This article appeared in the Dec. 24, 2004 Jewish Advocate.

A lot to like

By Susie Davidson

Advocate Correspondent

Respectable media coverage and a capacity audience greeted the irreverently schlocky duo What I Like About Jew last March at Club Passim. At Ryles this past Saturday, lines snaked onto the sidewalk for the holiday tour appearance of the rapidly ascending act.

Launched by musician Sean Altman and journalist and musician Rob Tannenbaum partially as a vehicle for their erogenously topical hit “Hanukah with Monica,” the show debuted in 1999 at the Knitting Factory’s annual Christmas Eve Jewsapalooza Festival. Since then, the acoustic, electric and karaoke-driven revue has featured many guest performers in its varied East Coast stops. (“Wherever there are Jews, we’ll go,” explained Tannenbaum. “We tried it in Alabama,” he added. “Didn’t work.”)

On Saturday, it was largely the founders, who met in a political science class at Brown, who cajoled and confounded with their racy repertoire of uncomfortable, but undeniably funny, Jewish-themed songs. Unforbidden territory included subjects like thriftiness, tacky Jewish celebrations, common and uncommon sins, noses, circumcision, and dating pressures and fiascos. The boys have become no less brazen in taking them, and their audiences, on.

To the classic Romantics song “What I Like About You,” the two began with “Jews, Jews, Jews,” their audacious opener. “Jews need shrinks, like goyim need their drinks, Mom was bossy, Dad was a wimp, and Freud says the whole thing schtinks,” on to the bold and baudy "Hot Jewish Chicks" and their Bar Mitzvah song (“I’m a Man who can’t drink or vote, I’m a Man, my voice cracks with every note, I’m a Man, that’s what the Rabbi said, I’m a Man who still wets the bed…”) and it was downward from there.

Though both are highly lyrically and melodically talented, Tannenbaum, a senior editor at the rock magazine Blender, is more the comic, self-deprecating showman. Referring to the karaoke accompaniment, he chided, “we’re doing our best to give you as little for your money as possible.” He passed off the group’s recent publicity surge: “it’s easy to get coverage in the Jewish-owned media when you’re a Jewish act.” Asking if the audience might be enjoying themselves more if the cover was half price, well, the good-natured castigation never ceased. “I’m a German Jew,” he proclaimed. “That means that I wake up in the morning sometimes, and I hate myself.” To the jeers, he warned, “any more of that and we’ll bring out the Israeli folkdancers.” But neither did Christianity escape the hijinks: in “I’m Taller than Jesus,” the statuesque Altman sang, “Jesus walked on water, turned water into wine, but if you want to change that light bulb, call me, I’m divine.”

The two never rose above the level of absurd decadence; nonetheless the crowd, perhaps prepared, seemed unfazed. Several parents, however, were seen reaching for mittens and earmuffed hats and hastily escorting kids out early on, fulfilling Tannenbaum’s prediction that some attendees wouldn’t last.

Altman recently sang with his ensemble Kol Zimra at the White House’s menorah lighting ceremony, and politics were a big part of the party, in the hilarious “A Jew In The White House (The Ballad of Joe Lieberman)," and the aforementioned "Hanukah With Monica.”

Other highlights included “Reuben the Hook-Nosed Reindeer” (“He cooks blintzes for Blitzen, does Santa’s taxes…. He gets separate receipts, never mixes milk with the meat, pays wholesale for all the toys…. As you can see, he’s the MVP, and Santa is his Shabbas goy,” and following Altman’s disclosure as to how he met his wife, opera singer Inna Dukach, who joined them onstage at times, the sidesplitting “Jdate,” about Tannenbaum’s own attempt at the site. “Everyone’s funny, everyone’s smart, ten pounds fatter (three years older, two inches taller, etc.) than they say they are… sign up and seal your J-fate… You can ask a girl out if you like her looks, It’s like Amazon.com, but with chicks instead of books….” The song includes a dating disaster: “20 minutes J-late, she didn’t even J-depilate, she sure did clean her J-plate, then she started a J-debate, where can I get a J-rebate?” and on and on.

Though admittedly and brazenly nonreligious, the duo’s greatest fury was unleashed in “Jews for Jesus”: “You’re praising pure defeat, it’s like being a vegetarian for meat… you traded Purim for the Pentacost; I’d really like to nail you to the cross… you’re born again, that’s nice, if Jesus resurrects you I get to kill you twice….”

Carol Rosenstock of Brookline was the lucky audience recipient of a draw for a T-shirt and CD. Altman and Tannenbaum finished with “It’s Good to Be a Jew at Christmas,” from their upcoming January release on Shout!, “Now That Sounds Kosher,” which includes songs by Mel Brooks and Allan Sherman. “It’s good to be a Jew at Christmas, we’ve got eight nights, they got just one… On Christmas Day we eat Chinese, walk through empty streets – once a year the city’s ours alone… Everyone you see must be a Jew – why not say ‘hi, how are you?’”

Altman, a member of the a cappella group Rockapella who composed the “Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?” TV theme song, did double duty with the opening act Groove Barbers, who included other Rockapella vets Charlie Evett, Steve Keyes and vocalist Kevin Weist, and sang a doo-woppy, robust mix of mostly holiday tunes.