The Zydepunks

Artist Information

Biography

"The Zydepunks - a New Orleans quintet with dueling accordions and fiddles instead of rock guitars - play a fast, whirling music that is not just zydeco and way more than punk. Their set at this year's New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival had the Cajun waltzers baffled. Everyone else just jumped for joy to the speed-core melange of klezmer tornadoes, Balkan dances, Celtic reels and bayou-squeezebox war."
David Fricke, ROLLING STONE

"With furious energy, The Zydepunks, a young genre-defying New Orleans group featuring drums, bass and dueling violins and accordions, wail through a variety of original mash-ups blending Yiddish, zydeco, Klezmer, rock, Irish, Cajun and Slavic music."
Edna Gunderson, USA TODAY

"World music never sounded like so much frantic, frenetic and sweat-soaked fun." Hal Horowitz, Creative Loafing Atlanta

"The Zydepunks are one of New Orleans' most rousing live performers... they surprise with sublime accordion-fiddle fueled playing." Offbeat Magazine

Innovators, rebels, and survivors. Despite the turbulent times in Louisiana's recent history, the Zydepunks have grown from their New Orleans home to be a regional and international phenomenon. Yiddish riddles, Irish ballads, Cajun punk, and vocals in six languages are a small demonstration of why they astound new audiences. Wild folk dances fronted by accordion and fiddle and backed by relentless drums and bass are a testament to the high-energy folk-punk dance craze that is a Zydepunks show.

The Zydepunks' new release FINISTERRE is the culmination of years of musical experience and the honing of their unique folk/punk sound. Massachusetts label Nine Mile Records (NMR) is releasing this highly anticipated album nationally ­on October 21, 2008.

With FINISTERRE, the Zydepunks are releasing an album featuring original material that draws from their various folk influences and punk rock roots. Slavic rhythms, French melodies, songs in three languages (Spanish, English, French) and punk rock beats combine with often dark lyrics reflecting their experiences from the last few years, while tracks written by drummer Joseph Lilly break the folk boundaries and push the band into an entirely new sound.

Echoes of New Orleans' tumultuous times appear in "Long Story Short" and "Song For Mike", both dedicated to Michael Frey, a friend to the band murdered in 2006. "Dear Molly" was written while the band was evacuated in North Carolina as a song of longing and dispossession. "Por la orilla del mar" combines traditional Ecuadorian song with Slavic melodies in a story about a man being forced to leave his home to search for a new life - a story about immigrants from South of the border and Louisiana's own diaspora.

Produced by the Zydepunks at New Orleans' Piety Street Studios, musicians featured on the album include a who's who of the Louisiana music scene: bassist Alan LaFleur (from the Grammy-nominated Lost Bayou Ramblers), cellist Helen Gillet (Wazozo), violinist Matt Rhody (New Orleans Jazz Vipers/Hot Club of New Orleans), guitarist Stix duh Clown (My Graveyard Jaw), singer Meschiya Lake (Loose Marbles), violinist Frank Scully, and cellist Aubrey Freeman (Why Are We Building Such a Big Ship) all made valuable contributions to the album.

The Zydepunks are:

Denise Bonis: violin, vocals

Before moving to New Orleans from Los Angeles, Denise performed with Menthol Hill on piano and violin, and toured with Lisa Germano, adding vocals and autoharp to the mix. New Orleans music credits include vocals and violin on Chappy and her own solo project.

Juan Christian Küffner: accordion, fiddle, lead vocals
Juan was fortunate to be able to speak four languages by the time he was 12 years old. His first music gig was playing organ at a local church, which he later dropped for playing with punk rock bands in Glasgow, UK. There his old roommate, John Grant, convinced him to try his hand at fiddle (much to the distate of the others living there). His side projects include Malt Liquor Rebellion and the occasional performance with the G-String Orchestra.


Joe Lilly: drums, vocals
Joe Lilly is a drumming virtuoso and almost single-handedly provides the driving rhythm section of the band. He is an occasional session musician and former member of "Robots Marching".

Scott Potts: bass, vocals
Scott's well known in the New Orleans music scene for running Guerilla Studios and recording a wide array of New Orleans bands. The Zydepunks are forever his debt for learning 15 Zydepunks songs in one night for a performance at the Freret Street Festival.

Eve: accordion, melodica, vocals
Eve spent seven years as a street performer in Europe, earning her living playing accordion music from around the globe. In New Orleans she has also performed with the Loose Marbles and local productions of "Fiddler on the Roof" and "Cabaret".

MAJOR APPEARANCES:

Festivals

In chronological order.
Joshua Tree 2009 - Joshua Tree, CA
Riverhawk Festival 2008 - Brooksville, FL
Northeast Louisiana Celtic Festival 2008 - Monroe, LA
Dranouter Festival 2008 - Belgium
Aymon Folk Festival 2008 - Aymon, France
Totaalfestival 2008 - Bladel, Netherlands
Internationaal Zydeco & Cajun Festival Ameland 2008 - Ameland, Netherlands
Plazey Festival 2008 - Koekelberg, Belgium
Parkhof Open Air 2008 - Netherlands
Hob-Nob Festival Festival 2008 - Netherlands
Tropical Heatwave 2008 - Tampa, FL
New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival 2008 - New Orleans, LA
French Quarter Festival 2008, 2007 - New Orleans, LA
Earth Fest 2008 - New Orleans, LA
Wednesday at the Square Concert Series 2008 - New Orleans, LA
Voodoo Music Fest 2007, 2006, 2005 - New Orleans, LA
Musikfest 2007 - Bethlehem, PA
Louisiana Cajun/Zydeco Festival 2007 - New Orleans, LA
Freret Street Festival 2007 - New Orleans, LA
WMNF Birthday Bash 2007 - Tampa, FL
Mirliton Festival 2007 - New Orleans, LA
Alla Gras 2007 - New Orleans, LA

Zydepunks have performed in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and the USA.

Colleges

Loyola University 2008 - New Orleans, LA
Washington University 2008 - Saint Louis, MO

Prisons

Antwerp Jail, Hoogstraten Prison, and Mechelen Prison (all in Belgium)

Performances with

Balkan Beat Box
Citizen Fish
Flogging Molly
The Hold Steady
Lost Bayou Ramblers
Luminescent Orchestrii
Matt and Kim
MDC
New Model Army
Red Elvises
Terrance Simien & the Zydeco Experience
The Slackers
The Toasters
World/Inferno Friendship Society

Instrumentation

Denise Bonis: fiddle, vocals
Eve: accordion, melodica
Juan Kuffner: accordion, fiddle, vocals
Joseph Lilly: drums, vocals
Scott Potts: bass, vocals

Discography

"Finisterre", 2008
Charted #120 CMJ (October 2008)

"Exile Waltz", 2007
"...and the streets will flow with whiskey", 2005
"9th Ward Ramblers", 2004

Audio

• Angel Whiskey
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• Satan
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• Dear Molly
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• La vie est courte et cruelle
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• Madeleine
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• Long Story Short
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• Song for Mike
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• Blood Song
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• Por la orilla del mar
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• Josette
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Lyrics

• Dear Molly

Video

Photo Gallery

Press

• Exile on Decatur Street [+ Show ]
  

  Offbeat Magazine, September 2007 By Richard Giraldi Exile on Decatur Street For the Zy...Offbeat Magazine, September 2007
  
  By Richard Giraldi
  
  Exile on Decatur Street
  
  
  
  For the Zydepunks, “punk” is simply the attitude they bring to world folk music.
  
  Hipsters and stoners converge at Checkpoint Charlie’s on this muggy Friday evening. The smell of stale beer drifts through the air and the next band up is the Zydepunks. The front man is shirtless, a tall woman in a red dress is on the left side of the stage, and your average-joe bassist is in the read puffing on cigarettes next to the drummer. Something is different here, though. The members of this self-proclaimed punk band are all holding accordions and fiddles. There isn’t an electric guitar in sight. When the band launches into “Boudreaux Crosses the Danube,” the first track from their new album, Exile Waltz, the room is in a frenzy. Lead singer Juan Christian Kuffner bends his knees and tilts his head back while playing accordion at a rapid pace. The twirling melody that Eve plays on her accordion leads into a delicate bridge where Denise Bonis’ fiddle cools things down. Then, just as the crowd is about to catch its breath, bassist Scott Potts and drummer Joe Lilly pick things up again when Kuffner shouts, “HEY!” The audience is latched onto every twist and every turn the music takes. A couple starts moshing while a few old punk rockers skank. It’s the ferocious energy such as this that makes Zydepunks shows so much fun, and yet they capture this hyperactive punk energy without brash and loud guitars. The band’s folk punk fusion may sound strange to the listener at first and seems atypical, but it makes perfect sense.
  
  
  
  Washington D.C. native Juan Christian Kuffner spent many years traveling the world. He made a formative stop when he settled in Glasgow for a short time, where his roommate turned him onto the electric fiddle. The fiddle is a peculiar instrument choice for a kid who grew up idolizing Iron Maiden, the Clash, the Pixies, and the Cure, but Glasgow opened his eyes to different styles of music. Many bands in the region were mixing punk, folk, and traditional Irish (sic.) elements into their music. “It just made sense to me” Kuffner says.
  
  
  
  Folk music wasn’t something that Kuffner learned by buying old records. His knowledge of folk comes the way it came for players in generations before him – by watching other musicians play. He traded tunes with Irish folk musicians and learned the intricacies of the genre. At the same time, Kuffner wanted to draw from his more aggressive musical influences including punk and electronic. “Punk and fast techno and folk music have a very similar spirit to me, in the sense that they are very energetic,” he says.
  
  
  
  Kuffner discovered Cajun and zydeco music in 1994 during his first visit to New Orleans. “It was eye-opening to me to see a culture within the United States that was totally different than anything I had ever known about,” he says. “The only thing I knew about Louisiana growing up was David Duke and jazz. You know, very stereotypical stuff.” Three years after his first visit, Kuffner decided to make the Big Easy his permanent home. “I had two goals when I came here. I was either going to start a folk-punk band, a heavy Cajun/zydeco band, or I wanted to write some electronic music here with local jazz and soul musicians.
  
  He took his first step toward realizing his first goal shortly after he arrived when he spotted Eve – she only uses her first name – while she was playing accordion in Jackson Square one night. Kuffner grabbed his fiddle and joined her. The next day (sic.), Eve left for Spain for three years. During her absence, Kuffner learned the accordion and began to play with local fiddle player Joe McGinty. Eve returned in 2003, and soon the trio began playing European folk music around town as the Zydepunks. Later, punk and metal drummer Joe Lilly was brought to the fold to give the band the backbeat it lacked. The group gained an underground following, and after Katrina, Denise Bonis took over on fiddle and bassist Scott Potts was added. By this time, the band had released two albums, 2004’s 9th Ward Ramblers and 2005’s …and the streets will flow with whiskey.
  
  
  The name “Zydepunks” might not have been the best choice, and Kuffner is the first to admit it. “Our name gives us a certain image that we aren’t necessarily about,” Kuffner says, “but it goes the other way around, too. We’ll play everything from all ages hard-core shows to folk festivals and folk events.” The crowd responds well, but sometimes it’s difficult to book and arrange tours.
  
  The band recently released a new album, Exile Waltz, which features re-recorded versions of songs from 9th Ward Ramblers and more traditional Louisiana and European folk songs. The band is fairly prolific, and it is already finishing up work on an album of brand new, all-original material scheduled for a 2008 release. “Our drummer (Joseph Lilly) is not a folk guy at all,” Kuffner says. “He is writing some stuff that is totally different. You’ll know what his stuff is because it sounds almost indie. It will be interesting to see how people respond to it.” While the Zydepunks sound may be slowly evolving, they still realize that there are constraints. They can’t evolve too fast from the original vision or else it becomes something completely different. ”You almost have to start another band if you stray too far,” Kuffner says. “Some bands are able to reinvent themselves, but a lot of bands aren’t”.
  
  Merging folk and punk takes care not to destroy the integrity of the music, and the Zydepunks pride themselves on not dumbing down the music, staying true to original folk songs. Kuffner goes so far as to sing songs in their native languages when possible, but he knows that it’s just as important to have fun. Their version of folk is faster, more intense or more felt, and his favorite Irish punk bands are ones who don’t take it too seriously. “There is this band called County Hell in Tallahassee I like because they are into playing; they aren’t into being famous,” Kuffner says. “There are seven of them on stage and they all scream they lyrics out together and they are having a blast. It’s perfect.”
  
  In conversation, you get the sense that Kuffner thinks carefully and seriously about almost everything, and he admits he considers the issues connected to playing music from other cultures. The band avoids making the music stereotype or a cliché. “Irish music is easy because everybody plays it”, he says. “With Jewish music, it can be hard considering my ancestry is Spanish and German, who haven’t always had the kindest relationship with the Jewish culture.”
  
  The idea behind bringing all these different types of music together is to say that cultural differences don’t have to be divisive. It’s the same way that folk and punk music might seem like opposite ends of the spectrum, but really they’re closer than you’d think. “To me punk is just about being open-minded,” Kuffner says.
  

• Review of [+ Show ]
  

  Originally Christian Kuffner envisioned zydeco cranked with punk energy but once Eve Venema jumped i...Originally Christian Kuffner envisioned zydeco cranked with punk energy but once Eve Venema jumped into the for a, they veered into a heavy klezmer bent with a little Irish and Louisiana French on the side. By then it was too late for a name change, so punk Celtic klezmer Cajun it was.
  
  A raucous rendition of "Madeleine" inaugurates the proceedings but even then there's a Shane MacGowan influence lurking about the mumbly vocals. "Satan" sports a Dennis McGee fiddle riff before inciting more Eastern European madness with "Dance You Fukr". Several Tunes ("A Fistful of Oysters") hatch as stately waltzes before erupting into whip-lashing frenzies and thunderous tribal beat poundings. They never stay in place too long, blitzing into Irish with "Reel & Jig Set" and spoofing political satire on the amusing "Lowlands of Baghdad". Additionally, Kuffner sings in English, Spanish, French, Yiddish, and his native German as heard on "Die Schwimmbadpiraten".
  
  Wacked-out fusions and kidding aside, the Zydepunks surprise with sublimbe accordion-fiddle fueled playing that would delight any Jewish glass-stomping wedding party. One that would have "Johnny Can't Dance," that is. Mazeltoff, chere.

• Exile in J-Ville [+ Show ]
  

  Folio Weekly, Jacksonville FL Exile in J-Ville Playing folk music in an urban, 21st centur...Folio Weekly, Jacksonville FL
  
  
  Exile in J-Ville
  
  
  Playing folk music in an urban, 21st century setting can be a tricky proposition. It’s even trickier putting out a CD where most of the vocals are not in English. But that’s what The Zydepunks have done on their latest release, “Exile Waltz”. In fact, only one of the album’s 12 tracks is in English. The rest are a combination of instrumentals and songs in French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese (sic.).
  
  
  The New Orleans-based band blends medieval dirges from Eastern Europe, accordion-driven German waltzes and upbeat Cajun-inspired folk music from the bayou seamlessly: Imagine a well-traveled group of gypsies aplying fast-tempo songs with accordions and violins, and screaming at the top of their lungs. Odd as it sounds, the result begs the question, “Why hasn’t someone done this before?”
  
  The first track on “Exile Waltz”, a punk-rock instrumental called “Boudreaux Crosses the Danube,” exhibits the band’s two accordionists (yes, two), Juan Kuffner and Eve, who duel it out before drummer Joe Lilly and bassist Scott Potts plow into the song at full speed. Lead singer Kuffner isn’t featured until the second track, “Big Man Walking in the Rain”, and is subsequently only sprinkled throughout the album.
  
  If there were Top 40 radio stations in 16th-century Europe, The Zydepunks would be at the top of Casey Kasem’s countdown every Sunday morning. The Renaissance should’ve been so lucky.
  
  
  Ryan Day

• Zydepunks’ roots are showing [+ Show ]
  

  Tampa Bay Newspapers - Review of "Exile Waltz" by Lee Clark Zumpe, Sept. 12 2007 Zydepunks’ root...Tampa Bay Newspapers - Review of "Exile Waltz"
  by Lee Clark Zumpe, Sept. 12 2007
  
  Zydepunks’ roots are showing on ground-breaking ‘Exile Waltz’
  
  The Zydepunk’s have been brewing their brand of amalgamated accordion- and fiddle-driven folk zydeco-folk-rock since 2004 – and this is one pot of gumbo worth sampling, mon ami.
  
  A “gypsy punk” band whose music embraces everything from Cajun, Irish, Breton, Klezmer, Slavic and zydeco, the Zydepunks’ newest release “Exile Waltz” contains an irresistible mélange of musical influences and testifies to the band members’ intimacy with what must be a vast catalog of source material.
  
  The first track, “Boudreaux Crosses the Danube,” invokes both Jewish folk music and Irish jigs before spiraling into a measured waltz, only to explode with new frenzy moments later. “Andropov/Polka Felix,” on the other hand, embarks on something akin to a Breton sea shanty, then leaps into a jig. “Valse de Crève de Faim” plops the listener right down in the red-light district of Pigalle, sharing a table with Toulouse Lautrec at Moulin Rouge.
  
  The punk aspect plays out in the hypersonic speed of some of the tracks, but the roots remain accessible throughout – making “Exile Waltz” as innovative as it is energetic and infectious. The band – including Denise Bonis on violins and vocals; Juan Christian Küffner on accordion, fiddle and lead vocals; Joe Lilly on drums and vocals; Scott Potts on bass and vocals; and Eve on accordion, melodica and vocals – amounts to more than the sum of its parts. Their forte is their ability to cull bits and pieces of folk music, assimilate and reshape them into something new and spectacular.
  
  Amazingly, though, nothing seems haphazard in this patchwork quilt. Each piece of the puzzle fits perfectly; though, honestly, logic dictates that some conflicting forms of music can not mingle amicably. The Zydepunks, perhaps through trial and error, have made an art of weaving discordant sounds into melodious hybrids.
  

• Zydepunks [+ Show ]
  

  by Frank Etheridge, Gambit Weekly (New Orleans), Oct. 2006 "We come from different worlds," Zydep...by Frank Etheridge, Gambit Weekly (New Orleans), Oct. 2006
  
  "We come from different worlds," Zydepunks songwriter and accordionist Christian Kuffner says of his bandmates, referring to both cultural and musical upbringing.
  
  The result is nothing short of otherworldly. The New Orleans-based Zydepunks inhabit a realm where driving rhythms and ingenious melodies patch together scenes as foreign as life on the Louisiana bayou, Celtic jigs, klezmer on the kibbutz and Old World waltzes -- all delivered fast and furious via a punk rock energy and ethos.
  
  Inspired by a lineage of punk/folk bands including The Pogues and The Ukranians, the Zydepunks (drummer Joe Lilly, fiddler Denise Bonis, bassist Paul Edmonds and accordianists Eve and Kuffner) formed in 2003. Over the last three years, the band has produced a reputation for fiery live shows with a sonic synergy ideal for intimate clubs such as the Circle Bar and Dragon's Den. Kuffner admits the band "at first was nothing more than a glorified cover band," performing traditional folk tunes by obscure artists.
  
  The Zydepunks now have 45 originals in their canon, which can be found on their first album, And The Streets Will Flow With Whiskey, and an album to be recorded later this fall.
  
  Songwriting is primarily shared by three members: Eve, who comes inspired by Jewish and Eastern traditions; Lilly, whose style lies in punk/indie sensibilities, but whose writing comes with the band's unique instrumentation in mind; and Kuffner, whose main interest is technical compositions of varied folk forms.
  
  "It's kinda like starting with a palette that already has a framework on it," Kuffner says.
  
  But drawing from such traditions doesn't mean there isn't plenty of inspiration stemming from the heady mood of post-K New Orleans.
  
  "It's a hectic time to be living here, that's for sure," Kuffner says. "All this murder and death. It's a strange time -- pretty insane. The new lyrics reflect that." --
  
  Frank Etheridge
  
  2:25 p.m. - 3:05 p.m. Sat., Oct 29
  NooMoon Stage

• Zydepunks bring attitude to the traditional [+ Show ]
  

  Displaced New Orleans band gets cozy in Asheville By Randy Moser ASHEVILLE CITIZEN-TIMES publis...Displaced New Orleans band gets cozy in Asheville
  
  By Randy Moser
  ASHEVILLE CITIZEN-TIMES
  published: November 25, 2005
  
  Katrina couldn't stop their music.
  
  Christian Kuffner and most of his band mates in the Zydepunks were on their way to Asheville when the hurricane hit New Orleans. Although two of the musicians left without their instruments, members of the Big Easy's resident zydeco-Irish-ska punk band knew they'd return to their home city, and there was never any doubt they would continue to play together.
  
  Three musicians of the five-member band ended up in Asheville, and the Zydepunks plan to pick up where they left off now that everyone is reunited with their instruments by playing Saturday night at at Jack of the Wood. Performing a unique blend of European folk music with an upbeat, raw sound, Kuffner said the Zydepunks "try to translate the energy of the old folk sound to a modern ear."
  
  The band played at Jack of the Wood in July, and drummer Joe Lilly said he enjoyed the show, where tourists, punks, hippies and older traditionalists mixed it up on the floor.
  
  "It's great to see punk kids jumping around to the music, then watch as older people step up for waltzes," he said. "All walks of life can get into our stuff."
  
  Lilly has played in punk and heavy metal bands all his life and said, "I would never have imagined myself playing in a zydeco-Irish punk band, but when we started playing out together people just loved us and it's cool to be part of something like this." It's not unusual to hear Yiddish, German and other European folk songs at a show, he said, though the "music has a much harder edge."
  
  Though the band has only been together for two years, it has released several albums and has a devoted following. Kuffner said he grew up listening to seminal punk bands like the Pogues and if Zydepunks sound like other bands (don't you dare say Flogging Molly) it's because they've listened to the same source material like the Dubliners and the Pogues.
  
  "We sometimes slow our songs down for coffee shops, but our sets usually stay pretty fast," Lilly said, adding that shows can get pretty rowdy.
  
  "We're much more comfortable live," Kuffner said. The band returned to Café Brazil in New Orleans on the Saturday before Halloween and Kuffner said there were a lot of people dancing on tables that night. Kuffner - who plays the accordion and fiddle and sings in English, French, German, Spanish, Yiddish and Portuguese - and founding member Eve Venema, also on accordion, fiddle, and vocals, have temporarily relocated to Asheville, but Lilly has already returned to his New Orleans home.
  
  When the hurricane hit, Kuffner helped keep the small New Orleans' community radio station WWOZ up as its Web master, circulating valuable information, including a list of musicians who had made it out of the city. "It was a big deal for people to have us up and running," he said. "It became the most important thing in my life for a while."
  
  When playing in New Orleans in October, Kuffner had a chance to survey his home, and said that some of the city is totally the same and some just doesn't exist. "Imagine downtown Asheville being fine, but West Asheville being washed away," he said.
  
  His neighborhood is almost exactly the same, and he said: "You wouldn't notice anything except at night when you look across St. Claude Avenue and all the lights are out and there's nobody and nothing there on the other side of the neighborhood."
  
  Kuffner said the band is planning on touring full time in the next few years "A lot of people dream of rock and roll stardom too quickly, and we've been taking it slow … but now we've decided that slow is too slow," he said, adding that the Zydepunks decided to redouble its efforts following Katrina, vowing to go back home in the near future.
  
  "We'll be based back in New Orleans by mid-December," he promised.

• Zydepunks Bring World Folk to the Pub [+ Show ]
  

  By Steve Wildsmith of The Daily Times Staff June 2, 2006 Save a little energy if you’re headed ...By Steve Wildsmith
  of The Daily Times Staff
  June 2, 2006
  
  Save a little energy if you’re headed down to Market Square on Thursday night to check out Umphrey's McGee at Sundown in the City.
  
  You’ll need it once The Zydepunks start their set at Preservation Pub when Sundown ends. Because as much as the groove-oriented sounds of Umphrey’s McGee will have you dancing, The Zydepunks will most likely trump the Sundown headliners.
  
  Billing themselves as a "Cajun-Celtic-klezmer punk rock band," The Zydepunks flow from one frenetic song to the other, weaving a tapestry of Eastern European folk, Gypsy fiddling and Celtic jigs and reels into a blanket of music that demands you get on your feet and dance.
  
  "There’s a need for celebration in every culture’s idea of folk music, and what we do reflects that carnival spirit," Zydepunks founder Christian Kuffner told The Daily Times this week. "What we create is a gradual growth of the influences we all have in this immigrant environment of New Orleans. That’s part of the reason I moved to Louisiana, because I knew it had all of these cultural influences here."
  
  Like the music he plays, Kuffner's roots are a melange of cultural influences. Growing up in Northern Virginia, he was surrounded by German immigrants, and his mother's family, from Ecuador, exposed him to the folk music of that country as well. As a young man, he moved to Glasgow, Scotland, where his musical interests became even more diversified.
  
  "That’s where I really started picking up traditional music, from the strong folk music scene there, and that’s when I started picking up the fiddle," he said. "The more I traveled, the more I picked up on folk music sounds, and I came to see that there’s a common thread in all of this music, whether it’s bluegrass or Russian folk. There’s very similar stuff that a lot of people do in those genres, because a lot of it is dance music."
  
  Back in the States, he moved to New Orleans with a simple goal in mind, to start a Cajun punk band. He knew such a goal could be accomplished anywhere, but being a stickler for authenticity, he felt the need to travel to the heart of Bayou Country to capture not just the sound but the flavor of the music.
  
  Once there, chance meetings with other culturally minded musicians made him realize that Cajun punk was too limiting.
  
  "You can’t force your band members to play certain things, and even though I lead the band, everybody writes stuff for it," he said. "To be honest, some of them don't like Cajun music, but they do like the Cajun songs we do."
  
  "Inevitably, that forced us to find other influences — the Celtic music I picked up in Glasgow, and the klezmer and Jewish music that my girlfriend, Eve learned as an accordion player and street performer in Spain."
  
  Like many New Orleans acts, The Zydepunks suffered some setbacks when Hurricane Katrina swept through last year. The band split for a while, and at least two of the band members are on indefinite hiatus. However, the vibrant music scene in the Crescent City helped the band to pick up two new members relatively quickly.
  
  "Katrina gave us a lot of songwriting time to deal with things," Kuffner said. "It's weird; in terms of music, people have written one or two Katrina songs, but it's a minor controversy. One school of thought says we should write about stuff like that, and the other is that we should move on. I think there’s only one song we're going to do that reflects anything about that time, and even then, we try not to make it obvious.
  
  "But it's almost impossible to ignore, because what we do reflects New Orleans as a city with immigrant influences, and people here really appreciate the idea of mixing all these things. It seems like young people very, very much appreciate it, and we've had a few come up to us and get emotional sometimes. They'll come up and say, "I'm glad somebody's doing something to our grandparents’ music that isn’t the same as everything else out there."

• Zydepunks Live Review [+ Show ]
  

  Review of April 2004 Performance in New Orleans by Jason Songe The Dragon's Den (New Orleans) : ...Review of April 2004 Performance in New Orleans
  by Jason Songe
  
  The Dragon's Den (New Orleans) : April 20, 2004
  
  For The Zydepunks concert at The Dragon's Den Tuesday night, the city's underbelly represented. They made the concert really fun. I don't think I've felt such a jubilant atmosphere surrounding the Dragon's Den before.
  
  It makes sense, though, as local band The Zydepunks played dance music, whether it was Cajun, Klezmer, Irish, or Middle Eastern. Vocalist/fiddler/accordion player Bwamba Chavez led the band, and he was accompanied by drummer Joe Lilly, vocalist/accordion player Eve Venema, and fiddler Joe McGinty.
  
  Their shtick was that they played Zydeco music at a punk tempo, but they could just as easily play a jig or a waltz. There was no way to tell what the next song would sound like. They played traditional music from the areas or cultures listed, but Chavez threw in a few of his own beautiful numbers. He liked to sing in French, and he liked to scream, too. Though each member of the band performed well, Lilly was their backbone. He had a small kit, his playing style was elemental, and he kept the songs jumpin' and swingin' with his frequent marching band beats.
  
  The band didn't speak much, but the crowd didn't need their O.K. to dance in circles. The Zydepunks' genre-defying diversity was astounding considering the very short breaks between songs. They were turning it out, and they asked who wanted more. Of course, a rumble went through the room…
  
  The band was great, the crowd was great. To get your hoe-down on, go see these maestros.
  

Setlist

The ZYDEPUNKS' can perform shows up to four hours long.

Shorter sets are filled mostly with original material, while longer shows use a lot of traditional numbers, especially Cajun, Irish, and Klezmer music.

Basic Requirements

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