive and possessed.
Raised in the projects of the South Bronx, Ish Marquez
incorporates the sounds of New York with Hispanic roots,
tribal inspiration, 50s soul, 60s rock, and 70s punk.
This is the story of a unique singer and a damaged
soul, a performer who fled addiction and found redemp-
tion, not in his birthplace, or his adopted home of San
Francisco, but across the Atlantic, in Berlin.
Many in the German capital had heard of Ish, but few
actually knew his music. The only official release from
Marquez’ is a single song, “Gin in Not My Friend” on the
2001 Rough Trade Records compilation Antifolk Volume
1, compiled by Adam Green and Kimya Dawson of the
Moldy Peaches.
“Gin is Not My Friend’ is a true story,” explained Ish, “It
really happened. I don’t want people to know me by that.
It’s just a moment that happened and I learned from it.”
The song is eerie, beginning with aggressive acoustic
strumming, and plateaus into the sustained notes of a
horn with dogs barking in the background, followed by
singing that sounds both self-mocking and desperate.
“The song became a party anthem for us,” said
Sebastian Hoffmann, 21, a student of American Culture
and Sociology at the JFK Institute at the Free University
of Berlin, “We became obsessed with it, playing it be-
fore going to parties and shows.”
Intrigued by “Gin is Not My Friend,” Sebastian sought
out more recordings and eventually corresponded with
Ish Marquez over email, soon conspiring with friends to
bring Ish over to Europe.
“We never expected Ish would come. He didn’t seem
real to us,” said Sebastian. In fact, Ish does not seem
Deenah Vollmer
real to most people, even to his friends. He can be a
gentleman or a maniac, he can fall in love at the drop of
a hat, and swear off close friendships in a heartbeat.
Anders Griffen, a Masters student at UCLA, was Ish’s
drummer in the Lonesome Crew. Anders described his
experience with the band as a roller coaster ride. Ish
swore off his friendship with Anders. “My ego really
messed everything up,” Ish said.
Ish told Anders that he didn’t want Anders ever play-
ing drums with anybody else. Hearing that Anders con-
tinued playing drums with others, Ish said, “You’re a ter-
rible friend and this is the last you’ll ever hear from me.”
Still, Anders can’t speak ill of his old friend. “Funda-
mentally, we’re really brothers,” Anders said, “Brothers
with different mothers.”
People try to explain Ish’s music with a train of dispar-
ate genres, but except in hindsight, no fusion of labels
can communicate what he is – there is just no language
for him. Ish says his music is “if punk and Motown
smashed into one another face to face,” and there is a
smashing, a climax – violence, debris, pain, redemp-
tion – but his music is not so much the impact, but what
rises from the smoke. His songs are timeless,
unclassifiable. He rides the slippery line between genres,
between self-consciousness and ostentatious brilliance,
and between sitting on the stool and falling off.
In San Francisco, Ish spoke about how he’s been so-
ber for some number of months. The numbers were al-
ways changing. He seemed to be doing well, but he also
seemed very sad.
 An early friend and fan of
Ish Marquez, Jeffrey Lewis,
remembered Ish’s early 90s
band, Hallucination Station.
“The band consisted of three
Hispanic guys from the
Bronx playing two acoustic
guitars. The result was weird
tribal-Incan-folk-punk with
chanting and multipart vo-
cals and interlocking pat-
terns,” said Jeffrey, “And
their performances were vio-
lent, trance-like, and spiritual, like a weird aggressive,
acoustic, ancient Happening.”
In 1999, Ish formed the Lonesome Crew with Anders
on drums and Scott Fragalla on bass. “I learned to de-
scribe what I hear in Ish’s music,” Anders said, “I thought
of it as a mixture. Middle Eastern gypsy meets Jimi
Hendrix and Bob Dylan with elements of doo-wop and
punk, but I can’t imagine anyone getting a sense of Ish’s
music from any description.”
Ish played a nylon-string guitar percussively, slapping
and whacking the strings. Anders played jazzy drums.
The nylon strings through the amplifier produced really
weird distorted sounds, remembered Jeffrey Lewis. “It
was a full-on rock show!”
“On any given night Ish is capable of the impossible,”
said Anders, “Ish is totally consumed with the music when
it’s time to play. Sometimes he’d turn around during a
show and look at me like he never saw me before.”
As word spread about The Lonesome Crew, more
people came out to see them play, but Ish’s alcoholism
got worse, and there began to be more bad shows than
good ones. “It was frustrating when people would say
‘this is the great Ish Marquez, what’s so great?’” Anders
said.
Jeffrey Lewis agreed, “It became the exception to see
an Ish performance that really showed what was ca-
pable of.”
Ish’s inability to maintain a consistent level of excel-
lence contributed to his legendary status. “It’s almost
like a tightrope act,” Jeffrey said, “He seems like he is
always just about to fail,”
He was getting banned from clubs, getting into fights,
and playing lousy gigs. “When I think of New York now,
I get scared,” Ish said.
“I was getting into trouble in New York,” Ish remem-
bered playing music and recording with Spencer Chakedis.
“A lot of drinking, a lot of hanging out with Spencer. I was
homeless, having trouble with my parents. Couldn’t find
a place to live, couldn’t find a job. I was sleeping at
Spencer’s. It was so dirty and grimy. There’s only so
much you can take of that kind of insanity.”
On the other hand, Ish said, “The one thing keeping me
alive was recording with Spencer. The music was literally
keeping me alive. As soon as the guitar was off my lap I
was just a mess, rolling into oblivion.”
He moved to San Francisco in 2004, when drunken-
ness and homelessness led him to musical obscurity,
away from AntiFolk, and away from his fans.
In San Francisco, Ish was safe and could heal. “I have
orange juice in the fridge,” he said, “and I can walk
around my neighborhood at night.” And it was from San
Francisco Ish booked a flight during the 2006 World Cup
in Germany, to tour the foreign land.
None of the folks in Germany knew what to expect
from Ish Marquez. They had only heard the whispers
and rumors, legends: His dueling alcoholism and sobri-
ety, his absence from New York, and most of all his pen-
etrating music, so possessed and unwieldy that Ish him-
self seems just a vessel some ancient tribal community
uses to communicate through.
Ish arrived in Germany in new white sneakers, a but-
ton down shirt, a silver chain necklace bearing the cross
which was a gift from his mother, and a blue cap – a
new outfit he wore so the customs patrol would think he
was a “good boy.”
The first show was the big one, had people talking
about it for weeks, with songwriter Turner Cody and the
cartoonish rock act, Dufus. Ish oscillated between con-
fident and nervous, but mostly confident. In an email,
Ish wrote: “I am going to blow Dufus and Turner out of
the water with my set! I guarantee that those German
kids will never see another performer like me again.”
The day of the show arrived, the white-tiled room was
packed. When Ish opened his mouth he held the com-
plete attention of over a hundred listeners who were si-
lenced by his howling and spellbound by his fiery show.
Nobody talked, nobody looked around. His voice was
crystal clear, vibrant, exhibiting its full range. “It was a
moment in time when everything seemed right,” Ish said
later. “I was in good spirits, good health. From the mo-
ment I knew I would come to Germany, I knew that show
would mean everything to me… and it did.”
Ish played “Gin is Not My Friend” and the crowd re-
sponded as if to a familiar anthem, with screams and
whoops and singing along.
“It’s a humbling experience to watch a room full of people
watch Ish sing,” said Turner Cody. “He sings to be heard.
He sings as if he is reaching out into the audience to
make a connection to everyone who is listening.”
Dufus closed the night to a still full house at 3am. Dufus’
Seth Faergolzia thought the show was much better than
any he’d ever seen. “I thought his voice was the best I
had heard it in years,” Seth said, “He seemed clear-headed
and driven with amazing willpower.”
Except for a few alcohol-related blips, the month-long
German tour went well for Ish, Turner, and the guys who
brought them. Ish had a CD to sell at his shows. In fact,
he had two.
One was the Goin’ Thru compilation, made by Sebastian
and Jan Junker. They compiled a decade’s worth of Ish’s
music into a sixteen-track CD. Goin’ Thru was released
as a special version in 150 copies for the German tour. It
contains songs recorded by Marquez solo and with his
bands the Drive By Proposals and the Lonesome Crew.
“It’s me at my best,” Ish said.
Jan visited New York in September 2005 and acquired
most of Ish’s recordings from Spencer Chakedis, who
played with Ish in the Drive-Bys and recorded many of
his songs. Said Spencer, “Me and Ish make a great pro-
duction team. One time I’m working on a mix and Ish
said, ‘make the drums sound like you’re in the rain with
George Foreman!’ or I’ll be putting reverb on his vocals
he would scream ‘Put me in the mountains!’”
Jan also collected Ish’s work from Adam Green, Turner
Cody, and Jeffrey Lewis. Jan and Sebastian went through
over 150 recorded songs. Jan spent many days and sleep-
less nights burning the CDs, designing the booklet, and
selling them at shows.
Jan and Sebastian plan to ship the compilation out to
labels; the finished product will feature for the first time
artwork, lyrics, comments, dates, and proper credits.
“The songs on Goin’ Thru need and deserve to be heard,”
Jan said, “Underneath the edginess lie classic, master-
fully written songs; and it’s only a small selection.”
The compilation also contains the spellbinding “Pukalani
Slackers,” a fan-favorite recording embellished with sat-
isfying horns and clapping, but suffering from a poorly-
mixed vocal track. Legend has it that while in Hawaii, Ish
had too much to drink and started drowning in the ocean.
Some locals, whom Ish calls slackers, saved him.
“My songs are moments in time,” Ish said. “I try to
recreate them every time I sing them.”
What is communicated on this record, despite the in-
consistent recording quality, is Marquez’s brilliant
songwriting – simultaneously poppy, complex, weird,
catchy, and soulful. And a voice Turner Cody describes
as “some sort of eerie prehistoric whale, Native Ameri-
can, and from a timeless dimension.”
There’s also a new album. Ish Marquez’ latest self-
release, Approaching Su God, is a collection of recently
recorded songs, old and new, with guitar, voice, and
occasional light percussion of tambourine or clapping –
a folk record. The tracks are full, layers of acoustic gui-
tar strumming Spanish rhythms. The production value
is higher than anything he has recorded before. In fact,
some of the tracks like “Approaching Su God” and “Hom-
age to Casa” are so surprisingly slick that they could
probably play on mainstream radio. Missing is the raw
passion and offensive off-key howling, but the sincerity
of 60s R&B soulfulness abounds.
“This CD shows a saner, mature Ish, reflective and less
edgy,” said Jan, “It’s really beautiful and serene.”
Ish himself calls the record “dreamy.”
“Multi-Color China Doll” is one of the catchier song on
the record, with the simplest guitar parts – just rhythm
and a sweet Asiatic guitar refrain. The song was previ-
ously recorded with the Lonesome Crew in 2001. He
howls similar howls and even ends both versions by
speaking the word “Finis.”
The title song “Approaching Su God,” Ish told Spen-
cer, is about “God and the Drive-By Proposals,” a band
they shared. “We used to put on too much cologne be-
fore shows because we thought we were characters who
would use too much cologne,” said Spencer.
After the successful German tour, Ish Marquez re-
turned back to San Francisco, renewed. “It’s good for
my sinuses here,” he said.
“I’m clean,” Ish said, “In fact, when I get out of the
shower I always say, “Clean at last, clean at last, thank
god almighty I’m clean at last. Do you know who said
that? Martin Luther Clean, Jr.”
Ish is optimistic, excited about the future, and ready to
play more music.
“I’m writing new songs, collecting unemployment, be-
having myself, and doing what I have to do.”
myspace.com/ishmarquez
 Rav Shmuel
…a rabbi walks into a bar…
JJ Hayes
Maybe it’s a modern variant on some old folk tale where
the hero must answer three questions correctly in order
to gain admittance to some Fortress (get it?). Or some
more modern story out of Hollywood – the Old Pro sees
the light in the newcomer’s eyes, but wants to see if he’s
got the right attitude.
One day this Hasid shows up at the Sidewalk Café’s
AntiHootenany. He sits… listens… cringes every time
Lach says something slightly negative
about one of the performers, which is not
very often, but the Hasid now asserts that
he was hypersensitive at the time. Next
week he signs up to play. He gets a high
number, like 68. He asks Lach what time
he will be going on (something this re-
porter never had the balls to do). After
1:00am is the answer. He then asks if
there’s any way he can go on earlier,
since he has to get up for work in morn-
ing (how nuts is that?). As the Hasid tells
it, the conversation went like this:
“He goes, ‘what do you do?’ you know
and I guess he looks at me like I guess
he’s supposed to figure out what I do,
and so I said, ‘I play music,’ and he’s
like, ‘what kind of music?’ I said, ‘Rock
and Roll.’ He said, ‘Are you good?’ And
there was that moment of like, hesita-
tion… I was like, ‘Yeah!’”
So Lach gets him on stage a tiny bit earlier. The Hasid
plays. He is terrified. He feels himself fumbling through a
song called “Dumb World,” a hyperkinetic song with raga-
style delivery.
“The audience,” he says, “loved it,” and Lach gives him
a gig on the spot.
Five or six years later Rav Shmuel is again at the Side-
walk Café wondering whether he should even tell this
story since it might ruin Lach’s reputation. He is being
interviewed by an Irish Catholic whose own songs are
like smuggled perambulator parts that, when assembled,
keep coming out like machine guns of judgment. A writer
who sought out the peace activist and oft imprisoned
Jesuit priest, Daniel Berrigan, to ask him, “Father, I’m
looking for a witness to the Resurrection.”
Berrigan replied with a smile, “Let me know when you
find one.”
photos by Herb Scher
Despite the answer, the Jesuit evinced a profound feel-
ing of honest peace, it was as if one was actually talking
to the person himself, not one of the many layers that
grow around our souls like an onion to protect us from
the world and all its people, including you, gentle reader.
Rav Shmuel doesn’t seem to have peeled the onion
totally away just yet, but his music gets about as close
as anyone’s to some core of common human happiness
that we hope exists, and maybe will
survive the coming disaster. Nor did the
man lie when he said he played rock
and roll. His recent on stage collabora-
tion with the Bloodsugars was about
as transcendent a rock and roll show
as you will ever get, with some arrange-
ments coming so out of left field that
they had you thinking there is no way
this is going to work, and, well, it
worked.
There is also Rav’s version of the
Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated,” and
his rendition of Radiohead’s “Creep.”
Those, and a number of his own songs
that didn’t make it onto his new CD
Protocols, make him a “must-be-seen-
live” type of musician. But Protocols
has songs on it that you don’t often
hear him play live…so I guess he’s a
“must-buy-his-new-CD” type of musician, as well. Rav
has a reggae-inspired lightness that leaves you wonder-
ing why he isn’t touring with Jimmy Buffett, but he can
write a song like “Fatherland” which, now that I think of it,
may be the perfect response to Pink Floyd’s “Learning
to Fly.” And you do not get much better for achingly beau-
tiful lyrics with a hauntingly beautiful melody than this:
“If I could be a blade of grass crushed once beneath
your foot / If I could be a teardrop in your eye / If I could
be a fire to warm your cold, cold winter nights / If I could
do that once before I die…”
That’s “I Feel Love” from Protocols and yeah, it’s a love
song, and it’s probably a love song to a woman, but when
you hear it, you can’t get over the very strong feeling that
it’s a love song to G-d. That’s when it might be easy to
get into Dante and Beatrice territory. The really mind-
bending thought, though, that one can have a relation-
ship with the divine, could in some sense warm the cold,
cold winter nights of the Omnipotent and the Transcen-
dent, is pretty cool, to say the least.
At times Rav Shmuel likes to think of himself as a sort
of ambassador from the Hasidic world in which he grew
up and still obviously loves, despite the evident tensions
that such a role causes back home. Young Shmuel
Skaist got his exposure to mainstream music from the
radio “on the down low.” Growing up in a religious family
and community, such music apparently was frowned
upon. But the real ambassadorial nature of his music is
that it is totally non-ambassadorial. You might figure the
guy is Jewish because of his “Protocols,” but even that’s
not a given, as evidenced when the video for “Proto-
cols” was posted on a website which seems pretty dedi-
cated to the notion that there is a worldwide Zionist con-
spiracy. You could all but hear the neuronal synapses
short-circuiting when the guy who posted the video found
out who and what Rav is, and that this rabbi had actu-
ally thanked him for posting the video.
As for Rav’s other songs, you couldn’t tell the faith or
non-faith of the songwriter at all, but then when it is re-
vealed, as it must eventually be revealed, that Rav
Shmuel is a Jew, an orthodox Jew, an orthodox Hasidic
Jew, an orthodox Hasidic Jewish Rabbi, one is struck
by revelations, some of which will follow.
Rav’s songs, which can be pointed exercises in irony
(“It’s a beautiful country. I’m so happy that we stole it
from the Indians”), but often are basic, funny, upbeat
observations about the “Dumb World” and its people
(ie, all of us), actually grew out of the somewhat insu-
lated and very foreign seeming world of “enclaves.” The
immediate inspiration for any number of these songs,
which could apply to you or your neighbor, are probably
those people you see walking across bridges and over-
passes on Saturdays, looking like the Amish, with all
their kids in tow, or walking in their long dark coats and
strange head dress to and from synagogue on Friday
night (do they even speak English?) or the guy in the
“Rock the Casbah” video following the armadillo.
One song, probably held back from Protocols for fear
that members of his own community would find it scan-
dalous, when in fact it does the most to humanize them
in the eyes of the surrounding world to whom they are
basically “other,” is “The Bodega Song.” In this song
Rav describes the relationship between certain students
and the dope dealing bodega across the street from their
school. They occasionally walk in and then come out
with, “a smile…and a coke.” When the store is closed
down in a drug bust, the students do exactly what I know
my fellow Catholic school students would have done in
the same situation, and what I hope any group of self-
respecting public school students would have done. They
break in and steal all the beer. But the school is a Ye-
shiva and the students are those kids with the funny
looking ringlets of hair that hang around their ears. Holy
Mother of All Cultural Wars, Batman; we all act alike!
Of course, it’s a two-way street. Rav is all smiles when
he describes sitting for six months at the Sidewalk Café,
terrified of Joie Dead Blonde Girlfriend Blaney, only to
end up as his good friend. They have a lot in common –
and that sums it up. Joie Blaney and Rav Shmuel have a
lot in common. And so do all of you. So there.
When listening to the music of Rav Shmuel, in light of
who Rav Shmuel is, it becomes clear that there is some-
thing deeper going on. Not, I repeat, not in the sense
that his songs have any allegorical meaning or secret
religious meaning. One is not in any great danger of
falling into the “Dylan-ology” which that particular singer’s
songs engender. These songs are pretty much what they
are, which is not to say they are superficial. “Itinerant’s
Plea” could be sung by a character in a Tony Hillerman
novel, or a Trappist Monk, or any lost soul wandering
the East Village. It reaches that deep.
Still, you wonder how he does it. How is it you can
walk into any random Rav Shmuel show, or throw on
Protocols, after “wandering through the cities of the
plague” where “they will crush you with wealth and power
– every waking moment you could crack” (That’s Bob
Dylan being quoted, but notice the reference to Camus,
which is also a reference to Pete Hamill’s liner notes for
Blood on the Tracks and… aaargh) and come out actu-
ally feeling good about life? And I mean joyful, laughing,
deep good, not an “I blew off some steam and have to get
back to work tomorrow” good. What’s up with that?
This is why I’m here, sitting at Rav Shmuel’s home
base, the Sidewalk Café, where he works undercover for
the Learned Elders of Zion, where he feels comfortable,
where he enjoys himself, where “What I was wanting to
do was develop as a songwriter, and in order to do that I
felt like I needed to hear. It wasn’t really so much about
me playing, I can play anywhere. It was more about me
kind of being ex-
posed to artists and
variety, and to
people doing inter-
esting and different
things and not be-
ing kind of a part of
a very neat pack-
age system…”
And where all of
that happened. But
now he is one of
those artists to
whom other artists
are exposed and
the tape recorder is
running and I’m try-
ing to find out where
that comes from.
Just like I want to
know what world
Toby Goodshank’s music comes from, or from what deep
well Dan Penta’s images and melodies arise, or Diane
Cluck’s eternal golden braid, or Barry Bliss’s fire-breath-
ing tender intensity. But Socrates said, 2,500 years ago,
that it is useless to ask singers about their music be-
cause they don’t really know themselves.
So we have this conversation, the Rabbi and I, see.
And I get some answers, see. And I ask some ques-
tions, see. And as I am running out of space and time
my tentative conclusion is this. There is a three-thou-
sand year tradition. There is a way of life that grows out
of that tradition. The way of life seems to involve dancing
in the face of incredible pain, even thanksgiving and joy
because of the pain. It is about itinerancy and ancient
wisdom, and knowing someone is walking beside you. A
man is born into that tradition and that way of life. He
lives it and thinks it and breathes it. He accepts it. He is
immersed in it. He plays guitar and he plays ukulele,
and one day this Hasid shows up at the Sidewalk Café’s
AntiHootenany…
http://ravshmuel.com/

Exegesis Department
why I wrote "Protocols"
Rav Shmuel
“Protocols”

Some people ask me if I’m Jewish

Some people look at me and know
Some people want to know if I believe in Jesus
and have trouble when the answer is, “Well, no.”
Some people think that that’s my right
Some people think that I am damned
Some people think that I’m a part of a conspiracy
to take over the world and rule with an iron hand.

[chorus]
You see The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are true
And I am a member of standing
Our goal is to milk all the money from you
It’s world domination we’re planning
Oh no! There I go - I’ve let the cat out of the bag
Will you please keep my secret, I pray
Cause I’m undercover as a singer-songwriter
right here at the Sidewalk Café
Some people ask if I speak English
Some people ask if I’m Middle Eastern Some people stare at me when I pray
Some people stare at me with hate Some people want to know if I know the Kabbalah
Some people want to know if I pick up every penny And have trouble when the answer is
so they toss them at me and quickly drive away “Why don’t you ask Madonna?”
Some people think that that’s my right Some people think that that’s my right
Some people think that I am damned Some people think that I am damned
Some people think that I should pack up all my bags Some people think that I’m a real threat to world freedom
and get the hell out of the promised land and that I will turn their oil into sand

[chorus] [chorus]
 I wrote the song “Protocols” because I’ve always found But, as you know, all that is just a cover – really, every
it kind of bizarre that people who don’t know me or any- night we’re up till all hours plotting our next move. It’s
thing about me can hate me enough to want me and all true that we’ve failed to actually take over the world in the
of my relatives dead. Growing up as an Orthodox Jew in last 2,000 years, but we’re Jews, so it doesn’t matter if
the USA was a great experience for me - I’ve enjoyed we’re successful or not. We have to carry on with our
freedoms that my ancestors couldn’t even dream of. But nefarious plots.
there was always the occasional drive by “Heil Hitler” You should see the piles of gold we all have stockpiled
and “Hitler should have finished the job” to remind me under our beds - and once a week we gather the family
that Anti-Semitism still lurks in the shadows. round the gold and hold hands and remind each other
Any reasonably intelligent Anti-Semite knows that the how much more gold we’re going to have once we take
Jews want to take over the world. The proof (as if proof over Fort Knox – which is actually going to happen real
were necessary) is in the book called The Protocols of soon. As soon as we finish digging the tunnel from
the Learned Elders of Zion that purports to be a record of Hymietown though – of course we would never actually
the wicked plans and tactics the Jewish elders use to get our hands dirty by digging ourselves. We’re having
take over the world. our slaves work on it even as we speak.
The Protocols was actually written in Paris sometime And by the way, when we do take power, we plan to
between 1895 and 1899 by an agent of the Russian se- abolish any rolls that do not have a hole in the middle.
cret police, though Anti-Semites don’t think so. Here’s Because we need to have circumcised bread - that is the
what Mr. Henry Ford, in an interview published in the deep mystical “protocolian” reason for the bagel. And when
New York WORLD, February 17th, 1921, had to say: you eat a bagel there’s a special “jewish” ingredient that,
“The only statement I care to make about The Protocols over time, will cause you to give all your money to the
is that they fit in with what is going on. They are sixteen nearest Jew. This effect could kick in any time now. So
years old, and they have fitted the world situation up to I’ll give you a tip: Why don’t you just send all your cash
this time. They fit it now.” over to Fort Knox. It will be safe there… at least for a
And I thought, when I heard about The Protocols of The little while.
Elders of Zion, how utterly ridiculous - I can barely afford
to support my family but these people think I am part of
some big conspiracy to take over the world.
One fine evening in Greenwich Village New York, hal-
lowed ground to one of the most liberal, accepting cul-
tures on planet Earth, some guy walks out of a bar, smiles
at me, and raises his hand in a Nazi salute. “Heil Hitler,”
he said. He paused as if expecting an answer. I didn’t
know what to say but thought it was really funny that he
wanted an answer so I laughed to myself all the way
home and then wrote him an answer:
My song “Protocols.”
So listen up, you Nazi freak in the Village and all the
other countless people who’ve cursed me and wanted
me and my people dead because you think we’re more
greedy, more hateful, and more scheming than you are.
Here’s my answer to you: It’s true, it’s all true - every
hateful word you’ve said about us for the past 2,000 years.
All true. We’re dirty. True. Stingy, Money-hungry, Liars,
Spreaders of Plagues, Murderers of Babies, Writers of
some of the most awful TV sitcoms ever. True. All True.
And we’re going to take over the world.
We’re coming after your money.
We’re coming after your children.
We’re coming after your women (how many camels for
your women?).
We’re your worst nightmare but meanwhile we’re just
hiding out, acting as ordinary folk, with day-jobs like ev-
erybody else.
 Paul’s Perspective
“The Ballad of Zach James” - a tribute
Paul Alexander
One of the greatest things about running an open mic, or frequenting one for that matter, is getting a chance to
watch people come and grow. One of the hardest parts is watching good friends come and go. Like all difficult
situations, losing a great songwriter is sometimes best lamented in song, as Leo recently reminded regulars at the
Crowin’ at the Creek open mic in Long Island City…
“The Ballad of Zach James”
(the abridged version)

Now I met Zach back in 1998 Chorus:

We were diggin’ for diamonds in the songwriter’s mine
His words would come and the melodies would flow
And when he’s gonna’ stop, damned if we’ll ever know
Like a cowpoke on the prairie just a ridin’ the range
He keeps a writin’ them epics so weird and strange
There was a place called Sun Music as I do recall
And the day they shut it down
there was this guitar on the wall
A pint-sized 6 string red white and black
They wuz throwin’ it away, but then up stepped Zach
Said “I’ll take it off your hands, it’s a sorry old thing
Let me take it home and see if I can make it sing”
Ever since then, right up to today
That’s the only box I’ve ever seen him play
Now everybody needs a chance to get their freak on
A cozy little joint where they can sing their song
Well there’s a place I know where you can freely speak
It’s a crazy little shack they call the “Cave n’ the Creek” lent grace into oblivion, leaving us their music and leav-
But if you’re sober, call it “Creek at the Cave”
Just like some say “home of the free, and land of the brave” know I too will go, and I’d love to think I could merit a
People come from miles around to do their thing
Read some rants, do a dance, maybe whisper and sing
Got some good grub from down a’ tex-mex way
And every Tuesday night you can hear ‘em play
Now Zach can tell ya’ ‘bout a ph’losopher named Anaximander another great artist who
But he ain’t got a thing on Mr. Alexander
He opens up the open singin’ sweet and low
Ev’ry week wondrin’ if anyone will show
But they come fired up like a house on fire
Lou Rosa, Tom Drake, Thomas Patrick McGuire
Drew Torres here to tell us that this planet ain’t his home
Berger rocks your word until your brain ain’t got a bone
Then Sukato sidles to the mic and gives that siren call
And someone screams “I’m the King”
“Beat Your Head Against the Wall!”
Then a man steps up all cryptic and lean
With that half-size 6 string red n’ black machine
And we all get quiet as we hang on every word
As we journey from the real to the totally absurd
Hearing all kinda images like no one ever heard
In the wild mountain cry o’ some high flyin’ bird
Zach James is his name, though he’s no Harry James
Though he’s no Rick James, he will live in fame
Infamy, I can tell ya’, it’s a reputation game
Bet y’ got it beat if your name is Zach James
I seen him do some drinkin’, yeah I seen him pissed
Yeah I seen him carry on and on and on like this
Unveiling the real, so dangerous
Once you’ve met him he’s a man you will surely miss
Tribute songs are truly my favorite open mic tunes to
hear, which is why it was so great to hear Leo pay hom-
age to the lost Zach James. No, Zach hasn’t passed on
to the great unknown, he has merely moved there. Re-
cently, Zach James, like so many other great New York
acts before him (Amy Hills, Danny Kelly, Jerome, etc.),
slipped not with fanfare and circumstance, but with si-
ing us wishing life didn’t call them elsewhere. One day I
tribute song as appropriate and flattering as the one Leo
penned for Zach. Mr. James may no longer be nearby,
but he’s not far from our thoughts.
Not to be outdone by Leo, or to let anyone forget yet
moved on this past year,
Brian Speaker recently
penned “The Balled of
Jerome.” I don’t have the
lyrics, but the sentiment
was much the same. A trib-
ute to Jerome, and a tribute
to the idea that an open mic
is a special thing, and while
two years have brought a lot
of good friends and great
music, there’s always the
hope of finding something
else even more tribute-
worthy next Tuesday.
 AntiComps
historical antifolk compilations, part 0
Jonathan Berger
These days, making an album is as easy as one, two, three, pi… But back in the eighties, when AntiFolk monsters
ruled the land, it was far more difficult a procedure to collect 12 songs from different people, put it on an album, and
sell it. The technology was not as available as today. And even some of the technology that was available in those
golden olden days was eschewed by the absolutely first AF compilation compiler, Billy Nova. Long an émigré from
New York, Billy Nova took the time to explain his motivation in taking on the role of archivist.

ForTunes 13
Zane Campbell played “All the Dreams” with his proto-
“There were literally dozens of worthy songwriters that
cowpunk band, the Hard Facts. His voice varied from
were not recorded or represented on any kind of formal
smarmy Vegas cool to desperate hillbilly scream, all in
release,” Billy Nova said, “Most of them had done rudi-
the course of four minutes. Campbell’s cut was probably
mentary home-based recordings.”
the most professionally produced track on the album.
He produced five hundred cassettes. “It was purely
“It was a kick trying to gather in from all the edges and
financial. Funds were extremely limited. In the spirit of
trying to knit a comforter, that hangs together when you
DIY, it was possible to reproduce copies at home.”
put it together, trying to combine disparate sources that
Originally, in a scheme to build up interest in the up- were understandable in a single read,” Nova said, recall-
coming comp, Nova sent out a press release request- ing, “Mine was an 8-track recording from a studio. Lach’s
ing submissions. “The only way to get pre-publicity was too.”
to get interest beyond the scene. I knew the interest
Nova’s track is perhaps the standout on the album.
would play out a lot broader if it was an open call.”
“Perseverance,” a tale that seems elliptical religious, fea-
Several publications bit; the Village Voice and the tures an almost beatific Ross Owens on harmonica. It is
Aquarian both wrote about the albums long before it a beautiful song, much stronger that Owens’ own inclu-
came out. Submissions flowed. “I was very much open sion, “Heads Up.”
to being inclusive; I figured there were lots of folks out
Another weaker track was David Indian’s “Diane,” an
there looking for an outlet.”
epistolary which goes on and on without really saying
After that initial promotion, though, things settled down, anything. “Apples in the morning, tea in the night,” he
and Nova began sorting through music. “I probably got and a highly pitched backing vocalist recite in the demi-
20 or thirty tapes in – the rest were all from the scene.” chorus. Whatever.
Nova pored through the variety of tapes, skimming the
scum from the bottom, the cream from the top. “It be-
came really obvious that we wanted to – we were look-
ing for an edge. I didn’t realize it at the time but what
made it all come together was a certain sensibility: folk
plus punk plus… some sort of soul.”
Finally, he realized that inclusivity was over-rated. “This
really got to be about these songwriters,” he said, refer-
ring to the AntiFolk. “They were better than anything else
I received. It became this more narrow thing. It was a
long circuit to get back to what the original idea was.”
Many of the thirteen acts who made the final cut are
writ in AntiFolk legend. The album begins with Lach sing-
ing “Crazy House,” one of those circus-as-metaphor-
for-reality stories that ends with a curious switch. Lach
is at his snotty best, representing a Lower East Side
that threatened to swallow the rest of the City.
Kirk Kelly starts side two with his AntiFolk anthem, “Go
Man Go,” a rallying cry back in its day and subsequently
the name of his debut LP on SST.
 Brenda Kahn’s “And I Talk,” produced
by her then-paramour Roger Manning,
sounds like an artist just learning her
craft. She would go on to much stron-
ger work on her first two albums, Gold-
fish Don’t Talk Back and the startling
Epiphany in Brooklyn . Manning’s
song, “Lefty Rhetoric Blues,” though,
is one of the strongest from that
AntiFolk standard-bearer.
“The working title for it was the Un-
cooperative, based on the Speakeasy
team, who called themselves the Co-
operative.”
Despite the different recording strat-
egies and the divergent writers, the
result comes together as a whole.
Listening to ForTunes 13, it’s some-
thing of a shock to realize how long it
took to be made.
Nova, after collecting all the material, passed the re-
cordings onto engineer and oldtime Lach musician
Norman Englund. “He took upon a labor of love to finish it
up. I paid him like 125 dollars for, like, 200 hours of work.
He did all the wizardry that made it sound like it all came
out from one scene.
“The day I left town – I got a ride to his
place to pick up the final tape. Then left
town.”
Nova, relocation to the West, spent
almost another year getting the tapes
duplicated, the packaging created, and
the album produced.
“Part of the intent was that a good deal
of individual labor would be put into
each release. You could crack out fif-
teen of these in an hour. Slow going…”
Nova muses.
By the time of its release, the scene
had changed and the album disap-
peared, a love child nobody wanted.
The copies are gone, except for the
lucky few who treasured them when.
Nova, who’s been retired from music
for fifteen years, still thinks about the
old comp, though, and considers bring-
ing it back, if only for archival purposes.
“I’ve made the acquaintance of a guy at work who’s
interested in digitizing them, and at least preserving them
to the next step. Who knows what might happen after
that? Lach might be interested…”
 Adam Green
return of the prodigal
Bernard King
Adam Green returned to the Sidewalk for the first time
in several years to close this winter’s Antifolk Festival
with a solo show on February 18. There were also sets
from his old scene contemporaries Turner Cody and Dan
Penta. Turner was accompanied by Sam James (of the
Wowz) and will tour Europe next month with Herman
Dune and The Baby Skins. Adam’s performed with Turner
many times since they started out here together and
also recorded a cover of Turner’s “After Midnight.” Dan
Penta (Whisper Doll) toured with Adam and the Moldy
Peaches back when he was known as Cockroach, and
he was accompanied by former Moldy Peaches drum-
mer Brent Cole (Wooden Ghost). So it was something
like the old days to see these friends on the same bill,
and for those of us who watched Adam take the Side-
walk stage so many times in those years (1999-2002).
Back then you never knew what he might be wearing,
and he began this show with a head band given by a
female fan.
The room was full and by the end of the night the velvet
rope had to be put up because there was no more stand-
ing room. The only seats were several rows of chairs in
the front where the tables had been removed, and fans
also sat on the floor around the stage. The most recent
show of this size at Sidewalk was Kimya Dawson’s
(Adam’s former Moldy Peaches partner) at her annual
Off-the-Sauce Party on January 6 which featured Beau
Johnson, Jeff Lewis, Prewar Yardsale, and Paleface
(She’s currently on an East Coast tour that includes nights
with Diane Cluck and Dufus).
Adam promised he wasn’t going to do three hours like
at his last Bowery Ballroom show, to which
Lach responded “One more song!” The audi-
ence shot out a lot of requests. From his last
three releases (Friends of Mine, Gemstones,
Jacket Full of Danger) were “Friends of Mine”
with which he opened the set, “Drugs,” “Blue-
birds,” “Emily,” “Carolina,” “Gemstones,” “I
Wanna Die” and “Novotel.” He also played some
wonderful new songs he’d been recording dur-
ing the week. There was a catchy “Tropical Is-
land”; a ballad called “I Could Get Used to This”;
“Grandma Shirley and Papa,” written for his
grandparents; “Home Life” which he said
sounded like it had an Ish Marquez chord pro-
gression, “a ‘Gin is Not My Friend’ kind of thing”;
and “Drowning Head-First,” co-written with his
girlfriend Loribeth who joined him for a first-time
photo by Herb Scher
duet (Ish Marquez had just performed his own “come-
back show” the night before at Cake Shop with Dufus, on
a visit from California).
“Oh my God, I just remembered that I’m doing this! I
used to play here every week,” he said about halfway
through the set before singing songs from his first al-
bum, Garfield. On “Computer Show” he did a great imita-
tion of the synthesized computer voice: “I... can’t... go...
home... without... going... home... with... you.” It was
nostalgic to hear the lines from songs he’d sung so many
times in that room that had such an influence on every-
one, such as “Can You See Me” (“Look, look, look at me
doing this/Look at the way that I am”) and “Her Father
and Her” (“I feel just like old gum/To ride your big fucking,
fake fucking, lame fucking dead horse into town”).
He ended with “Baby’s Gonna Die Tonight,” also from
Garfield, which was a big audience request. He segued
right into it from “I Wanna Die” before closing with “Heart
and Soul.” There were plenty of stories and funny mo-
ments, the quality of Martin guitars and Shure micro-
phones was called into question, and Adam apologized
for his cowlick (we saw none). He sang well and the acous-
tic show allowed him to play with the textures of his voice.
This was especially noticeable on the new songs, and
ones that with the band he usually has to sing forcefully
such as “Baby’s Gonna Die,” “Novotel” and “Gemstones.”
It was a quintessential Adam Green show, as a return to
the original Sidewalk experience and a casual set that
mixed songs from all of his albums with new ones, and
probably had something in it to satisfy everyone who came
whether they were old friends or new fans.
 Fredo’s Folk
Fredo Flintstoné

It’s dark, it’s cramped and the sound system sucks. her out and not have to worry about a punch to my head
There’s no use denying it, The Sidewalk Café is a from my beloved Wilma… This, I must see!” So, I take
“shithole.” What place in the East Village isn’t, though? my beloved Wilma tenderly by the elbow, tell her my
It’s a tad sight better than the dark, narrow, chairless, throat is parched and my old feet throb from our little
foodless, rack liquor only room at The Cake Shop and hike, and with that as my excuse, request her to follow
the room is slightly larger than the miniscule space at me into the “shithole” for a cold beer and a rest, and to
Rockwood Music Hall. Besides, who wants to jackass get me an eyeful (and an earful) of the cute, freckled
over to Brooklyn all the time to catch a few sets at red head. Daddy would be so proud.
“shitholes” like Bar 4, The Living Room Lounge or Stain My beloved Wilma and I grab a table in the back of
Bar, when Manhattan “shitholes” are just so convenient? this rather small joint, surrounded by folks half our age,
The Sidewalk however does make for a cheap night out all eager for this woman, Erin Regan, to take the stage.
since there’s just a 2-drink minimum and no cover charge It seems most have heard her play before and all are
and they don’t try to rip off the customers with $8 beers excited at the prospect of hearing her again. I raise an
and $12 mixed drinks. The food is also surprisingly good eyebrow when I overhear the young gent at the table
and decently priced. And the waitresses… those lovely, next to us tell his drinking buddies that he believes Ms.
young, cheery lasses in their tight short skirts, who wind Regan is originally from Virginia. A true “Southern Belle,”
their slender, sultry bodies around the tiny tables, through
the crowd that, on any given night, fill this “shithole” to
hear some really fine tunes. Ah, yes, the waitresses…
Hey!
but I digress.
Missing copies of earlier issues of Urban Folk? Did
The music’s the draw. AntiFolk they call it. Suppos-
edly, it is a mix somewhere between the folk music of
you know you could get them @ the website?
Woody Guthrie & Pete Seeger and the punk music of It’s true!
the Ramones & the Sex Pistols. To my untrained ear,
though, it sounds more like plain ole American folk with
the occasional rock tune tossed in, with emphasis on
trying to shock the listener by use of the words, “shit”
and/or “hole” whenever possible. Sorry, but I have to
side with Bill Cosby: once a performer resorts to using
vulgarities it means he just can’t find, or doesn’t know,
the words to complete the story. He got lost somewhere,
but he doesn’t know how to neatly tie it all up, so he
tosses in a cuss word to kill the thread, thereby killing
us right along with it. There’s nothing worse then getting
ass deep into a song, almost climbing into the same
urbanfolk.org
skin with the singer, only to have that magical moment You can also order the print copies for two dollars
snatched away because the composer doesn’t know each, payable to: Jon Berger
how to continue to take you with him from point A to 1119 Longwood Avenue Bronx NY 10474
point B. It leaves me feeling robbed and half sorry I let
him take me on this journey with him to begin with.
One thing that has never left me feeling robbed, how-
ever, is a red head. A freckled red head is always a plus.
What can I say? My daddy trained me well. A few months
back I found myself taking an evening stroll down the
street with my beloved Wilma, when I spot this freckled
red head, guitar case in hand, standing outside some
“shithole” talking to friends about her upcoming show
that evening. I think to myself, “a freckled red head who
gets up on a stage to sing, thereby allowing me to check Or drop us a line at urbanfolkzine@gmail.com
so genteel. When she’s happy, as Southern Belles are
born to be, she’s full of sweetness and light. When she’s
not happy, Heaven help those nearby, she’s full of piss
and vinegar and biting, sarcastic remarks that gut the
object of her angst. I again think to myself, “who’s luckier
than me?” and then Ms. Regan takes the stage. People
applaud and cheer her entrance. She sits herself on a
chair and as she tunes her guitar, she says a few words
of introduction. An angel speaks. She then offers the
most coquettish of smiles to the crowd as she begins to
gently strum her guitar. I’m already hooked.
The first thing that comes into my head is Forrest
Gump. Not Forrest himself, but his beloved Jenny. It’s
that scene where Jenny, in her desperate quest to be-
come the female Bob Dylan, bares it all for her art and
takes the stage at some topless bar, hiding her naked-
ness behind her guitar, and attempts to sing “Blowin’ in
the Wind” to the lecherous drunks in the audience. While
Ms. Regan is certainly no Jenny (since Erin can sing
and does original compositions), she, fully clothed, laid
bare her soul. Fully exposed are her past misfortunes
for all the audience to hear.
When Ms. Regan ends her song, “Your Mom’s Car,”
the first thing I want to do is smack my Mom for not
owning one. I find I can no longer sip my beer for in it, I
taste her tears.
After hearing her songs of love lost and heart broken,
sung so perfectly with the sincerest of words, it takes
everything within me not to go to her, stand beside her
as she sits on her perch, lamenting her past loves. I
want to press her head against my shoulder, gently run
my hand over her hair and, in a soft, sympathetic voice,
assure her to trust Uncle Fredo; it is all going to work
out. Her heart will mend and she will find the love that is
meant for her. But then, I recall my beloved Wilma’s
right hook and that idea flies out the window. Instead,
the first thing I do is sign up at MySpace so I can listen
to Erin, my Erin, and a few other acts I enjoyed, at my
leisure. MySpace also permits me to know when Ms.
Regan’s next show will be. I am a most happy fellow.
At last my wait is over and Ms. Regan announces her
next show. I am excited, to say the least. I coerce my
beloved Wilma join me to once again and we situate
ourselves at the same table in eager anticipation of Erin’s
set. Then the bad news comes. Erin will not be perform-
ing that evening. A Ms. Randi Russo will be on in her
stead. At first, I am crestfallen. I was so up for Erin’s
show. Then Ms. Russo takes the stage. A lovely, charm-
ing brunette (with a great rack to boot). I think to myself,
“Well, Fredo, my boy, they say variety is the spice of
life…”
http://www.myspace.com/freddiebedrocks
 Costello’s Web
online reviews
Dan Costello
I’m bored. Sometimes, with a wealth of available information just a few clicks away, it’s those few clicks that are the
hardest. Will I find something that is going to let me down completely? A friend-of-a-friend wants me to cover them,
but their music isn’t my Cup-O-Noodles. Ack, what’s happening to me? I am listing the woes of an online music
columnist. Every time I click on something I suspect will wow me (and wow you), I am hopelessly disappointed. OK,
must find things I like. I mean, I’d hate to be one more Urban Folk writer who enjoys dissing good music just to hear
himself talk. Jon Berger. Yeah, I said it. Fight, FIGHT!
Thomas Patrick Maguire – “Unemployment Dreams”
Cheese On Bread – “Gucci Model”
Luv-A-Lot recording artist Maguire has one of the hum-
Apparently this was featured on It’s Twisted Television
blest demeanors I’ve ever seen. He’s not all that bois-
(ITTV). When we were recording a track with Brook
terous at live shows, he’s certainly not a rocker by con-
Pridemore this summer, Dan Fishback told me this video
ventional observation. However, I’ve been listening to
should never be seen by anyone. Thank god for
this song for days. LOUDLY. And it fuckin’ rules. And if a
YouTube. These best-selling AntiFolkers just got a little
song says the same thing several times, it had better be
more spaghetti on their pink tutus.
fuckin’ good stuff. Which it is. Sounds Like? Stereopathic
youtube.com/watch?v=GvL0Xzx4RQE Soul Manure, but well-produced by the guys who tracked
out “All Apologies” on MTV Unplugged. Everyone who’s
The Falsies – “Too Late”
been a temp, who likes Nirvana or loves Beck needs to
Take common pop riffs and add a dash of hipster and a
hear this. Better yet, ALL the songs here are just as
healthy glob of irony. The Josie and the Pussycats tight
good as this one, and available for free download. Get
rocker thing is right there, but I like the very well con-
hooked. myspace.com/thomaspatrickmaguire
ceived and executed tambourines. Sometimes, when
you’re on the fence about someone, a well conceived Chris Maher, “How To Lie”
and executed tambourine part makes all the difference. The Bright Eyesish panoramically-aware-but-still-person-
myspace.com/thefalsies ally-affected thing is apparent with Chris, but in truth
Conor’s lyrics don’t even play on the same field as this
M Lamar – “White Pussy” guy’s. I wish there was a video of “Passing Thru” live at
So Leontyne Price and RuPaul had a baby with a big the Sidewalk Café, Chris brought nine or twelve people
falsetto and a fearless sense of propriety. This track is on stage. Instantly likeable, he sings great song after
messy, hard to listen to, hard not to listen to, and a com- great song. And there’s a live video from Germany on
plete and total riot. Reginald does his thang, it’s the way his MySpace page, which Chris says is just “OK,” but I
it’s gotta be... there’s also a YouTube vid called “Nigga think is honest and moving. Take any chance you can to
Spectacle” that would make Gil Scott Heron proud. This see this guy perform live – He’s great!
revolution is already being televised, bitches… myspace.com/chrismaher
myspace.com/mlamar
Winston Echo – “Tape Hiss”
Michael Leviton – “The Beach Gets Cold” Sometime in the early 80s some lo-fi songwriting stu-
When you’re on the LES scene as much as I am, the dent or other left a time capsule in Winston Echo’s back-
same names keep popping up. Michael falls into that yard. Upon digging it up as a bonnie wee bunny, he stud-
category for me. I’ve discussed him with A Fermata, ied and studied and studied to recreate the no-budget
Casey Holford, Andrew Hoepfner and others. I can’t tra-la-la songs. This one, short and sweet, is no match
believe it took me this long to hear him. His video is an for his exchange rate song “Bureau De Change” on
adventure through a mini-golf course. Sometimes he MySpace, but ”Tape Hiss” is great and free to down-
appears with ukulele. Sometimes he appears lost, or load. Also, Winston has a project called “Songs For
next to quirky elements like a sign that says “Ball Cross- Everyone” where audience members write song ideas
ing.” The girl harmonies line up well to a montage of on slips of paper and Winston reads them, making up
wayward golf balls. And then there’s the lyrical observa- new songs on the spot. It’s a generous idea, though it’s
tion of the Quebec license plate slogan “Je Me clear our dear Winston Echo is not short for topics to
Souviens,” and the notion that the Quebecois must for- write about. winstonecho.com/songs/tapehiss.mp3
get sometimes. michaelleviton.com/songs myspace.com/iamwinstonecho
 Record Reviews
Send to J. Berger - 1119 Longwood Avenue - Bronx, NY 10474
by the editorial collective (unless otherwise noted...)
Various Artists
ANTICOMP FOLKILATION
I received the brand-new, just released, spoonerized
double-disc Crafty Records AntiFolk compilation like a
child opening his first present on Kwanzaa’s seventh night.
And just like that spoiled brat, I was bound to be both
pleased and disappointed by what I got.
“Thirty five acts,” I said, eyes aglow, “And no Hamell on
Trial?”
But that’s what’s
missing; what
about what’s
there?
There’s a huge
amount of con-
tent, overseen by
Crafty’s chief, Dan
Treiber and his
able assistants
Brook Pridemore
& Dan Costello.
Some of it is self-
reflexive. Disc Two opens with Eric Wolfson’s “Sleeping
is a Sucker’s Game,” which is a pretty apt description of
the open mic lifestyle. Another take on the world we all
enjoy is Debe Dalton’s first released recording, “Ed’s
Song,” the penultimate song on the same disc. Right
after it is Urban Barnyard’s live track, “Alone in Johnny’s
Kitchen,” about a mouse living with/next to Johnny Dydo,
drummer for the Wowz and Huggabroomstik.
That kind of collaborative spirit pervades the urban folk
world, and there are numerous other examples of it on
the albums. On Disc One, Jeff Lewis and Diane Cluck
reanimate “The River,” from their collaborative album from
some years back. Then there’s “Pooper Scooper” by the
innocuously named RUB. Of course, it’s the latest iden-
tity of Dashan Coram (Huggabroomstik, Secret Sala-
mander), former member of Urban Barnyard. RUB is the
REAL Urban Barnyard, natch.
Coram had put out his own AntiFolk compilation on
Luv-A-Lot Records. Other former compilation organizers
are also included on this release. Major Matt Mason’s
“Tripping Yourself” starts the whole shebang. He and Joie
(he of Dead Blonde Girlfriend) co-compiled Call It What
You Want: This is Antifolk. Lach, the mastermind of
Lach’s Antihoot, re-releases “Baby.” A Brief View of the
Hudson return from their Art Stars Compilation with their
track “She Will Never Speak.”
The songs? They vary, as you’d expect on such a com-
prehensive collection. Just like the open mic, every song
opens a world unto itself, some you like, some you love,
some you impatiently wait to end. But the variety is part
of the beauty of the urban folk world, and thus, of this
collection.
craftyrecords.net
Ben Patton
Because the Heart
Already one of those songwriters who makes your ears
perk up Ben Patton’s sophomore release does a great
job of picking up where his first album and the two songs
you’ve heard at your favorite open mic leave off. With
tunes that linger like fondest memories, Ben’s slickly
produced thirteen song serenade is well worth a listen.
Initially, Patton’s songs, like his cover photo, make him
appear young, but as he projects in his grabbing open-
ing track “All Grown Up” and the line “look at your grown
up look and attitude,” this album is anything but an im-
mature attempt at poppy hooks and jazzy ear candy.
Mr. Patton often wears his influences on his sleeve, as
in the scat-filled, jazz-infused “Somebody’s in Love with
You,” but the album reveals a well-refined songwriter who
is grown up and in the prime of his creativity.
After grabbing the listener from the opening horn hits
and incessant piano line of track one, tunes like “Is It
Just Me, or is Everybody Lonely?” and “I Love my B-A-B-
Y” are welcome additions, as they strip the lush (though
effective) arrangements to present Ben as I know him
best: one talented singer. Part Elvis Costello, a little bit
George Gershwin, with clear Beatle-esqe overtones, Ben
Patton manages to still sound original.
Because the Heart is undeniably a flashy presentation
with great guitar, piano, trumpets, violins, programmed
drums, and mandolin work by another talented Patton
(in this case, a Will; any relation?). Nevertheless, even
on grand songs like “I’m Stupid Over You,” nothing seems
overdone or out of place. Though I really enjoyed his
last release, Here’s the Good News Album, with its milder
production, Patton has by no means faltered in this ef-
fort. His arrangements are multilayered but not to the
point that they distract from Ben’s true gift – writing great,
catchy songs. After all, as he repeats in “Timon of Ath-
ens,” his songs have a way of attaching themselves to
your subconscious as they play themselves in your head,
“Again and again and again and again…” While hooky
tracks like “You Have No Idea,” with its well-placed slide
guitar lines, suggest that Patton has every idea of how to
arrange and self-produce pop gems.
“Everyone smiles when I enter,” Ben muses in “The
Untold Story,” and it’s not bravado. Ben has the goods,
and he readily displays them on this sophomore release.
(Paul Alexander)
http://www.benpatton.com/
Jamie Rae
September Skies
You know, iTunes describes Jamie Rae as Easy Lis-
tening. I don’t think I’ve ever known of anyone who iden-
tified themselves as Easy Listening. To each their own,
though… The sounds on this EP are certainly easy on
the ears – just as Jamie Rae is easy on the eyes. The
elegant production by Mark Christensen complements
the lush cover of the disc. I tend to list towards her
rougher moments. There’s a percussive moment at the
start of the chorus on the title track, where everything
falls silent for her to sing, “Stop, rewind…” before every-
thing builds back in. And the just slightly askew delivery
of the title to “You Already Know,” just behind the beat?
Intentional or not, it works.
Best, though, is the last. “The Subway Song,” a tale of
the 1-train serving as metaphor for life in this urban mecca,
is damned cool. Underproduced, featuring acrobatic gui-
tar work by Thorry Koren and expressive jazz vocals from
our star, Jamie Rae eschews all the excellent production
of the rest of the release to present something spare,
honest and true. It’s perhaps the odd song out on the
album, and it pays off. As Ms. Rae sings somewhere on
the middle of album, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
(Jonathan Berger)
jamieraemusic.com
Jenn Lindsay
Perfect Handful
Uphill Both Ways
Upon delivering Perfect Handful and Uphill Both Ways,
Brooklyn-by-way-of San Diego singer-songwriter Jenn
Lindsay tackles the unenviable question answered in re-
cent years by artists such as Radiohead, Magnetic Fields
and even (eek) Guns ‘N Roses: Are two albums really
better than one? In Jenn Lindsay’s case, the answer is
Yes and No.
Perfect Handful, the more lost-love geared of the two
discs (with Uphill Both Ways leaning slightly to the po-
litical side) opens with “Got My Baby,” and cheeky lyrics
about a female lover that turns out to be the narrator’s
guitar. Lindsay’s often finger picked guitar melodies angle
over spare drum and bass arrangements reminiscent of
the second Wilco album. Guest appearances by Dave
O’Neal, Peter Dizozza and Major Matt Mason USA fill
out the thin spots, of which there are a few, particularly
on more up-tempo numbers like “Bones.”
There’s no instant comparison to Lindsay’s singing:
she has a strong voice with a breathiness that some-
times seems forced. Jenn seems to reach for a lot of the
higher notes, most noticeably on the lilting double-har-
mony parts of “Good Thing.” These qualities combine
and call to mind Nick Drake’s voice on Pink Moon. Lumped
in with the full-band arrangements and decidedly New
York lyrical subject matter, Perfect Handful is a little too
busy, but generally good folky fun.
Uphill Both Ways, as a companion piece, seems a
little darker, slightly more world-weary – as though the
narrator behind Perfect Handful is newly single and ex-
cited at the prospects of being alone, and this is that
same girl a year later, well past the joys of self-discovery
and getting lonely. “I sold my heart, it was too broke to
start,” goes one couplet in “Brain,” over four-on-the-floor
and skittish guitars reminiscent of Out of Range-era Ani
Difranco. Many more guest appearances abound, most
noticeably some well-placed Matt Singer harmonies on
“In Brooklyn.”
Later in the order comes “House in New Orleans,” an
ode to the Katrina disaster of 2005, and, as one of sev-
eral songs on these discs that reference other peoples’
songs (In this case, “House of the Rising Sun” and “Amaz-
ing Grace,” made famous by The Animals and churchgo-
ers, respectively). Referential moments like this are the
most memorable parts of both albums, which are good
and bad; good because these parts soar, bad because
Lindsay often fails to transcend her influences.
 So the ultimate question: Does the body of work war-
rant two separate discs? No. There are plenty of real
inspired songs collected on Perfect Handful and Uphill
Both Ways; more solid, user-friendly, well crafted pop
songs than forgettable ones. That said, the greatest
double album of all time is still Double Nickels on the
Dime, which today fits on a single compact disc (Note:
Urban Folk likes London Calling and 1999, too). I can’t
help but feel that the omission of a song or two (and
especially the interludes/outros that drag Uphill Both
Ways down) is the only thing saving this collection from
being one great album. (Brook Pridemore)
http://jennlindsay.com/home.html
Jennifer Richman
Flowers of Gold
This disc has an extremely slick production polish,
which might be as much of an attention-grabber for some
as it is an immediate turn-off for me. Not that I prefer to
listen to music that sounds like it was recorded on a
consumer tape recorder covered in a blanket, but the
sound is SO DAMN SLICK that you expect it could have
come off of your aunt’s favorite soft-rock radio station, or
that it could be used as telephone hold-music at your
local car insurance office.
Ah well, soft-rock radio stations exist, so someone must
be listening to them...
The one track which I can say I unashamedly enjoy off
this disc is “Wounded Love,” if only because it goes for
Roy Orbison simplicity, with just enough atmosphere to
make it eligible for inclusion on a David Lynch movie
soundtrack.
The other songs really take some effort to praise. If
someone was bending my fingers back, I would admit
that the first few tracks are pretty good, from the Jewel-
like heartstring-tugging of the title track and high-pitched,
sweetly sung choruses of “Beautiful Girl” to the trapped-
in-the-‘90s jangle-
rock of “Better
Days.” Frankly, all
these tunes have de-
cent hooks, and if
they didn’t sound as
though they were pro-
cessed through a mil-
lion Pro Tools plug-
ins, I might give them
a less knee-jerk re-
sponse.
The only truly hei-
nous crime is the track “Sweet Surrender,” which bears
all the trappings of ill-advised white-person R&B – even
when Luther Vandross collaborated with schlockmeister
Richard Marx, they didn’t go for arrangements as silly as
this.
The rest of the songs are OK if indistinguishable, al-
though the last two songs, “Linda’s Song” and “Time To
Go,” rank with the early tracks as notably solid songs
undone by their soft-rock sound. (Justin Remer)
jenniferrichman.com
LeBlanc
This is Me
Texas born Mandi LeBlanc masterminded this group’s
first EP, which features 6 cuts of indie rock flavored with
pop, funk and country tastes. The strongest track is “Met
a Boy,” which is pretty much pure smart pop straight out
of the late 70s new wave. There is nothing better on this
CD, or many CDs I’ve heard lately, though the title track,
with it’s sweet, breathy line, “This is me on a rampage /
don’t fuck with me,” that’s damned good, too.
Mandi’s voice is pretty damned strong, though it tends
to move towards a Cameo-like nasal delivery that sounds
less effective than her more natural-sounding voice, so
wonderfully presented on “Subway Love.” The band is
clearly very strong, trading styles song by song but main-
taining a clear identity. A point of order, though: the
website clearly maintains the façade of collaborative
group (leblanctheband.com), but the CD, with the
leader’s name blazing across the center, is This is Me.
Sounds like a minor identity crisis, though there’s little
evidence in the sound.
Another issue: the standout song, “Met a Boy,” is pretty
near perfect, with lots of hooks in all the right places,
and is well worth the price of admission, though it’s avail-
able on MySpace. Hey, Mandi, how you gonna sell the
cow if you give the milk away for free?
www.leblanctheband.com
The Lisps
The Vain, The Modest, and The Dead
The Lisps are led by two singers –- a male (Cesar
Alvarez) and a female (Sammy Tunis) –- and, on the
basis of the 5 songs on their debut EP, they appear to
have a fondness for flipping through genres as it suits
them. Admittedly, there are two main types of songs on
the disc: synthesizer-and-electric-guitar-driven blip-pop
and sentimental acoustic guitar songs. The juxtaposi-
tion keeps the 20 minutes of music full of surprises, as
the rocking, brash opener “Pepper Spray” (“I never
wanted to see the people you fuck”) gives way to the
more opaque, gently delivered “The Winter That I
Missed” (“Filthy lives of simple bliss/ Underground, the
perfect kiss”).
It’s hard not to be reminded of other male/female-led
groups of late – The Moldy Peaches, Cheese on Bread,
even The Raveonettes – but while The Lisps benefit from
automatic endearment to the listener because of those
associations, they manage to distinguish themselves as
being less smartass-y than those groups. The genre
switches they perform seem less for the sake of shits
and giggles than as natural musical choices, and some-
how all the styles manage to sit comfortably side-by-
side without seeming forced together.
 There’s not a
stinker on this disc,
but the two highlights
are probably the
opener, “Pepper
Spray,” because it’s
catchy as a cold bug,
and the closer, a live
recording of “Chaos,”
which has the rapid-
fire delivery and feel-
good attitude of a
children’s sing-along
(or a Danielson Famile number, which might count as
the same thing), with lyrics like “We cry a lot alike, but
we cry about none of the same things.”
I also recommend checking out their live video perfor-
mance, “I’m Sorry,” which you can see on their MySpace
page or on Youtube. (Justin Remer)
www.thelisps.com
Matt Diff
The Acoustic Albums, Vol. I-III
“Life is a dream... Death is waking from that dream.”
Read from the first page of Life and Death, Love and
War, the latest volume of acoustic recordings by New
Jersey’s Matt Diff, this seems like a pretty grandiose
introductory overview for a collection of folk songs. Truth
be told, though, Matt’s embarked on a pretty grandiose
project. Ten discs, one per year, of mostly solo record-
ings, all included under the umbrella title “The Acoustic
Albums.” The idea being, according to Matt, to focus on
content over packaging, and to show a songwriter’s natu-
ral progression and evolution over time. The catalog thus
far includes Life and Death, Love and War (Volume III),
and its predecessors, Lost in New York (Vol. II ) and
Americana Nirvana (Vol. I).
Each of the discs features a simple cover of black text
over a white background. The stark presentation calls to
mind cans of generic food in a 1980s grocery store: Not
Spam, but rather, Potted Meat Food Product.
Beyond the deceptively simple covers lies a wealth of
prose to accompany the theme of each disc – namely,
searching for the heart of America, New York City and
the paradoxes of love and war, respectively. The inclu-
sion of prose rather than, say, any information about re-
cording sessions or accompanying musicians (of which
there are a few), is intriguing, but not necessary to di-
gest the music.
Americana Nirvana, a stand-alone disc when I first heard
it three years ago, is the simplest batch of songs here.
This is the voice of a kid in the city who finds himself
missing his country roots, which is most obvious on
“Country View” and one more. “I’m leaving New York City,
But I’ll come running back to you,” Diff sings on “FNYC,”
and I can’t help but think of those early Dylan records,
when that chubby kid from Duluth couldn’t help but be a
little overwhelmed by the big city. Diff’s simple strum-
ming and low, easy voice, however, call to mind Matt
Ward or early Leonard Cohen, making Volume I not en-
tirely derivative.
Lost in New York is pretty close in feel to Americana
Nirvana, albeit a bit less green. Volume II’s prose begins
with “The City is a woman... Far too beautiful and true to
be a man,” and, indeed, plenty of the songs seem to be
about a girl, or a series of girls, or a search for compan-
ionship and familiarity in a huge, cold, unfamiliar place.
Through further contemplation on the generic element
of the packaging, I got the impression that Lost In New
York , if it IS about a girl; it’s about a girl with no face –
someone who lies just beyond the horizon, just around
the corner.
On Volumes I and II, I couldn’t help but notice that the
most compelling element to my ears was the harmonica,
real spare but well-placed. I know that’s a statement akin
to being invited to a friend’s house for a seven-course
dinner and complementing your host on their choice of
bread, but, largely, I felt a lot of the songs on the first two
discs sort of ran together. Life and Death, Love and War
takes a big step away from its predecessors, through
plenty of evolution in songwriting and the inclusion of very
nicely done cello parts on most of the songs. “Jesus
Christ was born a sailor, for thirty years he waited pa-
tiently to stir a raging sea,” goes one couplet in
“Angelina,” the album’s opener. One gets the sense that
Diff’s just beginning to stir a sea of his own.
As three albums, I didn’t feel like the entire collection
was completely necessary – at least not in one sitting.
As an experiment, however, and especially because Vol-
ume III is by far the strongest disc here, I feel as though
“The Acoustic Albums” (thus far) are a success in their
display of the evolution and progression of Diff’s
songwriting. (Brook Pridemore)
myspace.com/mattdiff
Rav Shmuel
Protocols
Okay, I’m going to
get the Matisyahu
reference out of the
way first thing. Like
the reggae singer
Matisyahu, your first
impression of Rav
Shmuel may be that
he’s a novelty act –
an orthodox Jew (in
Rav Shmuel’s case,
a rabbi) doing tunes for neo-hippies. But, as with
Matisyahu, once you actually listen, any suspicions of
goofy novelty dissipate.
After all, anyone who’s put in time with a Jewish youth
group knows that Jewish kids love Bob Marley reggae
and noodly hippie music. Heck, I even bought a tape of

Debe Dalton Birthday Bash
March 14, 2007
Sidewalk Café
94 Avenue A
Free!
7:30
8:00
8:30
9:00
9:30
10:30
Phish’s Rift album because of that youth group – I even
still like the title track.
So, like an overgrown youth group kid, Rav Shmuel
follows the lead of Sublime, Phish (minus the indulgent
solos), and Barenaked Ladies, and delivers an album
that will keep Jewish youth group kids bopping their heads
and air-dancing for countless summers spent at BBYO
camps to come.
But Jewishness isn’t completely the point – even the
uncircumcised Jack Johnson fan would probably enjoy
giving this disc a spin. The best song on the disc is prob-
ably Rav Shmuel’s simple mid-tempo love song, “I Feel
Love,” which features this lyrical gem: “Love is a cross
between two kinds of pain/The kind you keep inside/and
the kind you need again and again.”
Of course, sometimes Jewishness is completely the
point, as on the excellent, chuckle-inducing title track,
“Protocols.” Here, Rav Shmuel sarcastically admits to
being a member of the Elders of Zion, the secret Jewish
society which runs the world, backed by a Top-40-ready
sound that wouldn’t seem out of place on Liz Phair’s last
couple of albums.
Admittedly, though, I don’t listen to noodly hippie mu-
sic much these days, and, despite some excellent pro-
duction work by Andres Karu and Michael Ferrentino, at
a certain point, the songs start to mush together into
one big laid back air-dance. Some key exceptions are
two songs in the home stretch of the album – “Itinerant
Plea” and “I Am Oxygen,” whose moody atmosphere and
lyrics of spiritual and emotional yearning really push this
genre of music to the pinnacle of its potential.
If you’re a fan of any of the artists mentioned above,
don’t hesitate to check out this album. (Justin Remer)
www.ravshmuel.com
Stolen Brown Evergreen
Stolen Brown Evergreen 2006
What is with this guy? Sending out
a package that includes a branch,
some xeroxed handwritten notes,
and a CD, all in a Hefty storage bag…
is that a finger in there? No, it’s just
the branch.
Apparently, this is the vision of David
Keesey, aka Stolen Brown Evergreen,
who plays with Deborah T and Fran-
tic Turtle. It’s his new album of wide-
ranging sounds, from the Led Zep
melody in “Someone Else” to the Vel-
Jonathan Berger
vet Underground with crisper record-
Rebecca Perkins ing equipment on “Ridin’ It,” with many
Frank Hoier other spots between.
Elizabeth Devlin Keesey varies the sounds, adding
Dan Costello the softly sad “Happiest Little Boy,”
Debe Dalton wherein the narrator asks his parents
to finally get back together, and the
spoken word break “Deep Thoughts,” about life without
smoking. His voice isn’t particularly strong, but his gui-
tar work is expressive, and changes dramatically in the
different scenes he creates. All but one track (“Blues,”
featuring Stan on
drums) is created,
performed, re-
corded and mixed
exclusively be Mr.
Keesey, though he
did leave his apart-
ment long enough
to get it recorded
with Matt Roth at
Olive Juice Music,
which is distribut-
ing the album.
“December Experiment #1” starts out as a hard rock
sonic freakout, and begins the December Experiments,
apparently some strange EP attached to the end of the
album. All steps are taken, apparently, to show the vari-
ety of this emerging artist, including the visual aspects
in his very curious packaging. (Jonathan Berger)
myspace.com/stolenbrownevergreen
The Undisputed Heavyweights
Live from New York City
What is it that makes the Heavyweights Undisputed?
All independent musicians before their collaboration, there
is something better in the full lounge combo. For this
band, the sum is heavier than its parts. Singer Casey
Shea and guitarists Jeff Jacobson & Wes Verhoeve are,
like the tastiest of peanut butter cups, great together.
But what makes them so damned undisputed? Cer-
tainly, their material is winning. “Money” rocks out ex-
ceedingly old school – old Rat Pack
school, that is. “Roll Your Windows
Down” is sweet, sincere, and stunning.
But is that enough to lay claim to their
name? If not, what is?
Maybe it’s the humor in their perfor-
mance. The faux egotism is an aspect
of their show that I appreciate, a device
I’ve employed myself (to lesser effect)
for years. On the first cut of their recent
Live from New York City, Spokesman
Shea says, “We are 1,282 and 0 this
very night,” referring to their championship streak. The
self-proclaimed legend lives.
Conceivably, it’s the aforementioned sincerity of their
material, the approach to the soft-rock style they so mas-
terfully purvey. The Undisputed Heavyweights don’t take
their material lightly; they believe in what they’re doing.
The lyrics of “Bitches Be Trippin’” may not be a spot-on
representation of the group’s views of wimminfolk, but
the blues they play, that’s as true as you can get.
Perhaps it’s the complementary nature of the project,
playing on the members’ strengths. Shea is a phenom-
enal showman, while Jacobsen is an incredible guitarist.
Verhoeve looks real pretty in a tie (and I liked him enough
to feature his guitar prominently on my last album).
But probably the best thing about the Undisputed Heavy-
Classifieds
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Jonathan Berger March 14 @ Sidewalk - 7:30
Starting off the night, celebrating Debe Dalton’s
birthday. Sidewalk Café (94 Avenue A), NYC. 3/14
7.30. Free show. Yes, FREE!
DADDY TAPES BENEFIT MARCH 8!
Kenny’s Castaways (157 Bleecker Street) is the
21st Annual Benefit for the American Heart Asso-
ciation. $5 to see Anne Husick, Lenny Kaye, David
Foster, Stark and Bill Popp & the Tapes!
weights is the hype. There is a whirl-
wind of energy around the band; people
come to their shows in droves, singing
along with every sway of Shea’s hips. A
growing audience seems to believe in
the myth of Heavy Weight.
Which is why it was the best and most
obvious idea in the world for their first
full release be taken exclusively from live
performances. The audience is as vital
to the band as the horn section, added
especially for their October Joe’s Pub
gig, from which most of the disc is culled. Without the
audience, Shea’s forty five minute banter at the end of
“Just for Laughs” would fall flat. Without the rampant en-
thusiasm of their fanatical crowd, the magic of the Heavy-
weights would be lost. Of course, the crowds are always
there at Undisputed shows, so any show could capture
this energy, but the album beautifully presents a group
hitting their stride. You can watch 11 QuickTime videos
on the CD as well, to see what all the fuss is about.
The release is the first from Verhoeve’s Family Records,
which is donated some proceeds from the album to Na-
tional Breast Cancer Foundation, so you can feel good
about buying it. As if you needed any more reason…
(Jonathan Berger)
betterthanelvis.com
Tuesdays @ the AntiMike
Kirk Kelly hosts the best open mic on 12th Street,
starting in March. 200 Avenue A.
Stolen Brown Evergreen 2006
Buy the new album from Stolen Brown Evergreen.
It’s available through David Keesey and is avail-
able at Olivejuicemusic.com.
www.myspace.com/stolenbrownevergreen
Creek & the Cave Tuesday, 3/20/07
Come celebrate Paul Alexander’s second anniver-
sary at the Creek and the Cave Tuesday March
20th with an open mic and then some.
www.myspace.com/youropenmic
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 Dear Sir,

I wish to complain on the strongest possible terms about a pair of reviews published in the last issue of Urban
Folk. The reviews I mean are the ones for Frank Hoier’s Love Is War and Elastic No-No Band’s The Very Best of
Elastic No-No Band So Far.
Now, admittedly, the second disc I mention here is my own, and since I made it – and since I have several
hundred copies of it taking up space in my home which I would like to relocate to the homes of interested listeners
– of course, I am going to be a little biased.
But my concern here is not simply some mixed reviews, but something which was obvious in both Frank’s and
ENB’s CD reviews: to the reviewers, the CDs seemed beside the point.

Frank Hoier – Love Is War

The (anonymous!) reviewer of Frank’s CD takes a moment in the beginning to say that Frank is a superb example
of a singer/songwriter who takes his inspiration from traditional folk and blues. Then this faceless reviewer even pays
lip service to the job of music criticism by starting to talk about the first track on the CD. However, then this hack
goes off on a tangent: “I wish Frank would challenge himself more. Frank does this stuff all the time. I wish he’d go
beyond it.” (I’m paraphrasing, of course.)
My response to the claim that Love Is War is full of stuff that Frank has done a lot is: “Duh.” Love Is War is Frank’s
first CD. The implicit point of this first CD is to have recordings of songs Frank plays a lot that people seem to like.
It’s essentially The Very Best of Frank Hoier So Far. Now, if Frank continued to play only these 9 songs at shows
for the next 3 years, then I would agree with the wish that Frank would move on.
But what about the CD? The reviewer takes more time talking about Frank Hoier, the Performer, or maybe more
like Frank Hoier, the Concept, than telling us what the damn CD sounds like. I’ve heard it, and frankly (ha ha) I
think it sounds awesome, and it’s hands-down one of my favorite CDs of 2006. And I’d say that even if Frank didn’t
give me 5 dollars and a package of chewing gum to write this letter.

The Very Best of Elastic No-No Band So Far

Now, the review of Elastic No-No Band’s CD has a lot of problems. Jon Berger, the reviewer, is a sarcastic guy. And
the review is full of a lot of his snarky humor, a lot of which frankly doesn’t read right if you don’t know Jon. He takes
a lot of potshots at my personal image as performer as well as me as person, seeming to misunderstand every one
of these aspects so totally that he has to be joking. For example, he claims that “Elastic No-No Band” is a play on
“Elephant’s Memory,” which I think is supposed to be a misdirection joke. You think he’s gonna say the truth, which
is that the name is a play on Plastic Ono Band, but he misdirects it with that “Elephant” gibberish. Problem is...
most folks don’t know who the fuck Plastic Ono Band are, and if they do, they don’t always think of it when they see
our band name. So most folks don’t even know “Elephant’s Memory” is a bad joke.
But that’s a minor thing, the main problem is that Jon Berger can’t stop acting superior to a thing, even when he is
praising it (and even though I’ve gotten conflicting second and third opinions, I get the gist that mostly he liked the
CD).
He singles out a few of the songs that he thinks are good, and then he undercuts the praise by saying “The
production remains demo-low” and “[the CD] still smacks of limited commitment.” Guess what, Jon? It says right
in the fucking liner notes that this CD is a collection of homemade recordings and demos.
And “demo-low” isn’t even accurate – for a collection of demos and home recordings, it sounds cleaner and nicer
than most of the hodgepodge that is The Moldy Peaches’ first album, and everybody loves that album. I wanted to
make a 12-song compilation of all killer and no filler, from the 60-plus existing recordings of Elastic No-No Band –
including stuff that’s just me solo, and stuff with the full trio (the other two of whom Jon Berger doesn’t even
mention, in his single-minded sarcastic character assassination of yours truly). So I’m sorry, Jon, if my commit-
ment is “limited” to compiling and remixing existing recordings, but I think that’s really all you can expect from
someone making a compilation.
Elastic No-No Band is currently working on its first studio album. It is our first concerted effort to make “an
album,” with a bit of a budget and a full band. Now, if this new CD sounds like The Very Best of, just like if Frank’s
next CD is just a retread of Love Is War, then you can fucking bitch about it.

Yours sincerely,
Justin Remer (Mrs.)
www.elasticnonoband.com
 The Undisputed Heavyweights
Live From New York City! Out Now!
((stereo))
Coming Soon

the bootleg series volume 1

The Undisputed Heavyweights Live From New York City
Money \ Lartigue \ Bitches Be Trippin' \ Roll Your Windows Down \ Back To You \ Just For Laughs \ A Girl Like You

FR-002 (March 2007)

Cross-Pollination : The Mixtape
Includes the Heavyweights, Jay
Mankind, Cloud Cult, Kevin Devine,
My Brightest Diamond, and more!

FR-003 (April 2007)

Jeff Jacobson’s self-titled debut
solo album featuring 10 song incl.
Castles, Let You Down, Your
((family records)) California, and more.

About The Bootleg Series

The Undisputed Heavyweights - Live From New York City is the first volume of The Bootleg
Series: a unique, limited edition collector's box set that will boast individually released
volumes from several of New York City's most talented and buzz-worthy musical artists. Each
release will be a live performance capturing the true essence and heart of each artist,
providing their audience with a throwback performance reminiscent of the days when artists
were not be considered fully developed without a spectacular live show. See to the side for
upcoming volumes!!! Partial proceeds from each volume will be donated to a charity picked by
the artists. Collect them all, support independent music and your community!
FR-004 (May 2007)
About Family Records Wakey!Wakey! - Make A Fist
Inside Your Pocket is the 2nd
Family Records is an division of Liberated Matter, who has been promoting quality volume in the Bootleg Series
independent music since 2004. Liberated Matter is responsible for bringing to audiences the and features a scorching full
weekly Cross-Pollination concert series since May 2004, presenting top talent, including band performance!
several top artists including Kevin Devine, Nicole Atkins, Jeffrey Lewis, Cloud Cult, Jaymay, The
Upwelling, Langhorne Slim, and more. The driving force for both Family Records and Liberated
Matter is community building between artists, audiences and all music lovers in general.

Also from Liberated Matter

Cross-Pollination: A weekly concert series featuring some of New York’s best talent. Two
artists each play an individual 40 minute set, followed by a 3-song collaborative set, leading to
unexpected and often spectacular musical results. Every Tuesday at Pianos, (158 Ludlow St.
by Stanton St.), 8-10pm, FREE!!! 130 weeks and running! For this week’s line-up check
Cross-Pollination.com!
FR-005 (May 2007)
Also: Music Placement, Concert Promotion, Event Management & more visit Casey Shea - Alive & Well is
LiberatedMatter.com. For news on releases TheFamilyRecords.com and for more on The the 3rd volume in the Bootleg
Undisputed Heavyweights visit BetterThanElvis.com & Series and features a full band
MySpace.com/TheUndisputedHeavyweights performance of all of his very
(c) & (p) 2007 Liberated Matter. All rights reserved. ((family records)) best solo material.