Diwon is a Brooklyn-based American DJ, producer and songwriter. Under his legal name, Erez Safar, he runs Bancs Media, a cutting-edge production company specializing in branding, video and music production, graphics, interactive design, and commercials.
Safar’s career in music began at the University of Maryland when he founded Juez, a breakbeat klezmer jazz quartet in which he played drums. That year, he also began performing under the moniker DJ Handler, spinning a blend of Hip hop, Afro beat and Arabic music. In 2004, Juez released their lone album, “Shemspeed Alt Schule”, on Modular Moods, an independent record label founded by Safar. As they describe it: “Punk klezmer jazz influenced heavily by John Zorn and underground experimental group, Gutbucket.” Something interesting and worth to dig into it deeper!! Reminded me of one of my favorite bands: Hasidic New Wave of Greg Wall (tenor saxophone) and Frank London (trumpet; also a member of The Klezmatics).
We’ve got nine tracks, a vivid mixture of Klezmer tradition, jazz and punk rooted energy, a mixture of modern and traditional rhythms and colors. Brilliant!
In an effort to introduce Sephardic music to a greater audience, Safar launched the Sephardic Music Festival in 2005. The seven-day festival takes place annually in December around Hanukkah at venues across New York City.
Shemspeed has released two compilation albums, Sephardic Music Festival, Vol. 1 (2010) and Sephardic Music Festival, Vol. 2 (2012), featuring Middle Eastern-tinged tracks from a variety of acclaimed Jewish artists, including Matisyahu, Y-Love, Moshav and Sarah Aroeste.
2008 saw Safar change his stage-name from DJ Handler to Diwon, a name inspired by the Yemenite book. The diwan has meaning as a book of songs in Persian and Urdu.
In 2009, Diwon worked with Texas guitarist Dugans to form Dreams In Static, which released an instrumental LP, Serene Poetic, on February 2, 2010. The Forward wrote that the album “occupies an otherworldly, post-rock, electro-instrumental universe.”
In January 2010, Diwon designed and began selling a keffiyeh through Shemspeed that he coined the “Israli keffiyeh”. It featured “blue embroidered Stars of David” and the slogan “Am Israeli Chai” (“The Nation of Israel Lives”) sewn into it. The design caused a small amount of controversy, because it was seen as “inappropriate for Jews to use it as a pro-Israel symbol”, but Diwon explained that since there are multiple kinds of keffiyeh that are used for a number of different political symbols, he wanted it to be “just one more interpretation of a scarf worn by our brothers for thousands of years”.
More goodies HERE: shemspeed.bandcamp.com
So, this is the original version: Games That We Play {ft. Barney Bones & Jesse Scott}
And here is my take. It supposed to be simple, but raw like a live hardcore-punk-jazz combo: double bass (with some fuzz on), drums, piano and vocals, nothing fancy, just emotions, grooves and vibes! Enjoy. Or not. Don’t give a s*it.
