• Home
• Archives
• About
• Videos
• Links
• Contact

Israel to get its own MTV

How do you say ‘I want my MTV’ in Hebrew?

While cable viewers here have had easy access to MTV Europe and VH1 Europe for many years, the days of a full-fledged MTV Israel are imminent, according to MTV Europe’s Managing Director and Executive Vice President Bhavneet Singh, who was in recently town for talks with the company’s partner in Israel – Ananey Communications, one of the country’s leading cable channel developers.

Singh is a big fan of Israel and it’s tech ingenuity and sophistication. In fact, two years ago, Israel became the first country to launch an online MTV – MTV.co.il - without having a TV channel to go along with it.

“Technology-wise, you guys are like the South Korea of this part of the world, in terms of your broadband penetration and your consumption of media,” Singh told me in a meeting in Tel Aviv. “You’re known as a people and culture of being ahead of the game – whether it’s ICQ or any number of new tech companies coming out of here. That was one of the reasons giving us the confidence to say, hey, an online introduction to MTV is a nice way to do this.”

The MTV Israel free-on-demand web site features many of the staples located on the MTV Europe TV channel that cable subscribers can view, like The Hills, Cribs and Pimp My Ride, as well as local programming like celebrity news show Mehadura.

According to Ananey’s Udi Meron, an Israeli TV pioneer who founded the Kids Channel back in the early days of cable TV, the popularity of the site has convinced Singh and his colleagues that the time is ripe for a Sabra MTV music channel to go along with the more than 50 distinct MTV channels around the world.

“Everyone finds their own balance – we want to add of course the element of Israeli music and Israeli lifestyle. For Israel it’s very important, internally and externally, because one of the things we want to do is make MTV Israel a window to the world, and to the MTV network,” said Meron.

While Israelis like Becky Griffin, Eden Harel and Jason Danino-Holt have served as MTV Europe VJs, and on November 5th in Berlin, Ninet Tayeb will represent Israel at the MTV television network’s Europe Music Awards, Meron sees a unique opportunity in MTV Israel for the country’s virtues to be exported to youth around the world, through original programming that Singh said was of sufficient quality to be dubbed and sent to MTV affiliates everywhere.

While neither Singh or Meron would commit to a target date for the channel’s launch, Singh said that it would “be sooner than later.”

Walking with the King – Israeli style

I know that Israelity has written about it in the past, but after a visit to the Elvis Inn for a friend’s 60th birthday party, it’s impossible to resist commenting about it.

An oasis of kitsch from the King right off the Neve Ilan turnoff on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway, the Elvis Inn is now an Israeli landmark that should not be missed – especially if you want to go home with an Elvis portable alarm clock or a postcard of Elvis as the baby Jesus, or a Bedouin nomad. It’s the kind of place that John Waters or David Lynch would have thought up for a scene for one of their movies.

The Elvis Inn is actually a restaurant – a garish, American-deco diner at that. You can’t miss the place, with the huge Jurassic Park-like statue of Elvis outside. But rather than serving the traditional cheeseburger and fries – after all, this is Israel – you can get your fries with pargiyot, kebab and any number of grilled Middle Eastern delicacies.

[The music is a taped loop of greatest hits by the King, which I'm sure the staff must be sick of hearing by now. The gift shop is chock full of the Elvis memerobilia described earlier, and the wall and ceilings are jam-filled with photos of 50s Elvis, pre-army Elvis, movie-star Elvis, Las Vegas Elvis, and wall murals of the King's numerous movie rolls. Then there are the statues and figurines throughout the restaurant - magnets for photographs. We went home with an Elvis Inn mug, and a few pilfered Elvis sugar packets.

A visit to the Elvis Inn shouldn't be missed - for a combination of Israeli and American pop culture excess at its most peculiar. Even better if you can make it on the annual commemoration of Elvis's death, when the cadre of Israeli Elvis impersonators converge for an evening of sneering and attempts at Israeli accented "Jailhouse Rocks."

Anka ticket angst

Israel is back on the rock concert map. We’ve seen some truly big names of late: Madonna, Leonard Cohen, Paul McCartney. But there have also been some visits by musicians slightly lower down on the food chain. A few months ago, it was Gilbert O’Sullivan, best known for the saccharine pop ditty Alone Again Naturally. And now it’s…Paul Anka.

I shouldn’t be so gloomy. A lot of people are big fans of the Canadian-born Anka. He has two shows scheduled during his tour of Israel. The 68-year-old contemporary of the Beatles (ouch, that’s a little hard to say in the same sentence) had a string of hits in the 1960s and by the end of that decade had sold more than 100 million records.

He’s been in the news again lately when it was revealed that he would receive half of the songwriting royalties for Michael Jackson’s new song, “This is It.”

I even thought it might be fun to attend his upcoming mid-November concert in Tel Aviv. But the prices, ranging from NIS 340 to NIS 1,000 ($92-$271), set me back in my chair: that’s an amount I usually tuck away for last minute emergencies like leaking roofs and car repair.

Madonna, McCartney and Cohen also had ticket prices in the same ballpark. One more lucid reminder that we’re not in the heartland of America where you can see a top performer for under $10. I have the ticket stubs to prove it. Pink Floyd: $8.75. Queen: $9.00.

Silly me. Like Anka, I was stuck in the 60s and 70s myself. Concert prices around the world today rival what we pay in Israel. Those ten-buck tickets have gone the way of the electric typewriter and the rotary phone. Even entrance to see oldies hit makers Three Dog Night now starts at $50!

Fortunately, ticket prices for Israeli bands are still relatively down to earth. You can see rockers Bet HaBubot or Erez Lev Ari for under NIS 100 ($26). Or catch them at a festival like Jerusalem’s annual Chutzot HaYotzer arts and crafts extravaganza where a full performance from a top star – Ivri Lieder, Yehudit Ravitz, Aviv Gefen have played in the last year – is included in the ticket price of NIS 40 (just over $10).

Try seeing Donny Osmond for a price like that!

Spontaneous Thriller

So, have you seen that video of Oprah opening her 24th season with a ’spontaneous dance’/'flash mob dance’ along Chicago’s Magnificent Mile? If you haven’t,

Story is that her staff — and 20,000 people — pulled off the surprise, for Oprah, of performing a choreographed piece to the Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling.” And now this kind of spontaneous dance is becoming a worldwide trend, one which, natch, is making its way to Israel.

Several production companies and the City of Tel Aviv-Yafo are putting on their own spontaneous dance to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” scheduled for next Friday, October 30, at 12:30 in Dizengoff Square (the one with the Agam fountain at the middle).

If you want to participate, however, you gotta learn the dance, and by that I mean the dance steps to ‘Thriller,’ those danced by the moondancing maniac Michael Jackson. You have just one week:

The Mohawk Returns to TA

As the recent owner of an old-but-new-for-me haircut — a modified mushroom, last seen on my head in 1983-1984 — I’ve been getting many comments about my newly shorn locks, probably because they’re shorter than they’ve been for some time. One friend told me, “You look ten years younger.” Which could mean just that, that I look ten years younger, but I sort of felt that it implied that I had a solid ten years to rid myself of, and now that I’d done just that, what have I been looking like for the last few years??

But given the centrality of hair in my life for the last week, I paid special attention to a Haaretz Gallery article this week about the increase of Mohawk haircuts on the streets of the Big Orange. It’s a look that attracts attention, as pointed out by Haaretz writer Tahel Frosh — whether it’s a modified, messed up or done up Mohawk. And given the recent harkening back to the 80s in the fashion world, it’s not a big surprise that this particular Punk style — and my mushroom head — is back.

According to stylist Maayan Goldman, the fashion statement being made by the current Israeli variation says, “I am not radical in any way, but I am here. I have fashion sense, but I’m not going to die for it.”

I mean, after all, it is just hair. It grows back.

Ramirez Brothers invade Tel Aviv

You can hear a lot of different types of music bouncing around the vibrant Tel Aviv nightclub scene – from tons of dance/electro pop to ‘beautiful Israel’ public sing-alongs to grungy alternative rock, all within walking distance from each other.

But not even experienced Tel Aviv scenesters weren’t prepared for a group that combines a piercing trumpet, Jack White-distorted guitar histrionics, ‘70-styled funk and soul rhythms and a mess of facial hair. Never mind that all three members are brothers hailing from Mexico!

Forget that last part – The Ramirez Brothers are indeed the name of the band, but they’re not from Mexico and they’re not brothers. They’re just three talented Tel Aviv musicians with a penchant for shedding their shirts during their sweat-inducing performances. With songs sung in English that evolve into groove-based, howling jams, the band has gained a word-of-mouth following around the Tel Aviv area and are poised to break out beyond Israel’s borders soon.

“We thought it would be really cool to have stage names. And even though we’re not biological brothers, we are very close friends,” explained Sefi Ramirez (Zisling), the band’s trumpet player, who along with Uzi Ramirez (Feinerman) on guitar and vocals, and Eitan Ramirez (Efrat) on drums form the rather unorthodox trio, who effortlessly tackle an Americana mix of blues, funk, r&b and some Hendrix hysteria.

They’re no strangers to the Israeli music scene with Uzi handling guitar chores for Hadag Nahash and Sefi taking the solos for Funk’N'Stein and Yehudit Ravitz’s band. But The Ramirez Brothers is their passion and their baby, and their music offers a most exciting and seamless Israeli-American synthesis

So, the next time you unkowingly walk into a Tel Aviv club and suddenly think you’ve been transported to the American Deep South circa 1974, you’ll know that you’ve just stumbled upon The Ramirez Brothers. Don’t forget to say hi.

Of Matisyahu, Larry David and their [dis]connection to Israel

Just by chance, I’ve been interviewing quite a few American Jewish artistic types in the last couple of weeks – as disparate as Elan Attias, the vocalist for the late Bob Marley’s band The Wailers, iconoclast Brooklyn acoustic rocker Adam Green, Orthodox reggae rapper Matisyahu, and Seinfeld/Curb Your Enthusiasm icon Larry David.

It’s always interesting to learn how the American Jewish experience end up informing their views on Judaism – and Israel. For the 25-year-old, California-raised Attias, having an Israeli father was the key. He used to spend summers with his dad’s family in Kiryat Malachi, and liked it so much that he would lie to his parents about coming home and end up staying another month or two.

“One year, I did the Gadna military program – my Israeli friends said, ‘are you crazy, you’re volunteering?’ But I loved everything about being in Israel,” he told me.

It was also during his summers in Israel in the late 1980s that Attias – nicknamed the Young Lion – first grew to love reggae music, travelling every weekend to the Soweto Club in Tel Aviv.

“I was only 12 or 13 but I used to get on a bus in Kiryat Malachi by myself and go to Tel Aviv to the reggae clubs,” said Atias. “They had this DJ spinning the records, an Arab guy who loved the music but had no idea who he was playing, so they would ask me to announce the songs, and I’d hang out in the DJ booth all night long.”

Matisyahu also has a teenage Israel story which proved to be a life-changing experience. As a secular New York 16-year-old, he spent a semester in Israel at the Alexander Muss High School in Hod Hasharon.

“I remember one moment. They took us up to Mount Scopus around sunset to look at the Old City. For the first time, I got all emotional, and swept up in the idea of me being part of the Jewish people. Until then, it was a minor component of my identity, but it began to raise my awareness of the history and ancestry and rich background that I had. It was overwhelming,” he said, adding that it took a few years until Matisyahu became an Observant Jew and changed his name from Mathhew Miller.

These days, Matisyahu, who performed this week twice in Israel, spends a month here over the holidays every year.

Contrast the Attias and Matisyahu experiences with those of Adam Green and Larry David, born 30 years apart. David, who grew up ‘very Reform’ in Sheepshead Bay, New York, ended his Jewish experience after his bar mitzvah.

Since we were speaking a couple days after Rosh Hashana, I asked David how his holiday was, and he replied, “Uneventful.”

You don’t go to services on Rosh Hashana, I asked, treading dangerously close to a Larry David moment.

“Nah. I used to go to when I was married, that was part of my marriage arrangement, but it isn’t anymore,” he laughed.

Neither is Israel, apparently. When I asked if David had ever visited the homeland of the Jewish people, he answered, “No, I have no particular interest. Naturally, I want Israel to prosper and survive, but I’m not active in my support.”

Thirty years after David’s assimilation, a similar thing occurred to Adam Green, the quirky Brooklyn folkie, who as a member of The Moldy Peaches in 2001, co-wrote “Anyone Else But You,” the cloyingly charming song sung by the main characters in the 2007 indie sleeper hit film Juno.

Growing up in Mount Kisco, New York, he also was bar mitzvahed, but today, “I’m an atheist. I’m not at all observant now, what’s the point?” he said, adding, “I hope it’s not too late to make my first trip to Israel.”

Perhaps that’s the question all of American Jewry should be asking.

Nostalgia Sunday – Mercedes Sosa

Amidst all today’s Sukkot holiday hoopla came the sad news that folksinger Mercedes Sosa, “The Voice of Latin America”, was dead. Sosa, who for over four decades, influenced singers from Joan Baez to Shakira, was a champion for social justice and a great friend to Israel.

She was a great friend to Israeli singers, too. Her last tour here was just a year ago, in October 2008, when David Broza took the stage with her during those performances.

She also collaborated with Argentinian-born singer-songwriter Shlomo Idov, who spoke movingly about her on Israel Radio today, as well as Aviv Geffen.

Last year, Israel’s Channel 2 ran an item about the long-standing relationship between Sosa and Israel. The video (in Hebrew only) can be viewed here.

The Argentinian community in Israel is planning a memorial celebration of the life of Mercedes Sosa on at 8:00o pm on Tuesday, October 6, and invites people to bring guitars and other instruments, food and friends to Park Herzliya (near the Seven Stars Mall). They, as do we all, will always remember Sosa in her heyday, performing one of her best-known songs, “Gracias a la Vida” (”Thanks to Life”).

Autumn Nights in the Old City

There’s nothing like a Jerusalem night. After a hot day, it cools down but not so much that you’re shivering. That’s one reason the city is sponsoring its free “Fall Nights in the Old City” festival now until October 26 – it’s a way to get out and have some shirtsleeve fun while exploring the city’s historic Jewish Quarter.

Last night’s show was the Marsh Dondurma band – a motley crew of 15 brass musicians playing traditional ethnic music from around the world with a heavy emphasis on jazz, klezmer, funk and a smattering of pop too (I’m pretty sure I heard snippets of “Rock Around the Clock”).

The band includes trumpets, trombones, clarinets, saxophone, and assorted percussion instruments.

There’s no way to leave a Marsh Dondurma concert without a huge grin on your face. The music is infectious and the band members seem to be having such a good time on stage. And when do you ever get to see a dancing tuba player rocking out at close range.

The setting was spectacular – the Gan Hatekuma amphitheater set along an ancient wall not from the Western Wall itself. The audience was as eclectic as the performers – religious, secular, Jerusalemites and Tel Avivi’s with their shaved heads and small round glasses.

We were sitting right up front when some of the band’s fanboys started dancing right in front of us. Such chutzpah, we thought, to block everyone’s view like that. But when the bandleader exhorted the crowd to get up and boogie, we figured if you can’t beat them, join them.

Before long, a good portion of the crowd, which numbered in the hundreds, was grooving up front.

Marsh Dondurma has played all over Israel as well as at the Guca Trumpet Festival in Serbia (2006), The Montreal Jazz Festival (2007), and at venues in New York and Croatia. The clip above is from their Montreal performance.

You can catch more music from the band on their MySpace page.

The next show at Gan HaTekuma will be klezmer kings Oy Division on October 12. The full schedule is here.

Hallelujah!

You just haven’t lived until you’re in a stadium with 49,999 other people, all of whom are singing along with Leonard Cohen as he performs “Hallelujah.”

This was just one of the countless transcendent, goose bump-invoking moments in Cohen’s concert Thursday night in Ramat Gan Stadium. It was one of those shows where you enter some kind of suspended time zone in which for three hours, somehow all seems to be right on the planet.

Full of joy, hope, great musicianship, and excrutiatingly beautiful moments, the show was perfectly placed only a few days before Yom Kippur, a time of reflection and self examination. Seeing and hearing Cohen sing his songs like in some long-carved-in-stone prayers transformed the stadium into the world’s biggest, yet most intimate synagogue. And when the singer offered a dramatic rendering of the Bikat Kohanim (the Priestly blessing) late in the show, it only added to that feeling.

The audience, consisting of ages from teen to Cohen-era 70s, hung on his every lyric and delivery. A few times when he kneeled, there were a few gasps from people fearful of a repeat of the fainting incident that occurred in Spain last week, but Cohen was only making the moves for dramatic effect.

The three and a half hour concert (including a 25-minute break in the middle), included a slew of encores, with Cohen seemingly unwilling to leave the stage on his last show of a huge European tour. In fact, he brought out all the crew members on stage, introduced them and thanked them at the end.

Even though there were definitely some Palestinians and Israeli Arabs in attendance, some involved in the Fund for Reconciliation, Tolerance and Peace, which was launched earlier in the evening with proceeds that Cohen donated from the show, I kept thinking how nice it would have been if the crowd had been half Jewish, half Arab.

If only Cohen’s message of hope, peace and reconciliation had been allowed to be heard in Ramallah as well, and not been banned by angry Palestinians who refused to let a planned concert take place there. Witnessing 50,000 Palestinians singing “Hallelujah” and applauding efforts for reconciliation would have been a real New Year gift for all of us.

 

• Subscribe

  Subscribe to Israelity via email:

• Social Media

  • Twitter
  • YouTube
• • Facebook

• Tag Cloud

  israeli photography Waltz with Bashir Travel Art Kadima israeli nostalgia photo coexistence Rosh Hashana hamas Environment Israelis photography Politics nostalgia Foto Friday Tel Aviv Yom Kippur knesset War Green Prophet succot Sderot Nostalgia Sunday holiday Food jerusalem Music election photographers Dead Sea photographer IDF race festival Religion Israel photo exhibition tourism shopping vote Gaza Operation Cast Lead Paul McCartney photograhy

• Categories

  • A New Reality
  • Art
  • Blogging
  • Business
  • coexistence
  • Crime
  • design
  • Environment
  • Food
  • Foto Friday
  • General
  • health
  • History and Culture
  • Holidays
  • Immigrant Moments
  • Israeliness
  • Life
  • Medical Breakthroughs
  • Movies
  • Music
  • Nostalgia Sunday
  • Picture of the Week
  • Politics
  • Pop Culture
  • Profiles
  • Religion
  • Sports
  • Technology
  • Travel
  • War

• The Face of Israel Today

• 

• About Israelity

  Israel is often seen as a place of conflict and strife. In reality there is much more: there's business and research; art and culture; community and family. At ISRAELITY, Israelis blog their daily thoughts, experiences and insights. It's the real Israel, not the media's Israel. It's people living ordinary lives in an extraordinary place.

• Free newsletter

  Sign up for ISRAEL21c's free weekly newsletter Email:

• Stories from ISRAEL21c.org

  • Tel Aviv - the capital of cool [video]
  • The engineer who makes wine
  • Intel top company to work for in Israel
  • Atlantium water tech meets US dairy needs

• Popular Posts

  • Inglourious Basterds strikes a chord in Israel
  • Foto Friday – The Israel Photography Exhibition 2
  • Pin-ups
  • 2 days of pluralistic learning (and sex) in Jerusalem
  • Afraid to go to sleep – Paranormal Activity hits US cinemas

Recently Written

• Israel to get its own MTV
• Israel at the center of alternative energy development
• Bayit banamal
• Nostalgia Sunday – Shaare Zedek Hospital’s Schwester Selma
• Walking with the King – Israeli style
• Anka ticket angst
• Foto Friday – Reli Avrahami’s “Diary”
• Dead Sea skin
• Have any lessons been learned from Rabin’s assassination?
• Accessorize it

OUR COMMUNITY

Recent Comments

• Gaston on Inglourious Basterds strikes a chord in Israel
• Harry on Bayit banamal
• jeff karlin on Nostalgia Sunday
• jeff karlin on Nostalgia Sunday
• the Wire » Paranormal Hollywood on Ghosts in Israel? Not likely