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Daniel Kahn & The Painted Bird

The Broken Tongue

Alienation Klezmer Bund = Radical Yiddish Song + American Gothic Folk + Punk Cabaret + Klezmer Danse Macabre = Verfremdungsklezmer Bund.

Fronted by Jewish-Detroiter singer-songwriter Daniel Kahn on vocals, accordion, piano and guitar with East German Johannes Paul Graesser on fiddle, US expat composer Michael Tuttle on upright bass and a rotating roster of some of Berlin and New Yorks best young Klezmer and Balkan players, the band was formed in Berlin in fall of 2005. Guest artists on the CD include NY downtown Tsadik players Brandon Seabrook & Eric Rosenthal (Naftule's Dream), Holland's rising yiddish folk diva Niki Jacobs (Nikitov), and members of Berlin's "Grinstein's Mishpoche" and "Shikker Vi Lot." Like the grotesque Jerzy Kosinski novel from which they take their name, The Painted Bird reminds us that even if man is only an animal, he can still sing.

Daniel Kahn – vocals, accordion, piano, guitars, ukulele, etc.
Johannes Paul Gräßer – violin
Michael Tuttle – contrabass
Detlef Pegelow – drums, horns, mandolin, etc.
Bert Hildebrandt – clarinet
Niki Jacobs – guest vocals
Sabine Ostermann – backing vocals on "Edward The Young"
Fabian Schnedler – backing vocals on "The Broken Tongue"
Brandon Seabrook – lead electric guitar & banjo on "Yesterday Is Buried"
Eric Rosenthal – drums on "Yesterday Is Buried"

A Detroit area native, Daniel attended the University of Michigan where he studied acting, directing, playwriting and poetry, winning the University’s most prestigious writing award, the Hopwood, three times and publishing Daylight Savings, a collection of his poems, with Ornithology Press.

In fall of 2005, Kahn formed "The Painted Bird." Named for the infamous book by Jerzy Kosinski, The Painted Bird concocts a mixture of Klezmer, radical Yiddish song, political cabaret and punk folk. The band features a rotating roster of some of Berlin and New Yorks best young Klezmer and Balkan players

He continues to tour Europe and the US intermittently, still taking on theatre and music projects as they come. In October he performed Tom Waits' songs for a Milwaukee theatre production of "Woyzeck." As Buechner said, a man's soul is like the abyss. You can get dizzy if you look in too deep.