Killer Klezbian: Drummer Eve Sicular and her klezmer band Isle of Klezbos bring new heat to traditional Yiddish music. (music).

Eve Sicular recalls when she first came up with Isle of Klezbos as a name for her new all-woman, mostly lesbian klezmer sextet. "The band loved it," says Sicular. "But some of my friends said, 'Don't you think it might be a stigma? Will you get bookings outside of women's festivals?'"

Judging from the band's busy schedule, drummer and bandleader Sicular knew exactly what she was doing. True, Klezbos played the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival as one of its early gigs. But it has since appeared at Jewish festivals, synagogues, and commitment ceremonies. On June 24, Isle of Klezbos will join New York City's gay pride celebration by hosting a KlezBiGay event at the downtown punk club CBGB.

To understand the group's broad appeal, check out the diverse musical influences on its debut CD, Greetings From the Isle of Klezbos. The bouncy "East Hapsburg Waltz," written by Sicular, has accordionist Rachelle Garniez throwing in a riff from The Godfather. "Klezmerengue" includes Latin dancehall sounds--the lower east side meets Loisaida. Then there's the sultry style of vocalist Deborah Karpel, a cult figure on New York's downtown theater scene. Who knew Yiddish could be so sexy?

Although Sicular grew up Jewish in New York, only a subway ride from Second Avenue, she never heard klezmer until much later and didn't start playing it until she moved to the West Coast after college. Sicular was raised on the upper east side of Manhattan and the suburbs of Westchester. "The home of presliced challah," she quips. Her dad was a classically trained piano player, and she taught herself the drums at age 8. "Tums out I was doing all the right things to play a traditional klezmer style," she recalls. "I was learning the rudiments--the drum rolls, the double bounces, the single bounces."

After graduation from Harvard, where she majored in Russian history and literature, Sicular headed to Seattle, where she tried her hand sitting in with a local klezmer band called the Mazeltones. Also, she heard about KlezCamp, an annual retreat celebrating Jewish culture and music. "I heard there were lots of gays and lesbians," Sicular says, "and that was a big attraction."

The music proved more attractive still. An invigorated Sicular moved back to New York City and founded the coed ensemble Metropolitan Klezmer in 1994. Four years later she realized her dream of an all-woman band with Isle of Klezbos, which in addition to Garniez and Karpel includes Pam Fleming (trumpet and flugelhorn), Debra Kreisberg (clarinet and alto saxophone), and Catherine Popper (bass). Now both bands are thriving. Sicular lays down the backbeat--and does all the bookings.

During these years, Sicular also found time for gay activism. A fan of the late Vito Russo, she compiled a video-clip presentation called The Celluloid Closet of Yiddish Film, which she has screened at gay film festivals and Jewish events. "I learned that audiences love this kind of stuff," she says. After that, Sicular knew her lesbian-leaning band would be well-received. "People like the strength of women musicians," she says. "And who doesn't like klezmer music?"

Walter has written for The New York Times and the New York Daily News.