Schmekel, a Band Born as a Laugh

By HUGH RYAN
Published: November 25, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/nyregion/schmekel-a-band-born-as-a-laugh.html?_r=1

THE basement auditorium of the Jewish Community Center on the Upper West Side is a sincere space. Big, brown and bare, it suggests a school gym, a place for officially sanctioned fun — which made a recent concert by Schmekel, a raucous klezmer-core punk band made up of "100% trans Jews," all the more surprising.

"Schmekel" means little penis in Yiddish, and is a play on the fact that all four members were born female but now identify themselves on the masculine side of the gender spectrum. It's an appropriate name for a band that started as a laugh.