Countless people plow through grinding traffic to work in Chicago. The members of influential alternative rock band Camper Van Beethoven may not have to do so on a daily basis, but consider their plight. The veteran group has maintained a steady touring presence in North America despite considerable obstacles.
Drummer Chris Pedersen now joins his bandmates from his home in Australia, and violinist/guitarist Jonathan Siegel kisses his family goodbye in Sweden. Rock and roll is a traveling job, but these are among the toughest commutes in music. “And jet lag from opposite directions,” says Segel.
The members remain busy with their own projects, so collective work isn’t hampered by geographical separation. In a sense, it even helps. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder, so it’s always fun to get back together and play,” says Segel, whose own projects include new album “ Series of Nested Universes ” with improvisational psych-rock band Sista Maj.
Camper Van Beethoven is known for ambitious musicianship and absurd but sharp-witted and socially aware lyrics. Favorites include early single “ Take the Skinheads Bowling ,” “ Eye of Fatima ” from 1988’s “Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart,” and “ It Was Like That When We Got Here ” from 2014’s “El Camino Real.” The band also recorded a popular cover of “ Pictures of Matchstick Men ” by Style Council, whose guitarist Rick Parfitt passed away in late December. “We’re losing so many people at this point,” says Segel. “We don’t usually stop between songs, so it’s hard to make dedications. The song itself is the tribute.”
Although violin and East European influences are elemental to Camper Van Beethoven’s sound, Segel has previously claimed that he doesn’t consider himself a proper violinist. “I’ve gotten away with it for so long that I’m actually starting to learn how to play it,” he says.
Camper Van Beethoven’s tour continues a regular partnership with Cracker. Members including Segel, bassist Victor Krummenacher, and guitarist Greg Lisher have played with Cracker in the past. David Lowery fronts both bands. “He has the ability to sing for three hours if he needs to,” says Segel. “It’s pretty intense.”
Segel says that there’s minimal competition with Cracker and maximum camaraderie, which stems from gratitude for simple survival within the industry. “When you consider that you’re in a band that’s able to play around the country in 2017, it’s like you’ve won the jackpot. Even if you’re not making a ton of bucks like the big pop stars, it’s very lucky.”
Jeff Elbel is a local freelance writer.

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Singer Rick Astley is searching for a name for his own beer.
(Reuters)
You’re never gonna give up this beer.
Pop singer Rick Astley, best known for his 1987 hit “Never Gonna Give You Up,” is joining the craft beer craze and says he will soon be coming out with his own brew.
The 50-year old English musician, whose hit reached number one in 25 countries nearly 30 years ago, said he’s a big beer drinker and is currently seeking a fitting name for the new ale, reports the Irish Mirror .
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“I enjoy a beer with friends and I’m hoping to sell my own brand soon,” Astley said.
“I’ve been working with the Mikkeller brewery in Copenhagen, which was founded ten years ago by a teacher who made his own beer at home. Mikkeller beer is quite experimental and they’ve been sending me various bottles to sample. “
The singer explained that the brewery has a variety with ales with some being “quite fruity – one was a pear beer they make for a restaurant. “ His own beer is reportedly a fruity tasting pilsner.
Astley is just one of many famous faces who have tried their luck in the spirits industry.
Hip-hop star Jay Z has been involved with Armand de Brignac Champagne since its inception in 2006. Known as the “Ace of Spades,” the $300 bottle of champagne started appearing in the rapper’s videos.
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Singer Dave Matthews also has a wine, a collaboraton with New Zealand-born winemaker Sean McKenzie in 2011 to produce Dreaming Tree wines. And Grammy award-winning superstar Justin Timberlake launched his own tequila brand in 2009.

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If you’re going to call someone out in a song, at least get their name right.
Rapper Wale took a swipe at Blaze host Tomi Lahren in his new song „Smile,“ mispronouncing her name as „Tammy Lauren. “
„On behalf of Charlamagne I’m sure he ain’t trading sides/Maybe I should meet TomiLahren, I’ll Lauryn Hill her/Trainor, she miseducated anyway/Prolly hate the color of my face,“ Wale raps in the song.
The rapper is referring to Lahren’s appearance on „The Breakfast Club“ with co-host Charlamagne where they discussed politics.
Lahren tweeted at Wale in response to the song.
I understand what a diss track is. Pretty sure @Wale just didn’t research the correct spelling & pronunciation of my first AND last name..
Wale responded, „Ok Tammy,“ to which Lahren said, „Ok Whale. “
Lahren made headlines last year for her appearance on the „The Daily Show“ host Trevor Noah where they spoke about the Black Lives Matter movement.
„When the Black Lives Matter movement is going out with signs saying ‚fry them like bacon, F the police,‘ when they’re going saying ‚if you see a white person, target them,‘ that is happening, Trevor,“ Lahren said. „When that now becomes the narrative and you’re starting to loot, burn and riot, what did the KKK do? “
After several days of back-and-forth, the feud seemed to end when Noah sent the conservative talk show host cupcakes.

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Music can mean different things to different people. For Anna Drubich, her compositional work offered a way to connect with her Jewish antecedents.
The now-Los Angeles-based 32-year-old composer was born in Moscow and, despite her Jewish genes, says there was not too much in the way of religion or heritage around in her formative years.
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“Although I was born Jewish, I was raised in a non-religious family and therefore working on Kaddish felt like rediscovering my origins and going back to my roots,” she notes.
Kaddish was given a glittering airing at the prestigious Vivacello, the International Cello Festival at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow, last November, with the support of the Genesis Philanthropy Group. The 11-minute work featured Drubich’s husband, Evgeny Tonkha, on cello, supported by Tibetan singing bowl, timpani and strings.
Drubich’s own hands-on introduction into the mystical and magical world of music took place almost a quarter of a century ago, when she began taking piano lessons at the age of eight. She studied under celebrated Georgian pianist Eliso Virssaladze at the Moscow Chopin Music College from 1998 to 2002, before spending six years at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the process, under the aegis of Professor Franz Massinger.
Despite making good progress as a performing musician, a few years down the line Drubich opted for a change of professional tack.
“I decided that I would be happier composing music rather than playing at recitals,” she explains. The career move was prompted by a realization that were quite a few talented fish in the sea around her, and she didn’t particularly fancy swimming upstream for the rest of her working life.
“I was in a very prestigious competition which went on for something like a week. Every day there would be pianists playing from morning until the evening,” she recalls. “I played on the first day and, at some stage during the week, I decided I should probably go and listen to some of the other people in the competition.”
It was something of a rude wakeup call.
“The order of the pianists was alphabetic and I saw that there were lots of Korean pianists whose last name was Kim. I decided there were too many pianists out there, and it was really hard to play so well.”
The keyboard’s loss is our listening pleasure’s gain.
Drubich had a pretty smooth entry into the world of composition, helped somewhat by an important family connection.
“There is a very famous Russian composer called Isaak Schwartz – he wrote the music for maybe 100 movies. My father [Sergey Solovyov] is a filmmaker and they were friends, and they worked together. At some point I decided I would like to have some lessons with him. I used to go to his country house near St. Petersburg and spend the summer with him, talking about music – the symphonies of Brahms and Bruckner – and looking at the scores.”
That was an excellent kickstarter to Drubich’s writing career, which she followed up with formal studies in Germany. She eventually made it over to the States.
“I went to a festival in Aspen [Colorado],” she says. In fact, Drubich was one of a select group of just five young composers, chosen from around the world, to spend a month in Aspen studying and composing with major Hollywood composers Jeff Rona, David Newman and Jack Smalley.
Besides gaining from the Tinsel Town professionals’ experience and expertise, Drubich also received some career pointers.
“I met composers from Los Angeles and they said I should go there, because that is where the industry is based.”
At the time, Solovyov was working on a new Russian big-screen adaptation of Tolstoy classic novel Anna Karenina and needed a helping hand with the score.
“My father heard me playing some stuff on the piano and asked what it was. I was just improvising something. He asked me to come over to the studio and said he’d show me the video [of the movie] and that maybe I could improvise something for the movie. It was a lot of fun. Then he asked me to write something for a waltz scene.”
Drubich’s soundtrack-writing career was duly up and running, and she has also put together a score for a six-hour documentary about Russian Jewry, which was also supported by Genesis. She finds time to create works for concert settings too. She says the two fields are very different.
“Writing music for concerts is healthier,” she notes. “It is challenging but you know, sometimes the story of a movie can be bad.
It’s kind of interesting because you can write amazing music for a bad movie, and nobody will care about the music. But if you write music for a great movie people will say the music is amazing, It’s a kind of win-win situation,” she laughs. “With concert music you’re very naked. It’s more challenging. It takes so much longer to write a concert piece.”
Kaddish came about following a sad personal event.
“The mother of my husband died and, one night, I woke up and just realized I was going to write Kaddish,” Drubich recalls.
“Because of my husband it was obvious that the piece was going to be for a solo cello and orchestra. It doesn’t follow the text of the prayer, it is a concert piece.”
Even so, the religious undertones to the work are unmistakable.
“It has Jewish motifs. You could say it is Jewish music but it is actually concert music.”
It is an evocative work which conveys high emotion, as well as Drubich’s steadfast connection with her rediscovered roots.
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JERUSALEM MUSIC ACADEMY CHOIR
Brahms: German Requiem
Jerusalem Music Academy Hall, January 1
Two premieres of Israeli works were performed as curtain raisers by the Jerusalem Music Academy Chamber Choir, conducted by Stanley Sperber.
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Shahaf Aoda’s “A White Bird in the Black Night” is based on a poem by Nathan Sach who, terminally ill, already sees his life’s approaching end.
The work is appropriately mournful, though in a personal, not conventional or sentimental style. It sounds sincere in its appealing emotional restraint, and therefore makes a moving impression.
Neta Shahaf’s “Dawn, I beg you,” based on a text by Shlomo Ibn Gvirol, attempts to express his poetical-philosophical ideas mainly via polyphonic manipulations. Its intellectual approach nevertheless leads up to an intense climax, followed by a calm after the storm.
The main attraction was Brahms’ German Requiem, presumably to celebrate the New Year on January 1 in an appropriately mournful mood. Its performance by a choir consisting mainly of Academy students was an ambitious enterprise, considering the work’s emotional and musical profundity.
However, the performance was not only accurate but also conveyed the work’s message of consolation with audible identification and enthusiasm.
From delicate soft sounds leading up to a shattering fortissimo, with all the intermediate nuances, and incisive articulation of the text, the choir achieved an impressive performance.
Yair Polishook’s dark, resounding baritone and strong stage personality sounded altogether persuasive.
Ayelet Kagam’s bright, pure and immensely appealing soprano soared radiantly over the choir.
Pianists Irina Lunkevich and Bruce Levy did their best to substitute for an orchestra. However, even though Brahms himself wrote the two-piano version, it goes without saying that an orchestra would have been preferable. For a music academy that boasts a symphony orchestra the piano version was an amateurish choice.
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