By: David Schultz
Since forming What I Like About Jew in the late nineties, Sean Altman and Rob Tannenbaum have been at the forefront of the hipster Jewish movement long before Matisyahu scored his first magazine cover. Initially designed as a seasonal Christmas venture offering disenfranchised New York Jews an alternative to Matzoh Balls and Yule logs, What I Like About Jew, with its sarcastic, snarky and always humorous musical examinations of the Jewish experience, has endured, expanding into a year round project entertaining audiences of all races, religions and creeds. Capitalizing on the craze they helped foment, What I Like About Jew has released their debut album Unorthodox just in time for the Passover holiday.
Unorthodox intelligently sends up the timeless Jewish rituals of circumcision ("A Little Off The Top") and Bar Mitzvah ("Today I Am A Man"), provides a warped history of the story of Passover "They Tried To Kill Us (We Survived, Let's Eat") and concludes with a trilogy of nouveau-Jewish Christmas Carols ("Reuben The Hook-Nosed Reindeer," "Hanukah With Monica" and "(It's Good To Be) A Jew At Christmas"). What I Like About Jew does not reserve its barbed wit solely for traditions. Philip Roth informed the world of the Jewish man's neurotic frenzy while trying to find that special girl and Tannenbaum twists that sentiment to fuel "J-Date" and "I'm Better Looking (Than The Guy You're Going Out With)."
This past week, Altman and Tannenbaum took to the stage at New York City's posh Canal Room to celebrate the release of Unorthodox. In preparation for Passover, the two offered something a little different from their typical show, providing an untraditional answer to the first of the holiday's four traditional questions, "Why is this night different from all other nights." Instead of Altman's guitar providing the sole musical accompaniment, the Loser's Lounge band backed the two, adding their weight to WILAJ's simple but effective arrangements. The band's muscle aided the bitter ranting of "Jews For Jesus" but overpowered the pithily humorous observations of the opening number "Jews, Jews, Jews." Joined on stage by a diminutive dancing Jesus, Loser's Lounge helped turn "Taller Than Jesus," Altman's ode to the Beatles, from an acoustic skiffle number into a full-blown arena rocker. Playing with a full band allowed Altman & Tannenbaum to present the songs closer in form to their recorded version. However, on the flip side, Altman's voice, one of the What I Like About Jew's strongest assets, fell from the forefront lost in the mix. Dressing down for the occasion, Tammy Faye Starlite admirably substituted for opera singer Inna Dukach, lending her soprano to "A Little Off The Top" and "I'm Better Looking."
Throughout their live show, it's extraordinarily evident that Altman and Tannenbaum are inordinately fond of songs about their penises, confronting the topic head on with "Not Another Song About Our Dicks." However, in general, the humor of What I Like About Jew runs more towards the urbane than the scatological. While Unorthodox amply represents What I Like About Jew's musical comedy, it is in a live setting that the humor truly breaks through as both Altman and Tannenbaum possess expert comic timing and bridge the songs with well crafted witty riffs. Altman's amiable banter between songs compliments Tannenbaum's wise-cracking commentary nicely as the two amusingly place the What I Like About Jew experience and its songs into their gleefully skewed context. They also like to chat with the audience and dating couples should feel free to inform Tannenbaum of their presence at the show. Touchy audience members have found much grist for their overly-sensitive mills in WILAJ's between-song comedic interludes. Altman and Tannenbaum work a little blue and steadfastly refuse to tone down or modify their act, continuing to successfully mine much humor from topics that provoke uneasy but earnest laughs.
What I Like About Jew will forgo the traditional Seder to celebrate the release of Unorthodox with their first series of shows on the west coast.
April 15: Seattle, WA – Triple Door 8:00
April 16: Portland, OR – Aladdin Theatre 8:00
April 17: Petaluma, CA – McNear’s Mystic Theatre 8:00
April 18: San Francisco, CA – Café Du Nord 7:00 & 9:30
April 19: Monterey, CA – Monterey Live 7:00
April 20: Los Angeles, CA – Tangier 7:30
April 21: Los Angeles, CA – Tangier 8:00 & 10:00
For more on What I Like About Jew, check out Earvolution's interview with Sean Altman and Rob Tannenbaum found here.
Labels: Rob Tannenbaum, Sean Altman, What I Like About Jew
