Does anyone bother denying anymore that The Pogues (when they still had Shane McGowan) were a punk band? I'll admit that the first time I heard them, I thought they were just an exceptionally drunk Irish trad group. But listening more closely, I heard the sounds of defiance and ethnic exultation in Shane's lyrics about getting drunk, wandering around town drunk, going to church drunk, and getting blown into little tiny pieces in the Battle of Gallipolli. The Pogues were so punk they didn't need overdriven guitar, breakneck drumming or discontented lyrics. They, like The Clash, knew that punk was an approach, not a template, and that it found its best expression in Beat-like joy and darkness.
Now that The Pogues are no more (or maybe they still are, but without Shane there's hardly any point), the world needs The Klezmatics more than ever. Nerdy where The Pogues were scruffy, and stoned where they were drunk, The Klezmatics are the uncontested rulers of the current Jewish Alternative Movement/Radical Jewish Culture/Scare Your Grandparents scene. Sure, John Zorn releases more records in a month than The Klezmatics do in a decade, but the 'Matics do a much better job of fusing the traditional with the radical-- side project Hasidic New Wave reworked a Dead Kennedys chestnut as "Giuliani Uber Alles", but The Klezmatics would not be out of place playing a Long Island bar mitzvah.
And now they've released Rise Up!, a record plagued by delays. Is it worth the wait? Probably. It's certainly not as out-there as their last couple of albums, but that might be because we know to expect the unexpected from this crew. It's certainly a more mellow ride than Possessed or Jews with Horns, and maybe that makes Rise Up! as utterly bizarre as Mr. Bungle's Brian Wilson tribute, California.
The immediate standout, "I Ain't Afraid", is also the only one sung mostly in English. Beginning with a Sousa-meets-Peter Tosh drumbeat, it quickly becomes a defiant declaration of religious independence. Lorin Sklamberg tells us that he's not afraid of God, but rather "what you do in the name of your God." For a supposedly religious band (my local record shop files klezmer music in the back of the Christian section), this is a 95 Theses moment. Sklamberg and his gospel-flavored backup singers implore their listeners to "rise up" against the "ones who say they know it" before they "impose it on you." The lyrics alternate between English and Yiddish, just to make sure that all of their target audience understands the message exactly. Blam.
The rest of the record is less gripping. "Tepel" is a fast freylech with a nifty a cappella intro by Sklamberg, followed by an overcaffeinated faux-children's chorus. "Bulgars #2 (Tantsn un Shpringen)" is a traditional dance tune with a driving beat and a couple of great breakdowns. And yes, it's a bit odd to use the word "breakdowns" to describe a klezmer tune, but I don't think anyone will mind. "Barikadn (Barricades)", which samples a 1948 recording by Shmerke Kaczerginsky, is a ballad of a workers' revolution ("Fathers, mothers, children, too/ Are building barricades/ Detachments march along the streets/ Workers on parade") set over a free-jazz folk dance tune. The Yiddish lyrics make the song sound like something my grandmother would enjoy, but the lyrics sound primed for an (International) Noise Conspiracy record. The punk community has yet to embrace The Klezmatics the way it did The Pogues, and I'm guessing it has something to do with their lack of pop immediacy or heroin habits (and their dopey sense of humor doesn't help, either). Still, Rise Up! is as welcoming as it is challenging, and a welcome addition to their forward-looking, tradition-shattering oeuvre.
