Read the full review below:

Socalled “Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore
it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating.”
John Cage, Silence

“John Cage is arguably the most important voice in North
American music in the second half of the 20th century, less so for
his music itself, perhaps, than for the way he challenged and
changed attitudes toward the materials of music.”
Alan Swanson, Fanfare, 31:5, May/June 2008

Although he may not know it, Gary Beitel has made a movie about
John Cage. Mr. Beitel’s film, with the eponymous title “The
Socalled Movie,” contains no mention of the American composer.
However, at its core there lies a question which was fundamental
for Cage: what is the relation of sound to music? This question
was itself a means of examining a deeper issue, that of the
relationship of art to life.

Socalled, the protagonist, is a musical artist of eclectic interests.
The word protean is simply too pale. Our language, or at least the
present writer, lacks the means to describe the full scope of this
Klezmer Hip Hop Funk Rap Doo Wop personality. It would take a
movie.

Some of the most fascinating elements here are the chips and
shards on the artist’s workbench. An ancient, second-hand
recording provides a few seconds of a Jewish melody that is
sampled and looped into a hip hop beat. It is so old that no one is
likely to sue us for stealing it. It’s mixed with a venerable funk
sample, and then a miracle happens: when one is sped up, and the
other is slowed down, not only do they transpose into the same
key, but also, they beat in the same time. The cadences match.
They go together.

This small parable, artfully placed near the beginning of the film,
contains the kernel of its meaning. It is traditional, in the hip hop
genre, for samples to serve as a musical ground, even though they
might just as easily have been composed. Samples, of existing,
recognizable music, are valued because their associations are
carried forward from the original to add flavor to their musical
descendants, like stock to a sauce. When describing Montreal
culture, culinary metaphor is inevitable. Just thinking about that
city makes me hungry.

Mr. Socalled has an epiphany, a calling, when he understands that
he can bring to the funk music which interests and energizes him
the flavor of his own personal cultural stock. Even though he
“doesn’t care” about religion and “doesn’t believe” the Bible, his
Jewish cultural heritage is “who I am,” It gives him a “reason” to
play.

Somewhere, in a room in Montreal, two old recordings collide.
The consequences resound across the Continents, as we follow
Socalled and what must be an exhausted crew of filmmakers who
document the results of these cultures in contact. Socalled attracts
virtuosi like a Pied Piper, from the worlds of funk, hip hop,
klezmer, and even classical music. In the film’s most impressive
scenes, we are brought to see the effect of these performers upon
the adoring multicultural crowds. Here, the cinematography of
Marc Gadoury turns eloquent, as the everyday reality of mundane,
and even tawdry surroundings morphs beneath the glamour of the
stage lights.

We follow Socalled to Paris, where, only 284 years earlier,
Francois Couperin attempted the fusion of French and Italian styles
in his L’Apotheose a la memoire de Lully. Socalled’s own
apotheosis comes a bit later, when the White Jewish Boy raps to
Klezmer Funk in Harlem’s Apollo theater. He has reached the top
of something, something new, of his own invention.
Katie Moore, a sensitive vocalist, tells us that Socalled’s “compass
points to a different North.” He is a daunting subject, full of peril
for the filmmakers. To their credit, I sit here now, somewhat
breathless, but with a clear-eyed view of this rumbustical
character.

I am not sure whether critics ever do any good, for either artists or
audiences, but I do know that they can do harm, particularly with
inappropriate comparisons. If you ever have read a review of the
first play of a new playwright, which attempts to compare it to
Shakespeare, you will know what I mean. But Mr. Beitel and his
colleagues are veterans now, and a comparison may be instructive.
The world of documentaries may lack a Shakespeare, but they do
have a kind of lodestar in Frederick Wiseman. Mr. Wiseman has a
specific style, which not all good documentaries emulate. If he
had tried to make this film, I doubt it would be better; the subject
does not seem congenial. But what might it look like?

His style, which has been called “observational,” lacks narration
and interview. His art centers around a courageous act, to park the
camera on the tripod. Most of the work is in editing, and in
making an inspired choice for the location of that tripod in the first
place.

In many places, Mr. Beitel has used similar methods. Had he done
this everywhere, too much information would have been lost. Yet
this thought experiment, of trying to imagine a Wiseman film, puts
Socalled, The Movie, in perspective. Narration often, but not
always, advances the narrative. It might have been even more
telling, had it less to tell.

Part of the problem is that Mr. Socalled, not content with music, is
also a filmmaker. This makes for an amusing self-referential
reflexive hall-of-mirrors, as Socalled describes Beitel making a
movie about Socalled making a movie about … yet another
filmmaker. These directorial ambitions also creep into parts of the
dialog and voice-overs, as Socalled sometimes gets caught
between his wishes to direct and star in his own movie.

The weakest elements of the structure are those which are most
biographical. The furnishings of Socalled’s childhood bedroom
and the content of his home movie performances are not without
interest, but they distract from the central theme.

At its core, the movie treats a project of international consequence.
It is a story of cultures whose relations have been difficult at times,
but which are now brought into friendly contact. It is not difficult
to see how this story resonates in Canada, and among the sponsors
of its films, as Mr. Socalled expresses in his art, and embodies in
his life, many aspects of the diversity of Canadian society.
The ingredients of this stew are very specific cultural artifacts,
lovingly described by the camera. Scores and instruments,
photographs and recordings, props and costumes are brought back
into contact with a larger audience.

What Mr. Beitel reveals in this film is that these bits of old
memories, found in junk shops and second-hand stores, are the
precise structural analogs of the primitive sounds and noises, the
“found” musical elements, that populate Mr. Cage’s compositions.
There are important differences – Socalled is not a Cagean. Cage
sought out sound elements specifically thought to be non-musical,
literally, noise, and to reintegrate them into a musical context.
Socalled captures samples which are also non-musical, but for a
different reason, because they are “beyond the pale,” belonging to
a different cultural group. He reintegrates them as a means of
breeching cultural barriers. Both are connoisseurs of junk shops.
Both see music as a calling.

Each one uses discarded materials to find a fundamental building
block for a new music.

Cage used chance procedures in an effort to appear that he was
literally obliterating the composer, in order to surmount cultural
barriers to a larger, spiritual world. It prompts us to question why
we need a composer at all, and why his music should be preserved.
His supporters reply that his music, achieved through whatever
method, is often peaceful and beautiful.

Socalled is deliberately provocative, challenging his audience by
embracing cultural taboos. But his multicultural crowds are
thrilled , and on their feet dancing.

We can now begin to see that Cage had a secret. He composed by
throwing dice, but the dice were loaded. His embrace of noise was
a kind of pose. It was his way of looking for new ways to soothe
us, and to challenge us, with a new music that he could not find in
the confines of the twilight of the maturing Western tradition.
Socalled protests that he doesn’t care about religion, and that he
didn’t grow up speaking Yiddish, but his intimate knowledge of
both betrays his larger interest. He will deepen his circle of
cultures, those he was born in, and those he has learned, by
encouraging their mutual embrace, using brazen acts of artistic
provocation.

His dice are loaded too.

These are the good old days from POP Montréal on Vimeo.

SXSW Film Closing/Music Opening Party 3.16.10, Co-Hosted by YouTube and VH1

Maggie Mae’s
323 E. 6th Street
Austin, TX

From Josh Dolgin aka Socalled:

Hey all! Greetings from sunny Montreal… I don’t normally send out email blasty things (yeah right, I’m different, I’m not hustling, I’m an artist with integrity, blah blah blah) but things have been a little wild at Socalled Entertainment lately… Reframe Films with the National Film Board of Canada have made a documentary about yours truly… they think I’m interesting, or hip, or something… anyway, now Youtube has partnered with them and the film will be available for download… it’s a pretty awesome movie about me working with my various co-conspiritors, my amazing band with Fred Wesley, Katie Moore, David Krakauer, Irving Fields, Gonzales, etc. etc…. magic, music and mayhem, please do check it out… and if you’re curious, I have a new song from my upcoming album available for exclusive download… do it, buy Socalled a sandwich…

a) Here is the direct link to the product on the Socalled store:
http://socalled.store-08.com/browse/stuff/?id=1536

b) Here is a WIDGET that can be embedded into the SocalledMusic.com website and any other blog-type places:
http://socalled.store-08.com/widgets/SOCW-001/
See the SHARE code in the third tab for the embed code

Thanks all for your support, seriously… keep in touch…
Socalled

You told me so (blue bird) – ft. Fred Wesley ($0.99)
click here to buy the new Socalled single

New Socalled trailer up. Tell all your friends!

It’s been a long while since we’ve posted to the Socalled blog, but we’re back. After more than 2 years of shooting and over 150 hours of footage, production has officially wrapped.

As director Garry Beitel sat down to start logging and digitizing this abundance of footage, I grabbed him for a quick interview. We talked about the project, Josh and a few legendary musicians they met up with along the way.

Read on…

Q: What attracted you to this project?

A: Josh Dolgin.

Josh was a student of mine in 1998 and we became buddies. We liked each other and stayed in touch after he graduated. We lost touch for a couple of years, but when I went to see a klezmer concert at Oscar Peterson at Concordia [University] I bumped into Josh, who was there with his parents. They were handing out fliers for a klezmer cruise in the Ukraine. Josh looked at me and said, “You should make a film about this.” I said, “Sure, let’s talk.” And we talked. And I thought, “What an interesting idea.”

He organized a tour from Kiev to Odessa with about 160 passengers signed up. There was this philosophical notion that I found interesting – that he was going to bring klezmer music back to where it came from. And he didn’t want it to be like what he called “Holocaust tourism,” where you go through Eastern Europe and you’re all sad and then you end up in Israel and get all happy. He wanted to do something that would make good connections between people.

I thought that was interesting, that there was a base for something there. We [my producer Barry Lazar and I] sent the proposal for that film off to [NFB producer] Ravida Din, who looked at it and said, “interesting… but I’d be more interested in a film about Josh. Think you can do that?”

Ravida had just seen the first film that Ben Steiger Levine had done on Josh [These are the Good Old Days]. It was part of the POP Montreal film series the NFB had done. So we decided to do something on Josh, and the klezmer cruise was part of the film’s development.

And that’s how the project began. And that was April 2007.

Q: What has shooting involved?

A: We went on the cruise with a film crew and we filmed for 12 days. We filmed with Josh beforehand: the hype of getting ready, preparing music, etc. And then we shot these 8 world-class klezmer musicians who played on the cruise. We shot Josh visiting his family archives in the Ukraine. We shot him in concert, in jam sessions, leading a choir, etc.

And that was all development.

Then we had to raise money for the film, it being a co-production between reFrame Films and the NFB. It took us almost another year to find the funding for it, and we shot all the while. We were all fairly confident the film would happen, but because we were filming over a long period of time, with a lot of travelling and editing, it took a bigger budget and therefore it took longer to raise the financing.

We officially went into production in September 2008. We’ve been shooting since then, and we shot our last day in June. We have over 150 hours of material.

Q: Once the original idea for the film was put aside, how did you decide on an approach?

A: Filming on this project has been built around events and also around the themes I was trying to explore. Themes such as his creative process. This is not a biography and it’s not a music film. I was inspired in my approach to this film by Francois Girard’s 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould.

The idea came to me that it would be interesting to create a series of short films around Josh. In the same spirit, I wanted each of those shorts to be a different film with a different aesthetic and a different perspective on his creative process. With each film, I wanted a sense of anticipation: What are we going to find out here? What are we going to see and hear that’s unique?

I ended up writing the final proposal for this film after the klezmer cruise. And that’s when the concept of how the film would be structured really materialized. For me, writing has always been productive. It’s a creative working out of ideas. When I was developing the proposal, it just started to fit. I didn’t want to do a biography. I didn’t want to make a music film.

And this format also works with what’s happening with new media as well. I had the material for a feature, but if I had the material for short films, the possibilities would be endless for the Internet. And Josh has a very strong Internet presence. Even as a marketing strategy, we thought maybe we could build to the feature film release by timing the release of short films in the weeks or months leading up to the release as a way of building anticipation for it.

Q: What’s it like working with Josh? Can you tell us a little bit about his personality and his work process?

A: Josh is prolific. He’s one of those incessant creators. He’s always creating something. That’s his life. He’s always playing with his sampler or taking pictures or learning a new magic trick or drawing cartoons and caricatures or developing a whole new repertoire of music or writing a film script or making a film.

Josh is constantly developing relationships with legendary older artists and musicians. He’s fascinated by older men who were in their prime years ago and that we’ve forgotten about. He brings them back to public awareness. There’s about half a dozen of these men that I’ve filmed him with.

For example, Irving Fields was a lounge singer in the 50s who was a household name. Josh discovered an old vinyl of his, called up the musician’s union in New York, found out he was still alive and kicking at 92 years old and playing 6 nights a week at a club in the city. Josh called him up, went to visit and developed a friendship with him. And then the two of them developed a theme song for YouTube.

And then there’s Fred Wesley, who used to be the trombonist and arranger for James Brown, Josh’s hero as a kid. He just looked him up. He had already been playing with David Krakauer, this master clarinettist who is known for his jazzy klezmer compositions. And now Josh tours with Wesley and Krakauer. The three of them put together this group called Abraham Inc. and we went to film them at the Apollo Theatre in New York. This little Jewish kid from Chelsea, Ontario is playing at the Apollo Theatre. And there are another four or five stories like that.

Q: It seems that his biggest fan base is in France. Why is that?

A: Josh has a huge fan base in France. It’s partly because he started playing with Krakauer in France and Krakauer has a huge following there. But Josh also has a good French promoter and a French label. The machinery is in place there that isn’t in place here. But it may also have something to do with the kind of music he plays that the French like. It’s world music with Jewish roots. He didn’t start out playing world music, but it’s evolved into that.

Q: Over two years, you must have seen more than an evolution in his music. Has Josh evolved as an artist as well?

A: Over 2 years of filming, we’ve captured a shift in his confidence and his bravado. He’s more cynical, but he’s also more sure of himself.

He hasn’t become a star, but he’s coming into his own. There’s a maturing there. He was completely open and naïve in the beginning, answering everything we asked him. Now he just says, “I don’t have to answer that question.” There’s a sense of “I don’t have to talk about that.” That’s a type of maturing that I’ve watched progress.

In terms of his music, we have captured the change in his style. When I started filming, he was a hip hop klezmer musician. He was the cool klezmer musician on the edges of klezmer. Even though he had a somewhat secular upbringing, he connected to the klezmer music. But it was somewhat parochial, for him and for others as well. He wanted to hold on to it, but still step out and make music that was more universal.

Klezmer allowed him to break out into different styles of music but still hold on to his roots. It distinguished him. He didn’t want to be only a Jewish musician, but he liked the idea of taking Hassidic and cantorial music, mixing them into his songs and bringing these new “beats” into the mainstream. At a Socalled concert, there are always a number of songs that are either in Yiddish or otherwise fall into the tradition of Jewish music. That’s what makes him original, and he carries it with him.

Q: How did making this film differ from past projects you’ve worked on?

A: I’ve never followed a single person for this long and that has own challenges. I’ve made films about individuals, but over a much more limited period of time. It was a challenge. I’m turning 60 this year and Josh is 32, and this film forced me to step into a very different culture. I’ve made films about other cultures before, but this was a challenge in that I’m not a musician and everything was very new to me.

Q: But you’ve already said this was not a music film…

A: No. This is not a music film. This is the type of film that can reach a very wide audience. Josh touches so many bases in what he does – music, magic, singing, writing, etc. For people who are interested in one aspect of what he does, this is a great way to introduce them to other ideas and aspects of his life.

It’s been a little break for us in the production, but we came back together in full force for this year’s Pop Montreal music festival. Socalled made Montreal history with funk legend Fred Wesley the trombonist and arranger of the JBs, James Brown’s band. Seriously, this man, oozed funk from his pores, and the two of them were magic on stage. They kicked off a late Saturday night, and this “House Party” was bouncing. We filmed the sound check and set up with Josh et al. and then made a quick pit stop to put Fred W. on the hot seat about Socalled. Someone that he said is teaching him a thing or two. Even though when he first met him, thought he was “the kid who cleaned up the studio”.

Here’s a brief peek into the evening, with “House Party”.

So it’s been a while since we have updated on the blog, as we are in that time between development and production. Now, after the intense time in Ukraine, and the perhaps more calm, but critical time back in Montreal, the shooting schedule has been more relaxed. Not to say that it’s been all vacation time, and sipping ice tea on the terraces of St-Laurent Blvd. Editing away, reflecting on the material that has been shot, Garry has been busy at work in his studio. Here are some morsels from the editing table, again from past shoots.

Here are couple more clips of Josh and and his collaborators. Only these guys, D-Shade (from Shades of Culture) and Rodney, are local Montreal musicians. In these clips they are mapping out the songs of Josh’s that they are going to perform at the St-Viateur street party.

Enjoy… we’ll be back after some more reflecting (and editing)….!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Well, we can’t spend all our time jet setting around the world behind Josh, and its good to film what’s going on at home in Montreal as well. The summer is kicking off in festival season, and the Mile End was a buzz to see their neighbour Socalled perform with other local musicians. Garry and the crew filmed with Josh before the performance. Here is a taste from the front row of the show.

Click here to view the embedded video.