Their managers and record company execs are the more heavily Jewish ones. Hey, give those guys some credit for bringing you your tunes.

#1 Brian Epstein, manager of the Beatles:

I would wager that Adam Levine of Maroon 5 is by far the most popular Jewish rock star. The term “rock” defined rather loosely of course.

If Jews have higher IQs on average then is it not likely that those with musical talent would be disproportionately drawn to more highbrow genres like classical music and jazz? They certainly had an oversized impact on 20th century classical music (Glass, Reich, Berlin, Bernstein, Gershwin, Schoenberg) as well as producing many of the biggest non-black jazz stars (Goodman, Getz, Konitz, Rich).

Yeah, you’re missing some, though “star” is maybe an iffy factor. Peter Green, members from the J Geils Band, Blue Oyster Cult. Dylan’s various co-musicians tended to have a Jewish tint. Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper, Robbie Robertson. And don’t forget Geddy Lee, who has kind of a funny voice and I forgot about him until checking out this useful source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Jewish_rock_musicians

…damn that page is really stretching the truth. (Do Jews do that? Stretch the truth?) Danny Elfman? A rock musician?

Randy Newman may indeed be “generally terrible.” All I remember is his earliest albums, which had some excellent things, among which is the incomparable “Political Science.”

Drake and Bruno Mars are both part Jewish, so at least 10% of the top 20 most listened to artists on Spotify are Jews.

KISS has 2x as many listens as Bob Dylan. I haven’t checked but I’d guess among those under 30, say, the ratio is higher. Bob Dylan doesn’t hold up at all. “I Was Made For Loving You,” on the other hand, does.

“David Lee Roth lights the menorah…”

Is being a rock star, success in an entertainment field?

I’ve noticed the same underrepresentation of Jews in engineering in my 50 years in the engineering biz.

I’ve known a few, of course, but they seemed more interested in the steady income than burning with passion to build stuff.

The Israeli arms industry proves there’s no lack of ability but engineers are usually employees and you don’t get rich working for someone else.

There are riches to be had as a rock star but the odds of making it to the top are very small. It’s a bad career bet for a young aspirant.

Besides, rock is hedonism and that’s not generally a Jewish vice.

HBD. I could come up with some theory about how you need raw masculinity but a lot of the arts are down to fashion and chance. I’m not saying talent doesn’t exist-it most assuredly does-but who’s number 1 and who’s number 100 has a big path-dependent random component.

Not crazy to think an ethnic group specializing in finance and commerce for the past 1000 years would have more than its fair share of business roles in the rock business.

David Lee Roth?

Beastie Boys (rappers, but still big pop musicians)?

Also, check the song writers. Leiber and Stoller were huge hit writers for Elvis.

Also, I think the growth of the Nashville-based music labels might have something to do with their being more known Jewish movie stars than pop musicians. Nashville was separate from Jewish-controlled Hollywood labels, and has largely fed Middle America’s need for country music. As it was outside the Jewish-controlled areas, it didn’t promote Jewish musicians as much. Many Jewish actors and comedians get promoted over goyim ones because the bosses at the studios and talent agencies are all Jewish and they want to help a fellow Jew out more, e.g. how Amy Schumer and Sarah Silverman’s careers managed to expand wildly beyond their audiences and talent.

A great documentary might be about how Nashville managed to carve itself out as a major music hub when all other entertainment got concentrated solely in NYC/LA.

Also Jewish-Neil Diamond, Herb Alpert of both the Tijuana Brass and A&M Records, the guy who discovered Dylan (forgot his name)and tons of songwriters in the old days.

The Gershwins alone are worth more than 75% of the Rock Musicians in the world, combined, in my view.

Alan Bermowitz (June 23, 1938 – July 16, 2016), known professionally as Alan Vega, was an American vocalist and visual artist, primarily known for his work with the electronic protopunk duo Suicide.

Hmmm.

Rockers + Jews?

I gotta go with Blue Oyster Cult. Dylan is a Jew but not any kind of a rocker.

I think there is one in Llyod Neck down the road from Comrade Derbyshire….but he goes to Epischopal services…..WERE’RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT…..!!!!!!!!

I give you Mike Bloomfield lead guitarist of the Paul Butterfield Band, Electric Flag, etc.; Al Kooper of the Blues Project, Blood Sweat and Tears (played organ on Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone”); Jerry (the Fish) Melton and two other members of the (awful) Country Joe and the Fish (“gimme an ‘F’!”); bassist and flutist Andy Kulberg, of the Blues Project and Seatrain; Billy Joel (duh).

And, of course, Elvis was Jewish.

A Jewish musician friend from college is constantly surprising me with observations that this musician or that musician is Jewish. Jewish people seem to know this stuff either from reading about it in Jewish media, or from some sort of Jewdar.

Billy Joel and Neil Diamond are two of the biggest Jewish rock stars I can think of. Billy Joel’s cousin was the president of Yeshiva University and Diamond even made a movie about being a Jewish rock star, ironically titled “The Jazz Singer” (yes, I know it was a remake, sort of, but still). There is also the half-Jewish Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits.

I guess Carole King, Paul Simon and Carly Simon count as rock stars, sort of. Laura Nyro – who was the first big act signed by David Steffens – was at least partly Jewish.

Among slightly more recent acts there is Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend, Adam Levine of Maroon 5 (and The Voice), and Nina Gordon of Veruca Salt.

It seems a bit odd there aren’t more Jewish rock stars, considering it feels like Tin Pan Alley was entirely Jewish, as is a wildly disproportionate share of writers of Broadway musicals. Rock is more about the beat than the lyrics, and Jewish songwriters tend to focus more on the lyrics.

Dylan isn’t a “rock” star, he was a folk musician. Beatles and Bowie were pop musicians. Tina Turner? I’m guessing just because they noticed there wasn’t a whole lot of racial diversity on the list. And “Slash”? That one is just funny.

Amazed that Madonna is not jewish.

Also Jewish-Neil Diamond, Herb Alpert of both the Tijuana Brass and A&M Records, the guy who discovered Dylan (forgot his name)and tons of songwriters in the old days.

The Gershwins alone are worth more than 75% of the Rock Musicians in the world, combined, in my view. Not to mention Bernie Taupin as a lyricist.

There’s Simon and Garfunkel, Howard Kaylan of the Turtles (Volman was half-Jewish), Neil Diamond, Mama Cass, Eric Bloom of BOC, Amy Winehouse, and, of course, Donald Fagen of Steely Dan. Fagen is my #1 Jewish rock star. Does Jerry Garcia count? He looked Jewish, and his parents named him after Jerome Kern.

* David Geffen, not David Steffens. F—-ing autocorrect.

How about Leslie West (Leslie Abel Weinstein), Mountain:

Surprised Geddy Lee hasn’t been mentioned yet.

I forgot one—Manfred Mann (the guy, not the group), born Manfred Sepse Lubowitz.

Lou Reed (Velvet Underground)
Donald Fagen (Steely Dan)
David Lee Roth (Van Halen)

Plus as you mention:

Paul Simon
Billy Joel
Neil Diamond
Mark Knopfler

I mean, those are all very heavy hitters. Top 100 (or at least members of top 100 bands) for sure. So when you add them to Dylan, Bolan, Simmons, and the others, the percentage doesn’t strike me as all that small.

Plus if you count songwriters in addition to performers (like the guys who wrote Elvis’s hits), then the percentage would be a lot higher.

And I’ll be darned, I’d always assumed Springsteen was Jewish.

The two surviving Beatles married Jews. Paul twice I think.

Always thought Billy Joel was Italian, but apparently 100% Jewish. George Michael half I think. Amy Winehouse of course. David Lee Roth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Jewish_rock_musicians

Not even Rivers Cuomo, the Harvard graduate born in Manhattan and raised in an ashram who was nicknamed “Weezer” as a child!

There’s David Lee Roth.

Geddy Lee of RUSH.

OK, so if I had to guess, I’d say in the second half of the 20th century when rock was huge, kids liked acts they could fantasize about being, and Jews’ divergence from the Western Europe ideal limited their ability to take jobs primarily depending on charisma. You can see this whole ‘but we’re not really American’ insecurity through a lot of the stuff Steve talks about.

Of course, there aren’t a lot of Jewish rappers either (other than the Beastie Boys.)

(Which was why the Marxists decided to blow up that average with their critical theories and such, I guess. Interestingly, I was flipping through the critical race theory red book and I realized most of the names were not Jewish, though they certainly built in the earlier cultural Marxists. There’s probably a story there, though I am not sure what it is.)

Obviously David Lee Roth. I would expect jews and italians are overrepresented among 80’s hair bands, because of the showbiz “make money and have fun” ethos of the genre and its roots in LA. It takes a contrarian and gloomy nordic type like Kurt Cobain to turn being the biggest rock star in the world into something profoundly depressing. There’s also the huge cultural and economic shift from the 80s to 90s as genx took over from later boomers. The America of the 90s was finally ready to listen to a mentally ill man sing about his guns and lithium prescription.

Beastie Boys. Mix of rock and rap.

How are Brian Wilson and Frankie Valli not on this list.?

David Lee Roth lights the menorah.

Very interesting, Steve. Now do a similar statistical analysis for classical music, please…

David Lee Roth has to be the most “Rock Star” of any jewish rock star.

If ‘Bang the Gong’ is awesome, ‘Spirit In The Sky’ by Norman Greenbaum (a Jewish gospel songwriter believe it or not) is awesomeness squared.

Interesting story behind that song:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_in_the_Sky

Maybe this an effect where intelligence precludes rock’n’roll.

Gene Simmons….

“I….. wanna rock’n’roll aaaaalllll niiiiight…. and party all of the day…”

Not really Maimonides-level stuff.

There’s a lot of rock-o-philia on iSteve, but maybe Jews are too smart to rock?

Simon and Garfunkel? Geddy Lee? Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley? Manfred Mann? David Lee Roth? Leslie West? Billy Joel? The Ramones?

Another possibility is the IQ gap.

If I remember, researchers have found that managers can’t manage workers well if the IQ gap is too large. Maybe Jews can’t make Scots-African-mash-up third-world music for dumb white people well.

Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson of Rush are both Jewish. Lifeson’s (a stage name… his real last name is Zivojinovic which translates in English to “son of life”) Serbian parents emigrated to Toronto from Yugoslavia. Lee’s (also a stage name… real name Gary Lee Weinrib) parents were Holocaust survivors from Poland.

Weird that nobody here has mentioned David Lee Roth yet. Of all the Jewish rockstars that people are gonna name, he certainly fits the American rockstar archetype better than any of them. I would also point to Geddy Lee, who, while very much NOT a stereotypical rockstar, is the frontman of an incredibly beloved legacy rock act. And for a more modern example, David Draiman from the hugely popular metal band Disturbed is extremely open and proud about his Jewishness. Or how about Joey Ramone, Lou Reed, Adam Duritz from Counting Crows, Perry Farrell (born Peretz Bernstein) from Jane’s Addiction, Lenny Kravitz (half-Jewish through his father, but I’m sure Jews will be glad to claim him), Eddie Money, and Dee Snider (Jewish father, but raised very Christian).

Some other more minor figures off the top of my head would be Scott Ian (guitarist for Anthrax), Marty Friedman (long-time lead guitarist for Megadeth), Joey Kramer (drummer for Aerosmith), Robby Krieger (guitarist for The Doors), Chuck Schuldiner (pioneering death metal vocalist and guitarist) and Adam Lambert, the former American Idol contestant who briefly toured as the frontman for Queen.

Suzanna Huffs of the Bangles. Jewish Rock Star and smoking hot – an outlier twofer.

Or maybe rock’n’roll isn’t subversive enough. Maybe really subversive Jews go into porn or finance?

David Lee Roth
Alice Cooper

Elvis was one-eighth Jewish, and simply “Jewish” as a matter of traditional Jewish law.

Never heard of Elliot smith? listen to his top songs, I’m telling ya! Your life will be the richer for it.

Joe was 1/8th Jewish but it’s more interesting he was 1/4th Armenian whose father was born in Lucknow in what’s now Pakistan like a Kipling hero

Strummer’s dad, Ronald Ralph Mellor, MBE worked with the railway company in India but later became a British diplomat, after India became independent. Like Kipling’s boy hero, Kim, he did have a connection with Lucknow, which Kipling had Kim refer to as Nucklao, in the local dialect.

It’s still in India, several hundred miles from the border with Pakistan. Kipling had Kim attend a boarding school in Lucknow, modeled on the real life La Martinere boarding school in that town, which is where Strummer’s dad would likely have studied.

Unlike in the colonies closer to home, where parents in West Africa or the Caribbean simply sent their children to the UK, the Brits set up a network of fancy boarding schools in India, and also in far away Australia and New Zealand for their officials’ children.

Jews run the show. Anent your recent blurb on Brian Wilson’s birthday– after Wilson began to experience severe mental problems and his creativity ceased, father Murry sold the rights to his son’s music to Jerry Moss’s Irving Almo Music operation. Brian was mentally unable to consent (according to a later court ruling), which was the subject of a subsequent suit.

Story has it that Abraham Somers, who negotiated the deal to transfer ownership and was the Beach Boys attorney at the time, was also on the Irving Music payroll, as a director.

[BTW, Jerry Moss (who co-founded A&M records with Herb Alpert) was big in horse racing, and was Commissioner of the California Horse Racing Board. His wife was a board member of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. These people are everywhere, but often ‘behind the scenes’ and active in ways you don’t at first suspect.]

Later, when Brian was in the process of ‘recovery’, his Jewish ‘doctor’ Gene Landy convinced patient Brian to let him be his manager, with song writing and royalty credits.

Recently, the Beach Boys catalog was sold to another Irving, Irving Azloff. You can’t make this stuff up.

Dude! I was just rocking some Lee Aaron to Celebrate Canada Day — I can’t vouch for her adult lifestyle but Canada’s Metal Queen was born Jewish (Aaron is a stage name, I think she was born Karen Greening. She lacks the classic Jewish schnoz due to a teen-age auto accident).

The only question is, which inane 80s vid to pick here — I like this one where the alpha male is in a prison cell but still gets to have a motorcycle

Google also lists Lesley Gore — actually Lesley Sue Goldstein!

The relevant Wikipedia entry lists 162 Jewish rockers, of which I (Jewish, mid-level rock nerd) recognized maybe 50. I’d probably recognize 500-1000 rockers by name overall, so this suggests the incidence at 5-10% once you get below the top 50.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Jewish_rock_musicians

David Lee Roth and the women from the Bangles were Jewish I think, I may be able to remember some more if I think about it, but yes, Jews are underrepresented compared to a lot of other fields. I guess they were more inclined to going off to Broadway or Hollywood.

David Lee Roth is Jewish, right? And Huey Lewis?

Lou Reed, most famous for Walk on the Wild Side but also wrote “Good Evening Mr. Waldheim”:

Good evening Mr.Waldheim
And Pontiff how are you?
You have so much in common
In the things you do

And here comes Jesse Jackson
He talks of Common Ground
Does that Common Ground include me
Or is it just a sound?

A sound that shakes
Oh Jesse, you must watch the sounds you make
A sound that quakes
There are fears that still reverberate

Jesse you say Common Ground
Does that include the PLO?
What about people right here right now
Who fought for you not so long ago?

The words that flow so freely
falling dancing from your lips
I hope that you don’t cheapen them
with a racist slip

Oh Common Ground
Is Common Ground a word or just a sound?
Common Ground
Remember those civil rights workers buried in the ground

If I ran for President
And once was a member of the Klan
Wouldn’t you call me on it
The way I call you on Farrakhan

And Pontiff, pretty Pontiff
Can anyone shake your hand?
Or is it just that you like uniforms
And someone kissing your hand

Or is it true
The Common Ground for me includes you too?
Oh, oh, is it true
The Common Ground for me includes you too?

Good evening Mr.Waldheim
Pontiff how are you?
As you both stroll through the woods at night
I’m thinking thoughts of you

And Jesse you’re inside my thoughts
As the rhythmic words subside
My Common Ground invites you in
Or do you prefer to wait outside

Or is it true
The Common Ground for me is without you
Or is it true
The Common Ground for me is without you
Oh is it true
There’s no Ground Common enough for me and you

David Lee Roth is Jewish and definitely a rock star by any definition.

And nowadays he actually looks the part of both, which it pretty funny to watch. He’s like a little bald headed near-retirement dentist prancing around on stage.

I was surprised to find that Iggy Pop and Bruce Springsteen aren’t,

I don’t know anything about Iggy Pop, but a little about Springsteen, who is from the area where I grew up. Nothing about Springsteen would indicate that he has any Jewish blood. His background was blue collar (although perhaps not as blue collar as he makes himself out to be) and his appearance is a sort of generic European – a lot of Jews look like this but so do millions and millions of Europeans. Springsteen is 1/2 Italian and Jews and Italians can often pass for each other (lots of movie roles where Jews were cast as Italians or vice versa).

Not coincidentally, Ashkenazi Jews are believed to be a mix population with a Middle Eastern male line and an Italian or Greek female line, likely founded by single Jewish men who settled in Rome. (These kind of Mestizo populations are common throughout the world – for example most Mexicans are Spanish in the male line and Indian in the female line).

Interestingly, the Springsteens came to New Amsterdam in the 17th century, which makes him super-old stock on his father’s side. Unlike some of the New Amsterdam settlers such as the Vanderbilts, the Springsteens didn’t do very well – Bruce’s father was a bus driver.

I love Joe Strummer, but there’s no Clash without Mick Jones. They tried, under the influence of their (Jewish) manager: it was dismal.

Eric Bloom and Buck Dharma (Donald Roeser) from Blue Oyster Cult are Jews. Buck is arguably the best rock guitarist of all time. They are still touring after how many years and how many albums? Nobody even knows.

I’d assume it’s harder to take advantage of them. The jewish managers want rock stars they can really exploit.

Joey Ramone was Jewish. A non-Jew could not write the lyrics he wrote. Just my opinion of course. He had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in a high degree, poor fellow (not sure that had any bearing on his art, but who knows?).
Blue Oyster Cult, a relatively obscure band, had a Jewish vocalist and at least one other Jewish member. The songs were written by two Jews who were not band performers. Again, you can spot the Jewishness instantly, but you can always say I’m prejudiced, though not negatively.
Lou Reed, of course, was Jewish. This is another case where I couldn’t figure a non-Jew producing his kind of music and life choices (don’t ask me why). I am not a big fan, but his Velvet Underground phase was brilliant (due also to the contribution of non-Jew John Cale).
If you thought that Iggy Pop or Bruce Springsteen were (even partly) Jewish then your Jewdar is completely off. Or perhaps you have no Jewdar and just go by the presence of “steen” or “berg” in a person’s last name.
Here is an article with several names (it focuses on hard rock):
https://www.ranker.com/list/headbanging-hebrews/music-lover

You forgot Joey Ramone, Getty Lee, Lou Reed the following is from Wikipedia, “his father had changed his name from Rabinowitz to Reed. Reed said that although he was Jewish, his “real god was rock ‘n’ roll“. and David Lee Roth. Manfred Mann was popular in the 60’s (Manfred Sepse Lubowitz). The following is from Wikipedia. “Lubowitz was raised in a Lithuanian-Jewish family in Johannesburg, the son of David Lubowitz and Alma Cohen.” I think there might be more than you realize.

Thanks for the shout out Steve!

Mick Jones of The Clash is of course half Jewish. The best Jewish rocker other than Dylan is probably Lou Reed of The Velvet Underground fame. Great body of work and highly influential.

Jewish managers who stole from their acts is a good topic for another day.

My bad. Eric is the only Jewish member of BOC.

You have to kidding:

Bob Dylan
Neil Diamond
David Lee Roth – Van Halen
Ric Ocasik – The Cars
Simon and Garfunkel
The moronic Clash frontman
David Draiman – Disturbed
Geddy Lee – Rush
Steven Alder – GnR
Even Seinfeld – Biohazard (also a former porn star)
Marty Friedman – Megadeth
Dan Spietz, Scott Ion and Dan Lilker – Anthrax
Daisy Berkowitz – Marilyn Manson
Eric Bloom – BOC
Robert Bourdon and Brad Delson – Linkin Park
David Rashbaum – Bon Jovi
Perry Ferrell – Jane’s Addiction and creator of the massive globohomo music monstrosity known as Lollapallooza
Hillel Slovak – RHCP’s original guitarist – died of a heroin OD
Dee Snyder and JJ French of Twisted Sister
Traci Guns – LA Guns
Max Weinberg – drummer for Bruce Springsteen
Jay Weinberg – drummer for Slipknot and son of Max Weinberg (there’s no such thing as jewish nepotism)
Michael Portney – Dream Theater
Stanley Bert Eisen and Chaim Witz of KISS
All three members of The Beastie Boys
Rick Rubin – one of the most sought after rock record producer’s of the 80’s and 90’s.

Ok I’m bored – but the premise is laughable false.

I’m not even getting into the more mainstream pop because I don’t care enough about it to know, but every one mentioned above achieved at least some long standing success as a rock star.

Agree with Steve’s general point here, but naturally trying to think of some exceptions and some omissions from this list. It seems Rock n’ Roll is done best by the Scots/Irish folk, on the whole.

As for Jews, David Lee Roth was more or less the epitome of a rock star when I was a kid. Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground were rock stars.

As for the list, no Kinks? To me that invalidates the list, but the term ‘rock star’ is a little undefined anyway. Is Chuck Berry a ‘rock star?’ Tina Turner? Madonna? Liam but not Noel Gallagher? I can see that leading to fisticuffs.

AC/DC not on the list? Black Sabbath? Davos house band U2?

The Grateful Dead, who greatest American band of all time?

This isn’t a list of the best rock bands, obviously, but I do think we have to define our terms here.

I’m sorry It should read “Steve has to be kidding.”

Steve trying to cut into Anglin’s racket. Beneath him, but I love it!

Rather than offering financial advice and maximizing his clients’ income, as a business manager normally would, Allan Klein set up what he called “buy/sell agreements” where a company that Klein owned became an intermediary between his client and the record label, owning the rights to the music, manufacturing the records, selling them to the record label, and paying royalties and cash advances to the client. Although Klein greatly increased his clients’ incomes, he also enriched himself, sometimes without his clients’ knowledge. (The Rolling Stones’ \$1.25 million advance from the Decca Records label in 1965, for example, was deposited into a company that Klein had established, and the fine print of the contract did not require Klein to release it for 20 years.) Klein’s involvement with both the Beatles and Rolling Stones would lead to years of litigation and, specifically for the Rolling Stones, accusations from the group that Klein had withheld royalty payments, stolen the publishing rights to their songs, and neglected to pay their taxes for five years; this last had necessitated their French “exile” in 1971.

In 1966, Don Arden and a squad of “minders” turned up at impresario Robert Stigwood’s office to “teach him a lesson” for daring to discuss a change of management with Small Faces, which became one of the most notorious incidents from the 1960s British pop business. Arden reportedly threatened to throw Stigwood out of the window if he ever interfered with his business again.

In 1979, investigative reporter Roger Cook used the dispute with Lynsey de Paul to probe into Arden’s controversial management style on BBC Radio 4’s Checkpoint programme. That proved to be a colourful encounter. “When you fight the champion you go 15 rounds, you’ve got to be prepared to go the whole way”, Arden tells Cook. “I’ll take you with one hand strapped up my arse. You’re not a man, you’re a creep.” Arden threatened to break the neck of anyone who talked to Cook in his on-air interview.

In 1986, Arden was arrested for kidnapping and torturing a Jet records accountant named Harshad Patel, whom Arden believed had been embezzling money. Arden’s son, known legally as ‘David Levy’, appeared at the Old Bailey in 1986 for his role in the matter. The incident occurred at the offices at 35 Portland Place. Convicted, Levy spent several months in an open prison. Arden, tried separately on related charges, was acquitted.

Geddy Lee

Nothing about Springsteen would indicate that he has any Jewish blood.

Springsteen looked somewhat Jewish when he was younger, but even more so now that he is older, I’d say.

Joey Ramone!

“Brits set up a network of fancy boarding schools in India, and also in far away Australia and New Zealand for their officials’ children.”

I was in Melbourne and mentioned to a friend out there the Anglican private school Geelong Grammar, founded in the 1850s and whose alumni include Prince Charles and Rupert Murdoch.

“Boris Johnson did a teaching assistant stint there in his gap year”

It is interesting to contrast Rock music with the previous generation of jazz swing artists. Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman had the biggest bands and Jews dominated song writing.

I guess he’s just pointing out that Jews don’t punch above their weight quite as much in this role as they do in other ones in entertainment. But yeah, even in this area they still do punch somewhat above their demographic weight and are certainly not underrepresented. So bit of a nothingburger of a post, really. But hey, it’s a sleepy Sunday, so why not.

Dharma isn’t even the best Jewish guitarist. That would be Mark Knopfler.

10cc is (was?) 75% Jewish: Graham Gouldman, Lol Creme, Kevin Godley. Eric Stewart was the token goy. As a teenager, Gouldman wrote a helluva lot of hits for other Brits in the 1960s: “Bus Stop”, “Listen People”, “No Milk Today”, “For Your Love”, “Heart Full of Soul”, “Look Through Any Window”. As a temporary Mindbender, he wrote the B-side to “The Game of Love”.

Note that these are in minor keys, which he picked up from is cantor, and made his work stick out.

Marc Bolan of T Rex was half-Jewish. “Bang a Gong” may have come from that side, but “Ride a White Swan” is the most druidic hit song by anybody.

And how can we forget Mama Cass?

Everyone forgets Tommy Ramone, born Tomas Erdelyi in Budapest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Ramone

Truth be told, he was the manager, but they couldn’t find a drummer.

Jack Black is half Jewish and is definitely a partial rocker. He starred in a movie called School of Rock.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=TExoc0MG4I4

This franchise made a lot on the broadway remake and the TV adaptation.

Interestingly, the Springsteens came to New Amsterdam in the 17th century…

Vincent Youmans, who wrote “Tea for Two”, is a descendant of the Springstead branch of the Springsteen clan. I haven’t found the exact connection, but he and Bruce are distant cousins.

Youmans and Irving Caesar were the Jimmy Van Heusen-and-Sammy Kahn of their day– WASP composer, Jewish lyricist. Well, one of them– there was also Isham Jones (well, Welsh) and Gus Kahn of “It Had to Be You”, which Johnny Mercer called America’s best pop song, and, a little later, Hoagy Carmichael and Frank Loesser.

Horns. We have horns. Fingers growing out of shoulder blades is Episcopalian.

And once we’re on the subject, will no one point out that Elvis Presley was (IS!) halachicly Jewish?

Ah shondah!

Also screw Elvis, despite his claims to the contrary I know his cousin (or at least someone who claims to be!) and Veird Al Yankelovitch is a memba of da twibe.

Speaking of — did Alec Baldwin not go through with interviewing Woody Allen? It was all over Google News when he announced it but I haven’t seen anything since. Is that because the massive amounts of wailing and teeth gnashing successfully canceled it or because they had no effect in canceling it and don’t want people to know that they can simply be ignored?

There is Peter Green (Greenbaum,) the first lead guitarist for Fleetwood Mac. I saw him over 25 years ago at a small club in Chicago. I cannot describe how good he was! Mick Bloomfield Of the Butterfield Blues band is another.Then there is Charlie Watts, all Jewish. Keith Richards is a quarter Jewish. I know some guys in Blue Oyster cult and Blondie is Jewish.
Then there is Leonard Cohan. The story was that the Nobel prize committee want to award Leonard Cohan for literature. A good choice. They found out that Cohen had terminal cancer, so they gave it to Dylan as a default.

The King of Rock is someone who is rumored to have been Jewish, partly Jewish, a Crypto Jew, a shabbos goy or Jewish by association. A perennial question the Jewish press loves tackling is Was Elvis Jewish?

From the Jewish News:

Elvis Presley was Jewish? A Grave Marker Locked Away for 4 Decades Confirms It
By JN Contributor 07/14/2021

Stored in the Graceland archives since 1977, Gladys Presley’s headstone features a Star of David that holds the family’s Jewish story.

The large crate sat unopened in a 20,000-square-foot warehouse here for more than four decades, concealing a little-known fact about one of America’s cultural icons.

https://thejewishnews.com/2021/07/14/elvis-presley-was-jewish-a-grave-marker-locked-away-for-4-decades-confirms-it/

“What am I, chopped liver?”

— Donnie Iris

“Bob [Dylan] is also the ultimate sui generis rock star, and the best Jewish rock star by a country mile.”

1. Bob Dylan was not a rock star; he was a folk and country star. His brief foray into rock (eg, Like a Rolling Stone) is now unlistenable. His 2 best albums, Blonde on Blonde and Nashville Skyline, did not deal with the rock genre. Me, I prefer Leonard Cohen in this category

2. therefore the greatest Jewish rock star and musical innovator was Lou Reed (and people are still listening to Reed’s work, unlike Dylan)

Mega-hottie Susannah Hoffs of The Bangles. Here’s a smokin’ live performance from her solo years. Her shy/bold, drunk-on-sex 20 second spoken intro is a mini-masterpiece in its own right.

lol gentile concern-trolling. i mean, is this for real?

besides the huge obvious ones, how about:

warren zevon (half)
donald fagen/walter becker
perry farrell
mike bloomfield/al kooper
dave mustaine (jewish mother)
david lee roth / sammy hagar
fucking slash lol
peter green (fleetwood mac)
scott ian (anthrax)
adam horovitz / adam yauch
jonathan richman
christ stein (blondie)
tom verlaine (nee, miller), richard hell (nee, myers)
the ramones / the dictators / the circle jerks
gene ween
dave berman, yo

Drake is half Jewish and makes no secret of that. He is one of the best selling rappers of all time:

Peter Green , the great guitarist of the original Fleetwood Mac, who wrote Black Magic Woman was Jewish. Born in London, his last name was originally Greenbaum.

Is Geddy Lee on that Wikipedia list of Jewish rockers? If he’s not then it’s time to take a hammer to your computer.

Geddy Lee, Rush

Neil Schons, Journey guitarist – looks the part. Great, underrated guitarist, BTW.

I dunno. Are Joel and Diamond (let alone Nyro, King, and both Simons) strictly speaking “rock.” performers? To me they are more pop than rock (maybe “soft rock”). Even though every one of them is talented “New York State of Mind”, “Sweet Caroline”, “It’s Too Late” etc. are all nice songs–I like all three of them–but don’t ring the ol’ chimes the way Chuck Berry did with “Maybelline” and “Roll Over Beethoven” or the Stones did with “Satisfaction” and “Street Fighting Man.”

Then again, I guess it depends upon one’s point of view.

Kinky Friedman is sort of Rock Adjacent.

Guns N’ Roses’ accountant is Jewish. His name is Richard Feldstein and his son’s name is Jonah Hill Feldstein.

Bruce Springsteen may not be Jewish but his drummer Max Weinberg is. Max also led the band for Conan O’Brien for many years, but I don’t know if he qualifies as a rock star per se. I’m not sure if Billy Joel qualifies either.

Jon Bauman from Sha Na Na played a rock star but probably wasn’t one himself. Andrew Dice Clay was the first rock star/comedian.

Interesting list. I didn’t realize Danny Elfman was Jewish. But they seem to have left out the Beastie Boys, though.

I’m not sure if Billy Joel qualifies either.

Really? Really???

It’s a fair question what particular music qualifies as “rock,” which is why I thought Paul Simon might be questionable, but there’s no doubt that much of Billy Joel’s music is rock.

Lots of Jewish rock stars. David lee Roth of Van Halen, teddy lee of rush, several people of blue oyster cult(where would we be without Godzilla?!), billy Joel, Neil diamond, the chief members of the Cars, Todd scholtz of Boston(who wrote all the songs and music), I think some members of the Doors, bob Dylan of course, if you would count that as rock, but then you’d have to add Leonard Cohen. Simon and Garfunkel, Beastie boys!! Hellloooo??

This isn’t a list of the best rock bands, obviously, but I do think we have to define our terms here.

I would be comfortable using the list of inductees of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, although this might be overinclusive since Leonard Cohen is on the list. Art Garfunkel was inducted as a member of Simon & Garfunkel but I’m not sure if he is a rock star per se either.

He looks like a lot of old white men of any different number of ethnicities.

One word for you: Jefferson Airplane

Is that more than one word, OK

Marty Balin, Jorma Kaukonen, Spencer Dryden of the Airplane
Micky Hart of the Dead
Lou Reed
Randy California
Blue Oyster Cult

I am a fan of Billy Joel and I have seen him in concert multiple times. He was inducted into the R&RHOF in 1999 with Paul McCartney, Del Shannon, and Bruce Springsteen. However, in my mind he is not a rock star while the other three are. He is more of a Dusty Springfield type, who was also a 1999 inductee.

I wrote, about Blue Oyster Cult:

at least one other Jewish member.

Not sure where I got that from, and it’s apparently not true, as others have pointed out. It seems Eric Bloom is the only Jewish member (but I was right about the two non-members who wrote the songs being Jewish).

Thanks for this Paleo. I had not seen it before. She exudes the “it factor”. I look at her and other singers like Debra Harry and Pat Benatar and think what a great time to have grown-up.

Keith Reid, Procol Harum’s great lyricist, is Jewish. I believe he’s pictured with the band on the Grand Hotel album cover and maybe others, rather than remaining anonymously behind the scenes

What’s interesting is not the dearth of Jewish pop superstars but the question of why the didn’t play rocknroll outright. They tend to be electric folksingers rather than punkers for example, or show toonish novelty acts like Billy Joel randy Newman. Lou Reed is the big exception but his stuff tends to be more verbal and story oriented. Dire Straits too

“Joey Ramone was Jewish. A non-Jew could not write the lyrics he wrote.”

Actually Dee Dee wrote a lot of their best songs, created most of the cartoonish aesthetic, and was supposed to be the singer, but he kept blowing out his voice. Maybe Dee Dee was Jewish too, I don’t know but I doubt it. I think his real name was Doug something. And of course they are nothing without Johnny’s very goyish guitar. Joey and Dee Dee’s lyrics wouldn’t sound like much without the buzz-saw guitar.

Steely Dan very Jewish.

Graham Parker Jewish?

Paul Anka and Neil Sedaka.

Leslie Gore Jewish?

Recently, Amy Swinehouse was big before she croaked.

One thing for sure, rock music got less witty and cerebral over the years.

Brill Building and the like had Jewish composers who didn’t themselves become stars.

The Jews prefer to be managers of rock stars so that they can steal all of their money. This has happened to almost all rock stars, and it’s almost always their Jew management. Almost every time.

Everyone starts to look Jewish if they get old enough.

Jewish managers who stole from their acts is a good topic for another day.

Shorter title: “Jewish managers”

Steve showing a little bit of music snobbery here, as if David Lee Roth wasn’t one of the biggest rock stars of all time. Van Halen and Diamond Dave were not really worth any acknowledgement or discussion for the guys into new wave and punk, which was clearly Steve’s orientation during the great music explosion from 1950 to 2000.

anybody like Geddy Lee is well out of their purview since actually popular hard rock and metal bands that sell 30 million albums or more aren’t worth any notice to these guys. strangely, their interest in the best selling, most popular music seems to end in the mid 70s, so that they can go on and on forever about the Beatles and the Stones (but rarely about Zeppelin, Sabbath, Floyd, Purple, Boston, Aerosmith, noses turned up at that stuff), but as soon as the biggest stadium bands in history start showing up (AC/DC, Metallica, Van Halen, Def Leppard) they check out of the discussion and start talking about The Clash, Talking Heads, and The Cars.

it’s possible David Draiman is one of the most well known currently active guys (father was an actual rabbi) but anything like Disturbed is on the Robert Christgau permanent do not listen list. Perry Ferrell was probably the most well known during the grunge era. Bob Geldolf most well known promoter during the Live Aid era, Mark Knopfler most well known player during that era.

I am a fan of Billy Joel and I have seen him in concert multiple times.

He had one great song and some enjoyable ones. Great one is “Just the Way You Are”.

“Uptown Girl” is a fun variation on what Four Seasons did best.

But his later stuff is just terrible, especially “We can start a fire”.

He really belongs in Broadway and is closer in sensibility to Streisand, also true of Neil Diamond, who was far more talented.

PS. Gary Lewis, son of Jerry, was Jewish. How about Al Kooper of Blood, Sweat, and Tears?

Mike Bloomfield learned to play the blues pretty good.

I think the Dead and Phish(awful) had some Jewish guys.

How many big homos are there in rock?

How bout Dee Snyder from Twisted Sister? The singer from The Scorpions I believe is half Jewish. One or two members of The Cars might be. The core members of Kiss were a Protestant, a Catholic and two Jews.

Steely Dan, Lou reed, mama cass Elliot, the bangles—I’m ashamed of myself for ommitting

Bad police shooting in Akron. Video coming out today.

Stay safe everyone.

Alanis Morissette is at least part Jewish and she was a pretty big star for a few years. Not sure she counts as a rocker.

Likewise Perry Farrell of Jane’s Addiction. He may have been faking his way to rock stardom though. JA as band though rocked hard for the short time that they were together.

Pretty funny. Sedaka comes on like a proto-peeweeherman with Nerd Pop, and the reaction of the guys and girls in the audience is telling. Guys are like, “who is this geek?” and feel uncomfortable and the girls, though not exactly excited, feel protective.

What Sedaka had in common with Dylan(and other Jews) was the sheer chutzpah of it all. That HE could be a pop star though he didn’t have the voice, looks, and moves. But by sheer will and inspiration, he made it work, as did Dylan. That sense of oddity was part of their freakshow appeal.

Even if no more Jewish rock stars, they will always have this.

Regarding Billy Joel: It’s still rock and roll to me.

Let’s not forget Chris Stein of Blondie fame.

Jews seem to make up a disproportionate share of non-star rock VIPs

the Leiber/Stoller writing team would appear in any list of the most important people in rock history.

Phil Spector somehow pulled off being simultaneously the most Jewish and least Jewish guy imaginable.

The Beatles broke up because Paul tried and failed to take over Epstein’s role following the latter’s death.

A lot of the punk movement was Jewish, eg Hilly Kristal, the owner of CBGB

No mention of that favorite of artists and nerds, Frank Zappa? The man was a fave of mine and an underrated genius. And since we’re getting obscure, wasn’t The Knack (My Sharona) a Jewish band? Lead singer Doug Fieger was 1/2 at least. To get really obscure, I’ll add Minnesota’s “Lipps Inc” who created that most annoying of earworms “Funkytown.”

Strangely enough ‘Mick Jones’ – what a distinctly unjewish name! – the self styled Sandinista, (with a big house in Surrey), is the cousin of the up and coming UK Conservative MP and minister, Grant Shapps.

the women from the Bangles were Jewish I think

The Peterson sisters are not Jewish, but Susanna Hoffs certainly is. Paleo Retiree posted an old clip of Susanna, but she is still going strong at 63.

ctrl-f, “Geddy”, ctrl-f “Rush”. Nada! WTH is wrong with you people?

I just found out from my son that the Toronto Ultimate Frisbee team is named “Rush”. Excellent! They should be in the top 20 list of bands, or at least 50. That list sounds like it sucks.

BTW, about Billy Joel. Not a rock star? Get out!!

pursuant to standard HBD evaluation of representation in the population, or perhaps more accurately, rate of appearance of major figures, yes, it’s largely correct that jewish people don’t appear at a rate in rock and metal like they do in physics or something like that, let alone other music fields like jazz or rap, or writing studio pop music.

maybe double their rate of the population, if the background population is germanic europeans in general. higher, if it’s slavs, since slavs aren’t that good at music. lower of it’s italians, as italians are good at music. lower still if it’s among the british, who are the most musical people ever. so, even measuring rate of appearance is difficult since the europeans themselves vary so much in music ability.

i ascribe this largely to the fact that they are rarely great players. yes, there have been great players, like Buddy Rich. but they aren’t common among jewish guys. jews are mainly vocalists, so they’re more prominent as annoying crooners in soft rock and jazz. also, jews are pretty uncool, so it would take something special for them to be a proper hard rock music star. 90s rappers liked to rip off jewish musicians – Biggie Smalls’ entire career was practically made from ripping off a great Herb Alpert jazz song from 1979 and making a loop.

Yeah, not sure where Wikipedia draws lines between genres. Beasties made the list for Jewish punk rock. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Jews_in_punk_rock

Hip hop at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Jewish_rappers

What? No David Lee Roth? No Joey Ramone?

Elliott Smith was one of the best songwriters of the 90s and early 2000s, which was a heyday for gloomy white dudes with acoustic guitars writing thoughtful and interesting tunes (think Jeff Tweedy, Jeff Buckley, Ben Gibbard, Ryan Adams, and Conor Oberst).

His melodies and chord structures are complex and hauntingly beautiful. That said, his music is a bit of downer, to put it mildly. I listened to him all the time as a morose teenager in the mid-2000s, but I rarely listen to him anymore. There’s a reason Wes Anderson chose Elliott Smith as the music for Richie Tenenbaum’s attempted suicide scene. And of course there’s Elliott Smith’s incredibly depressing life story as well.

There maybe a definitional problem as what is rock and what is pop which could explain why Paul Simon was left off the rock list ( as were the Everly Brothers who were pretty big in their day). Dionne Warwick and Pet Clark certainly charted enough to be major singers but were they just the vocalists for Burt Bacharach and Tony Hatch who were the real talent? PP&M made a career out of covering Bob Dylan songs and were much better known than Dylan until Like a Rolling Stone. I’m also kind of curious as to why the Dave Clark Five wasn’t on the rock list as they were bigger than the Rolling Stones and gave the Beatles a run for their money for airplay till they just closed up shop and retired and where/what are the Beach Boys if not one of the most famous and biggest selling bands of all time?

“ Of course, there aren’t a lot of Jewish rappers either (other than the Beastie Boys.)”

They were the top white rap act for a decade, and then #2 for another long period after Eminem. There’s a half jewish Canadian mulatto rapper named Drake is probably in the top ten rappers of the past 10-15 years.

“ Jews’ divergence from the Western Europe ideal limited their ability to take jobs primarily depending on charisma.”

I don’t think that’s it, rock stars wear crazy makeup and clothing and tend to be short, skinny, and energetic.

Rock star is a pretty bad profession. Sure a few people become superstars, hut lots of hit musicians you’ve heard of never made much money. Your first two albums you get little from since you ate unknown and lack leverage. Most rock acts don’t last that long.

Jews may be more aware of this and push their talented and gregarious kids into safer parts of show-business like acting and production.

ctrl-f, “Geddy”, ctrl-f “Rush”. Nada! WTH is wrong with you people?

It’s up there; it’s just misspelled.

Read more, write less! Free advice.

“ Note that these are in minor keys, which he picked up from is cantor, and made his work stick out.”

Very interesting. I like those songs, and they do have a common feel. But the Hollies and Yardbirds were so talented they didn’t necessarily need good songwriting.

Paul Stanley of KISS. Born Stanley Eisen. Had a nice raspy voice in his prime, great falsetto on one of their hits, “I was made for loving you baby”.
The band The Black Crowes (solid Rock Band) had the Gorman Brothers guitarists and vocalist Chris Robinson was Jewish also.
Waddy Wachtel and Andrew Gold, guitarists over the years for Linda Ronstadt and Stevie Nicks were Jewish.
Donald Fagan and the late Walter Becker of Steeley Dan, who were in radio rotation on rock stations, were also Jewish and makers of some very good hit songs. Deacon Frey was named after one of Glen Frey’s favorite Steeley Dan tunes (mine too), Deacon Blues.

Wish it was 1978 and we had Jimmy Carter again. So much better than the kompromised konfounded klutz we have now.

Parental pressure probably doesn’t figure strongly in too many “rock star” career decisions.

Well, there’s…
Al Kooper (born Al Kuperschmidt) – early career as guitarist for the Royal Teens; wrote the Gary Lewis & the Playboys hit This Diamond Ring; came up with and played the signature organ riff on Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone (there’s a wonderful backstory to that one) and was in Dylan’s band for the (in)famous Newport Folk Festival when Dylan “went electric”; founder and main songwriter for famed New York band the Blues Project; founder of Blood, Sweat, and Tears, produced and wrote much of the first album, then was kicked out of the band that he founded before the album’s release; did the brilliant Super/Session album with guitarist extraordinaire Mike Bloomfield (side 1) and other guitarist extraordinaire Steve Stills (side 2); discovered Lynyrd Skynyrd, signed them, and produced their first three albums; and much, much more. His autobiography Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards: Memoirs of a Rock ‘n’ Roll Survivor is a classic and thoroughly enjoyable.

And there are…
Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein, and Richard Gottehrer, an early-‘60s songwriting and production team (e.g., “My Boyfriend’s Back” for the Angels) who took note of the British Invasion and set themselves up as the Strangeloves, ostensibly “three brothers named Giles, Miles, and Niles Strange, who were raised on an Australian sheep farm.” They had some hits – Cara-Lin, I Gotta Dance, Night-Time (later covered by the J. Geils Band), and I Want Candy (covered later by Bow Wow Wow).

To paraphrase Lenny Bruce, if you’re from New Jersey, even if you’re Gentile, you’re Jewish. And if you live in Idaho, even if you’re Jewish, you’re goyishe.

It’s almost as if there weren’t a lot of young Jewish people contemplating a pointless job in a Lucas car horn factory in rapidly deindustrializing Birmingham or something.

Mick Jones was half Jewish (his mother was a Russian Jew)

Their managers and record company execs are the more heavily Jewish ones. Hey, give those guys some credit for bringing you your tunes.

Lots of rap music managers, executives, and producers were Jewish as well. And lots of Jewish rap DJs, instrumentalists, and even rappers going back to the 80s.

Clearly it’s the guilt-inducing Jewish mother, who instills overwhelming guilt into the young boy for making her suffer through loud guitar and band practice. Instead of being a proper “nice Jewish boy,” he is acting as a loud Jewish boy, and this she promptly smothers.

Joey Ramone (née Jeffrey Ross Hyman) was 100% kosher, God bless him

David Lee Roth, yeah. And Alice Cooper… Robbie Robertson was born to a Jewish gangster and a Canadian squaw. Steely Dan. Paul Simon AND Garfunkel. Geddy Lee. Adam Duritz. Lenny Kravitz. Perry Ferrell is a totally indie alt rock rebel, dude, as well as a far-right Jewish Zionist named Peretz Bernstein. “White trash” Pink is a Jewess. Amy Winehouse, of course. The Christian arena-rock-anthemist, Norm Greenbaum was an Orthodox Jew. No, Iggy is not Jewish, but punk has always been heavy on the Jewish side–The Ramones, The Dictators, Lou Reed, Richard Hell, Sylvain Sylvain of The New York Dolls, Blondie’s Chris Stein, fucking terrible late-wave Good Charlotte, Fall Out Boy, NOFX, Sleater-Kinney. Patti Smith yearned to become a Jew, but realized she wasn’t really wanted there. Rap? Yeah, Beastie Boys, 3rd Bass, etc.–Josh Norek of Hip Hop Hoodíos stated that “before Eminem, pretty much the only white rappers were Jewish.” And don’t forget Drake, homie. Uh, Adam Levine? Even Harry Connick is Jewish. It ain’t as evident as Hollywood, but Jews are very OVERrepresented in rock (and its cousins) in relation to their percentage of the population. A true rock and roll front man is a very alpha, goyish archetype, but that didn’t stop them. I could go on and….heyyyyyyyyy, wait a minute, Steve–was this a goddamned troll? Ya got me!

That list is totally lame. They left out:

Eddie Cochran
Chuck Berry
Bo Diddley
The Coasters
James Brown
Johnny Otis
Everly Brothers
Jerry Lee Lewis
Hank Ballard & The Midnighters
Ritchie Valens
Jackie Wilson
Carl Perkins
The Diamonds
Dion and the Belmonts
The Shirelles
The Isley Brothers

Little Richard !!!

and we haven’t even gotten to the 1960’s yet; or is “Summertime Blues” not “rock?” No Jews though.

And how can we forget Mama Cass?

After 1968, her repertoire was popular, but not rock. Billy Joel also is not properly classified as a rock musician, though he was a Top 40 performer at his peak. Bob Dylan is more in the realm of folk-acoustic than rock.

While we’re at it, this is a stupid topic.

Weird.

I think that 5-10% is a very good representation.

Springsteen looked somewhat Jewish when he was younger, but even more so now that he is older, I’d say.

That picture of Springsteen makes him look like Matthew McConaughey’s older brother.

Springsteen is a Dutch name, I believe. He’s a gentile, as far as anyone knows.

Andrew Dice Clay was the first rock star/comedian.

Andrew Dice Clay is not a comedian.

That’s a book that needs to be written. All of the thieving rock star managers. I think it was Gene Simmons who told a story about a prospective management team talking in Hebrew about how they were going to ‘gut him like fish’, only to find out he understood.

Nobody’s mentioned J.E.W. (Jimmy Eat World).

I have read that Elfman was primarily just a frontman, and that the musical genius behind Oingo Boingo was the lead guitarist, Steve Bartek. I don’t know if this is true or not. But given that Elfman is such an obnoxious weirdo, it’s easy to believe the worst of him. Boingo was a good band. Elfman’s film music is garbage.

When I saw Adam Levine on a Superbowl half time show with his buff tattooed body it made me less proud to be Jewish. I realize that’s the way rock stars (yeah I know his music is pop not rock) are supposed to look these days. Still traditionally Jewish men were more bookish or nerdish looking than hyper masculine. I liked Woody Allen being representative of Jewish masculinity, not Adam Levine.

Jews are exceptionally talented in some fields (physics, finance) but not in others (music, painting). The list of great Jewish classical composers, for example, is less than awe-inspiring.

They are only about 0.2% of humanity. Statistically, something would definitely be up if they were dominant across the board. Offhand, whereas my idea of a good time is building a new cold frame, I think Jews really are most comfortable manipulating concepts. The Tsars were able to get German gentiles to colonize new lands easily enough — but Jews fought like mad cats to avoid becoming farmers.

Etc. They’re strong in some areas — not in all.

Tom Robinson of the the Tom Robinson Band.

Trailblazers of the late 1970s “New Wave” movement in the UK – a term invented by music journos to describe a whole raft of artists who came after the Sex Pistols – edgy but not *too* edgy, a sort of punk lite which would be acceptable to mom.

She is a pop/hip hop star (rock isn’t very popular these days) but one of the top charting artists of this era, Doja Cat, is half Jewish.

The Bangles were the most talented female rock performers. And rather nice to look at too.

A lesser known song by them, in the surf-rock style – Bitchin Summer:

In the Wimp Rock subgenre, what about the Lovin’ Spoonful?

Geddy Lee is more niche than we Rush fans like to admit. I once met a woman who had sat next to Geddy at a dinner party – some mutual friend. She had no idea who he was, and when he told her he was a musician she replied “well, I hope that’s working out for you.”

Danny Elfman was the founder of Oingo Boingo. They were a sort of artsy pop group but isn’t all music since Buddy Holly basically rock and roll?

I remember Keith Richards saying a few decades ago how he knew Alan Klein ripped off The Rolling Stones, but Richards said he looked back on it as the cost of an education. IOW no hard feelings.

Louise Post and Jim Shapiro (of Veruca Salt) are also Jewish.

☮

Since I posted, Steve’s released another hundred posts and maybe 40 of them mention Geddy Lee. 90 of them mention David Lee Roth.

Steve’s figured out how to trigger hundreds of responses with a post like this one, combining two favorite topics.

We have about 100 of the ‘chosen’ contributing so far, it would seem, and the day is still young.

Blackrock pays better than hard rock.

Are there still Jewish giants in comedy?

Jewish Male aggression of Norman Mailer, Philip Roth, Harvey Weistein, Ron Jeremy, and Mel Brooks seem kinda rare these days.

Don’t rock the boat that is now ours?

Thanks, that’s really interesting.

Elvis’ maternal great-great-grandmother was a Jewish woman named Nancy Burdine…. The Presleys once lived in an apartment directly below the family of Rabbi Alfred Fruchter, the first principal of the Memphis Hebrew Academy. The rabbi’s son, Harold, said that Elvis actually served as the Fruchters’ “Shabbos goy,” a non-Jew who performs household tasks for observant Jews that are normally forbidden on the Jewish Sabbath…. Elvis put a Star of David on his mother’s headstone.

What Sedaka had in common with Dylan(and other Jews) was the sheer chutzpah of it all. That HE could be a pop star though he didn’t have the voice, looks, and moves. But by sheer will and inspiration, he made it work, as did Dylan

Right, they also enjoyed the Privilege Which Must Not Be Named.

Amazed that Madonna is not jewish.

Not a popular Jewish female name. But the famous one, was.

Not rock but…

I did. Master musician. His vocals are an acquired taste but gets props for properly enunciating Neil Peart’s literary lyrics.

I was just musing on this here on my so-far luggage-free (thanks to a transfer in Paris) vacation in Rome yesterday: Looking Glass, a Rutgers U. band who did “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)” were almost certainly mostly Jewish. There are tons of these.

That is a huge, massive hail of bullets from a large number of police killing the reported Jayland Walker in Akron Ohio in the videos, as below.

With the shooting being so dramatic as well as on video, a question is whether there will be both local and nationwide riots in the George Floyd mode … or whether we will now have an impression that the George Floyd – BLM riots had to have been agitated and astroturfed by manipulators, if such a dramatic killing of a black man by massive police gunfire in Akron, does not spark similar disturbances now

Video

NOW – Police have released bodycam footage of the shooting of Jayland Walker in Akron, Ohio.

Walker was unarmed at the time of the shooting, but a gun was found in the car, police says. pic.twitter.com/9oREYZycIo

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) July 3, 2022

or here

Zappa was Italian with some Sicilian Arab ancestry. As far as anyone knows, there isn’t anything Jewish about him.

“Geddy Lee is more niche than we Rush fans like to admit.”

Rush is a niche band. An incredibly successful niche band. But not with the ladies. I’ve been to several Rush concerts: a sea of white male faces. A lot of guys there with their sons. Nary a jackass to be found. Camaraderie fills the air. Great live music experiences. Now that Rush is gone, Tool has become the white male bonding band. Most chix don’t dig Tool either.

Micky Dolenz (Monkees). Whose daughter Amy later displayed in Playboy.

Donald Fagan is Jewish but Walter Becker was not.

“While we’re at it, this is a stupid topic.”

Planet of the Apes? Let’s go Ape!

And of course there’s Elliott Smith’s incredibly depressing life story as well.

There are many questions about his death, whether it was murder or suicide.

Paul Anka is Lebanese, not Jewish.

I was surprised to find out a few years ago that Walter Becker of Steely Dan is not Jewish, unlike Donald Fagan. Another surprise to me was that at least two of the main members of the Hooters are Jewish; their songs come off like they just ordinary working class white guys.

Perhaps the more interesting question is: will rock music last?

Or it will become irrelevant, which is the case with jazz?

https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2019/04/11/is-jazz-dead/

Is Jazz Dead?

Contemporary popular culture caricatures jazz as the music of their grandparents, the intelligentsia and elevators. In 2014, Nielsen reported that jazz garners a whopping 1.4% of music consumption in the United States. Jazz’s most recent and popular representations in “Whiplash” and “La La Land” claim it’s dying. And perhaps, this is true. For most people, jazz is sadly irrelevant. A relic of another day.

I don’t know.

My guess is that some kind of pop-rock music, nice to listen to, will have survived. For instance, you’re working in a garage. You can’t read or watch a movie (anatomically-cognitively impossible)- but you can listen to music & hum. And it is unlikely you’ll listen to classical/concert music. Also, with some exceptions- not Italian belcanto nor French chanson.

Rock music is 60-70 years old. With very exceptions, most of Asia, Latin America, big parts of Europe, Arab world, Africa….. are not into it as something significant.

So I think rock music, in more melodious varieties, will survive, while rock as some kind of culture or even world-view will naturally vanish.

1) There were 37 comments up, and I read through them too. Though iSteve has his reasons for moderation, you won’t see the comments in moderation at times that appear in the order they were submitted later.

2) I write in jest a lot. I wasn’t really mad at the commenters – I just do agree Rush should be up in the list.

3) I don’t need your advice. Thanks, anyway.

4) I just had to learn that your “misspelled” wasn’t misspelt. You learn something new every day.

5) Quit writing to me, a-hole.

Sammy Hagar is British/Italian, not Jewish. David Lee Roth is Jewish, though.

Only an extremely small segment of the American population cares which rock stars are Jewish. In other words, it’s wasted digital ink.

Why so few Jewish rock stars? Good question, in view of the fact Jews are well represented in adjacent fields such as lyric writing and classical music performance.

What talents exactly does it take to be a rock star? What with all the electronic enhancement, do you need much technical prowess?

Matisyahu…

☮

David Lee Roth , the first lead vocalist for Van Halen, is Jewish.
Michael Stipe, lead vocalist for REM, is Jewish.

Hadn’t realized Lou Reed was Jewish. Memorable, haunting lyrics in rock were always a crucial element to make me keep returning to a song, and Reed, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen came close to deserving the label “poets”.

On Steve’s “Bang the Gong (Get It On)” is awesome: here’s Bolan performing on Top of the Pops. I remember the purple Rupert the Bear tee-shirt was popular in the UK.

As far as I can tell, Brian Epstein was an honest manager of the Beatles. Didn’t steal their money. His problem was that he was a novice in the business, and didn’t always get the best deals for his clients.

My wife and I and our teenage children are huge Elliott Smith fans. It doesn’t matter that his songs are a bummer, which they definitely are: great songs are great songs.

“The Moon is a sickle cell / It will kill you in time”

Then in another song: “While the Moon does its division / You’re buried below / And you’re coming up roses” etc.

New New York gun control bill includes beefed-up body armor ban

Albany Democrats want to further restrict the sale of body armor weeks after passing similar legislation that fell short of banning the steel-plated gear used by a racist gunman as he allegedly massacred people at a Buffalo supermarket.

The body armor ban is part of a sweeping gun control package passed by the state Senate on Friday as part of a special session called by Gov. Kathy Hochul following the US Supreme Court striking down century-old restrictions on carrying concealed weapons in the Empire State.

“This will prevent criminals from being more reckless, even more emboldened, and hopefully lessen the damage that these kinds of people will provide because our feeling is that we can’t stop all the shootings,” Assemblyman Jonathan Jacobs (D-Newburgh), the bill’s sponsor, told The Post. “The least we can do is take away the criminals’ protection.”

The state Assembly was expected to pass the legislation and send it to Hochul’s desk later Friday or early Saturday.

Members of law enforcement and the military will receive exemptions from the ban, as will other professions to be designated by the state.

Violators could face up to a year in jail, probation or fines, with additional felony penalties for repeat offenders.

The new law is expected to cause serious collateral damage to the bottom line of businesses like 221B Tactical in Midtown.

“I don’t see any issue with people buying body armor because they have an intention to commit a crime,” 221B co-owner Brad Pedell said Friday. “I think that’s the wrong way to look at it, but as a reseller, what am I going to do? I’m going to obey the law.”

https://nypost.com/2022/07/01/new-new-york-gun-control-bill-includes-beefed-up-body-armor-ban/

LOL. New Yorkers are so stupid that will REELECT every bozo that voted to make them vulnerable to the bullets of criminals and government alike.

Just as stupid as Chicagoans!

“Uptown Girl” is a fun variation on what Four Seasons did best”

Great bit from the most underrated comedy of the last 30 years:

What talents exactly does it take to be a rock star?

To be a Neanderthal.

David Lee Roth was definitely a big rock star at one time, bigger than some on that list. (Iggy Pop is great, but he was never mainstream, at least not until later on when he sold his music for TV commercials.)

Nearly every hair band from the 80s had at least one Italian American in it. The Italians probably had sisters who taught their band mates how to do their hair.

John Bon Jovi was Bonjiovi.
Steven Tyler was Tallarico.
And so on …

In other words, it’s wasted digital ink.

Much like your commenting oeuvre.

Alice Cooper comes from Pentecostal stock. He does have the nose though…

Similar question – besides Tom Jones, who was not a rock star, how many super-popular non-classical musicians in recent generations got married young and stayed married?

It is all about the incentives.

Simon and Garfunkel is more folk-acoustic.

A year after the Columbine massacre the school’s (white) star basketball player hanged himself in his garage. He set “Adam’s Song” by Blink-182 on auto-repeat. When his father came home he found his dead son dangling from a rope with the CD player still blaring.

Not a fan.

How many big homos are there in rock?

Freddie Mercury obviously: bonus Zoroastrian from Zanzibar. Elton John, also obviously. Judas Priest guy: Rob Halford. (A very funny line from the great mini-doc Heavy Metal Parking Lot is a teenage chick exclaiming of Halford: “I’d jump his bones!”) Probably a bunch of other big-time showmen in that mold.

I’m right here, Steve!

Randy Newman is wholly wonderful, but he is a balladeer like Dylan. Neither are rockers.

Lesley Gore had seven hit singles over a four year period and made a modest living touring for decades. She had no children and never had a problem with liquor or drugs, nor any known history of psychiatric hospitalizations. Her estate at the time of her death was worth less than \$100,000. Her father was a capable businessman, but his lawyers evidently did not know how to negotiate with record labels.

In addition to Dee Snyder of Twisted Sister, whom some have already called out as half Jewish, his fellow band mate JJ French is Jewish, and perhaps stereotypically handled the money and business side of the band management.

Many have called out the lasting members of KISS, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons. The latter was so Jewish that the first time he saw a picture of Santa Claus he thought it was a rabbi! Also stereotypically, the two Jewish members of the band have excessively monetized the KISS brand, and shut out the original goyim members, Peter Criss and Ace Frehley. To be fair, the gentile rockers’ drug use had something to do with that too.

French, Snyder, Simmons, and Stanley were all notable in the rock world for being teetotalers (or nearly so), and for being very focused on marketing their bands. So there’s that.

He had one great song and some enjoyable ones. Great one is “Just the Way You Are”.

Disagree. Two or three fine songs, and not that one: “Allentown”, “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant”, and “All About Soul”.

Simon and Garfunkel are “rock” enough for me. Hell, I’d even include Lesley Gore as rock, I’m no stickler. Casey Kasem would probably include them in “The Top 40 Jewish Acts of the Rock Era.”

Just think, if Mama Cass had only shared that ham sandwich with Karen Carpenter, they might both be alive today…

Hey, give those guys some credit for bringing you your tunes.

More like:
Give those guys credit for making it impossible to get your tunes any other way.

There is not now, nor has their ever been, a Jewish rock star. There have, however, been any number of Jewish entrepreneurs who work in the Rock medium.

Gene Simmons was born Chaim Witz in Israel in 1949. If, on the day he was born, you put him in a time machine and sent him to California in 1999, he’d be an app developer today.

Yep, Geddy is on the list. It occurred to me that I might search the comparable Wikipedia list of “rock musicians,” to get an objective denominator for the Jewish percentage (of Wiki-level famous rockers), but they’re broken out by too many subgenres. Maybe Steve wants to take a crack at it!

Nina Hagen

Next to Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, Simon and Garfunkel are the quintessential Jewish Rockers if you can call them that. They did plagiarize some of their music, but not all of it.

Their music served as the backdrop for the thinly veiled Jewish-in-America allegory The Graduate.

Danny Elfman on the other hand…

LMFAO Jewish cope. Is this for real? Idk if Sammy Hagar is jewish btw, he might be one of those gentiles that people assume is Jewish but isn’t actually. Jews trying to get away with Stolen Valor!

No but seriously Jewish achievement in Rock and Roll is a lot lower than Jewish achievement in many other fields. no need to feel all that inferior, just feel a little bit inferior.

Simon and Garfunkel, Carole King, Lou Reed, some of Jefferson Airplane, Beastie Boys. Apparently the great Paul Westerberg is not, despite the name. Bette Midler? Maybe the problem is that Jewish creativity is mostly smart-ass irony and rock takes itself very seriously.

O T is this the place to announce the loss of my social media history in a tragic upstate New York kayak misadventure?

By the way….

One guy correlated the average standardized test (ACT/SAT) scores for various universities against the favorite music artists of those attending said schools, based on social media profiles. This is a visualization of the results:

Great topic for iSteve here.

The Jewdar is strong among commentators.

Some likey, some not.

And boomer rock and roll (and adjacent).

So, without bothering with annoying charts and graphs, looks like plenty o’ Jews in rock, and of course music business in general.

Now let’s look at the string section in major orchestras…

Another take ….

“And don’t forget …”

Warren Zevon. His father, a sketchy guy, a bit of a small-time gangster — was Jewish. I can’t recall from a biography of Zevon that I’d read whether his mother was Jewish. Something about her being a cocktail waitress his father met in a Chicago nightclub. But the Zevon book rests in my LA storage locker and that’s so far away. Anyway, Zevon was an ace lyricist, up there with Dylan, Townshend, Peart, Keenan.

The latter was so Jewish that the first time he saw a picture of Santa Claus he thought it was a rabbi!

That’s just because he was Israeli, not because he was Jewish. I doubt an Egyptian of the same vintage would known any better of Santa.

“In other words, it’s wasted digital ink.”

Depressed because Pride month is over? Take heart, Corvy: Every month is Pride month at the Roy Disney’s Daughter’s Corporation. Btw: Why did you homosexuals allow your mainstreaming effort to be co-opted by the transgender miasma?

I was surprised to find out that Paul Westerberg of the Replacements was Jewish, or rather a Jewish mutt with other strains. He wrote on an old livejournal, “I didn’t start celebrating Christmas until I met the wife, as Westerberg is a very Jewish name and I have a very Jewish nose. I grew up only experiencing Hanukkah and when I hit about 25, she had turned me around.”

One of his sisters, who was a DJ, looks like a female version of Fred Armisen.

“Now let’s look at the string section in major orchestras …”

The Yellow Peril.

I love how one half of this thread is people listing a large number of Jewish rock stars, and the other half is people trying to come up with reasons for the “underrepresentation”.

People really tend to forget Jews are only 2.5% of the US population, less than 1.5% of Canada, and some 0.5% of the UK. And that’s with Haredim included.

There’s no underrepresentation here. Quite the opposite.

Eric Carmen – Russian Jewish immigrant family.

And how can we forget Mama Cass?

After 1968, her repertoire was popular, but not rock.

It’s said that the line “No one’s gettin’ fat ‘cept Mama Cass” in the autobiographical* “Creeque Alley” refers to her making good money singing side gigs at bar mitzvahs while her bandmates were starving. I don’t know if this has been verified, but it’s both more plausible and less insulting than the more literal and common assumption. You’d assume she was singing standards at these events.

The closest to her in style at the time was Elaine “Spanky” McFarlane of Spanky and Our Gang. (At least two popular acts of the late 1960s were named for Buckwheat’s bros.) When the Papas regrouped to tour decades later, it was the perfect touch to invite Spanky to fill Cass’s slot. Laura Mackenzie Phillips took her stepmom’s place.

Strange-but-true fact: Scott Mackenzie was named (by Papa John) after Laura, not vice versa.

While we’re at it, this is a stupid topic.

Granted, but it’s smart-adjacent. Ethnomusicology is a fascinating subject, and wholly legitimate. Steve is just slumming here.

*Is it “autobiographical” if it’s about a group? Is there some Greek plural prefix that’s more appropriate?

I’ve read his autopsy report, and judging from that alone, it was murder.

Beach Boys to Moody Blues to ABBA to Everything but the Girl to Peter White (smooth jazz).

We may have traveled different routes.

All you have to do is listen to the audience cheering from Rush’s live album Exit Stage Left and compare to a live track from pretty much any other popular rock band from that period. You’ll notice the cheering is about 2 octaves lower on ESL.

Tool is sort of a combination of Rush and Pink Floyd in the sense of wild time signatures/arrangements and extended pieces of music that are very repetitious.

Westerberg sounds like a more Scandinavian, probably Swedish name. Not surprising given where he grew up. Kinda like the episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry fires his divorce lawyer Berg after he found out he wasn’t a Jew.

Norman “Friend in Jesus” Greenbaum

Albert Hammond.

Homosexuals are your cup of tea(bagging), my Jewish friend.

I was surprised to find out that Paul Westerberg of the Replacements was Jewish…

So am I. Many -bergs are Scandinavian, and he’s from America’s Scandinavian capital. The Wahlbergs of Massachusetts grew up Catholic, why wouldn’t the Westerbergs of Minnesota?

Westerberg did tell Spin that he was brought up Catholic:

SPIN (to Westerberg; the others are trying to get the bartender’s attention for round two): Are you Jewish?
WESTERBERG: No. I’m mostly Austrian.

SPIN: Are you Catholic?
WESTERBERG: Yeah.

SPIN: That explains a lot. Did you go to mass [sic] when you were a kid?
WESTERBERG: Not religiously.

https://www.spin.com/2019/11/the-replacements-dont-tell-a-soul-april-1989-interview-they-might-be-giants/

Actually, that is just as strange for a Swede as Jewish would be. (The Gyllenhaals and Scarlett Johanssen were brought up Jewish, thanks to their moms.)

Austrian makes sense; a lot of them settled in St Paul. And no one can deny that their race is musical! The only regularly-scheduled orchestral Mass– as a Mass, with babies crying in the pews, not a “performance”– in the US is at the Tyrolean-founded Church of Saint Agnes in St Paul. (26 orchestral, 26 chant, and orchestral at Christmas and Easter.) On the ceiling, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are blond and blue-eyed.

I don’t know who Michael Corcoran is, but in the interview above…

Susanna Hoffs of the Bangles is Jewish. I wonder if Walk Like an Egyptian was written for Anwar Sadat 🤔

Not rock (though he dabbled in it), but since a few other not quite rock musicians have been brought up, I feel like someone should mention Serge Gainsbourg. Not a huge fan of the guy, but feels like he was, if anything, more of a “rock star” than any actual French rock star. I mean, the French rock scene proper was for the most part quite underwhelming, but still.

At one time, knowing very little about him at the time, I had also just assumed that Alain Bashung was at least part Jewish. But the weird surname is a slightly altered Alsace German one from his stepfather, and the not-quite-French look was from his unknown Algerian father. Plenty of Algerian Jews in France, of course, but his father doesn’t appear to have been one.

Quit writing to me, a-hole.

Try this. Quit writing 20,000 words a day on this one blog alone. And quit using it as a vehicle for flogging your own, which absolutely no one cares about. Free advice! HTH.

If ‘Bang the Gong’ is awesome, ‘Spirit In The Sky’ by Norman Greenbaum (a Jewish gospel songwriter believe it or not) is awesomeness squared.

I won’t disagree, but it is also cluelessness squared. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was innocently trying to ape the gospel tradition rather than to mock it. But it included the most un-Christian lyric imaginable:

Never been a sinner, I never sinned…

Bloody hell, that goes against the very core of the faith! I caught that as a slovenly junior high student, so why didn’t everyone else? How poorly catechized were rockers? Again, I can forgive Greenbaum himself, but who was in the studio with him? Who published it? Was everybody stoned?

Some gospel-rockers have adopted, and adapted, the song by rewriting the offending line.

Lots of comments but none seem to have mentioned The Mael brothers of Sparks. Surely they are Jewish?

Also, Sylvain Sylvain and Johnny Thunders (half-Jewish) of New York Dolls.

I had assumed Zappa was jewish well into my 30’s. I think it was because he looked it–in that way many Italians do ala John Torturro–and he had intellectual pretense about him as well as being satirical, and apropos the jewish rock press, he was highly regarded by critics. But I think mainly it’s the strange inability (for me) to ethnically place his last name. Whenever I hear a weird last name and everything else seems to point in that direction, I assume the name got chopped/changed somewhere between Minsk and Ellis Island.

No, unless there was Jewish somewhere on his mother’s side. His father was an ethnic Slovene, born Jure Dolenc.

Levine may be popular, but Donald Fagen of Steely Dan is more accomplished.

I think the best single answer to the question of “why did the Beatles break up” is that they never filled the vacuum created by Epstein’s death in summer of 67 (just after Sgt Pepper’s).

1) after Epstein’s death, the Beatles realized that they weren’t nearly as rich as they’d assumed (not because of any dishonesty on Epstein’s part, but because he was a novice as you say), so they kinda panicked and started to look for someone who could guarantee that they’d be rich;

2) enter Allen Klein, The Rolling Stones’s manager. who was selected as new manager by 3/4 of the Beatles, but McCartney detested him, distrusted him (probably with good reason), and never really accepted his authority. McCartney tried to have his wife’s father and brother, the Eastmans, installed as the managers, which went over with the band about as well as you’d expect. They were briefly hired as the band’s attorneys, but Klein quickly blocked them out.

3) the incessant bickering between Paul and the other Beatles related to management issues, together with Paul’s efforts to make himself the de facto manager, dimmed everyone’s enthusiasm for the band (except for Paul’s), and John’s enthusiasm had already been dimming since at least 1966.

Yoko certainly didn’t help, but if I had to assign a “proximate cause” to the Beatles’ breakup, I’d say it was Epstein’s death and their subsequent failure to agree on a replacement.

An incredibly successful niche band. But not with the ladies.

I remember a female rock band from the 70s being interviewed about experiences touring as women. They had lots of praise for a lot of their male colleagues, but they singled out Rush (along with a British punk band I can’t remember) as by far the most unpleasant and dismissive of all the bands they crossed paths with. Said they were absolutely miserable to interact with.

Now that Rush is gone, Tool has become the white male bonding band. Most chix don’t dig Tool either.

Definitely not quite as dramatically so as in the case of Rush, in my experience.

here’s a plaintive early simon/garfunkel rocker about trying to walk unnoticed amongst the savage and monstrous gentile, it’s basically a song the coen bros would have made had they chose music over film

and yes, it rocks

… Adam Levine … with his buff tattooed body …

He for sure won’t be buried in a Jewish cemetery!

Oh, essentially Apollonian vs. Dynesian?

This just gives current detail to Nietsche’s scheme of art.

Hell, I’d even include Lesley Gore as rock, I’m no stickler.

Love Lesley Gore, so I say sure, why not. The more, the merrier.

Modern music journos would doubtless say even trying to define rock is nothing but pernicious, gatekeeping rockism anyway. And probably sexist and anti-queer to boot. So I nominate Paula Abdul! Poptimism all around.

More seriously, I can’t remember if Obama classmate and Steve’s favorite Runaway Jackie Fox is Jewish? Fuchs is a name carried by both Jews and gentiles, but she is a Merit scholar, a lawyer, and related to the founder of Castle Rock Entertainment…

Tom Robinson of the the Tom Robinson Band.

Of ex-gay fame.

Leonard Cohen? I know, I know, he’s got to be the worst singer in the history of music, but his songs are pretty good. When someone else covers them.

Lifeson, really? Is it through his mother? Zivojinovic is an extremely gentile name.

[Out of the office/Automated reply:]

Don’t like it? Tough shit.