David Griffin (vocals, guitar, trumpet, keys, etc.)
People who have participated in Hebrew School so far:
Taylor Bergren-Chrisman (bass, vocals), Tim Monaghan (drums, percussion), Julia Barry (vocals), Giancarlo Vulcano (guitar), Clare Burson (vocals), Alicia Jo Rabins (violin), Michelle Citrin (vocals)
Influences
Awesome Animal Ambulance, Camera Obscura, the Softies, Clientele, Bob Dylan, Animal Collective, Arboga Teenage Riot, Eyeball Skeleton, the Beatles, the Plastic Ono Band, the Plastics, Tracy + the Plastics, Suicide, Tyrannosaurus Rex, John Cage, Terry Riley, La Monte Young, Christopher Cross, Kenny Rogers, Daniel Johnston, America, the Velvet Underground, Nico, the Velvet Underground and Nico, Andre Kostelanetz, Montovani, Architecture in Helsinki, Graphic Design in Nova Scotia, Ariel Pink, Gang of Four, ...Nous Non Plus, the Association, Background, Studiocat, Ciccone Youth, Ciccone, Morricone, Morricone Youth, Egberto Gismonti, Belle & Sebastian, yé-yé, Blonde Redhead, Brian Eno, Sonny & Cher, Brute Force, Mickey Katz, the Cagle Family, Danielson Famile, Christian Marclay, Delia Derbyshire, Emiliana Torrini, the Fabulous Entourage, Feminine Complex, All Girl Summer Fun Band, the Lucky Lucky Pigeons, rastlös och orkestern, Durutti Column, Free Design, Fur Cups for Teeth, the Go! Team, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Hessen ganz gross!, Golem, the Great Society, Heavy Blinkers, Hilary Duff, Joanna Newsom, Sun Ra, Kelley Stoltz, Kiss Me Deadly, Lamette, Love, Free Design, Stereolab, Stereo Total, Stereoscope, Love of Diagrams, MC Paul Barman, Peachwaves, Phofo, Puffy Ami Yumi, Red Krayola, Mayo Thompson, Robin & Crystal Bernard, the Rolling Stones, Shadow Percussion Project, Silver, Silver Abuse, Silver Jews, Silver Apples, Snoozer, Soft Rock, Tiny Microphone, the Starlette Canvas, the Swirlies, Unrest, Air Miami, Vashti Bunyan, the Waitresses, Y Pants, Zbigniew Wiszniewski, Mohd. Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Prissa, Love of Diagrams
Sounds Like
the music of your (real or imagined) Jewish childhood, a Bar Mitzvah lesson with Tuli Kupferberg, AM static in an IRT tunnel when your Sony Discman accidentally switches to radio circa 1988....
Hebrew School is an innovative use of the genres of Indie rock and experimental music to mitigate, through recording and performance, the disaffection of Jewish life in a large urban center.
The project will exploit the unavoidable interplay of contemporary and traditional music, employing creativity and sincerity to create music which speaks to a young Jewish audience. David will apply an experimental ‘indie’ sensibility to a wide auditory vocabulary of Jewish music including Yiddish folk, Zionist and Palestinian nationalist pastiche, and (perhaps scandalously) motifs from Reform and Conservative prayer in American synagogues.
By doing this David will both recreate and comment upon the state of modern Jewish identity in America and find music buried in the lives of American Jews attending Hebrew School. Using this cultural background as a map, he creates portraits of a broad range of Jews, some with a placating affability, some with reprehensibly critical disdain. This project will begin the process of creating, recording, promoting and performing this music.
David Griffin began studying music at age 7, when he began ten years of classical piano instruction with renowned Russian pianist Ludmilla Lifson at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, MA.
His Bar Mitzvah present at age 13 was a classical guitar, which he continues to use in his work. David studied music at Sarah Lawrence College and the sarangi in Delhi, India. He went on to work at Mother Teresa's clinic in Calcutta while playing with a group of Anglo-Indian jazz musicians.
Since returning to America he has played as a dance accompanist in Berkeley and in a New York Klezmer band, The Murrays, which were featured on NPR and in the Village Voice.
David has played with several New York-based bands including klezmer-punk rockers Golem and faux-French indie chart-toppers Nous Non Plus, performing on stages in New York City, Boston, Richmond, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Montreal, Quebec City, London, Paris, La Rochelle, and Ljubljana. He also collaborates with several choreographers, including the critically acclaimed Christopher Williams. David is constantly writing and composing, focusing on Jewish music, 1960's pop, indie rock and experimental music.
This project is supported by a grant from the Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists, a partnership of Avoda Arts, JDub Records, and the National Foundation for Jewish
Culture, and made possible with major funding from UJA-Federation of New York.
Hey 'Brew Skool! Thanks for sharing the night with us at CRAZY Banjo Jim's... gotta love golf. I mean basketball. Anyway, got any pictures of that rad scissor kick or glittery dress? Be well, friends in Music!, Pearl and the Beard
****Hi! I'm visiting NYC from Montreal and I'd love for you to come to one of my shows>>>Mon at 7pm.The Living Room, Thurs.9:30pm at Googie's Lounge,the 29th at The LR again. Check my page for details. It would be fun to make this trip as sweet as can be*****Lovely new friends*****Hebrew School brings the good times!xoxoJordi****
Oh my gpd (can't spell the name of gpd) I love your MUSIC! It's my GOD. I'm really into your looks too. My breast reminds me of some kind of prehistoric glacial shift.The stretch marks are the dunes...
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