The Brothers Yares

Raised in South Jersey and nurtured in the Middle East, Ami Yares is bringing his Americana band Holler! to World Cafe Live tonight for a special Philadelphia performance. The Jaffa, Israel-based band includes Ami, Jason Reich, Tamar Schoppik, and Eliran Kononowicz and are part of a flourishing underground folk scene in Israel. The playing on their most recent album self-titled album has some excellent songwriting and playing that combines classic singer-songwriter styled material with folk and country-tinged songs. - WXPN

Raised in South Jersey and nurtured in the Middle East, Ami Yares is bringing his Americana band Holler! to World Cafe Live tonight for a special Philadelphia performance. The Jaffa, Israel-based band includes Ami, Jason Reich, Tamar Schoppik, and Eliran Kononowicz and are part of a flourishing underground folk scene in Israel. The playing on their most recent album self-titled album has some excellent songwriting and playing that combines classic singer-songwriter styled material with folk and country-tinged songs. - WXPN

If the picture of bluegrass had long ago substituted sunflower seeds for chewing tobacco and a stone balcony for the rickety porch, then perhaps Americana’s signature genre would have made its way to Israel a long time ago. These days, with a growing number of American transplants living in Israel, music that was once staunchly American is becoming more common in Israel’s bars and music houses.

With the slogan “Puttin’ a little South in the Middle East,” the band HOLLER! is everything a band in Israel never was: one Atlantan, four New Jerseyans, and one Israeli who call Israel — and bluegrass — their home. Their name is a market-ready, pithy exclamation, and the music is equally emphatic, a synthesis of loyal Kentucky soul and lyrics that are both ubiquitous and Israel-conscious.

HOLLER!’s self-titled debut, recorded this spring at Tamuz studios in Tel Aviv, is available at cdbaby.com and digstation.com (“HOLLER! : HOLLER!” is not to be confused with “HOLLER: HOLLER,” a 2005 release by a Vancouver-based string band of very similar title).

Vocalist/guitarist/banjoist Ami Yares, a 29-year-old from Cherry Hill, helped form HOLLER! in 2007 along with Barak Cohen (vocals, djembe, rub board) and ex-member David Bernay. The current group includes Tamar Schoppik, a classically trained violinist from West Orange, and Eliran Kononowicz (drums), an Israeli who pleasantly surprised his bandmates with his prowess behind the controls in the recording studio.

Rounding out the group are Jason and Zechariah Reich, brothers who grew up near Cedar Lane in Teaneck. Jason (mandolin, guitars, lap steel) and bassist Zechariah (who used to be called “Zach”), veterans of numerous North Jersey-based music projects, made aliyah separately and completed their service in the Israel Defense Forces before joining HOLLER!

As Yares tells it, getting everyone on the same stylistic page wasn’t easy, even for a mostly-American ensemble.

“Zechariah and Eliran come from funk/jazz/rock backgrounds and certainly were challenged to change their styles to play in HOLLER!,” said Yares, who spends his days running The Shuk (www.the-shuk.com), an ensemble of musicians and educators who use music to explore Jewish identity.

“Thankfully,” he continued, “they’re also incredible people and were completely on board with the challenges [brought on] by a drastic change in style. Tamar came from a classical background and Jason spent some serious time [working with her].”

Indeed, said Zechariah Reich — a full-time yeshiva student in Jerusalem and frequent sideman for many of the country’s premier performers — bluegrass was not part of his formative repertoire.

“I grew up on classic rock and pop, then got into metal,” he said. “From metal, I got into blues, funk, and then jazz.”

Yares aside, only Cohen, a native Georgian with an Israeli mother, had significant childhood exposure to American roots music. A self-professed “bluegrass junkie” since he was a “wee tot,” Cohen sifted through the guitar, saxophone, piano, and mandolin before arriving at percussion.

Said Cohen, the director of International Communications for the Israel Democracy Institute, “I play a washboard now because it was the only thing that fit in my luggage when I moved to Israel in 2006. The djembe was my carry-on.”

Yares first came to Israel with WUJS Israel Hadassah, a post-college program, after finishing Rutgers University. He played music and cooked in an Italian restaurant to keep afloat, and formed HOLLER! in 2006 with Cohen and the erstwhile guitarist Bernay.

“The original three members of the group came up with the name,” said Yares. “I’m not sure when and why we agreed on it, but we knew it worked well. Everyone hollers — doesn’t matter who you are and where you’re from. You get hollered at for doing good and screwing up. You get hollered for dinner and for recognition. It works on multiple levels.”

HOLLER! became a regular at the now-defunct Mike’s Place Jerusalem, a popular downtown hangout, and also gained footholds at the Tel Aviv Folk Club, the Dancing Camel, and Mike’s Place Tel Aviv. The band played twice at the Jacob’s Ladder Folk Festival (www.jlfestival.com).

Yares, himself a Tel Aviv resident, sees the native Israeli population as HOLLER!’s key to further growth.

“We’re starting to expand our options and hoping to capture the Hebrew-speaking audience,” said Yares. “I’m hoping that Israelis will catch on to HOLLER! and give some native English speakers a chance for some exposure.”

HOLLER!’s debut record will certainly help in that effort. Its 10 songs lead off with the sweet, plaintive “Talkin’ Blues ‘Bout You(s),” and eventually move to the jovial, double-time “I Know, I Know.”

A highlight is “Jerusalem,” an anti-war anthem penned by Yares in 2007, the 40th anniversary of the capital city’s reunification. Peace-now lyrics lead into a swooning violin solo, a reminder that poignant musicality transcends regional and poli - Jewish Standard

By Dave Tomar
With a friendly staff, cozy quarters and windows that span the full length of two walls, the Beauty Shop Café (20th and Fitzwater) maintains the intimacy of the old timey salon that once occupied its current space. Oh, and it bears noting that the Beauty Shop has the best damn cup of coffee in the city. A proud brewer of Chestnut Hill Coffee Company beans, the café’s array of rich blends is genuinely incomparable.

The Beauty Shop usually closes at 6 PM, so, this Friday night was a great treat. As part of a new monthly concert series, the café hosted singer-songwriter Ami Yares and alt-country duo The Coat Hangers. Yares is a Philly-area native who has spent the better part of the last few years living and gigging in Israel and Sweden. In spite of his travels, his music remains deeply rooted in the gothic tones of America’s backwaters.

Picking at a 12-string guitar, with the Coat Hangers’ Andy Fraint on lap steel, Yares conjured rusty murder ballads and Guthrie-esque ‘talkin’ blues’ on a set of originals that slip comfortably into the pocket of folk history. His bright, textured playing and Eddie Vedder croon-to-growl are best displayed on “Mountain,” a dark-hollows moaner with a jangling southern hook.

Yares shows a distinct songwriting voice on this and the holy war themed foot-stomper “Jerusalem,” both of which channel the malcontented country drifter with a precise sense of social outrage. Fraint’s lap steel gave the music a cold spectral appeal, an effectively distant compliment to Yares’ close and earnest singing.

Following, the Coat Hangers celebrated the release of their new self-titled EP with a set that featured Yares on banjo, Fraint on guitar/vocals and Rebecca Engelberg on lead vocals. The performance positively resembled such recent male-female country duo projects as the fantastic Ballad of the Broken Seas by Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan, which helps to restore the mysterious lost highway mythology to commercially tarnished genre. - www.Philly.com

By Dave Tomar
With a friendly staff, cozy quarters and windows that span the full length of two walls, the Beauty Shop Café (20th and Fitzwater) maintains the intimacy of the old timey salon that once occupied its current space. Oh, and it bears noting that the Beauty Shop has the best damn cup of coffee in the city. A proud brewer of Chestnut Hill Coffee Company beans, the café’s array of rich blends is genuinely incomparable.

The Beauty Shop usually closes at 6 PM, so, this Friday night was a great treat. As part of a new monthly concert series, the café hosted singer-songwriter Ami Yares and alt-country duo The Coat Hangers. Yares is a Philly-area native who has spent the better part of the last few years living and gigging in Israel and Sweden. In spite of his travels, his music remains deeply rooted in the gothic tones of America’s backwaters.

Picking at a 12-string guitar, with the Coat Hangers’ Andy Fraint on lap steel, Yares conjured rusty murder ballads and Guthrie-esque ‘talkin’ blues’ on a set of originals that slip comfortably into the pocket of folk history. His bright, textured playing and Eddie Vedder croon-to-growl are best displayed on “Mountain,” a dark-hollows moaner with a jangling southern hook.

Yares shows a distinct songwriting voice on this and the holy war themed foot-stomper “Jerusalem,” both of which channel the malcontented country drifter with a precise sense of social outrage. Fraint’s lap steel gave the music a cold spectral appeal, an effectively distant compliment to Yares’ close and earnest singing.

Following, the Coat Hangers celebrated the release of their new self-titled EP with a set that featured Yares on banjo, Fraint on guitar/vocals and Rebecca Engelberg on lead vocals. The performance positively resembled such recent male-female country duo projects as the fantastic Ballad of the Broken Seas by Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan, which helps to restore the mysterious lost highway mythology to commercially tarnished genre. - www.Philly.com