Re: Dylan and Alex J. Unplugged

[Kame'a Media <media...>]

Ari Davidow  wrote:
 I don't think one could make the case that
> Bob Dylan's music is Jewish. =He= is Jewish, his social
> concerns and outlook may be those that some of us embrace
> as Jewish (excluding his Christian period), but there is
> nothing in his music that ties directly to any Jewish
> tradition beyond the vaguely prophetic.

Ari:  I  respectfully request that you DO NOT pull the plug on Alex.  He
may be abrasive,  but we can learn from him.  As you are under the
impression that you are doing this somewhat on my behalf,  I must say
that what you yourself have posted in cyberspace  regarding
"Transmigrations" is far worse.  You took a dump on the memory of the
Six Million and casually insulted Holocaust survivors and their
families. You used my CD (in part) as a vehicle  to push your own
personal  brand of  brass-balls-and-an-Uzi politics. 

That said,---

Are you suffering from post-<grogger> stress syndrome?

Dylan puts  more Jewishness (honesty, determination and sheer timeless
poetry)  into one song,  no--one line,  than  a hundred
pine-reproduction furniture-music klezmer bands could in their wildest
dreams.   By your half-baked standards, any clarinet-based  band would
be considered  "more Jewish" than Dylan because that instrument  is 
more closely tied to (what you call)  Jewish musical tradition than
electric guitar.   Preposterous. 

You persist in the childish notion that, in order to be Jewish,  music
must  wear your preferred syle of musical clothing.   Certain sounds
apparently  stimulate  your auditory pleasure organs, but you cannot
muster any real criteria for  your pompous utterances.   Not  everyone
has had your  bourgeois- suburban brand American-Jewish  background,
although you would apparently like  that to be so,  because  you seem to
have a great prejudice (rooted in fear, no doubt) against those who do
not reflect your idealized Jewish image. 

I have come to know  you  to be an insecure  person,  threatened  by 
non-comformity,  both in music and in people's  personal styles,  as was
made all too clear in  the  meat-cutting exercise you call a <review> of
"Transmigrations".  

How many times have you revised  this <review>  by  now  to cover your
tracks regarding the most obviously  ridiculous stuff?    And I  know
this has  only  been done because I  had the lack of etiquette to
actually challenge you.  Am I  supposed to  feel good about "Marlboro
Man" being replaced with  "strong, silent type".   You'll have to
enlighten me as to how a guy who sings on every track of his CD  can be
characterized as "silent". 

Have you  come to see the presumptuousness of attempting to review a
Yiddish album when you do not speak the language,  let alone possess 
any  musical or academic qualifications to do so, save being a fan?  

Your reviews, even of the bands and singers you like,  are painfully 
lacking  in  subststance.  (Brown-nosing  is of itself, not  considered
to be a valid and dominant theme to a review  by  most  competant music 
journalists).
Example:  On Adrienne Cooper's album,  one song is referred to as "the
transcendent 'Zol Shoyn Kumen Di Geule'. "  On "Transmigrations",  the
very same composition   is disparaged as a "victim's song of
redemption."  I'd love to have that explained to me.    

Do us a favor and stick to compiling resources and such.  We all
appreciate the work you put into that.   And, <Borukh HaShem>, you are
good at it!   Skill with computers  alone cannot make one a Jewish music
<maven>. 

You continue to prove yourself the Pavlov's Dog of Jewish Music
"writers",
giddily  wagging  your <shvantz> at those  whose sound resonates with
you  and, pissing on those you do not have either  the depth or mental
energy  to try  and understand.

Wolf Krakowski
http://www.kamea.com

"...the embodiment of Old World meets New."  
                                                           -Pakn-Treger
(National Yiddish Book Center)

   "...dangerous and untrue."
                                                           -Ari
Davidow's Klezmer Shack