Idelsohn Society’s Must-Have Pesach Mix Tape
You need to play this at your seder.
The Idelsohn Society has released a breathtaking mix tape for Pesach, weaving together such musical liberation classics as The Kiddush (Richard Tucker), The Four Questions (Socalled), Passover Time on the Range (Moe Jaffe & Henry Tobias), Passover (Joy Division), On My Way To Canaan’s Land (The Carter Family), Freedom (Charles Mingus), I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free, (Nina Simone), Where Can I Go? (Ray Charles), I’m Set Free (The Velvet Underground). Definitely something for everyone.
All who are hungry, give a listen!
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Funny, I was listening to this last night at work, thinking about posting about it, but decided that if I didn’t have anything nice to say, I wouldn’t say anything at all.
—dlevy · March 24th, 2010 at 11:05 am
@dlevy- well, it’s not about the Pesach mix tape, but I just wrote something about Stereophonic (same people behind the Idelsohn Society.) It might interest you.
Check it out here: jewishcurrents.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Rokkhl.pdf
—rokhl · March 24th, 2010 at 8:24 pm
Rokhl – thanks for posting the link. You absolutely hit on what I’ve loved and what has made me uncomfortable with many of the Stereophonic releases.
—dlevy · March 24th, 2010 at 9:08 pm
Thanks, ShalomRav for linking up the Pesach Mix – as it includes some fine tunes of various genres, some bland snippets, and some campy cr*p, it’s an easy listen. Especially for one with a “downtown sesibility.” OK, “downtown sensibility” is an imprecise, Manhattan-centric term that may also be irredeemably dated. Still, Downtown (and some successors/adjuncts in Brooklyn, NJ, etc.) is a place where eclecticism and camp are frequently used to convey (or share) cultural appreciation.
Rokhl, you piece is fantastic. Thanks for posting the link. You discussed why one doesn’t need (or may not want) you don’t
need camp to explore the Jewish past. My personal feelings on the subject coincide: I don’t need camp and I don’t often want it.
But let me add a few words about why some might need or want it. First, as noted above, camp is an established part of the “downtown sensibility.” Or, as you put it, the detached hipster’s aesthetic.
Camp can simultaneously express ridicule and love for its subject matter, and act as a bridge between the two expressions. From a Bronfman Foundation project’s point of view, it’s potentially a helpful tool for encouraging people develop from ridicule to love. And camp’s potential to act as a bridge in the reverse direction could be viewed as an unfortunate side effect — one that anyone with enough love for the subject can easily overcome.
Camp can be one of the safest ways of exploring the past, mostly becuase it’s usually easy not to take it seriously. Camp usually doesn’t carry trappings of acedemic precision. Sometimes, it can present the politically incorrect without scrupulous caveat. And camp can screedlessly convey that it’s OK to feel discomfort about the subject matter.
Personally, camp could really get my motor running when I was in college. Now, not so much; I fancy camp’s generally not deep and honest enough. But maybe I’ve lost part of my sense of humor.
—Siggy · March 25th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
Hi Siggy,
I responded to you on my blog, but I thought I’d also post here.
What’s interesting to me is how many people strongly identify with the Stereophonic approach and don’t see it as camp or even problematic. Which positions me as a wet blanket, of course
See this blog, for instance: teruah-jewishmusic.blogspot.com/2010/04/for-realz-why-jewish-music-is-and-isnt.html
I think he reads me totally wrong, but there you go.
-rokhl
—rokhl · April 3rd, 2010 at 5:59 pm