Golem - Fresh Off Boat

Fresh Faces In Immigrant Punk

Fans of the Eastern European Gypsy Punks Gogol Bordello will want to check out Golem. This six-piece outfit is one of the latest and greatest in immigrant punk, blending a variety of traditional musics into a fun, exotic blend.

A few weeks ago, I attended the wedding of an old friend. As part of Jewish tradition, at the end of the ceremony, a glass was placed on the ground and the groom smashed it with his foot. In a break from Jewish tradition, the glass went through the side of the groom's foot and he left the ceremony in an ambulance with a "Just Married" sign on the back of it.

Aside from being a mildly gruesome, somewhat humorous anecdote, it's an apt comparison to the style of Golem's music. Golem takes Eastern-European folk music and traditional Jewish Klezmer and slices it open with a bit a folksy punk rock edge to make something even more organic and energetic.

Fresh Off Boat features 13 songs in five different languages, which means that it's not that easy to sing along. That doesn't prevent the beat from getting your toes tapping and the reeling music from making you want to dance.

The liner notes do give translations and explanations of the songs, though, and the themes are largely happy ones, ranging from the wedding tunes "Ushti Baba" and "Le Mariage" to the simple dance tune, "Golem Hora, a tune that is made for (and is indeed about) sweaty, drunken, celebratory dancing.

Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls lends her vocal talents to one song (in English), the frenzied "Warsaw Is Khelm", which reminds me of many of the fun faster tunes by Gogol Bordello, especially "Not A Crime". And Palmer is, as always, a lovely dose of cabaret-fuelled sultriness.

If you're looking for music that is equally suited for a friend's wedding, a smoky basement bar or a wild summer street dance, you'll be hard-pressed to find something better than Golem. If you're just looking for something upbeat to play loud when you're driving around or just hanging out at home, they fit the bill for that, too.

Check them out; Golem is proof that the essence of punk knows no linguistic limit.

A few hours and five stitches later, the groom arrived at the reception, and the celebration went well into the night. I think the late-night partying is something else that goes well with Golem's addictive blend of music.