Wichita City Paper
By Jedd Beaudoin
March 22, 2007
[Julz A] owes certain aesthetic debts to hip-hop and klezmer music, despite being white and Lutheran. … Take a quick spin through [Julz A’s] recent Squeeze Right EP and what you’ll hear is dark and desperate pop that has much more in common with Robert Johnson than Sir Jimmy Shand. Not that it’s all sturm und drang — ‘Play Your Ax,’ for instance cleverly balances levity with lethality; ‘Where in the Words’ plays with rhetorical conventions (the magic of the word ‘if’) over a danceable goodtime beat. …
The point is, bub, you’re not staring down the barrel of a hand buzzer here. These aren’t novelty acts, ya see. Not that some don’t make the leap before hearing the music. “Early on I made the conscious decision that my music would not have novelty elements,’ [Julz A] said. ‘There’s always gimmick in rock shows, though, whether it’s lighting of smoke or costumes. You have to make yourself stand out somehow. The accordion is what makes me stand out. Now, because it’s the accordion and it does have the history of being the uncool instrument, I have to work even harder to make sure that the accordion looks cool and acts cool. I make sure that I don’t come across as ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic trying to make fun of myself.”