The Great Chicken Soup Caper E.P.

YIDcore | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 6, 2002)
• Original Release Date: August 6, 2002
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Swell Records
• ASIN: B00006GTB0
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #833,203 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Why Won't Adam Sandler Let Us Do His Song?

2. Hu Hayoshev

3. Vehi She'Amda

4. Hakotel

5. Bashana Haba'ah

6. The Dreidle Song

7. Hora #5

8. To Life (Live at CBGB's)

Editorial Reviews

About the Artist

Putting the "Oi!" into "Oy Vey!", these young, loud & snotty Australians rip out punk rock versions of Jewish classics.

Rumored to be the product of a brief but strangely intimate liaison between Mel Brooks and Sid Vicious in the late 1970's , YIDcore spent most of their formative years dodging paparazzi and eating chicken soup before discovering references to punk rock hidden in the Bible Code (the book that is, not the code itself). They immediately discarded their rabbinical aspirations, shaved their beards into mohawks, spiked them and started the band that one commentator has noted will see them go ‘straight to Hell'.

With a repertoire that ranges from holy liturgy to Fiddler on the Roof and even South Park, YIDcore hold nothing sacred. Indeed, they have often been referred to as the Hebrew Me First and the Gimme Gimmes.

Lock Up Your Kishkes Coz Here Comes YIDcore!!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hold your tired cliches, March 30, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Great Chicken Soup Caper E.P. (Audio CD)

"Our intention wasn't to be anything, just to have fun with the tradition. To play the songs that we kind of liked back in school but play them in a way we actually liked them."

So says Bram Presser, singer for the Australian band Yidcore. Their second release, The Great Chicken Soup Caper continues Yidcore's fast, electric guitar driven style. And it's amazing how well some Jewish standards translate into punk rock tunes. Bashana Haba'ah blazes and you've never sung Vehi She'Amda at the Passover table like this before.

"A lot of punk kids both Jewish and non-Jewish have really taken to it. But we've had some abusive emails saying that we're destroying the culture. We had a teacher in school back in home who told her class that there was no place in heaven for people who listen to Yidcore. We thought that was pretty funny."

Yes, there some punk rock yelling and screaming, but this is not a mockery of Jewishness. Yidcore is a group of seriously talented musicians who combine their roots with different musical avenues. The emotional vocals and precision guitar playing proved these guys are just banging our novelty songs. Concerts have attracted a wide mix of fans sporting pierced noses, long peyos and everything in between.

"I was actually explaining it to this big rabbi back in Melbourne and trying to explain. He's like 80 and I was trying to explain it to him. And was saying, 'you don't have to make it any more modern. You know, Shlomo Carlebach, he made it modern. It's modern enough!'"

The boys have a large sense of humor, however one of their funniest songs probably won't ever be heard. Yidcore's version of Adam Sandler's Channukah Song, complete with references to famous Jewish punkers like Joey Ramone, got the group in legal trouble. Their response was Why Won't Adam Sandler Let Us Do His Song, which starts out the new album.

Copyright issues aside, Yidcore still plays a solid mix of familiar Jewish tunes. To Life from Fiddler on the Roof is an impossibly fast ska-core ditty performed live. Mordechai Ben Dovid and Naomi Shemer also are tributed, although they might not have envisioned their tunes quite like this.

Also not featured on the album is Ir K'off Agri, or The City is a Phoenix about New York after September 11th.

"We thought that if we wrote it in English it would be just like any other song that was written about it. I wrote it in Hebrew and it was strange. I've gotten emails from Israel telling me how grammatically incorrect it is. It was very gut reactiony, a song for the moment."

"For us it's really weird," says Presser of their live concerts, "watching moshing people moshing to music we used to roll our eyes at back at school."

Some may refer to Yidcore with cliché Yiddish phrases. But Jewish folks tired of clichés and thirty for something with a little more flavor, this may be an important way to connect, for the musicians as well as the listeners.

5.0 out of 5 stars Aussie Jewish Punk... Who'da thought?, January 16, 2003

By 

Jothman (North Shore of Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Great Chicken Soup Caper E.P. (Audio CD)

The Great Chicken Soup Caper EP should definetly be on every jewish teenage guy's hannukah list. I got this EP last hannukah, haven't put it down since. Yidcore's schtick is amazing, and their punk covers and originals are great. It is almost a pity that Yidcore limits itself to jew songs, with their talent they could be first on the punk scene. This EP is great, I recommend it to anyone who wants to hear some punk-covered Jewish folk songs. Buy the EP, and you'll agree.