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by Michelle Kay
At
their first public appearance at Sal's in Philadelphia, the Shondes
filled the lower level of this pizza joint/dance club with their
startlingly intense tones and beats. At moments the crowd shuddered
to their resonating three-part voice and violin harmonies and then
jumped to the tight rhythms.
The four-member group shuttled from Brooklyn
to play the after-party for the Transgender Health Conference,
eager to rock their debut with a politically-driven and queer audience.
Lucky
enough to squeeze into their rickety and unheated Dodge, I
caravanned with the Shondes for the night, learning more about the process
behind
their music, passion, and humor, and what they do when they're
not watching Buffy all night.
How did you start playing music together?
TEMIM: We're all super-close, and we wanted to make music together that fueled - and was fueled by - our political activism and passions. As queers, trannies, and radicals, the realization that we could make unabashedly dramatic art that came directly out of our experiences and politics was totally exhilarating.
BRANNIGAN: We have a desire to make really incredible art that is accessible to a lot of people and also is challenging and engaged. Coming together there are lots of skills and ideas between the four of us, which has made this process exciting and rewarding.
Your sound is really unique and intense. Can you tell me about the songwriting process that goes into creating your music?
BRANNIGAN: Our songwriting process is really collaborative. Songs usually start with an idea - like our song "I Watched The Temple Fall" started with excitement around creating a rock music Fugue that used the melody from Lamentations, the biblical book that is sung on the Jewish Holiday of Tisha B'Av. (A fugue is a term from Classical music for a piece where there are three distinct melodies happening at once.)
LOUISA: Can you believe how knowledgable she is about this stuff? 'More than a Shiksa's' no joke...
TEMIM: We're definitely the kinds of people who swoon from a great guitar riff and then get crushes on a hundred different ways the song could go next.
BRANNIGAN: That's totally true. What's exciting about this process is that we might come [individually] with ideas, parts for a section or concepts we want to try out, but it's rare that someone writes all the music for a song, instead we all end up with a sense of ownership over each song.
LOUISA: Our lyrics, like our music, can stem from one person's writing or can be totally collaborative, based in a concept we want to use or an issue we want to talk about. What makes it unique in this regard, is that we talk politically all the time in our music, but not overly polemically. The recurrence of Jewish themes and specifically a Jewish, pro-Palestine perspective is indicative of just how important Palestinian liberation and Judaism are to us, and how fraught it is for a Jewish band to represent truly radical politics.
ELIJAH: And in the end, we're
pretty serious about the issue of audience tuchus-shaking. And tuchus-shaking
generally...
Well, I'm relieved to
hear that. But, uh, with the indie rock scene an ever-burgeoning sector,
how would you differentiate yourselves from other bands in this genre?
LOUISA: I experience our music
as effectively repping a radical queer politic in a way that seamlessly flows
into and out of our sound. When I was 13, I came out and started getting
involved in feminist punk and activism. So for me, the connection between
moving, passionate music and viable political change is a given. I like music
that makes me think, feel and act, so that's the kind of music I try to write.
Unfortunately, I think this is exactly what differentiates the Shondes from
most of what's out there in indie music these days - it's unfortunate because
I crave it and believe there's a real need for it, but these days it feels
like political rock is "passe," which is really tragic.
So it seems like you identify your band as a specifically
Jewish band, though not all of you are Jewish. Why is this?
LOUISA: For Temim and Eli and I, the Jewish Shondes, struggling to build radical Jewish community is really central to our lives and making music that spoke to that struggle was a second-nature decision. But the kind of community we work for is not defined by some nationalistic fantasy of what Judaism is where non-Jews aren't welcome. We want radical Jewish community that is pro-Palestine, anti-racist, queer, feminist, and anti-nationalist.
TEMIM: Yeah, totally, and this
is one major way we're not only a 'shonde to the goyim' as our bubbes and
zaydes might have had it, but also a 'shonde to the yidn.' It defines us.
BRANNIGAN: For me, my participation isn't just as some random Irish girl playing guitar in a Jewish band, but is related to the ways that I'm close with the people in the band and involved in community with them. So there's intention around what we're creating and my own participation in this.
LOUISA:
Right - our anti-nationalism isn't only about resisting Zionism - it's also about finding ways to embrace our traditions while also engaging meaningfully with other (often intersecting) communities to deconstruct the implicit value put on Jewish purity/authenticity.
So what's in store for The Shondes? How can I
get you to come play in my town?
LOUISA: For us, rather than just
playing a set at a random club with random other bands that we got stuck
on a bill with arbitrarily, we like to regularly create one big shows in
New York that feel like a community event with real political content. For
example, in April, we brought Tricrotic from Chicago to play at a radical
Passover event with involvement from local radical Jewish groups like Jews
Against the Occupation (JAtO) and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ).
BRANNIGAN: We booked our two month
cross-country extravaganza summer tour, "Disgracing Ourselves Across America," in
big and small places based around playing Lady Fest Las Vegas and Camp Trans.
We tried to balance playing in clubs that we're excited about and other types
of venues (community spaces, houses, etc). Throughout all of this, though
we are prioritizing playing places that are accessible for disabled people,
people under 21, and are responsible to the communities they're situated
in. We're damn excited to be making a disgrace in a place near you, sometime
real soon.
1 Mishpocha is Yiddish for family
1 Shiksa is Yiddish for a non-Jewish girl. "More
than a Shiksa" is Brannigan's nickname. Check out www.shondes.com for
the rest of their wacky, Yiddishized pseudonyms.
1 Tuches is Yiddish for ass.
1 Common term meaning a shame to the non-Jewish
community. In other words, showing a bad example of a Jewish person.
1 Bubbes and Zeydes are
grandmothers and grandfathers
1 A similar phrase meaning a shame to the Jewish
community, denoting a different kind of shameful act, Jewish person or persons
who is disgracing
their own
community.
1 CampTrans takes place outside the Michigan Womyn's
Music Festival
as a response to trans-exclusive policies of the festival.
Download The Shondes MP3's
I Watched the Temple Fall (mp3)
Your Monster (mp3)
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