#NoseJobGate - The Groggers and Plastic Surgery Disasters

Ah, nose jobs. I remember being a teen and having my grandfather promise me that if I ever wanted a nose job he'd pay for it. Huh? I remember thinking. Why on earth would I want that? Now my brother...he's got serious beak.... It's not just my grandfather, though. Our collective self-consciousnesses about our over-sized honkers comes up regularly in both self-deprecating jokes and in trips to the plastic surgeon. Occasionally, it even bubbles over into the mainstream culture. Maybe it's a way to identify (and identify with) the outsider in last spring's episode of Glee, for example, or to make unexpected (and awkward) connections between actress Halle Berry, her Jewish cousin, and the viewing audience of the Tonight show back in 2007.

Mostly the whole idea is about as cliche and tacky as JAP (Jewish American Princess) or circumcision jokes. (Didja hear the one about the.....)

This week's entry into the Nose Job hall of fame is "Jewcan Sam (A Nosejob Love Song)" by The Groggers. The song, which has now been viewed over 120,000 times, is a funny guy-wants-girl power-pop joke-fest. Get your nose circumcised. Pinocchio never got Snow White. Funny stuff from a band known for sharp humor. (See my previous post on The Groggers)

Here's the song.

"Jewcan Sam" (A Nose Job Love Song) - The Groggers [Official Music Video]



And then it hit the press. I saw it first on the ABC News website under the banner "Miami Plastic Surgeon Under Investigation After Commissioning 'Jewcan Sam' Music Video." For real? How did ABC even hear the song. The Groggers are a relatively unknown (though talented) Orthodox Jewish rock band. But then it came clear...the nose job song and video were paid for by an Orthodox Jewish plastic surgeon in Florida. And hence the scandal. This is, the news narrative states, payola for promotion of plastic surgery to teens. And then the scandal deepened. The leader of the Groggers actually got a nose job himself as part of the deal. This has all the makings for a media feeding frenzy.

The Miami Herald, NBC, the Sun-Sentinal, UPI, and the Huffington Post all weighed in. So did the UK's Daily Mail and Jewish outlets The JTA, The Forward, and Shalom Live. Even the industry site OutpatientSurgery.Com commented. (And to get really meta, I'm writing this post about it citing all those other rags).

And then Groggers band leader Doug Staiman did a great radio interview capitalizing on the whole affair on 107.2 FM.

The verdict so far? The plastic surgeon involved may have violated ethics rules in funding the video. The band may have violated good taste and judgement by taking the funding. The song is pretty darn good and pretty darn ambiguous as to its stance on Jewish nose jobs. Which is all just fine with me. The Groggers are notorious for writing funny songs that tweak the Jewish community. Have at it boys.

Mikey Pauker on IndiGogo, Wisaal & Max Chaiken on Kickstarter

Here are few more Jewish music related bands going the IndioGoGo and Kickstarter advance sales route. Check 'em out

Mikey Pauker
My buddy, Mikey is in Israel studying and making music. He's been invited to play mainstage at the Jacob's Ladder Festival, a 5,000+ attendance folk, bluegrass and world music festival in Israel. This is a really big deal. But doing this messes up his booked flights. So he's asking for help and selling his CDs to raise funds to get him home. Here's the IndiGoGo link. Here's Mikey's website and facebook page.

Help Mikey Pauker play Jacob's Ladder Festival (and get home again!)



Wisaal
Next up is Wisaal, from Michigan. According to their bio, "Wisaal - An Arabic word meaning links, connections, or unities - reflects our attempt to fuse elements of the Arabic musical heritage with Klezmer, Indian and American influences while resection the spirit of these traditions." Wisaal is raising funds / doing advance sales for their debut album. Here's their kickstarter page, facebook page and website.

Wisaal Recording Project


Max Chaiken
Last up is the Max Chaiken Band, from Boston. According to his bio, "For nearly 10 years, Max has been song leading and writing original, contemporary Jewish music. He served as the Head Song Leader at the URJ Camp Harlam from 2004 through 2009, and currently serves as the Head Song Leader at the URJ Kutz Camp." Their raising funds / doing advance sales for their debut album "All That Breathes" Here's their kickstarter page, their facebook page, and their website.

Honestly, Max's Kickstarter video is boring (boring = no music). So here's Max doing a lovely job putting Psalm 150 to the chords of Leonard Cohen's classic Halleluyah. I just heard the high school choir at Temple Beth Emeth in Ann Arbor sing this recently.

Psalm 150 to Leonard Cohen's Halleluyah

The Heartsleves Haman: A latin rock drash

The Boston based Heartsleeves is another next-gen hybrid band, playing rock club stages but including occasional songs with explicitly Jewish content or references. Their Purim song, Haman, off their new album Peripheral People isn't the first I've heard (That would be their identity politics romp "Son of Lenny Bruce"). But it's great, a Latin rock bump-up with some nice sax work. The lyrics are a terse and fairly pedestrian retelling of the megillah, but the chorus "Give me the power to protect myself" is really interesting. It's a nice drash on the controversial end of the megillah where the decree allowing the Jews to be attacked isn't lifted, but a second decree is given allowing the Jews to fight back. The controversy is that many Jews don't like the image of Jews killing anyone (including Haman's sons) in retribution and claiming booty for the violence. It's also a nice drash on the classic megillah question regarding the presence / absence of God in the account. Haman's chorus offers a succinct answer to both ... God is present in the story and the climax of the story is God giving/renewing the Jews ability to defend themselves. In that way, the story becomes a prologue for nationalistic / militaristic aspects of Chanukah and modern "Jewish self-defense" ideas that emerged under Zionism. (Which I'll be discussing later this week when I write about the Chicago based punk/industrial project Hadar.)

Not bad for a 6 word rock chorus.

Haman (Purim Song) - The HeartSleeves

For more info on the Heartsleeves, check out their website, Facebook, or BandCamp pages or follow them on Twitter.

Eden and Prodezra Beats rock Chanukah

Last Friday, the Shades of Grey blog put up a nice post about the Brookly based Jewish rock trio Eden. I was going to post the Eden track "Yigdal" that SoG put up, but you can check it out here.

Instead I'm going put up my first Chanukah video of the season. It's only a few weeks away now. The video's got Eden backing the Savannah Georgia rapper Prodezra Beats at the Square 2010 festival in Charleston, SC last year. I dig Prodezra and it's great to see him backed by a live band. I love the classic heavy heavy bass guitar and the stratospheric guitar behind the rap. Would love to see them live.

Hinei Ma Tov/Come Clean with Prodezra



Proderzra Beats and Eden both have new tracks out. (well, new for me) I love Prodezra's production skills more than his rhymes but Connection Revealed is solid and worth checking out. I particularly dig "Wake Up, Rise."

Eden 's "Knock at the Door" came out last year, though it's not clear how to buy it. You can check out the tracks on myspace.

Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart on recording a klezmer in a gym

Ok, it's way too short but this video of Mickey Hart describing recording a klezmer band is a hoot. Mickey Hart is a world-class percussionist, both as a member of the Grateful Dead and through a variety of performance and recording projects.

The album, The Golden Gate Gypsy Orchestra's "The Traveling Jewish Wedding," was released back in 1980 and was just re-released on Smithsonian Folkways as part of the Mickey Hart collection. It's a fine early klezmer revival recording and is actually one of the one of the first klezmer album's I owned. It's loaded with fine, though not outstanding, cimbalom, violin, and folkie vocals and in true klezmer revival form it's regionally omnivorous and indiscriminate. It including traditional Yiddisn and klezmer tunes, Sephardic tunes, and one or two that sound very influenced by Israeli folk music. Great stuff.

I had no idea, though, that Mickey Hart recorded it. Guess I didn't read the liner notes on that one.

Mickey and Fred on Recording Golden Gate Gypsy Orchestra


While the Golden Gate Gypsy Orchestra is no more, if you happen to be in Hawaii GGSO's Barry and Gloria Blum would be happy to perform at your wedding, bar mitzvah or bris.