Nostalgia Sunday – 60 Years of Army Radio

October 24, 2010 - 7:15 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: education, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, News, Nostalgia Sunday, Politics, Pop Culture, Profiles, tv 

One of Israel’s many funny ironies is that its hippest radio station is an army unit. Israel Defense Forces Radio or Galei Zahal — GLZ for short (pronounced galatz) — which officially began transmitting in 1950 after having kept the Jewish public informed during the 1948-9 War of Independence, has traditionally been Israel’s most up-to-date radio station for news, programming and music — even the phone-in traffic watch on subsidiary Galgalatz.

GLZ has had a huge influence on Israeli popular culture as the first station to eschew formal Hebrew in favor of colloquial Hebrew. Some say it created “infotainment” in Israel. It certainly has, for generations, served as an unofficial journalism school for soldiers who’ve gone on to become Israel’s leading lights in news and entertainment. Click here for Y-net’s take on the glitzy, glamorous crowd who came to celebrate the station’s 60th anniversary this past Thursday night, and here for the video on Walla!.

In the spirit of celebrating GLZ’s birthday, there was a day of special programming, that can be accessed online. And the IDF’s English-language website presented a list of Five Facts About Galei Tzahal. They are:

1. Army broadcasts were started by Prime Minister and first Minister of Defense David Ben Gurion following the sounds of celebratory trumpets and the national anthem.
2. Galgalatz, a GLZ offshoot that mainly broadcasts music and traffic reports along with reports by the National Authority on Road Safety, was established in 1994. Today it is the most popular music station on Israeli radio.
3. Galgalatz’s name is a combination of the words galgal (wheel), a link to the issue of road safety and GLZ, its parent station’s name.
4. In 1958, GLZ moved from its original headquarters at the Manchil school in Ramat Gan to Jaffa, where its location remains to this day.
5. For years, GLZ’s chief grammar and semantics editor has been legendary Dr. Avshalom Kor, who teaches courses on proper Hebrew for the station’s new writers and hosts the station’s linguistics corner. Language lessons? Yes! Because GLZ is a division of the IDF Education & Youth Corps.

On its Hebrew site, the station created an online quiz entitled “Test Yourself – What Do You Know About GLZ?” that promises to stump even the most die-hard of fans.

And if you’d like to listen to GLZ or Galgalatz not only do they broadcast online but you can take a live peek into the studio too!

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On the radio

September 25, 2008 - 7:06 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Music, Pop Culture 

cell phones.jpgI’ve discovered my latest pet Israeli peeve: People (yes, mostly teenagers) who use their cellphones with MP3 player ability to play the music they have downloaded on their phones, out loud, for all of us to hear. It’s noise pollution at its worst, because it’s not even obviously blasting out of one’s car radio, or some boom box (circa 1985) sitting on a park bench. It idles out, not so tinnily, emerging from the slim rectangles that we all carry around. It can happen anywhere.

Now it’s one thing when one’s cellphone ring is a song, clearly beloved by the owner, that plays every time the phone rings. I personally have James Taylor’s “Carolina In My Mind” on mine, which isn’t exactly a favorite song, but I liked it more than the tunes my Nokia was offering. Now, however, six months later, I’m heartily sick of “Carolina In My Mind,” and need to find a substitute. And I am aware that I’m forcing others to hear it whenever I do, and they are clearly forming an opinion of me and my musical tastes whenever my phone rings. But that’s not as bad as those who force you to hear a song when you call them, which is another kind of torture, or, those who walk around listening to the music on their phone, out loud, on the speaker.

I’ve been grumbling about this to myself for several weeks now, but hadn’t had the opportunity to take anyone to task for it. And then, on the bus the other day, a kid was sitting opposite me in one of the four-seater sections, and he began ‘playing’ his phone.

I bided my time, thinking maybe he wasn’t going to play it for the entire ride, but it kept on going from one song into the next. Granted, he wasn’t playing any of my favorites, more of a Galgalatz run-through, but I was wondering if anyone else was going to say something to him. By song #3, I said, “You know, it’s not so polite to make everyone listen to your music when you’re in public.” He looked at me quizzically, and responded, “How’s it any different than the bus driver making all of us listen to the radio?” I didn’t have an answer, but I also couldn’t remember the last time I’d hear a radio playing on the bus. I acknowledged that it’s a similar concept, but the bus is the driver’s domain, whereas he’s another rider like the rest of us.

Then he asked me if it would make any difference if I liked the music he was playing. Yeah, maybe, I said. But not necessarily. He nodded. And then, he took a set of earphones out of his pocket, plugged them into his phone and his ears, and shrugged. It was a typical Israeli shrug, the one learned by children in kindergarten, that can mean, “No, don’t feel like it,” or, “Sure, not sure why you’re making such a big deal of it, but it’s fine.”

I think he meant the latter. And I’m not sure, but it felt like a victory.

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In the mood

September 14, 2008 - 7:48 AM by · 2 Comments
Filed under: General, Music, Pop Culture 

Mood_fm.jpgLike most drivers, I have my car radio’s six program buttons preset to certain stations. By far, most air time goes to 88 FM, the country’s best station, and one of the more musically varied and innovative non-formats that you’ll find anywhere in these tightly restrictive, cookie-cutter times.

Then, of course, there’s a button dedicated to Galgalatz, (Army Radio on Wheels) the schizophrenic, music-only pop station that can veer from cutting edge to teeny bopper from one song to the next. Its sister station Army Radio has an interesting mix of news talk and music, and then there’s Reshet Gimmel, the Hebrew-only music station for when I’m feeling patriotic. And of course, the staid, news-driven Reshet Bet if you don’t want to get away from current events.

Occasionally though, I’ll switch the dials to see what else is on – either the local Radio Jerusalem channel, or the techno Top 40 and bad English pronunciations by the DJs on Jordan’s state run station are good for a laugh.

But when scanning the airwaves last week, I came upon Christopher Cross singing that annoying tune from the movie Arthur, and as a guilty pleasure, kept it on to torment myself. At the end of the song, it segued directly into Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street”, another 80s relic memorable for its sax riff and a seagull-like guitar solo near the end.

Huh? Two cheesy oldies next to each other? No Israeli music programmer ever shows such consistency. I knew something was up, and when at the end of the song, a jingle in English piped up singing “Mood 92”, I thought that I had entered a Twighlight Zone episode in which my car radio had managed to channel a 1980s suburban lite-rock radio station.

Naturally, I immediately programmed my 6th button to Mood 92, and on the rest of the journey, enjoyed a Carpenters ditty, a Journey power ballad, an Air Supply hit, and even some more modern material from the likes of Dido and Celine Dion.

When I got home, I did some investigating, and found out where this magnetic car crash of a radio station came from. Evidently Mood FM is the first privately owned English radio station in Jordan and has been operating since 2004. Who knew?

Their site says they focus on adult contemporary songs from the 60s to today, with core artists like Elton John, Mariah Carey and Phil Collins. The DJs that occasionally chime in between songs still sound like the Jordan Radio DJs, meaning they learned their English vernacular from films like Flashdance and Footloose, and their pronunciation from Father Guido Sarducci.

Now, when I start driving, I’ll still wind up on 88, but I always check Mood 92 just to see if I’m not missing “Year of the Cat.”

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