New:Jews from the Valley "Jews from the Vallley"

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Jews from the Valley "Jews from the Vallley"
         


            
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            CHOOSE: Watch in High Quality- Leave a comment. JftV was formed in 1981 out of the ashes of Madame Wong's West nightclub and the influential West LA underground music scene. My friend, Allen, and I were the DJs there, meeting many interesting musicians and making contacts. We wanted to perform music like all these bands we were getting to know. I bought a Moog Synthesizer and Allen bought ONE drum and ONE broken cymbal. We found 3 other musicians who didn't realize how bad we were, since they weren't much better! We all had terrible singing voices and we played our instruments at differing levels of ineptitude. Fortunately, we improved our sound with dedicated practice and experience.
You could describe us as rock, power pop, punk, new wave, melodic, alternative, garage, satirical, unlistenable, rock opera, artsy-fartsy, but mainly, Theatrical Performance Rock-- kind of a Jewish Alice Cooper. By 1982, the original members split up due to artistic differences. Imagine that. So, Marc and Allen brought in Joe and Dave to add funky chops and actual musical talent.
The original line-up had a career resembling the Sex Pistols, in that we were so offensive, infamous hilarity ensued. We were attacked with food, tomatoes, and whatnot during our sets. The principal of Fairfax High School (Phil Spector's Alma Mater) rightfully pulled the plug on us after our second number, a rollicking punkish version of "Springtime for Hitler" during lunch hour. I clearly remember being berated by an outraged rabbi's wife who didn't get the joke. Well, we deserved it. We were asking for it simply by getting up and performing this material...poorly...in front of paying customers. We definitely got a reaction. Eventually, I'll create a memorial website for Jews from the Valley. No reunions planned, don't worry!
Fledgling network MTV said they wouldn't even think of playing our videos. Of course they never got a chance to see this little gem, which is admittedly ethnically offensive, but not nearly as appalling as our original line-up's songs. They banned the original line-up for life, so we just assumed the new line-up was also banned...making this video a notorious little ditty for your viewing 'pleasure', meant to mildly offend you, yet entertain you with several chuckles that you're embarrassed about verbalizing. Our song titles included "Beirut is Burning", "Mr. Kosher Man", "The Shool was Rockin", "Hava Nagila/Harvey & Sheila", and "I'm 13" spoofing "I'm 18" with a gruesome Bar Mitzvah twist, which perfectly meshed my 2 favorite influences, Alice Cooper and Allan Sherman. I think we had talent and we were funny, but just not good enough to invest into a career move. We were smart to treat this as a 2 year hobby. I hope all the lads are thriving in their chosen lines of work. They say guys start rock bands to meet girls....curiously that didn't really happen with JftV. Not too many nice Jewish girls hung out at the Starwood, Wong's West, or the Whiskey back then.
Our band featured a few guest appearances I must chronicle (since this stupid youtube description has grown into our official biography): Gigi Mariam on keyboards, Elliot on guitar and harmonies, Rob on drums, and of course the late great Jeff Seidman as the Misguided Ex-Terrorist who subtly sees the error of his ways in this video. Jeff also leapt up onstage unexpectedly, a la Andy Kaufman and Bob Zmuda, as the psychotic Rabbi during our live shows. Jeff's passing in 1983 was a great loss to the community, to comedy, to film, and a personal loss for me since he was my good friend throughout all of high school and college.

Jews from the Valley was seriously reviewed by Craig Lee for the LA Times when we opened for Redd Kross. He wrote that we were "a one-joke garage band. " I guess he didn't think the one joke was funny. I found that criticism unfair since, although we were definitely a concept band performing grungy rock operas and producing/projecting films and videos built around the overall concept, we created many many laughs and shrieks of shock...and isn't outrage what we were taught rock 'n roll was all about?

Please feel free to add a comment. If you like our music and/or our lyrics (you do?
really?), I might be tempted to track down and upload more Jews from the Valley footage...if it's not too inappropriate or
controversial for youtube.

...lots more description info under comments below.
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               Added: June 11, 2008

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