Photo by Bob Sweeney
The South Philadelphia-based rock 'n' roll artist Low Cut Connie released "King of the Jews" from his forthcoming album Art Dealers out September 8 via Contender Records. On the new song, frontman Adam Weiner gets deep in the weeds of his personal and ethnic identity, rejecting antisemitism and fear, and arriving at a place where his Jewishness becomes a source of strength and power. An official video for the song was inspired by Warhol's Factory films, featuring Weiner wrapping himself in Tefillin.
“I'm extremely Jewy. But it's taken me years to be as loud and proud about it as I am now,” explains Weiner. “During the years I've been touring, I've seen antisemitism rising and rising around this country. There's so many entry points into antisemitism that you kind of never really know if you're on safe ground. Like so many other Jews, I internalized it and for years tried to obscure my Jewish identity throughout my travels and public life. But through Low Cut Connie I have recommitted myself to my Jewy-ness. ‘King of the Jews’ is in many ways about finding strength and power where so many see weakness in your identity.”
“KING OF THE JEWS” follows previous singles “Whips and Chains”, which WXPN proclaimed is “perhaps their most rambunctious and hard-hitting track to date,” “Sleaze Me On” that Consequence of Sound called a “fusion of classic rock ‘n’ roll stylings and contemporary indie,” and the album’s lead single, “Are You Gonna Run?” The song was praised by Rolling Stone and debuted in the top 40 on Billboard’s AAA radio chart with support from dozens of stations, including WXPN, The Current, and WFUV who recently invited Weiner to do a solo piano session.
In addition to the new album, Adam Weiner co-directed an 80 minute feature film that will premiere late this year as a companion piece to Art Dealers. The film is a hybrid-genre documentary that combines a stellar run of NYC concerts from 2022 shot at Sony Hall and the Blue Note, as well as 15 years of performance footage and personal misadventures that led up to Art Dealers. There will be limited festival screenings of the film late in 2023 in tandem with this fall's US tour, with a wider release to follow in 2024. Find a full list of tour dates below or visit his website.
Art Dealers follows the band’s critically-acclaimed 2020 album Private Lives and 2021’s Tough Cookies: Best of the Quarantine Broadcasts that was born out of their twice-weekly live-streaming rock and soul variety shows that led The New Yorker to call Weiner the “Pandemic Person of the Year.”
Click here to pre-order the album.
ART DEALERS tracklist:
1) TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW
2) SLEAZE ME ON
3) BIG BOY
4) ARE YOU GONNA RUN?
5) DON’T GET FRESH WITH ME
6) WONDERFUL BOY
7) WHIPS AND CHAINS
8) TAKE ME TO THE PLACE
9) CALL OUT MY NAME
10) KING OF THE JEWS
11) I DON’T UNDERSTAND YOU
12) ART DEALERS
13) THE PARTY’S OVER
Tour Dates:
9/7 – Cambridge, MA – The Sinclair
9/9 – Burlington, VT – Higher Ground
9/10 – Portland, ME – Portland House of Music
9/12 – Hamden, CT – Space Ballroom
9/14 – Pawtucket, RI – The Met
9/15 – Medford, NJ – Medford Oktoberfest & Music Festival
9/16 – Elkton, MD – Elkton Music Hall Monday
9/18 – New York, NY – Blue Note Jazz Club
9/19 – New York, NY – Blue Note Jazz Club
9/20 – New York, NY – Blue Note Jazz Club
9/23 – Washington, DC – 9:30 Club
9/24 – Camden, NJ – XPoNential Music Festival
10/1 – Nashville, TN – 3rd and Lindsley
10/3 – Chattanooga, TN – Barrelhouse Ballroom
10/5 – Louisville, KY – Headliners Music Hall
10/6 – Madison, WI – Majestic Theatre
10/7 – Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue
10/9 – Ann Arbor, MI – The Ark
10/11 – Cleveland, OH – Grog Shop
10/13 – Milwaukee, WI – Shank Hall
10/14 – Chicago, IL – Thalia Hall
10/15 – Pittsburgh, PA – Mr. Smalls Theatre
