Music is ‘cultural cue’ for young secular Jews.

Steven is quoted. Moshav, JDub and Matisyahu are mentioned.

There’s also a growing niche of artists from the Orthodox world, like Matisyahu and the Moshav Band, whose shows at colleges, New York City clubs, and venues such as Mexicali Blues in Teaneck attract religious and secular Jewish audiences alike.

Both streams were among the crowds at Oyhoo, the weeklong New York Jewish Music and Heritage Festival in September featuring newcomers like Rothman and veterans like “the Hasidic Hendrix” Yossi Piamenta.

“These are two groups that … complement each other because you have cultural Jews in search of a Judaism and Orthodox Jews in search of a culture,” says Steven Weiss, editor and publisher of CampusJ Jewish Collegiate News.

Help me, I’m addicted to Itunes. Lately I’ve been buying tons of music on Itunes. There is a lot of cool music out there and it’s just too easy. I’m always signed in, all I have to do is click one (or two) buttons and poof, it’s on my computer. It seems cheap enough. 99 cents, right? This is why Steve Jobs is one of the smartest men alive. Everyone at Apple for that matter. When they come out when the iPod/Phone/TV player we’re all just going to be mindless zombies.

By the way, you should totally download the Matisyahu 3 song set from the Austin City Limits concert which is available at Itunes. (How brilliant is it for them to sell songs of a random concert online, it’s genius I tell you!!)

Speaking of Matisyahu, his main site has been updated to include music from the new album due out next month.

Sameach has released two videos of Blue Fringe when they played on the most recent podcast.

This is from the upcoming CD.

This is from the first CD and it’s one of my faves.

You can hear a new song on their MySpace page.

So far I am REALLY digging everything from the new album.

… this story.

Apparently someone found this to be a fascinating topic for a book and a study.

It is something one half of the population has long suspected - and the other half always vocally denied. Women really do talk more than men.

In fact, women talk almost three times as much as men, with the average woman chalking up 20,000 words in a day - 13,000 more than the average man.

Women also speak more quickly, devote more brainpower to chit-chat - and actually get a buzz out of hearing their own voices, a new book suggests.

The book - written by a female psychiatrist - says that inherent differences between the male and female brain explain why women are naturally more talkative than men.

In other shocking news, the Sun is hot, water is wet & the Earth is no longer believed to be flat.

“Fried said he is excited about the future of Jewish music. Before the release of his album, he posted a sample of the “Father Don’t Cry” video on the internet, created a blog and now sells CDs online as well. Although these things didn’t exist when he began his career, he has excelled at incorporating them.

When asked about the possibility of a Jewish MTV, he commented, “Sure, why not? We’ll call it Moshiach Television - MTV. I’m not sure how long it will take. We’re usually light years behind. But I think this new video clip will introduce a new dimension. More singers will do it now. I think it’s wonderful. If you can see and hear, why not use all of the senses?”

“The danger is,” continued Fried, “if you try to get too much with the times, and try and imitate the goyishe sounds, you’re putting yourself into a dangerous situation. The challenge now is to be fresh and to be creative but still not to lose the focus that this is Jewish music, and that it’s meant to inspire and to give chizzuk (strength). I think the combination of the two works wonderfully — if you keep those two things in mind.”

I have nothing to add. I’ve always felt that Fried has the best handle on what’s going on. He answers the questions wonderfully. It’s a nice article, read the whole thing here.

(HT A Simple Jew)

A poll was recently conducted on “likability” of 20 big name politicians.

The telephone poll was conducted from Nov. 13-19. Quinnipiac surveyed 1,623 registered voters nationwide and the poll has a sampling error margin of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.

These people found John Kerry to be the LEAST likable of all these politicians. Here are just some names he lost to. Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Bill Frist (!), John Edwards, Newt Ginrich (!), Michael Bloomberg (7th!), Bill Richardson, Mitt Romney (!), Joe Lieberman & Joe Biden.

This poll speaks volumes about we can expect from the upcoming race for the White House. I think the big news is that voters like Rudolph Giuliani the best out of all 20 names on the list. That’s more then McCain, Hilliary Clinton & the Mainstream Media’s favorite darling, Barack Obama. Here is a rundown of the Top Ten on the list.

1st - Rudolph Giuliani - 64.2 rating.
2nd - Barack Obama - 58.8 rating.
3rd - John McCain - 57.7 rating.
4th - Condoleezza Rice - 56.1 rating.
5th - Bill Clinton - 55.8 rating.
6th - Joe Lieberman - 52.7 rating.
7th - Michael Bloomberg - 51.1 rating.
8th - John Edwards - 49.9 rating.
9th - Hillary Clinton - 49 rating.
10th - Bill Richardson - 47.7 rating.

President Bush finished 15th with 43.8, behind former Vice President Al Gore, who was 14th with 44.9.

These are fascinating numbers and I’m actually surprised Hillary was that low on the list. I mean, Michael Bloomberg was more popular then Hillary?Most pollsters agree that Barack Obama does well on these things. They will also all tell you that that people answer that they either don’t know enough about him to vote for a possible White House run or that he is too politically inexperienced. I really think that if Rudy can somehow pull off the GOP nomination this is his race to lose.

As far as John Kerry goes, I hope for his own sake he decides to ditch any ‘08 White House ideas. Half this country is still red through and through and the other half blames him for not being able to get Bush out of office. He is done, caput, finished, finito, over. I hope he doesn’t embarrass himself further. Let him just live out his years getting re-elected in Massachusetts a gazillion times like the senior senator from the same state. Apparently voters in MA either lost their directions to the polling centers or they just don’t like change.

I mean, wow, how many ways can we say it? Why this was the man the Dems picked to take on G.W. in ‘04 is beyond me. Either they wanted to lose that election or they deluded themselves so badly that they thought a stuffy, pasty, odd looking, rich, grumpy, condescending , humorless white man from the NorthEast could somehow galvanize the country and take the White House by storm.

Can I take a small survey here? The winter makes me feel like I should have a new banner up top. I was hoping for a nice snow storm in Crown Heights so I could take a pic for the banner, but it’s been a snowless winter thus far. What do you think of the one I just added above. It’s the first color one I’ve done in a while. Please leave your vote in the comment. Like it? Love it? Hate it? Just for the record, if anyone cares, I took this picture on Friday. It’s Ocean Parkway and Avenue X.

How about some Chanukah lights yard action? More here.

Avraham Fried
Akiva has a really funny (and to the point) review of Avraham Fried’s newest album. I really like how he lays out each song by who in his family liked what. You can read my review here.

The Chevra 3
A poster on the Yahoo Jewish Music Group recently did a review of the Chevra 3. A few people asked me either via the comment section or by email if I’d be reviewing the album. I’m not going to do a review, but I’d suggest you read this review. I’ll just add a couple points below.

Kol Mestater deserves a lot of credit. It’s a good song. The concept may have been musically lifted from a famous Alt Rock group from Arkansas, but it’s still a great song. I was very impressed with a few of the songs, more so then usual for a Gerstner album. But at the same time, I was very unimpressed with other songs (tracks 6/10) again, more so then usual for a Gerstner album.

Overall I think it’s a good effort, it has a slightly more rock’ish sound, but it’s still not my speed. Honestly, as far as “the difference” between the old guys and the new ones. I could barely tell. I don’t know if that’s a knock for the original guys or props to the new guys or just proof that the power of whatever “The Chevra” is Gerstner’s songs, style and mixing.

For what its worth my wife loves it, but we have very different musical tastes. As some of you may know already.

Nochi Krohn Band
Aryeh of the Jewish Music blog finally reviews The Nochi Krohn Band. As I’ve said a few times already this is one of my favorite new CD’s this year and I really recommend it to fans of all type of Jewish music. It’s one of the “reaching past the Genres” type of albums. For the record, he agrees with me.

Baruch Levine
Here is one more review from the yahoo Jewish music board. This one is of the newest Yochi Briskman (proj next/shwekey/shapiro brothers) project. This CD is called V’zakaeini and it features a well known Shiny Shoe composed Baruch Levine. Baruch composed some really nice songs for this album but his voice just doesn’t cut it. He doesn’t have a singers voice and I don’t know how many people get past that. Not even guest stints by Shwekey and Abie Rotenberg make this CD worthwhile. These songs would have served a better purpose on some of the other Briskman projects. But that’s just my two cents, here is the review by the Yahoo JM Board member.

Over 45 people have already signed it. Shturem has written about my petition, have you signed it yet?

Demanding Action from what Happened in 770

I have started a petition. I hope everyone who complains that the silent majority doesn’t do enough to combat the extremists who have hijacked 770 will make sure they sign it. I have every intention of making sure as many people as possible sign this petition and then making sure the people who run 770 can see first hand how many people want to stop the spread of the disease that has infested itself inside 770. For the full update on what happened read the post and it’s comments right here. You can also read up on what happened at Shturem.net

You can also read some of my thoughts on Hershel’s blog here.

You don’t have to be Lubavitch to sign it, just please be respectful. I feel like a change is coming and it will only be a matter of time before we can finally wrestle back 770 and restore the name of Lubavitch to what it should be. Not what the extremists who hold 770 hostage now do to spit on the name of Lubavitch and what the Rebbe would have wanted.

Demanding Action from what Happened in 770

The beautiful thing about Davening every day is that we are thanking Hashem three times a day for everything he gives us. Of course since that can become something of a habitual thing it still doesn’t hurt to take this day, yes, a GOYISH!!! holiday, and use it to remind ourselves of what we have in this world and to be thankful to Hakadash Baruch Hu. I’ll be unable to blog until Monday so until then, I hope everyone has a good Shabbos.

Oh look at what our wonderful friends in France are up to today. Making Hezbollah disarm? Nope.

Stoping Hezbollah from conducting exercises and assassinating Syrian leaders? Nope.

OK’ing French ships to fire on Israeli planes? Bingo.

Thanks again to the Jewish Blogmeister, it was a lot of fun and I look forward to your next interview. Read the interview here.