in 2002 Sid was close to retiring from the poetry scene but a chance meeting with blues poet Wisconsinite Wes Heine, changed all of that when Sid appeared in a student film shot by Heine. They became lifelong friends as Sid appeared in a few more of Wes’ films and they began attending Chicago area poetry open mics. Within a few years, Sid & Wes teamed up to form a poetry jug band and...
Read MoreSid Yiddish’s second band picked up where Joey The Tush Kangaroo left off. Same format, yet Sid began writing more original material, as well as using costumes for the first time, in order to fuel the band’s theatrical & performance aspect. Sid, the lead vocalist, wore a cow costume with full makeup, while bassist David Bernstein wore a grim reaper outfit. Steven Escoffery...
Read MoreJoey The Tush Kangaroo aka JTK was Sid Yiddish’s first band, a two-man duo that chiefly performed original songs, spoken word and cover tunes and performed at open mics & venues including Gallery Cabaret, No Exit & Pangea in Chicago. The band name was a parody play on words with regards to older mafia nicknames. Members of the duo were Lew Brickhate on guitar & Sid Yiddish on...
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It’s been a very rough and harrowing three weeks since both President Donald Trump and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker have decried this stay-at-home order. And people have been listening too, to some degree. Subway trains and buses are virtually empty, each time I’ve looked up and noticed, while on nightly walks around my neighborhood. Chicagoans are heeding the warning, as are most in our...
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It’s been one of those weeks and perhaps, I’ll be saying months soon enough, but for now, I’ll say weeks. As we pull into martial law or perhaps more appropriately, lockdown, in America, week one, I’ve already felt the brunt of it and even in the simplicity of writing an email to my Uncle Mickey, as simple as writing something in the subject line, in which I wrote something to ponder-a friend...
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