This Ain’t Your Father’s Klezmer
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Davis, who grew up in Deerfield, earned a BA in theater from the University of Cincinnati in 1994; after moving back to Chicago he started performing in off-Loop musicals, often working temp jobs at marketing firms to pay the bills. He met “other young Jewish artsy folk” in the theater scene, and it looked to him that there was a community just waiting for something to bring it together. His desire to take action grew as his own involvement in the arts began to wane; by late 2001 he had stopped working in theater and taken a full-time marketing job with Jim Beam Brands back in Deerfield. “I realized that I was pushing paper and traveling an hour to work in the suburbs, and this was not what I signed up for,” he says.
That spring Davis learned that an Australian punk band called YIDcore was touring the U.S. Seeing his chance to launch a music series, he booked them a July gig at Chase Cafe in East Rogers Park. He expected to draw maybe 30 people; about 150 showed up. “There were kids with payos [the long side curls worn by some Orthodox Jewish men and boys] and kids with piercings,” says Davis. He produced more events that season, including shows by the Latino-Jewish hip-hop group Hip-Hop Hoodios, the New Age folk group Simply Tsfat, and the Israeli rock band Reva L’Sheva at venues like Nevin’s Live, Northwestern University, and the Prodigal Son.
I’m sad to report that longtime Reader critic Ted Shen died October 9 at the age of 53. He wrote about classical and Asian music in this section for many years. Hot Type in Section One has more on his life and death.
