Roots rock, funk, punk, and klezmer—blended in the backwoods of Maine by the Shmutz Family.
Long before the first downbeat or tambourine shake, the Shmutz family had settled on a forgotten web of logging roads deep in Maine’s North Woods. Their grandparents, Moishe and Gertie Shmutz, were back-to-the-landers before it was cool—or safe. After escaping a condo association in Brighton Beach, they homesteaded near the Piscataquis River, living off potato kugel, fiddleheads, and sheer Yiddish stubbornness.
The musical dynasty began unintentionally. The eldest sibling, Huxtable Maccabee Shmutz, was named for a beloved sitcom father known for slipping a mickey here and there. With a Stratocaster he rebuilt from junked snowmobile parts and a harmonica shaped like a shofar, Huxtable started writing songs about split wood, lost love, and cholent that wouldn’t quit.
Next came Rhoda Shmutz, a rhythm guitarist whose voice “sounded like challah soaked in whiskey and left out in the rain,” according to one rave review in The Bangor Monthly Jewish Review & Bait Shop Digest. She brought order to Huxtable’s chaos and introduced three-part harmonies, often mid-argument.
Then came Belvedere Shmutz, bass player and amateur Talmudist. He could switch from upright to electric without breaking eye contact, once famously quoting Rabbi Akiva while soloing during a storm at the Unity Fair. He also sells smoked sable and homegrown medicinal cannabis he affectionally calls “Bubbe’s Bubonic Chronic" out of a truck with no brakes.
Rounding out the band was their oddball cousin, Frasier “Circumcised Sticks” Shmutz, a percussionist who only plays standing up, always barefoot, and once used a box of stale matzah as a snare. He’s known for wearing only linen and claiming he speaks fluent Ladino “when the moon is right.”
The band might’ve remained an obscure North Woods legend, playing Shabbos barn hoedowns and moose-benefit picnics, if not for Cousin Archie Bunker Shmutz, an amateur drone hobbyist and seasonal RV repairman. In 2021, Archie backed over the family’s only StarLink dish while chasing a raccoon with a hot dog tong.
Cut off from the outside world, the Shmutz siblings did what Jews have always done in exile: they made art. A flurry of songwriting followed.
Word of mouth spread. A Maine Public segment titled Klezmer in the Kingdom of Spruce brough them cult status. A viral TikTok of Frasier playing bongos on a stump during a fox mating season riot cemented their legend.
Always looking for new members!
Reach out about our Havdalah Hootenanny!
Check back for seasonal gigs (mud and deer tick season permitting). They’ve got a standing invite to the Unity Co-op parking lot on Lag B’Omer.
All handmade, with their motto stitched on: “From the shtetl to the spruce—Shmutz gets in your boots.”
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Email: brian.kresge@gmail.com
Instagram / TikTok: @shmutzfamilyband