Klezmer is 'Yiddish party music", a cross fertilization of sinuous Middle Eastern melodies, gypsy music and circus-like kinetic rhythms of Eastern Europe -- happy and sad at the same time, like 'laughter through the tears." The 'world's only radical Jewish roots band" is an imaginative, adventurous, whirling dervish of a klezmer band; they weave in merengue guiro, hip-hop rhythms, Brazilian jazz chords and experimental rock. Members include openly lesbian fiddler Alicia Svigals and openly gay lead vocalist/ accordianist Lorin Sklamberg (note that most vocals are male). Songs include the homo-erotic and lively Man in a Hat; Bulgars/The Kiss, which was inspired by an ACT-UP kiss-in; Fisherlid, featuring backup vocals by BETTY; and In Kamf, a popular Yiddish labor song ('We're hated and pursued ...only because we love") which they perform to comment on anti-gay bigotry.

Klezmatics