L.A. Beat

“Our violin player Jonathan, who has been playing with us for 11-12 years, is Jewish. And when we first started, I don’t know what you would call us, we were playing Bare Naked Ladies style acoustic pop. But we had one or two Celtic songs, and Jonathan said there is another kind of music  that people could dance, party and drink to— klezmer music — and not too many people were doing it. There were a couple bands in Toronto and New York playing it, but I think we were the first band west of Toronto to be playing it,” he said.
“ And it’s all in a minor key. We also added elements of reggae, ska and rock, messed around with it and did three CDs of it. It’s almost always in a minor key there’s something about a minor key which reaches people,” he said.
The show begins at 9 p.m. with local band Cicala, followed by the Plaid Tongued Devils. Tickets cost $10 in advance from Henotic and Blueprint, $15 at the door. “It’s our first show at Henotic and we’ve heard  from lots of Calgary  bands that they know how to treat bands right and they get people out, so we wanted to bring them this show,” he continued adding Roxanne Young, Jonathan Lewis and bassist Kaley Kinjo are all professional musicians   who play with numerous Calgary bands. Drummer John McNeil, guitarist Alan Kolodziejzyk and Semaka are self employed so rehearsals are tough to co-pordinate. “We usually  write feverishly during rehearsals and we’ve been playing  the other material for so long, we don’t really need to rehearse it,” he said adding they are working on a new CD.

 

— By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor