Nostalgia Sunday – 50 Years of Israeli Club Culture
Filed under: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture, War
Anhedonia is “an inability to experience pleasure from normally pleasurable life events” and in addition to being the working title for Wood Allen’s “Annie Hall” – it also describes a feeling Israelis wrestle with on a daily basis.
Nissan Shor, is the author of the new book “Dancing With Tears in Their Eyes,” a history of fifty years of dance clubs in Israel. In it, Shor – a music writer turned cable show host – makes a case for the tension between Israel’s often grim security situation, and just wanting to have fun, as unique. 
The book (available only in Hebrew but with lots of pictures that, because of copyright issues, can’t be posted) deals with places that played recorded music only, from so-called Salon Parties held in living rooms in the late 1950s to Dance Nation clubs such as Jerusalem’s Haoman 17 in the late 1990s. It does not, notes Shor, deal with “night clubs or variety clubs where there were performances, like magicians, jugglers or live music.” Over the decades, he says, “In Israel there has always been a de-legitimization of people who want to dance and have a good time, because of our national situation.”
“Throughout, we see people whose desire to have fun becomes an antiestablishment act. And a young person who dances isn’t necessarily protesting the establishment but the ideological hegemony is so strong, that people who deviate for the purposes of pleasure become, whether consciously or unconsciously, anti-nationalistic. You can’t just dance and be normal.”
Shor touches on the non-conformist bohemia of the early Yishuv pre-State settlement – whose Foxtrotting tea-dances were condemned by the poet Chaim Nachman Bialik, who wrote, “What emptiness! What tastelessness!… Degeneration and hollow soullessness!”
But the book really gets started with the introduction of Rock ‘n Roll and the noar salon (literally, “living room youngsters) Israeli-style Greasers later immortalized in the movie Eskimo Limon (Lemon Popsicle). Says Shor: “They didn’t go to Zionist youth movements because the framework – uniforms, hierarchy – wasn’t their style. They wanted to be like the other young people all over the world, wear jeans and leather jackets, listen to Elvis Presley and Cliff Richard. And by the way, there were noar salon who went to both youth movement and dance parties.”
Photo by Fritz Cohen
The summer of 1965 marked a milestone in the history of Israeli clubbing, when the first discotheque opened on the veranda of the Hammam nightclub in old Jaffa. The venue, owned by author Dan Ben Amotz and poet Haim Hefer, was leased out to entrepreneur Rafi Shauli – a key figure in the creation of a new paradigm in Israeli nightlife. Shauli really deserves a full column devoted to his accomplishments, but it should be noted that in addition to the many clubs he opened in the 1960s and 70s, (Mandy’s, Mandy’s Cherry and Mandy’s Singing Bamboo – all in honor of then-wife, the glamorous and scandalous Mandy Rice-Davies), he also opened HaMoadon in 1977, a members-only discotheque that raised the bar for all clubs in the Jewish State.
The phenomenon “gave rise to serious debates in the Knesset from all ends of the spectrum about the deterioration of Zionism and all sorts of dangers to the nation’s future. And this discussion comes up every few years. When the Coliseum club opened in 1982, around when the [first] Lebanon war broke out, the national debate was ‘how can people dance when others are dying?’, and [state-run] Channel One called it ‘the last days of Pompeii.’ The 80s New wave clubs – Penguin, Sirocco, Liquid, Kolnoa Dan – said rock had to be sung in English,” leading to another outcry. “And when the second intifiada broke out, the national debate was about the ‘Tel Aviv bubble’. It’s constant.”
Photo by Moshe Milner
In the early Nineties, euphoria over the Oslo Accords and the promise of a New Middle East, dovetailed perfectly with the introduction of muti-channel television and increased Western cultural influence in Israel. “The Israeli electronic dance music revolution came in with the consumer revolution, chains stores, cable TV – and Ecstasy. By 1997-98, it dominated youth culture.” That euphoric balloon, he adds, “burst with the second Intifada.”
Given that clubs have become a target for terrorists, Shor says that going clubbing during times of high alert has evolved into a form of national pride for some young people. “For example, right before the first Gulf War, there were ‘End of the World’ parties. After the suicide bomber attack at the Dolfi-Disco, the club re-opened and the kids kept on coming. It wasn’t heartlessness. It was saying, ‘No, you won’t stop me living my life.’”
Shor worked on the book for four years, inspired by his own love of nightlife, and the lack of an authoritative source on the subject. “I saw there was this genre of literature in other countries. I think that the conflict, that the subject deviates from the conventional, is one reason why no such book had been written. And this book tries to analyze that convention and introduce it into the Israeli discourse. It seemed right from an Israeli point of view.”
The generations of accidental rebels, he adds, “Weren’t trying to be political protesters. It was a rebellion only because of their actions, trying to live a western life in Israel. I think this is true Zionism – to live as every other nation. I think Herzl would have preferred endless partying to endless war.”
Video: Haoman 17 Jerusalem closes
Reserved revelry of the times
Filed under: Crime, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Travel, War, coexistence
With a population of around 67,100 and proximity to both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Modiin is one of the larger suburbs of Israel. The city is located very close to the Green Line, though, making for some awkward situations for Israeli-Arab relations in the neighborhood – especially along the 443 highway, a major commuter thoroughfare. This isn’t a band of fringe settlers butting heads with nationalist Arab elements. Like the Kfar Saba-Qalqilya juxtaposition, it’s mainstream Israel in close quarters with villages.
Terror-resembling hate crimes have taken place in the area many times over the years (including these four incidents from 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003, during the Second Intifada). This past March, long before the wave of violence that kicked off last month, the high court defended arrangements which basically ban Palestinians from using the 443 in order to minimize its exposure to terror. And since the war in the south has escalated, there have been stoning incidents, Molotov cocktails and even a stabbing.
Anyone reading this blog knows that in times like these, life goes on. In general, incidents like the aforementioned don’t keep Israelis from going about their business, much like the way that regular shootings and muggings in American inner cities don’t keep Americans from going about theirs. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t take precautions. We do.
A friend of mine who lives close to me in Modiin attended a party last night in Jerusalem, and while he didn’t drink, so as to maximize safety on the journey home, his sister did. Quite inebriated, her head was spinning from the drive, which, as we all know, has the potential to cause vomiting. Cruising along the 443, my friend found himself in a bind. He did not want his car to get all vomited out, and he wanted to comply with his sister’s wishes for a break in the motion, but on the other hand, it was the middle of the night and he was within rock-throwing range of more than one Arab village.
So yes, in times like these, we keep working, living and even sometimes partying as if there were no conflict. But that doesn’t mean the conflict doesn’t color our judgment and impact our actions. And in case you were wondering, the way he tells it, my friend’s solution was to pull over for his sister to vomit out the car door for two minutes at a time, and only when she really really needed him to. She used a plastic bag the rest of the time.
Photo of the 443 highway courtesy Michaeli via Wiki Commons.
Nostalgia Sunday – Happy Birthday Arik Einstein!
Filed under: Art, Israeliness, Life, Music, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture
Arik Einstein turned 70 this week. Were it not for the war, this would have been front page news. Not only because it is an occasion for celebration but because in this land of the perpetual diminutive, where everyone goes by their childhood nickname, people find it hard to believe that Arik – singer of songs, cultural icon, survivor of the Sixties and the Tel Aviv bohemia – is entering his seventh decade. If that is so, and Arik is getting old, what does that mean the rest of us?
The English-language Wikipedia entry for Arik Enstein is a rather poor version of the far more comprehensive Hebrew one, but still manages to give the reader a sense of the breadth of his career. The son of an actor, he got his start in the Nahal Brigade entertainment corps, after being demobilized he joined the legendary Batzal Yarok entertainment troupe (together with Chaim Topol, Gila Almagor and others), then the Yarkon Bridge Trio (with Yehoram Gaon and Benny Amdursky), who were so hip, they covered a Beatles song! But if you really want to know what their music sounded like and how Israel looked like at the time, this clip is best:
Experiments of acoustic whimsy
Filed under: Art, General, Israeliness, Music, Pop Culture
Possibly the closest thing Israel has to a bona fide guitar rock god, Berry Sakharof is also a man of many collaborations. His chameleon-like changeovers have included forays into alt-industrial Euro new wave, folk-ethnic Eastern spiritual poetry songs and club rhythm-infused pop-metal. It’s all kind, and it’s all worth catching.
A few years ago, Sakharof explored his intimate side with a special mini-tour of acoustic gigs – many cuts from which made up the meat of the bonus acoustic disc from 2003’s In Concert boxed set. On this tour, he was accompanied almost exclusively by Zohar Fresco (check out his official site as well as his Myspace profile for great samples of his work that showcase his amazing talents), an extraordinary hand-percussionist. As Sakharof has been known to do every now and then, he has recently rekindled this collaboration, appearing on stage this past weekend at Jerusalem’s Ma’abada Theater.
The planners at the Ma’abada clearly were once again caught off-guard by the logistics of this event. Although the sound was well-mixed and clear, the venue unfortunately over-sold beyond capacity. Most rock shows held here involve a large open floor for bouncing revelers, but the laid-back nature of the acoustic format justified setting up rows of chairs across the entire floor, and when the crowds piled in close to the gig’s opening number, passageway aisles disappeared as more chairs were thrown down haphazardly, and some people were suddenly told that certain seats needed to remain empty in order to facilitate the movements of the performers.
But once the vibes settled down, the beauty of the music took over. Sakharof’s songs are simply great, and their flavors were accentuated by the bandless format. Less coordinated accompaniment means more room for drama and improvisation, and Sakharof and Fresco were clearly relishing in this dynamic, approaching the sings with whimsy and not hiding their smiles to each other.
Highlights from the set included classic Sakharof love songs like “Chaval She’at Lo” and “Basof Shel Yom,” experimental numbers like “Ra’ash Lavan” and covers of folk song standards.
Berry stuck to his guitar mostly, but he played with chords emanating from a pedal-triggered synthesizer as well, and the show opened with just him at the piano doing crowd favorites “Kama Yossi” and “Haolam Ha’amiti.” For the duration of the concert, the band grew in tiers – first with Fresco joining in, then a pianist/wind player, and finally with surprise guest Daniel Zamir, the Tzadik Records-affiliated post-klez alt-jazz sax player.
Berry needs to come to town more often.
Aviv Gefgen to release first album in English
Israel’s number one moperocker and emo poster boy Aviv Geffen is poised for, ahem, ahem, international stardom with the release of his first all-English solo album. Gefen has recorded in English before, most notably with Stephen Wilson of The Porcupine Tree. The two achieved success in Israel and Europe with their band Blackfield which delivered two albums of pretty damn good prog-pop. His new album is being produced by veteran producer Trevor Horn and Geffen has lined up a few key opening spots on former Suede frontman Brett Anderson Berlin and Paris gigs as well as a few opening spots on Mercury Rev’s current tour. Geffen and Mercury Rev go way back. A few years ago I saw Mercury Rev at Hangar 11 in Tel Aviv (incredible show!) and Geffen joined them on guitar on a song or two.
Ynet reports:
“Anderson got my latest album from my London office,” Geffen told Yedioth Ahronoth. “We met for coffee, he told me he loved the songs and then asked me if I would like to open for his Berlin and Paris gigs. “I was floored. He just set it all up with the office. We’re also talking about headlining a concert together. He’ll be performing my songs and I’ll be performing his. This is a really big deal,” Geffen continued. “Brett Anderson, to me and to an entire generation that grew up in the 90s, is a big deal and someone to learn from.
While I do concede that Geffen has an incredible gift of melody I am a bit skeptical whether he can pull off an entire album in English. You can hear a couple of tracks on his myspace page. His accent isn’t as strong (thought it is there) as I have heard in the past but the lyrics are, uh, not so good.
You can watch his electronic press kit on the YouTube:
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