Re: What are you currently listening to?
I forget if I've posted about this already and I'm too lazy to go back and look for it, but this last year or so I've mostly been listening to folk/punk and klezmer/punk in particular.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KFVVKFxr60 - Daniel Kahn and the Painted Bird "March of the Jobless Corps"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFu0o8NB5Io - Daniel Kahn and the Painted Bird "Freedom is a Verb"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7EgQXMV8nM - Daniel Kahn and the Painted Bird "The Butcher's Sher"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHv4-yWPTqE - Daniel Kahn and the Painted Bird "Nye Zhuritse Khloptsi/Yesterday is Buried"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH1fERC_504 - Daniel Kahn "Hallelujah" in Yiddish
Daniel Kahn is really fucking awesome. He was my most listened to artist this year hands down according to Spotify. He has a lot of originals, like Freedom is a Verb and The Butcher's Sher, but he also sings and translates (usually in the same song, like March of the Jobless Corps and Yesterday is Buried) old Yiddish socialist songs (March of the Jobless Corps/Arbetlose Marsch) and sometimes some songs like Yesterday is Buried, which is originally either a drinking song that turned religious or a religious song that uses drinking imagery (it's a song that's sung by certain Chassidic Jewish branches [if you don't know what Chassidism is, think of old Matisyahu, but minus the reggae]). He usually sings in English and Yiddish, though sometimes we'll collaborate with this Russian dude, like for the Yesterday is Buried video, and that guy will sing some of the songs in Russian. He's also done some non-Jewish songs, like translations of songs from Bulat Okudzhava (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulat_Okudzhava).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zlpO8d56z8 - Golem "Klezmerke"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqyGxTR4x1g - Golem "Charlatan-Ka"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL6Yy_Tmgpw - Golem "Freydele"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-VCuFMPEto - Golem "Bublichki"
Golem is also fucking awesome. They do some original songs, but also a lot of Yiddish songs and klezmer songs like Bublichki/Bagelah (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K36CXuh1Ais here's a version the Barry Sisters sing), Hava Nagila, Odessa Bulgarish, etc. They're also very multilingual, singing usually in English, Yiddish, Russian, Ukrainian, and Hebrew, though sometimes there's other languages, too, like French and Spanish (maybe Ladino more specifically?).
Then in terms of more general folk/punk, I finally discovered AJJ last year. I'm not sure how I missed out on them all these years, because they would've been my jam when I first got into folk in high school, too. I'm mostly just familiar with People Who Can Eat People atm, though I need to get around to the rest of their discog.
https://youtu.be/Uy0oqlzHpfU?t=1m33s - AJJ "Brave as a Noun"/"Survival"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trr2LOzEWZg - AJJ "Rejoice"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyY7Yvx2PYA - AJJ "People II: The Reckoning"
Then about two or three years ago, I got into a band called the Dreadnoughts. I've posted about them before, but they released a new album that I've listened to half of so far and it's p. dang good.
Lastly, I got into Mischief Brew towards the end of last year/start of this year. Unfortunately, he killed himself just before the election, but a lot of the stuff he's recorded is p. damn great.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4K-DqXN5HQ Mischief Brew - "Roll Me Through the Gates of Hell"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5JuSfcZrD8 Mischief Brew - "Bury Me in Analog" (kind of a bummer to listen to after he killed himself though)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dke1PCxevp0 Mischief Brew - "Punx Win"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb2WAApS-Hs Mischief Brew - "Banks of Marble" (This is an old Union song, not sure if it was originally Pete Seeger or not, but good stuff either way)
