Advance tickets available from the Ashkenaz front desk on show nights or online from Ticketweb or call 1-866-468-3399.

Show line: (510) 525-5054

Ashkenaz Music & Dance Community Center
1317 San Pablo @ Gilman in Berkeley

Ample parking across the street in the REI parking lot. Wheelchair accessible. All ages all the time.

Ashkenaz Music & Dance Community Center is a non-profit, tax-exempt community organization supported by patrons, donors, staff, musicians and volunteers.

Saturday, 10/02/10
KABILE

Kabile’s fall U.S. reunion tour brings to Ashkenaz a night of hot Balkan dance music from one of Bulgaria’s top wedding bands. The group of multitalented musicians from Thrace, in southern Bulgaria, played together for nearly 20 years until two key members emigrated to the U.S. in 1995, after the collapse of the various Communist regimes in Eastern Europe. In late 2007, the two émigrés returned to Bulgaria to record “Kabile Reunion” with their former bandmates. The debut CD contains 11 of the most popular numbers from their years as a group and includes both vocal and instrumental versions of native Bulgarian songs.

A quintet of virtuosos, Kabile plays all the instruments of a traditional village band. Donka Koleva is the lead vocalist, with Dzhenko Andreev on gaida (the goatskin bagpipe), singer-accordionist Ivan Handzhiev, Angel Krastev on tapan (the large wooden drum covered with sheep or goat skin), and Nikolay Doktorov on the flute-like kaval. These instruments have a centuries-old history in Bulgarian music except for the accordion, which was introduced in the mid-1800s. Based in the city of Yambol, the group took its name from the village of Kabile, where they performed one of their earliest gigs. During its heyday, the band played almost every weekend at weddings, baptisms, and cultural festivals in Thrace.

Sunday, 10/03/10
ALPHABET ROCKERS

Doors at 2:30 pm; Show at 3-4:30 pm
$6 Adults/$4 Kids

The Alphabet Rockers sing a funky fresh collection of educational songs that the whole family can enjoy, mixing pop, rock, soul and hip-hop rhythms to combine dancing and learning. Their debut CD has received rave reviews from parents, teachers, and children across the country, including a 2008 Parents Choice Award. Think of it as the new “School House Rock” of the hip-hop generation. Children and families are groovin’ and movin’ while learning counting, spelling, and more! The Rockers are joined today by San Francisco band Me3. The Alphabet Rockers were started by professional singer Kaitlin McGaw and 4 Non Blondes drummer/author/music teacher Dawn Richardson to make high-quality, cutting-edge music and production for a shared learning entertainment experience for kids, family, and teachers.
www.alphabetrockers.com

Tuesday, 10/05/10
TOM RIGNEY & FLAMBEAU

Doors at 7:30 pm; Show at 8:30 pm
Cajun/Zydeco dance lesson at 8:00 pm
$10

Violinist-fiddler-composer and singer Tom “Rigo” Rigney’s East Bay quintet Flambeau plays traditional Cajun and zydeco two-steps and waltzes, along with low-down blues and New Orleans R&B. What sets the band apart is Rigney’s fresh musical takes on Cajun and zydeco, and other styles he loves to play from rock to classical, creating a celebration of life through dance rhythms. The tight ensemble of virtuoso musicians – which also includes guitarist Danny Caron (Rigney’s longtime collaborator since their Sundogs years), keyboardist Caroline Dahl, bassist Steve Parks, and drummer Brent Rampone – plays mostly original material, highlighting Rigney’s arrangements.

The band features tunes from the rocking new Flambeau CD, “Serious Fun” (released in September), which boasts 15 songs, 11 of them Rigney originals. Rigney’s 2008 acoustic blues release “Back Porch Blues,” with favorites such as “Drivin’ That Thing” and “Swamp Beat Boogie,” spent much of the summer in the top 15 of “B.B. King’s Top Picks to Click” on XM/Sirius Radio’s Bluesville channel, hitting the #1 spot in August. Guest artists on the album include longtime Rigney friends Norton Buffalo, Roy Rogers, and Bob Brozman.
www.rigomania.com

This monthly event is a revival of ’70s-style Berkeley folkdancing with some international request dancing to recorded music, capturing the spirit that David Nadel was inspired by when he opened Ashkenaz in 1973 with Balkan folkdancing. One does not need a live band to experience the communal pleasure of dancing together, and the dance lessons help newcomers join in the experience.

Lap slide guitarist Adam Bowers is well-known to Ashkenaz as a key member of the bands Old Agoura and High Heat. He provides the live music portion of Dead Night with his own band. A longtime Grateful Dead fanatic, Gankmore (aka Christopher Lull, who attended 118 Dead concerts) plays an ever-changing collection of the best in Dead live recordings. He runs the website www.gankmore.com, where each day he posts several Dead shows from that day in history.

Friday, 10/08/10
SAMBADA

For Santa Cruz-based SambaDá, founded in 1997 by native Brazilian Papiba Godinho, every night is Carnaval. The ultimate goal isn’t just to preserve traditions the musicians are so well-versed in – including samba, bossa nova, pagode, samba reggae, batucada, and forro – but to get everyone dancing to the band’s infectious blend of Brazilian roots and other North and South American styles such as funk, reggae, jazz, rock, and hip-hop. The pulsating percussion, uplifting vocals, and rich melodies of SambaDá give it a distinctive sound, heard in both popular and original songs. The group went to Brazil in July 2009 and became the first band from the United States to play at the legendary house of Ilê Aiyê, the first black Carnaval group in Brazil. Lead vocalist Dandha is a master dancer from Ilê Aiyê, and singer-guitarist Papiba is a master of the Brazilian martial art form capoeira.
www.sambada.com

Saturday, 10/09/10
THE PHENOMENAUTS + JOKES FOR FEELINGS

Doors at 9:00 pm; Show at 9:30 pm
$12/$10 Adv

Perhaps you remember Rhino Records’ fabulous “Brain in a Box,” a 4-CD collection of science fiction music from movie and TV themes to rock anthems, encased in a cube with a holographic brain. Tonight’s show is the stage equivalent come to life.

The Phenomenauts have done just about everything and been just about everywhere, from their Oakland birthplace in 2000 to tonight’s landing at Ashkenaz. There was the 2006 cross-country headline tour, and two years in the Vans Warped tours, playing music in a style they describe as, “Imagine if the Kinks, the Ventures, Stray Cats and Devo were galactic pioneers, and joined forces to defend earth’s right to ‘rocket roll’? Combine that with a fast-driving blend of punk, pop, psychobilly, solid songwriting, and a witty Sci-Fi theme, and you’ve got one of the East Bay’s most celebrated bands.” Additionally, they are known to add unique instrumentation to their electric arsenal, as well as homemade spacesuits and other stage devices to help elevate the show beyond belief. Or something. www.phenomenauts.com

Also from Oakland, Maldroid makes its own kind of music, kind of scary at times, but those are the times we live in, so one hears strains of such influences as Joy Division, Talking Heads, Daft Punk, even Beck, but not like any of them play. Their videos and EP may be from another planet. www.maldroid.com

The Struts are a five-member band from, you guessed it, Oakland. Their formula is simple. They play full-throttle rhythm and blues, and they rock it hard. It’s fast. It’s loud. And when singer Farrah Ancell steps up to the microphone – when you hear her deliver that first note with all the soul and grit and growl of a young Etta James, you’ll know something serious is about to go down. www.the-struts.com

The Del Lames are far more down-to-earth, sort of. Slightly more rootsy, and not from Oakland. The Albany-born trio features guitarist Mike Del Lame, bassist Shannon Del Lame, and drummer Sammy Del Lame, playing what they describe as garage-surf-comedy, all of it real Lame music. www.dellames.com

Sunday, 10/10/10
ASHEBA

Doors at 2:30 pm; Show at 3-4:30 pm
$6 Adults/$4 Kids

A veteran of several reggae bands, Asheba brings children and families into his joyful world of Caribbean music. Playing guitar and steel pans and singing, he performs an infectious mix of songs and tells stories from his island childhood in a participatory concert that appeals to children of all ages. The effervescent musician moved from his native Trinidad to New York City in 1989. He has called Oakland home since 1999 and has put out four popular kids’ CDs: “Go Itsy, Music for Kids Caribbean Style,” “No More Monkeys,” “Children Are The Sunshine,” and the recent “In the Kid Zone.” Asheba is also featured on two Putumayo children’s collections, “Reggae Playground” and “Animal Playground.”
www.asheba.net

The Hipline studio is run by Samar Nasser with her sisters Gabriela and Alexandra. They teach contemporary Arabic dance that incorporates some of the techniques of American jazz and modern dance as popularized by Egyptian dance star Randa Kamel. Hipline offers both fitness and technique classes in bellydance.
www.myhipline.com

Tuesday, 10/12/10
CEDRIC WATSON & BIJOU CREOLE

Doors at 7:30 pm; Show at 8:30 pm
Cajun/Zydeco dance lesson at 8:00 pm
$12

A founding member of the Pine Leaf Boys, singer-fiddler-accordionist Cedric Watson and his new band, Bijou Creole, return to Ashkenaz for a night of authentic Cajun and zydeco dance music. Watson’s latest CD, “Cedric Watson,” was a 2008 Grammy Award nominee. Born in Texas in 1983, Watson developed an early love for Cajun music and moved to Lafayette, Louisiana, where he studied not only pure Cajun music but the Creole fiddling styles of Canray Fontenot and Bébé Carriere and was quickly acclaimed for his mastery.

In Bijou Creole, Watson explores the roots of Louisiana’s Creole music. Playing a variety of old-school zydeco styles, original material, and Creole traditionals, the polyrhythmic and syncopated sounds of Africa and the Caribbean are unmistakable in this ensemble of talented musicians. Michael Doucet (BeauSoleil, Savoy-Doucet Band) says, “To propel our Louisiana Creole culture into the future seems to be quite a task, but if one lives for the music as Cedric does, the path seems effortless.” Along with Watson, Bijou Creole is rubboard player-percussionist Mike Chaisson, bassist Blake Miller, guitarist Chris Stafford, and drummer Jermaine Prejean.
www.cedricwatson.com