Too Little Too Late

Hanukkah is here and the Jewish Monkeys are back. After having the second leg of their "Catastrophic Life" tour obliterated by a certain global pandemic, the band locked down in its native Tel Aviv, keeping a low profile and waiting for the dust to settle. Restless by nature, however, this hiatus did not last and the group soon returned to the proverbial drawing board to get those creative juices flowing again.

Premiering today, is the spanking new companion video to "Catastrophic Life" album track "Too Little Too Late" that provides extraordinary visual fodder for generation ADHD in the same way Billy Joel waxed poetic on "We Didn't Start the Fire". But we'll leave it to Jewish Monkeys frontman Jossi Reich to tell the actual story, the whole shtory, in his own words. So here goes: 

"'Too Little Too Late' is the Jewish Monkeys' latest angry and funny punk take on those White men of the aging Baby Boomer generation, who feel less plagued by the plague, that killed hundreds of thousands of their fellow Americans, but oh so plagued by their raging inferiority complex. Notoriously they tend to blame their own failure on their female life partners, in case they have one. In this song by Omer Hershman, the band's guitar backbone and music producer, the inner voice of the ailing male is described as nothing more than the critical voice of the female life partner. Alienated from himself and happiness, all the battered man wants is to defy this voice and to be proud of the few achievements of his life, as he repeatedly stated in the song's chorus, over and over again:

'I’m proud of all the things I got with hard work and faith / But you keep always telling me - too little too late / The way was long, but i stayed strong, destroyed and re-created / But still your voice inside my head - too little too late!'

Alluding to the very typical Baby Boomer symptoms of being a late-bloomer as well as indulging in daydreams in order to evade reality, in the very end, the illusionary pride of 'being different' and the all-American legend of indestructible individuality cashes out big time. For better or worse, the ageing White idiot tries to play the game as his own life consultant. Biden, the good guy, did it now, as Trump, the bad guy, did it before, both following the clichés of good old, outdated, Western revolver movies. But this time, for some weird, 'Corona'-related reason, the good cowboy, Joe, consistently appears in a frightening black mask, like some f***ing bank robber, while Donald, the mega MAGA bad cowboy, almost never wears one. But the cows are no longer happily out grazing in the pasture. Instead, they are cooped up in hellish, inhumane slaughterhouses, deformed by the most devilish industry on earth into the most miserable creatures on Earth, tortured and helpless, yet threatening to host the next great pandemic. Their flesh, endlessly devoured by relentless humanoid carnivores, will no doubt bring about novel killer viruses or some kind of ultra-deadly bacteria cultures, resistant to potentially live-saving antibiotics. Oh yes. The deranged spirit of the most anti-democratic president ever, of a way too slow decline in the use of fossil fuels, of cheap, unhealthy, disgusting meat and burning rainforests, is going to stay with us for an unpleasant while - and yes - climate change will not change.

In the meantime, all we really want to do (besides becoming better consumers and voters) is to sing along with the Jewish Monkeys, alone with ourselves and our TV-screens and smartphone-interfaces, deprived of concert halls and sexy clubs, but together with the friends we love and the love partners we want to have sex with, and in the moment of our reawakening to the world by ways of another holy orgasm, we'll shout out loud - though sentenced to death - the last words of 'Too Little Too Late':

'But I don't intend to change / Adapt or re-arrange / I'll prove you wrong / I'll sing my song out loud!'

Israeli, non-Christian and non-Muslim film director Itai Lev captured the best scenes from a spontaneous studio session, initiated by one of the band's singers, yours truly, the ultra-crazy performer Jossi Reich, a never-ageing ageing clown, who founded the project way back in 2003. You see him jerking around with drummer Henry Vered and the outfit's thrilling horn section, trombonist Yaron Ouzana and saxophonist Eilon Tushiner. In his documentary 'Packed Suitcases' (special Xmas-edit, final release autumn 2021) Itai Lev went on to portray the people of the Jewish community of Frankfurt and Jossi himself, revisiting his home grounds. Visual artist Jennifer Abessira, another ultra-crazy 'Tel-Avivian' creature (who is also collaborating with Parisian cover band Novelle Vague and singer-songwriter and fashion model Petite), spiced all this up with some funny, grotesque slap-stick and colourful, post-modern, artificial-brutalism compositions from her impressive and inspiring Instagram collections.

Go ahead and check it all out! Everything: her Instagram profile and this video and the other Jewish Monkeys visuals and also make sure to watch the documentary of film-maker Itai Lev...but then stop your escapism, get back to work and continue to wrestle with reality!"

That being said, we are overjoyed to say that the 'boys' are back, just in time for the holiday season. So without further ado, hit the link below and brace yourselves for a healthy dose of Jewish Monkeys-infused reality. Feel free to spread the love and with that, we wish you all a hearty Chanukkah sameach and a merry lockdown season!

AUTHOR: Lev Nordstrom