Nostalgia Sunday – 33 1/3 Album Cover Art Exhibit

October 31, 2010 - 10:18 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Art, design, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Movies, Music, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture, Travel, tv 

A new exhibit, “Israeli Records, Local Grooves” opened earlier this month at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design’s gallery space in Tel Aviv. The exhibition pays homage to a lost art: the large-format 33 1/13 RPM album cover, and the artists who created some of Israel’s most memorable pop images. For example, David Tartakover’s cover for Shalom Hanoch’s Mechakim La’mashiach (Waiting for the Messiah); a close-up of an ashtray containing all the hallmarks of Israeli impatience: chewing gum, a blister-pack wrapper of some sort of anti-anxiety medicine and, of course, cigarette butts, burnt matches and more cigarette butts.

Aris San was a beloved singer of sad Greek songs who found fame and fortune in the night clubs of Jaffa. He’s credited with bringing Greek and Mediterranean mizrahi music to the wider Israeli audience.

Zohar Argov was known as “The King” as one of the first mizrahi singers to successfully crossover into mainstream popular culture. This album was issued by a company called Galton - something more or less akin to an Indie label – but Argov’s mainstay was the cassette market: recordings purchased at central bus stations around the country.

Haim Topol became famous internationally for his portrayal of Tevye the Milkman in the film version of Fiddler on the Roof. But locally, he will always be remembered for his roles in Ephraim Kishon’s movies Sallah (more about that here) and Ervinke, in which he played a devil-may-care Tel Avivian.

Svika Pick (a.k.a: Tzvika Pik, Tsvika Pick, Henrik or Henryk) is the closest Israel has ever come to a true pop star. He started out emulating David Bowie, as you can see, on this album issued by another more or less Indie lable, Koliphon, run by two brothers out of their record store.

Pick later morphed into a local version of Peter Frampton, Elton John (complete with soccer playing) and more recently, something like Ozzy Osbourne (reality TV show). He wrote Dana International’s Eurovision winning hit, Diva, and has been a judge on the local version of American Idol. His daughter dated Quentin Tarantino. And he does it all with sunglassed nonchalance. And to think it started with a layer of silver body paint.

“Israeli Records, Local Grooves” runs through November 20 at the Bezalel Gallery, 60 Salameh Street in south Tel Aviv.

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Nostalgia Sunday – Mike Brant

August 23, 2009 - 3:27 PM by · 2 Comments
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Music, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture 

It would be an understatement to say that the American influence in Israel is huge. TV shows, movies, music, fashion, fast-food and retail chains… let’s face it: all that’s missing is Target and WalMart. And Cosco. But back in olden times – the 1950s, 60s and 70s – Europe held far more sway over Israeli cultural tastes.

One Israeli pop singer who truly made it in terms of international success was Mike Brant. Who?, you ask, and I answer: Shame on you for not knowing about one of Israel’s most famous exports of all time! A sex-on-legs power balladeer, Brant achieved international fame in the early 70′s, mainly in France, which is why folks from the US never heard of him. But Quebecers did – take a look at this crowd of Canadians as they sit, transfixed, while their idol sings his biggest hit from 1970 “Laisse-moi t’aimer” (“Let me love you”).

Can you believe those pipes as he hits the high notes. Unbelievable. And he makes it looks so easy. No wonder that when French actress Sylvie Vartan caught Brant’s act in a Teheran night club (yes, that Teheran), she immediately invited him to come and meet French producer Jean Renard, who had made Johnny Halliday into a star. And if you don’t know who Johnny Halliday is, then again, shame on you and click here.

Brant’s string of hits included “Qui Saura”, a French version of “Que Sera” that José Feliciano had performed at the San Remo Music Festival. And if you don’t know what the San Remo Music Festival is, I have no words. How have you managed to evade these major cultural milestones till now? Just click here.

Play that song for any Israeli woman aged 45 and over, and she’ll begin singing and weeping at the same time. Why cry? Because Brant’s life ended tragically, rock star style, with a descent into drugs and a purported suicide in 1975 at the age of 28 when fell or jumped from a Paris hotel room window. Mike BrantSupposedly, his Haifa grave is a site for fan pilgrimages. I don’t know, I haven’t been. What is for certain is that he is greatly revered by Israelis of a certain age who recall the European cachet that Moshe “Mike Brant” Brand imparted to us. So close your eyes, lean back, clear your mind of all previous prejudices and repeat after me: “I love Europop… I love Europop,” and enjoy.

A long biography of Brant, written in pidgin English but with great photos, can be found here.

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Nostalgia Sunday – Pop Star

June 29, 2009 - 6:48 AM by · 2 Comments
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Music, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture 

Do Israelis know from the Jackson-5? Puh-leez! This is the country whose government banned the Beatles from performing in the early Sixties on the grounds that they were a degenerate influence on the nation’s youth. But they did know Michael Jackson. In the mid-Seventies, with the advent of third radio broadcaster Reshet Gimmel, which played pop music, and pirate radio station The Voice of Peace, Israelis did become exposed to the international pop music. “Maariv LaNoar”, a weekly magazine for young people, reinvented itself as the local version of “Tiger Beat” with covers like this one:

michael_jackson_maariv_lanoar

Israelis tended (and still tend) to be exposed to Euro-pop, rather than good old American rock and soul but Michael Jackson was a massive musical crossover artist, with huge cultural influence all over the Middle East. Once “Thriller” hit, every country had their own ringleted version of Michael Jackson. Israel too*.

michael_jackson_izhar_cohen

His Pied Piper persona already in full-swing, Michael Jackson held particular appeal for the younger set (by this I mean people who are now in their late Thirties) and in the mid Eighties you couldn’t go to any wedding or bar mitzva without the kids breaking out into song: “Triller! Tee lai lai… la lee la la la la la la la la la la la la… Triller! Tee lai lai…” and so on, ad infinitum.

But by the late Eighties, Israel’s media had fallen into lock-step with its international counterparts and stories about Jackson — whom “Spy” magazine once described as “the American version of Prince Ludwig of Bavaria” — focused on the weirdness.

michael_jackson_maariv_lanoar_1995

And then, in 1992, speculation began that he was coming to perform in Israel. And he did in 1993.

michael_jackson_rosh1_1992

During the past decade, new albums like “History”, regularly made the mainstream Israeli press, like this cover of Yediot Aharonot’s weekend supplement from 2002 of Jackson pulling his famous crotch-grab move. Famous but not original; the move was copped from Prince-produced Minneapolis band The Time, who doubtless stole the move from some other uncredited act.

michael_jackson_yediot_2002

Now Michael Jackson is dead and, as a good friend posted the other day on Facebook, in-between all the big hits, “the airwaves are filled with a whole ouevre of repetitive music that we fortunately never had to listen to.” Because our memories are not of Euro-perception post-”Bad” crap. We over-forties remember the J-5 hits, the Jacksons and, of course “Off The Wall” — little of which are being played here. Sadly, Israeli radio — whose knowledge of soul music is limited to the Blues Brothers movies parts 1 & 2 — is as usual, regurgitating only what it knows, not doing any research and depriving listeners of that truly joyous, wonderful music. Personally, I blame it on the boogie.

*Izhar Cohen, he of the Eurovision Europop mega-hit A-ba-ni-bi.

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