Feb 11, 2010 at 9:00 PM CST (8:00 PM DOORS) to Feb 12, 2010 1:00 AM CST Golem with Black Bear Combo at Martyrs' - Chicago, IL $15.00

Contrary to popular belief, Golem is neither a towering Jewish Frankenstein who defended the Jews of 17th Century Prague, nor a creature from Lord of the Rings. Golem is a 6 piece Eastern European folk-punk band based in New York City belting out songs in Yiddish, English and Slavic languages. Young, hip and widely acclaimed, it transforms the music of its grandparents, making it modern, edgy, sexy and brash. GOLEM has infused the World Music scene with a breath of fresh air from Eastern Europe. Their explosive onstage attitude gets Klezmer to rock. Fronted by bandleader, accordionist and singer Annette Ezekiel, madcap vocalist Aaron Diskin and violin virtuoso Alicia Jo Rabins, the band's six members, all in their 20's and 30's, create GOLEM's powerfully vibrant sound. Through updated versions of old Yiddish tunes, Golem seduces audiences of Klezmer fans and rockers alike, and is equally at home in venues as varied as rock clubs, synagogues, and concert halls, from Lincoln Center's Damrosch Park to the rock clubs of the Lower East Side. Their performance is a veritable party with a historical message with each song evoking old-world cities, towns and countries longed for by homesick Jewish immigrants: Odessa, Romania, Bukovina, Nikolayev, Belz and Bialystok as well as wild gypsy songs learned during travels in Serbia, Russia, and Ukraine. The result is a musical romp through Eastern Europe and beyond that is a snapshot of shtetl life through the filter of a much younger generation. "A Gypsy-punk gem!" - SPIN.com "Golem produces the sort of music you'd expect if the shtetl were filled with punks instead of peasants." - The Washington Post "Stellar! A wild edgy approach with a reverance for Old World tradition." -The New Yorker "An edgy spin on the Eastern European music of their Jewish grandparents..." - Time Out Chicago Appearing with... Black Bear Combo is a raucous mutt inspired by traditional music from eastern Europe and the Balkans.

Feb 21, 2010 at 3:00 PM CST (2:30 PM DOORS) to Feb 21, 2010 5:00 PM CST Joel Chasnoff : The 188th Crybaby Brigade ; a skinny kid from Chicago fights Hizbollah at Chopin Theatre - Chicago, IL $12.00

Comedian and IDF veteran Joel Chasnoff reads from his hilarious new book, the 188th Crybaby Battalion, an account of his army service in Tzahal. At 24, Joel Chasnoff, graduate of an Ivy League university. decided it was time for a serious change of pace. Leaving behind his amenity-laden Brooklyn apartment for a plane ticket to Israel, Joel trades in the comforts of being a stereotypical American Jewish male for an Uzi and dog tags in the Israeli Army. The 188th Crybaby Brigade is a hilarious and poignant account of Chasnoff's year in the Israel Defense Forces -- a year that he volunteered for, and that he'll never get back. As a member of the 188th Armored Brigade, a unit trained on the Merkava tanks that make up the backbone of Israeli ground forces, Chasnoff finds himself caught in a twilight zone-like world of mandatory snack breaks, battalion sing-alongs, and eighteen-year-old Israeli mama's boys who feign injuries to get out of guard duty and claim diarrhea to avoid kitchen work. More time is spent arguing over how to roll a sleeve cuff than studying the mechanics of the Merkava tanks. The platoon sergeants are barely older than the soldiers and are younger than Chasnoff himself. And all this while his relationship with his tough-as-nails Israeli girlfriend (herself a former drill sergeant) crumbles before his very eyes. The lone American in a platoon of eighteen-year-old Israelis, Chasnoff takes readers into the barracks; over, under, and through political fences; and face-to-face with the reality of life in the Israeli Army. It is a brash and gritty depiction of combat, rife with ego clashes, breakdowns in morale, training mishaps that almost cost lives, and barely containable sexual urges. It's an on-the-ground account of life in one of the most em-battled armies on earth. With equal parts irreverence and vulnerability, irony and intimacy, Chasnoff narrates a new kind of coming-of-age story -- one that teaches us, moves us, and makes us laugh.