For my money, tomorrow’s performance by Daniel Kahn and Painted Bird is the most exciting event of the 24^th Jewish Music Festival. Named for the Jerzy Kosinski Holocaust novel, Painted Bird creates sharp edged political music that brings together a tantalizing blend of genres. The band describes its music as “Punk Cabaret + Radical Yiddish Song + Gothic American Folk + Klezmer Danse Macabre.” It’s as good a description as you’ll get – although “The Yiddish Pogues” also sums it up fairly well.

Detroit native Daniel Kahn discovered Klezmer before he moved to Berlin in 2005 and formed Painted Bird. While bands such as the Klezmatics explore the lighter side of Klezmer, Painted Bird explores the darker side of that tradition and of human nature. Tomorrow’s show at the Rickshaw Stop Club in San Francisco offers a rare chance to catch Painted Bird in the U.S. Intensely theatrical, musically eclectic, poetically dark, the band offers an experience that promises to challenge and satisfy. Thursday’s gig celebrates the release of the band’s second cd Partisans & Parasites that features traditional and original songs in English, Yiddish, German, and Russian. Check out the YouTube clip below for a taste of the experience. Opening the bill will be beatboxer Yuri Lane.

-- Jeffrey Callen