Last night Golem played at Barbes (my neighborhood Parisian club - intimate, with red walls, a bar in the front and a curtained-off performance space in the back). I am having trouble putting into words how great it was–how lucky I felt to be making music that particular night, with these particular bandmates, to that particular audience.

Yes, it was incredibly crowded, and people actually had to leave because they couldn’t fit in the door (!). Yes, body heat brought the room to sauna-level heat which does funny things to your brain. But there was a special energy between the crowd and the band that pushed us to play more passionately, from a deeper place inside ourselves, and it was a transcendent experience.

It also happened that I had friends from a lot of different worlds there - the park slope chevre, old friends from amherst, my former captains from the schooners down at south street seaport…some of whom I hadn’t seen in six years! So here were all these old friends in one room. And at the same time my Golem bandmates who I get to see regularly in so many circumstances: clubs, weddings, bar mitzvahs, planes, cars, subways, JCC’s, hotels, bars, living rooms, cafes. When we are onstage with a great audience like that, all the hours spent practicing, travelling and planning together are crystallized into two extremely beautiful hours–extremely beautiful for me, that is–and then the show is over and we have to go back to talking with words instead of with music.

This is all to say… thank you to everyone who braved the crowds & fire hazards to make last night a most amazing evening. May there be many more!!!

A few years ago I had my first Slivovitz experience: passover seder at Ebn’s house in Boston. Because on Passover you can’t consume any wheat products (if you’re kosher like that) the list of alcoholic drinks allowed at seder is pretty short. Wine, potato vodka, and plum brandy… the famous Slivovitz. It’s a little harsh on its own, but mix it with some kosher-for-passover apple juice and you have a lovely old-world cocktail which had us joyfully celebrating the exodus till all hours.

Last week I had my second Slivovitz experience: JDub records’ Slivovitz & Soul Party at the Slipper Room on the Lower East Side. Yiddish hip hop artist and accordion maestro Socalled hosted a party whose wild abandon rivaled that of our famous Sliv & Juice seder. Along with Socalled were some very special guests: David Krakauer blew clarinet notes from other spheres, the incomparable Susan Hoffman Watts did her thing on the trumpet, Matisyahu mixed up the chassidic reggae, and I even jumped on stage for a couple impromptu noise making sessions. Socalled got all the hot young things dancing. And German TV filmed it all for posterity.

It’s happening once a month for the next few months (Feb 17, March 10, April 14). And next month the CHANELES (me & Annette Ezekiel from Golem) will be baring our Yiddishe neshamas for you too. As the flyer says: “bring your balibusta and get farschnickert at an eastern european laced hip hop shtetl dance party!” And don’t forget the apple juice.

Hello world, and welcome to the brand spanking new Alicia Jo website! Yes, all new and improved with this blog even: so I can write about some of the strange and wonderful places my fiddle takes me. I suppose having a blog makes me truly a fiddler of the 21st century.

So, first of all: many, many thanks to Ariela Sanchez for creating this site and for putting up with my endless “tiny requests” for revisions! If any of you need a web site, look no further.

Meanwhile, it’s amazing what can happen in one day, all within two square miles of Manhattan. This afternoon Golem played at the APAP showcase in Times Square. If you haven’t been to a showcase, just imagine a zoo, but with hotel rooms instead of cages, musicians instead of animals, and people who book festivals wandering from room to room watching the musicians perform in 15-minute slots. (It’s more fun than it sounds.)

Anyway, at APAP we ran into our friends from the Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad cabaret. The Goddess Susanna invited me and Annette, the Golem girls, to join the cabaret at their tsunami relief benefit downtown later in the evening. Of course we accepted. We thought about doing a striptease, but settled for singing & playing some old Yiddish tunes, Eshes Chayil and Grine Kuzine.

Who knows, maybe next time… but for now, this Nice Jewish Girl Gone Bad is going to bed.