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Tel Aviv battle of the bands

It was an opening line that did not forebode well.

“You picked an interesting night. Almost all the entries are metal,” said Bryan Steiner, greeting me at the bar of the Barby club in Tel Aviv Sunday night.

Steiner was referring to the 16 musical acts which were set to perform two songs a piece in the hopes of going on to the Israel finals of the Global Battle of the Bands Challenge. Steiner, the head of Blue Sun Records, along with promoter Carmi Wurtman and Barby owner Shaul Mizrahi, organized Israel’s participation in the event for the first time.

Over a dozen qualifying heats have taken place in October and November throughout the country with scores of Israeli bands vying to head to the finals taking place on Wednesday. The Israeli champion then goes on to the world finals in London on December 13, competing against the finalists from 36 other countries, with the winner receiving an artist development package worth $100,000.

Along with Sderot-based musician and producer Avi Vaknin, and Ziv Goland, a musical arranger for Dana International, I was asked to be one of the three judges for the event. However, unlike the high-profile American Idol model of in-your-face judging, we were allotted comfortable back-of-the-room tables and a scorecard to rate the entries from 1-20 and to provide written constructive criticism.

Battle of the bands have taken place for as long as there have been rock groups. Even in the mid-1960s, local high school bands would perform against each other at sock hops and on TV talent shows. One of the highlights of my college education in the late 1970s in Boston was attending the annual Rock & Roll Rumble held at the venerable punk club The Rat, where young hopefuls would wield “guitars like switchblades” in order to lay claim to the title of Beantown’s best band.

Turns out that not much has changed in 30 years. Despite the digital age of downloads and the gradual disappearance of CDs, the fading on the radio of guitar-based rock & roll in favor of studio wizardry hip hop, pop and dance music, and music in general receding as a number one priority among the social network-crazed youth culture, there’s still a lot of guitar slingers out there – of all ages.

The Barby was swarming with a mostly rambunctious teen audience – many of them bused in from Modi’in, where a good number of the competing acts hailed. The high school-aged entries, which made more than half of the 16 contestants stood in contrast to the half-dozen or so ‘older’ bands of adults, including one bass player who was even older than me, and a singer-songwriter, Yasmine Ariel who was in an advanced stage of pregnancy.

According to Steiner, amateur and professional musicians were eligible to sign up for the Challenge, with the only requirements being the ‘bands’ consist of two to eight members, all the music is live with no playbacks, and the songs are original compositions and not cover versions.

Regretting the fact I neglected to bring ear plugs, I took my seat, ready to face Steiner’s prognosis of a head banging evening. And indeed, there were a good number of acts – like Rockweiler (guess their genre) and Behind the Sun that looked and sounded like they learned everything about music in the back seat of Wayne and Garth’s car in Wayne’s World. Long hair flying in circular motions to the thunderous beats, they were parodies of a genre invented to be a parody.

Yet, there was something fresh and innocent about it nonetheless, as if despite the years of watching music videos and playing RockBand to get their moves just right, these kids were feeling music’s primal power and creating their own magic, no matter how derivative.

A big revelation for me was how musically tight and well-rehearsed every band was – this was no ‘hey, let’s enter the competition and write a song’ operation. While the lineup was male-dominant, women were represented by two high school bands featuring female singers of the Pat Benatar variety, a third with an incredible 16-year-old female lead guitarist, and the aforementioned Yasmine.

Particularly eye-opening were the school-age musicians, who must have been playing since they were kids and waiting for this day. It was a little sad that they’ve had to latch on to the music that their parents grew up with and many of their moves and riffs are mechanical regurgitations, but it was uplifting to see that another generation has caught the rock and roll bug.

When each band played, some singing in English some in Hebrew, its fans stormed to the front of the stage holding signs, pogo dancing and moshing in a show of solidarity. The audience also received scorecards, and like on American Idol, it was their vote, not the judges which ultimately determined the winner.

My top pick was a young four-piece band called Hageveret Harishona who performed sparkling guitar power pop with precision three-part harmonies . But chosen by the majority and headed to the finals on Wednesday is Spitfire 07, one of the female-led Modi’in high school bands. They were a ‘great for a high school band’ entry, and I gave them high marks for their spunky, arena rock performance and stage presence, while citing their lack of originality.

But they were unsurprisingly the audience favorites, with singer Meit Botton, dressed in Joan Jett black and reaching all the vocal shredding high notes, darting around the stage in various ‘rock chick’ poses.

While it’s unlikely they’ll be headed to London for the international finals, you can be sure the members of Spitfire 07 will keep their victory on Sunday night close to them for the rest of their lives. Even though there’s nothing new under the sun, rock & roll is still alive in Tel Aviv.

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!

Ghosts in Israel? Not likely

Israel may be an ancient land, with an ancient, not to mention, bloody history, but despite this, it doesn’t seem to be a land of ghosts.

What with Halloween coming up, I thought I’d do a story on the top 10 hauntings in Israel, expecting to find some fascinating material dating back to biblical times that would scare the pants off even veteran ghost observer Melinda Gordon, AKA Jennifer Love Hewitt. I scoured the web. Then scoured it again. There were many references to ghosts and hauntings – but only the living kind.

“There isn’t a culture of ghosts in Israel,” said an American friend who’d done similar research just a few years ago and also drawn a blank. “They just don’t have a history of it.”

I asked my sabra husband. “Ghosts!” he said, looking baffled. “We don’t have ghosts in Israel!”

But wait a minute. This is the country that spawned Paranormal Activity – supposedly the scariest movie about ghosts around today.

I carried on my research and discovered an article from Ynet last year. Apparently, the research by the German Bertelsmann Foundation showed, only 16 percent of Israelis believe in ghosts and spirits. A pretty low figure that could explain the absence of ghost stories. Compare that to the US, for example, where 48 percent of the population say they believe in ghosts , and a sizable 22 percent say they’ve actually seen or felt a ghost.

Interestingly enough, however, in the same Israeli poll, 45% of participants said they believed in angels.

It would make an interesting research paper to examine why Israelis don’t believe in ghosts. I’m sure it reveals much about the society, since ghost stories are an essential part of most cultures around the world.

Is it because they are well-grounded people with a surprisingly strong sense of optimism (angels!)? Is it because a country that has so many living enemies doesn’t have time to waste thinking about spectral enemies? Or could it be that the country, founded as it is in the wake of the Holocaust, is haunted enough by the very real loss of six million people?

I did come across one haunting – on a base in Israel. See above. Speculation runs from a speck of dust on the screen, to an energy orb, or a dead motorcyclist haunting the road.

And I’d love to hear your ghost stories too. Come on, there must be one or two stories of troubled spirits in Israel.

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.

Afraid to go to sleep – Paranormal Activity hits US cinemas

It’s the surprise hit of the year. Audiences across the US are afraid to go to sleep after watching a horror film made by Israeli filmmaker Oren Peli. The low budget movie reportedly cost just $11,000 to produce, but reviewers are calling it the most scary film ever made. Think Blair Witch Project, only worse.

The movie, Paranormal Activity , was filmed in 2006 over a seven-day period. It was set in Peli’s own suburban tract home with a crew of just three including his then-girlfriend Toni Taylor, and best friend (also Israeli) Amir Zbeda.

The film was released in fewer than 200 theaters, but raked in $7.1 million in one weekend – a record for a limited release film.

The film, about a couple who think their house is haunted, has now been picked up by Paramount Pictures . It bills itself as “the first-ever major film release demanded by you.”

Peli is not your usual blockbuster movie type director. He dropped out of school at 16, to set up his own software company. Three years later he immigrated to the US with Zbeda and began work developing animation and video game programs.

He got the idea for the film when he moved into a new home and found the sudden quiet of suburbia disturbing. The house was new and still settling, and at night he could hear the house shifting and groaning.

He wrote a script, fixed up his house a bit, held a casting session in Hollywood, and hey presto, shot a movie. He edited it on his own home PC, and then submitted it to Screamfest – a boutique festival for cult horror in LA.

The film was released in September with limited late-night showings at just 13 college towns, but the ball started rolling and the film became a web sensation on Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. Critics also jumped on board giving excellent reviews.

Originally Paramount planned to reshoot the film with better-known actors, but studio heads – including Steven Spielberg – decided it could stand as it was, with only a few tweaks.

Peli is now onto his next movie, a thriller called Area 51, but in the meantime Paramount Pictures releases Paranormal Activity at cinemas across the US on Friday. Get ready for some sleepless nights.

Nostalgia Sunday – eBay Within Reach

The big dinner table discussion in recent weeks has been, “When is eBay actually coming to Israel”? And while we still await the long-promised opening of Israel’s second IKEA like the coming of the Messiah (it is taking that long) it looks like eBay could make Neiman’s Nostalgic Notions on the Net a reality in the near future.

And about time, too. Last April, Ynet reported that eBay had launched a Hebrew-language interface. But even before that, as one might well imagine, enterprising Israelis were buying and selling second- (and first-) hand wares over sites like Yad 2 — and eBay as well. (For more on that, read blogger Dudu Cohen’s article or watch this Channel 10 news item from last year. Both only in Hebrew, unfortunately).

The question in all cases: how to receive remuneration in the absence of a full-service electronic payment and fund transfer system. In other words, how does one get paid (Illuminea’s Miriam Shwab wrote an excellent blog posting at the time) and even more significantly, how does one pay the Israeli tax authorities their share? And don’t think they aren’t wondering the exact same thing.

Last month came big news when PayPal announced it was launching Israeli operations… er… more or less. According to Globes, “Although eBay has a Hebrew-language site eBay Israel with product prices listed in both dollars and shekels, as well as a search function for popular items, Israeli buyers have only limited options for paying through PayPal. They have to open an account using an international credit card, but they cannot withdraw money accumulated in the account because PayPal has no agreement with Israeli commercial banks.” Again, this will likely be resolved at least by the time that IKEA in Rishon LeZion opens its doors.

All this is simply a preface to the mind-blowing notion that we Israelis will finally be able to unload our old crap to make way for new crap, just like everyone else in the western world! Imagine how great it will be to be able to buy and sell the following:

A limited edition Coca Cola bottle with Hebrew lettering and a Star of David on the neck.

A decorative metal bowl manufactured by the PalBell company, which operated in Tel Aviv from 1939 to 1956 and set the standard for kitschy Judaica from the Holy Land.

Sheet music featuring lovely Seventies songstress Ilanit… hmmm…wonder how much I can get for my copy!

Or this lacquer wall plate etched with a picture of an Israeli dancer. I’m pretty sure my Aunt Sarah had two of these hanging in her rec room.

And I can’t wait to unload the boatload I’ve got of these things!

Oh, there is no end to the fun we’ll have, once we open up our little eBay store in dot-C-O-dot-I-L-land. But seriously, for those who are sincerely motivated and interested in learning more about eBay in Israel, go to the eBay global site, and select “Israel” under the “Country” drop-down menu. There’s a User Group as well. Any number of Israeli companies have sprung up to give courses and sell books about how to make money on eBay but its probably best — and cheapest — to start with this series of YouTube videos, again in Hebrew only.

 

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