Over the years, Brooklyn-based, The Shondes—and its three quarter transgender, three quarter Jewish quartet (drummer Temim Fruchter, bassist Louisa Solomon, violinist Elijah Oberman and guitarist Ian Brannigan)—have been the object of much finger wagging. And they’re proud of it.
In Yiddish, “shonde” means a disgrace or an outrage, and is used to describe something completely abhorrent and shameful. In choosing their name, the band embraced their disgracefulness and musically discredits those who shamed them. Drummer, Fruchter believes that their unique style is chancing the shape of music.
“What we’re doing tries to both subvert and celebrate the musical traditions we all come from. We mix feminist punk with Jewish melodies and elements of classical music. We do a lot of vocal interplay. [We] like the sound of two vocals both singing lead together, so that the vocals and the lyrics are in conversation with one another. We write collaboratively and…make sure that each instrument…has a unique voice.”
Despite heralding from different musical heritages, Fruchter says that the band infuses their individual politics into their music and identify as part of the queercore musical genre: “We all identify in different ways and are a part of various queer communities, but as a band, [queercore] is the most important identification to us.”
Bassist Solomon says that band member’s gender identities significantly impact The Shondes (www.shondes.com) music.
“Gender impacts every moment of our lives, certainly, including our music. We’re all people who have had difficult experiences living with hegemonic conceptions of gender, and the ever-oppressive gender binary,” she says. “We all...have in common the need to talk about our experiences and frustrations. It’s very important to us to address gender in a complicated way though our work as a band, so it’s not surprising that many of our trans, genderqueer, [and] queer audiences are the ones most grateful for and affected by our music.”
Activism is also a central part of their lives and music—and much of it focuses on putting an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “We are all supporters of peace through justice in Israel [and] Palestine and oppose Israeli military actions in Palestine and Lebanon,” Solomon explains. In fact, Fruchter, Solomon and Oberman are all members of the organizaiton Jews Against the Occupation, where, Solomon says, they are doing Palestine solidarity work and trying to change Jewish communal understanding of the conflict.
“I think all four of us, in very different ways, see working for justice in our communities as a really integral part of our lives,” Fruchter explains. “We all try our best to be involved with and support some of the incredible organizing for justice that’s constantly happening in [New York City].” Fruchter describes one of the band’s goals as, “conveying to many communities—the queer and LGBT communities included—that being Jewish does not necessarily mean being Zionist.”
During their tour, “Disgracing Ourselves Across America,” Fruchter says, “We played so many shows in places with big queer communities where Jewish people were doing kick ass anti-occupation and Palestine solidarity organizing. We always invite organizers and activists to talk about…their work at our shows. We want to share [the stage] with people whose anti-occupation messages are erased so often by the media.”
Fruchter says, “We hope that we can continue to make the connections between being queer, being Jewish, and being anti-occupation with all the different communities we encounter as a band.”
While that radical Jewish community makes up a big part of The Shondes, audience base, Solomon acknowledges that the larger Jewish community isn’t always supportive.
“The more mainstream, Zionist Jewish community obviously doesn’t approve of what we do at all…[But] I think the most exciting and common reaction we’ve had from Jews is: ‘Wow, queer anti-occupation Jews. I thought I was the only one.’ And we love that.”
Contact trans writer Jacob Anderson-Minshall at jake@trans-nation.org. Blind Curves, the queer mystery he co-authored will be available from Bold Strokes Books in March 2007.
