Artists
Artist Profile
Golem
- Contact
Booking: Jacob Harris, JDub Records
Label: Dan Greenman, JDub Records
- Links
Artist Website: Golemrocks.com
This “Gypsy-punk gem” (SPIN) is fronted by Annette Ezekiel-Kogan - singer, accordionist, and 5-foot powerhouse, with vocalist / tambourinist Aaron Diskin, violin virtuoso Alicia Jo Rabins, trombonist Curtis Hasselbring, upright bassist Taylor Bergren-Chrisman, and drummer Tim Monaghan, Golem’s sound evokes wisps of old-world elegance filtered through the successes and disappointments of new-world dreams. Spending nights in Lower East Side immigrant-owned bagel shops and summers in Eastern Europe, Annette delightfully collects Jewish, Gypsy, and Slavic folk songs, adding, editing, and rearranging them along the way. These are the songs to which her Eastern European grandparents danced over a century ago, and now Golem has its fans dancing to the same boisterous beats.rolex submariner replica
At Annette's bat mitzvah, friends and relatives told her mother she should be an opera singer or a cantor, but Annette's relationship with traditional Judaism ended there. Instead, the classically trained pianist and ballerina-in-training dyed her hair blue, wore nothing but black, and joined up with the local punks.
Still, Annette spent countless summers with her family in the famously Jewish Catskill Mountains. When Annette insisted that she not miss fake watches ballet class during the summer months, Annette's mother shipped her off to a nearby Ukrainian resort which happened to have a dance program. Thrown into Ukrainian folk dance, Annette picked up the steps immediately, and was soon dancing lead roles and teaching classes in traditional Slavic costumes. Forever smitten with the rhythms and melodies of Eastern Europe, which she often heard played on accordion, the sound of the squeezebox gave her chills. Eventually, Annette bought her own—a red "Main Squeeze" with rhinestones—and started learning to play folk songs by ear.
Too short to make it big-time as a ballet dancer, Annette discovered she had a gift for languages: she could understand Ukrainian from her dancing days and later picked up French, Italian, and Russian. When she hit Yiddish (a mixture of German, Hebrew and Slavic spoken by Eastern European Jews) Annette's many interests suddenly collided. She had been listening to her grandparents' Klezmer records since she was a kid and could feel the music’s Slavic dance beats in her feet. From there, Annette conceived of the band Golem—a monster stumbling through Jewish music—shaking things up, yet remaining true to tradition. For example: after being invited to play a music festival in Poland in 2007, Golem was kicked off stage for being “too modern”, yet they played in the street, the city's young people dancing around them, until dawn.
Golem has toured extensively, both on their own and supporting artists like Matisyahu, Balkan Beat Box, Dresden Dolls Rasputina and The Walkmen. Known for their chaotic behavior live, Golem's stage presence is more akin to a traveling band of gypsy acrobats and fiends than it is to any punk band on the scene right now. It is entirely possible that at any moment during a show, you just might find the band and the crowd entangled in a frenzied hora. In 2006, Billboard named Golem one of the top 5 things to see at SXSW alongside vangaurd artist Amy Winehouse. The next year, SPIN listed Golem as one of their leading Gypsy-punk bands to watch.
Latest_news
Golem’s Tim Monaghan
Tim Monaghan, Golem’s drummer who also played on Girls In Trouble’s album, had a terrible accident a week ago and is in intensive care for trauma to his skull and brain.
Like many musicians and artists, Tim has no insurance, so as we wait for him to get better, a fund has been established to raise money to help his family in this difficult time.
You can view the fund on Facebook, where you can also make a contribution.
Tim is a fantastic drummer and dear friend to many in the JDub and NYC music communities. Please send your good, healing thoughts and prayers to Tim and if you can, donate something to the fund.
The Chicago Reader Loves Golem
Golem recently played Chicago, and Peter Margasak over at The Chicago Reader had some really nice things to say about the band. You can read that full writeup here.
“The music itself is smoking hot, a recklessly giddy amalgam of eastern European styles spiked with especially bracing work from trombonist Curtis Hasselbring and violinist Alicia Jo Rabins.”
What We Did With Our Winter Vacation
Well, we’re back from vacation, and it’s time to catch you all up on what you might have missed over the break. Here ya’ go:
- The Faster Times included The Sway Machinery and Girls in Trouble in their Best of 2009 Music list.
- The Boston Survival Guide chose Girls in Trouble to include in their 2009 Band Roundup.
- Made Up Disease (MUD) posted a really nice and very thorough ode to JDub, including a whole bunch of our artists, like The Macaroons and Balkan Beat Box.
- Music magazine Blurt included Alicia of Girls in Trouble in their The Artists Have Spoken: Best of 2009 feature.
- JTA’s The Fundermentalist shed a little light on the recent Jdub/Nextbook partnership.
- The Forward listed Soulico and The Sway Machinery as picks on their 2009 Forward Fives list.
- The University of Oregon’s Oregon Voice had a great writeup on Soulico’s Exotic on the Speaker.
- DJ Anjali listed Soulico’s Exotic on the Speaker as part of his Top 5 of 2009 in the Portland Mercury.
- Digital City has a fantastic interview with Dave Schneider of The Macaroons — conducted by Corn Mo’!
- The Sway Machinery is one of LimeWire’s Best of 2009 Staff Picks!
- Jeremiah Lockwood, of The Sway Machinery, published an op-ed in The Forward about the band’s trip to Mali.
- Our friends over at Tablet Mag talk up The Macaroons in a podcast dedicated to the best family-friendly music of 2009.
Last but not least, I’ve posted more photos from Jewltide 7 under the cut! All credit goes to Dan Sieradski.
Golem does Hanukkah in Brooklyn and San Francisco
It’s Hanukkah time and Gypsy punkers Golem are greasing up the frying pan with Two one-of-a-kind show in Brooklyn and San Francisco!
Saturday, December 12 in Park Slope, Brooklyn
The Schlep Sisters and Thirsty Girl Productions Present 3rd Annual Menorah Horah, a Hanukkah Burlesque show!!!
Southpaw (125 5th Ave bw St. Johns and Sterling)
$12 in advance, $16 at the door
Doors 7pm, Show 8pm | Golem at 9pm sharp, don’t be late
Sunday, December 20 in San Francisco, CA
Hanukah Show featuring:
Golem
Rube Waddell
Con Permiso (Mariachi band w/ members of Extra Action Marching Band!)
@ Rickshaw Stop (155 Fell St)
$10 advance/$12 at the door
Show 8pm
Wandering Jew & Golem in Berlin
JTA’s Wandering Jew (reporter Ben Harris, for those of you not familiar) managed to catch Golem at their Berlin show the other night, and posted a killer video of the night on his site. Check it out above!
Video
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Golem: Warsaw is Khelm
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Golem live at the Knitting Factory 6/23/07
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Bublichki Animation
Photos
IM Icons
Web Banners
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Golem Banner 120X600
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Golem Banner 160X600
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Golem Banner 728X90
E-cards
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Golem Ecard
Features a NEW video for Bublichki!
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Rooftop Roots Volume IV
A JDub Mixtape (v/a)
2008
Out Of Stock
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Rooftop Roots Volume III
A JDub Mixtape - (v/a)
2007
Out Of Stock
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Rooftop Roots - Vol II
A JDub Mixtape - (v/a)
2006
Out Of Stock
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Rooftop Roots
A JDub Mixtape - (v/a)
2005
Out Of Stock
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No events are scheduled for Golem.
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