Sway Machinery on NPR
I listened hard to the first Sway Machinery album when it first came out. It wasn't klezmer. It wasn't punk or blues. It was't clear to me that it represented something that I needed to hear often.
Lately, I've been hearing more buzz about the band. In this interview for the NPR show, Benjamin Walker's "Theory of Everything," band leader Jeremiah Lockwood talks about chazanes and his grandfather, Jacob Koenigsberg, a wonderful chazan from the Golden Age. He also talks about the cantor as a spokesperson—he doesn't use the word, but he seems to be referring to the cantor as shaliakh tsibur (have I got the term right)—and also refers to the cantor as a storyteller.
So, now you have a guy playing a very emotional, noisy, blues-based music with stretches of chazones of some form—something his fellow band member, Stuart Bogie says could just as easily be speaking in tongues. I still don't know that I like it, or hear the divine in it, but it's definitely worth checking out.>In the end, I don't have to decide. I just have to keep on listening. So do you!:
www.toeradio.org/archives/2006/04/toe_040806_sway.html
You can check the band out live, on April 9th, in Brooklyn
Comments
About The Swan Machinery: is there an album out of these guys? I really would like to check this out but I can not seem to fiind it!
Posted by: Diem | April 9, 2006 3:35 PM
There is an early album out - their regular website appears to be down, and I don't see a link on Myspace. I know that they have gone through changes and are recording a new CD. I'd get on their mailing list and check that out when it's available.
http://www.myspace.com/theswaymachinery/
Posted by: Ari Davidow | April 9, 2006 3:51 PM
I believe the term is shaliakh tsibur
Posted by: rokhl | April 9, 2006 10:23 PM
Yes. That's what my mind was trying to remember yesterday. Thanks, and duly corrected.
Posted by: Ari Davidow | April 10, 2006 7:52 AM
The Sway Machinary just launched a new website
www.swaymachinery.com and I know they are about to put out a new album. I think they have demos on their website. their new album has got Antibalas horns on it. they really took it to another level. I love them, there is no other band like them arround...happy they are finally breaking thru!
Posted by: mor | April 18, 2006 1:09 PM
Cool! Thanks for the post.
Posted by: Ari Davidow | April 18, 2006 1:18 PM