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The history
of New York punk is also the history of late twentieth century
Jewish culture. As strange as that might sound, Steve Lee
Beeber makes a good case for the natural progression from
vaudeville to borscht belt to punk in his highly entertaining
The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB's: A Secret History of Jewish
Punk. Full of information that even the most enthusiastic
music fans may not have known, Beeber explores how the punk
ethos and Jewish culture tied together musicians as disparate
as Lou Reed and Joey Ramone, and where the influence of Judaism
can be seen even in those who deny the influence of Jewish
culture on their art.
Beeber's
deep research misses little, and he is not afraid to tell
the reader unflattering tidbits such as how Jonathan Richman
walked away when Beeber tried to interview him about his childhood
and upbringing or how Alan Vega from Suicide actually denied
being Jewish for a very long time. He unabashedly refers to
Debbie Harry of Blondie as a shiksa goddess. He bluntly informs
readers about the breakup between German model and Velvet
Underground singer Nico and Lou Reed by reiterating her statement,
"I cannot make love to Jews anymore." When Tommy Erdélyi
(aka Tommy Ramone) asks if Beeber is trying to "out Jews"
with the book, readers may get a sense of what it meant to
be Jewish in the mid-to-late twentieth century. Even post-WWII,
Jews were outsiders, and many Jews felt that their heritage
was to be hidden, not celebrated.
Beeber's
basic thesis is that the early Jewish punks, the ultimate
outsiders, were among the first generation to come of age
after the Holocaust, and thus "formed a Jewish American tradition
that mixed optimism with cynicism. Like their forebears… they
merged the high and low cultures of America's elite and street
life, creating a hybrid art rock, a conceptual music played
by amateurs who could barely figure out chord changes."
The Ramones'
story, told in the chapter about Tommy Erdélyi, supports
Beeber's thesis particularly well. Erdélyi masterminded
the Ramones' iconic stage image—a crew of leather-clad
outcasts banding together into a tight-knit group of ersatz
militaristic brothers. Tommy saw the band as satirical, and
encouraged German-born Dee Dee, the son of a Jewish American
soldier, to write his aggressive, Nazi-imagery-heavy lyrics.
To have lead singer Jeffry Hyman (Joey Ramone) on stage singing
lyrics like "I'm a Nazi baby" was the ultimate in irony to
Tommy. To Beeber, this is no different from the Mel Brooks's
movie The Producers, where two Jewish producers make
a terrible musical about Hitler hoping for a flop, only to
find that audiences enjoy it on a satirical level.
In some
cases, Beeber is reaching a bit far with his assertion that
Jewish heritage has shaped the identity of these icons of
punk, especially when so many (Richman, Vega, and Richard
Hell) refused to talk to Beeber about being Jewish. But why
does so much denial exist? Some, like Hell, refuse to be defined
by any one thing. Beeber confesses that Hell's resistance
"disturbed him":
It
made me go back and reexamine my intentions in writing
this book. Was I merely trying to lay claim to a group
of individuals who had no similarities other than a superficial
cultural link? Was I using the worst sort of reductionist
thinking and flattening them to two-dimensional representations
of one thing and not another? Was my complicated argument
based at bottom on a dichotomistic, black-and-white, overly
simple division between "Jew" and "Gentile"?... [A]n argument
could be made for this… [y]et elements that seem to stem
largely from a shared Jewish history and culture can be
found in each performer's work. To put it another way,
there is no way to fully understand these musicians without
exploring the Jewish part of them, whatever that may consist
of. They all display something in common that is otherwise
incomprehensible.
Beeber
tries to explore the reasons why, even in the 1970s and 1980s,
some people felt it was necessary to hide their background.
About Tommy Ramone, Beeber notes, "Safe in America, surrounded
by Jewish and non-Jewish neighbors, Tommy still feels uncertain.
He might say that he has never commented on his Jewishness
because no one's bothered to ask, but it's clear that it's
an issue for him—one that makes him alternately proud
and ill at ease." This is something that shows itself in almost
every profile in the book. Jewish New York punk rockers tend
to feel conflicted about their heritage but rarely completely
reject it.
Some
of the book is a little weak, like the chapter on Punk
magazine creator and non-Jew John Holmstrom, as well as the
chapter on Blondie. References to Kafka pop up too often.
Also, Beeber doesn't really define what being Jewish means
to him, other than being Jewish in a cultural sense, as opposed
to the Judaic religion. He occasionally differentiates secular
Jews from Orthodox Jews, and he includes people like Richard
Hell, who proclaims he was raised "a communist and atheist."
Hell is the product, like Dee Dee Ramone, of a Jewish father
and non-Jewish mother. How can Beeber ascertain how important
that culture was to those who wouldn't or couldn't talk to
him? The idea that someone is Jewish if family members are
Jewish is a provocative one, and could irk some readers.
But it
is clear in the text that Beeber is not trying to "out," anyone.
He wants to celebrate the culture that he believes was the
impetus for arguably one of the most exciting musical movements
of the twentieth century. Beeber's bold, smart writing and
thoughtful analysis brings a bit of dignity to a scene that
many take less than seriously. Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB's
is a stimulating and intelligent overview of the culture that
informed New York punk.
(July
2008)
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