The Groggers, a pop-punk band from Queens, just came out with a new album, and on it is one of the catchiest, funniest songs about the Upper West Side I’ve heard.
The song, Upper West Side Story, is basically about being an Orthodox Jewish player on the Upper West Side: “I want to move to the Upper West Side, and find a pretty girl and never make her my bride.” In the video, the band members even have a West Side Story-style fight with another group of guys after the lead singer of the band steals a girl.
I wanna move to the Upper West Side
The land where all the girls always stay 29
We’re accountants by day, speed daters by night
We all live it up on the Upper West SideI wanna move to the Upper West Side
Every morning walk of shame cause I had to spend the night
And I don’t need no kids I got a PhD in life
We’ve all given up on the Upper West Side
Ari Friedman, the band’s guitarist, told me “It is our greatest wish that one day we can afford to live on the UWS.”
Friedman said the band members are somewhere between Orthodox and Modern Orthodox (which is somewhat more relaxed), but their music has been praised for not sounding “religious”. A grogger, by the way, is a kind of noisemaker that people use during the Purim holiday.
Check out the video below, and buy their album “There’s no I in Cherem”.
Photo courtesy of The Groggers.
