We were scheduled to play an hour set opening up for Lipa= yes, THAT Lipa. Believe us, we thought it was an odd pairing too, but it actually worked out shockingly well, once all the band members actually showed up. The show was in Parsippany, NJ and was a good 80 minute drive for those of us coming from Long Island. Unfortunately our beloved drummer Mosky has been a bit under the weather (Refuah shelaymah!) so we had to use our awesome sub-drummer Elan (of Except Saturday). Elan lives in Borough Park, and actually had the shortest drive, and therefore should have been the first one there. Obviously that’s not what happened. There was a nice sized snow storm last week and Elan hadn’t gotten his car out. Unfortunately it had warmed up a bit on Friday, but got cold once again the following day. The result: Elan’s car was frozen over. Bad news for Yaakov Chesed. As there were 500 people at this gig we were quite nervous- playing without a drummer just wouldn’t work for this gig.  Ultimately, Elan had to take a cab to the show and, BH, literally arrived as the band was taking the stage. It doesn’t come closer that. Elan did a great job, we had an awesome show, and Ohr Naava booked us again for their Purim Chagigah this Thursday night. So everything, once again, worked out for us. We’re either very lucky, very blessed, or both.

We do want to mention one other bizarre moment from the show. We knew that this was going to be a very frum crowd and tried to steer clear of our English songs (which are of course Jewish themed) and our Shlock covers. We figured, why take the risk of offending anyone. We were sitting outside the ballroom selling CD’s and talking to a few fans when we suddenly hear “Bad Romance”…coming from inside the ballroom! Imagine our shock when we look in and sure enough, Lipa is covering Lady Gaga. That’s right: Lipa. Gaga. Wha-huh?! Most of the crowd seemed into it, though there were some people as shocked and confused as we were. The people who never heard of Lady Gaga thought Lipa wrote a new pop-niggun, and loved it! We should point out that he didn’t sing the chorus and changed the lyrics around. The ironic thing is that we actually discussed doing a Shlock version of that exact song during rehearsal, and thought it probably wasn’t the best idea. Show’s how much we know. We better start working on our cover of “Poker Face” before Avraham Fried beats us to it.

5. We’re looking for ideas for a tshirt- if you have a concept (or even a design) we’d love to hear/see some ideas. Just drop us an email

4. BH “The Passage” has been doing very well in America….and it will be out in Israel on Januray 17th!

3. “The Passage” will be out on iTunes by the end of the month.

2. After a little hiatus (See #1 as to why) we will be doing our first show together in almost 2 months at YU on Jan. 28th. It’s going to be YC “unplugged” and free- so defintely come by if you’re in the area.

1. Jake’s wife had an adorable baby girl named Shoshana! (That’s why we’ve take off for a little while.) We are really excited to have a new roadie join the YC team.