03rd Oct 2002
United Drummers of Yisrael
Great NY moment this afternoon on the subway. On the #3 express from 72nd to 42nd, three young black guys with matching t-shirts, congo drums and folding chairs announced their arrival to the car in thick NY accents, put down their chairs in the middle and started banging out some seriously funky primal rhythms. There was no ignoring them, and they were quite good, so I just enjoyed the performance, as did most other commuters. They had their schtick down pat, beating out 3 minutes of hypnonic groove then passing the hat before we pulled to a stop at 42nd. The tourists next to me were charmed. The group collected nicely.
I noticed on their shirts they were called “United Drummers of Yisrael” (complete with the Star of David, which one guy also wore in gold on a chain around his neck). My favorite part is how promotional they were about their web site, shouting out the domain repeatedly as the subway came to a stop, SubwayRecords.com, which was also printed on their shirts.
The site appears to be some kind of collective site project for NY subway musicians. It’s a bit overly designed, but you can learn more about the United Drummers of Yisrael, if you’re interested, on by drop-down menu in the upper right of the pop-up window the site generates. They appear to be some kind of drumming society helping ghetto kids do something worthwhile.
No tags for this post
Leave a Reply