Metal Jew

White Shabbos

White Shabbos sound like an interesting orthodox rock/metal band.  I've ordered the CD...

Shtark

So I got David Lazzar's album 'Shtark' thropugh the post this week. It's fairly decent musicallyand 'properly' Metal, although David's vocals are fairly weak.

I'm still puzzling over the semiotics of the thing. It doesn't seem to be a crude tool for outreach. Like Matisyahu he is an unconventional Lubavitcher - appearing in dark glasses and tallit on the cover.

What really intrigues me is the line on the inlay sleeve 'after listening to this CD one must go to the Mikveh immediately' and on the back the line 'Warning: not for Chassidish buchrim'. He's lyrics seem to express anger to God as well.  Clearly he's getting off on the transgressive aspects of Metal but to what end?

David Lazzar's website

Jewish Metal on the radio

This is interesting. No sooner had I heard of David Lazzar than he's to be interviewed on the radio:

We've got a great show coming up this Sunday, exploring the world of orthodox Jewish rock!

Orthodox Jewish rock explored on SomethingJewish radio show

 

12 July 2005 - London's only world Jewish music program on radio, the SomethingJewish Show will be devoting its Sunday 17th July 2005 broadcast to exploring the world of orthodox Jewish rock with an exclusive live interview with Canadian Jewish rocker David Lazzar.

 

The show is produced is produced and broadcasted in London and goes out via Resonance104.4fm and also on the Resonance104.fm web site www.Resonancefm.com between the hours of 3.30pm and 4.30pm every Sunday.

 

The world of orthodox Jewish rock, is the second in a series of themed shows which is being broadcast in July. Other shows include: Jewish reggae, klezmer and Jewish hip-hop.

 

Born in Montreal Canada, David Lazzar describes his music as "Ozzy meets Metallica at an Iron Maiden concert."

 

As well as the interview with Lazzar in which he will talk about his music and career and the importance of Jewish faith, the show will also feature leading Jewish metal bands, rockers and artists including:  White Shabbos, Joe Roff and YAD.

 

"Jews know how to rock and we are delighted to have secured David Lazzar's first ever UK radio interview and to play his music to a wider audience, not just on our radio station, but also through the web," said SomethingJewish Show co-host Caroline Westbrook.

Black Rock Coalition

I didn't know this was still going:

Link: Black Rock Coalition.

Thanks to Sue Ryan for the following. Not sure of its provenance:

Rock museum settles suit with Jewish rock Web site By Steve Gorman Fri Jul 1, 5:56 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - After settling a trademark infringement suit with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, a new Web site honoring Jewish rockers with a "Shul of Rock" and "Challah Fame" is open for business.

The suit was dismissed earlier this week when the founders of Jewsrock.org agreed to refrain from using the phrase "Jewish Rock and Roll Hall of Fame"
in connection with their site, a lawyer for the site told Reuters on Friday.

That didn't stop sponsors of the site from establishing a "Challah Fame" -- using the Yiddish word for a braided egg bread -- to label their alphabetical listing of Hebraic-born pop stars, among them Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, Lou Reed, Carole King and David Lee Roth.

Visitors to the site also can link to various essays on Semitic rockers under the heading "Shul of Rock" (borrowing from the Yiddish word for a synagogue). One article chronicles the origins of the all-Jewish L.A. band the Knack and its 1979 hit single "My Sharona." Another charts the rise of celebrity tailor "Nudie" Cohn, who designed suits for Elvis Presley and Hank Williams.

Readers can also take the "Jew or Not?" quiz. For the record, Bruce Springsteen is not Jewish. But according to Jewsrock.org, his drummer, Max Weinberg, is and has been "proving that Jews do have rhythm since 1974, when he auditioned for the E Street Band."

The Cleveland-based rock museum sued founders of site in U.S. District Court in February, claiming the name Jewish Rock and Roll Hall of Fame would infringe on the museum's trademark and confuse the public.

The two journalists and radio company executive who started the nonprofit site disagreed, but they ultimately decided that a protracted legal dispute was not worth the money or the effort.

As co-founder Jeffrey Goldberg put it, "These guys are an enormous establishment and institution, and we're just three Jewish guys with a computer."

In the end, publicity surrounding the legal dispute helped bolster interest in the site, said Goldberg, a Washington-based correspondent for The New Yorker magazine. It helped in other ways, he added.

The Cleveland museum's own lawsuit "listed all the Jews who were in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame," said Goldberg. "And thanks to their lawsuit, we discovered people we didn't even know who were Jewish, like the Flamingos, for instance. Who knew?"

Smart Christian Metallers

London's Destruction Fest is interesting as it's a Christian Metal/Hardcore festival that features Christian and non-Christian bands. The organisers seem determined to downplay the Christian aspect as far as they possibly can, for example not identifying whether particular bands are Christian or not. 

Clearly Christian Metallers (along with other Christian musicians) appear to be getting smart. They recognise that most Christian music has been shit and without the music standing on its own terms they aren't going to get anywhere...

Metal is Gay

Metal's gayness is both nowhere and everywhere. The number of 'out' gay Metallers is negligible and Metallers tend to be homophobic. However, homoerotic imagery is ubiquitous and (I've always though) ripe for appropriation and/or satire by the gay community.

Well this seems to have happened. Pink Steel appears to be a gay Metal parody and looks quite amusing. The song 'Hard as Steel' by Homo Gay Faggots appears to be a parody of the gayest of ungay Metal bands - Manowar.

There's too much to say about Live 8 so I'm not even going to try and do it justice. Suffice it to say that the aesthetic and political issues raised are so manifold and so juicy that I've been daydreaming of writing a proper study of it.

In the meantime, one of the more minor, yet still interesting issues about the event, was the comparative lack of hard rock and Metal. Now I'm not expecting or insisting that there should have been - no special pleading here! However, it is clear that hard rock/Metal was judged to somehow not fit into the spirit of the day. There were exceptions: Velvet Revolver  played a blistering set in London too mass incomprehension [reasonably enough - they aren't that big in the UK] , Bon Jovi and Def Leppard played in Philadelphia. The first Live Aid - in an admittedly very different musical environment - featured reunions by Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin.

At mega events like Live 8, Metal tends to be judged as too much of a minority taste to contribute. But more than this, in an event that stressed positivity, Metal is disturbingly dark and nihilistic.

Hard rock/ Metal is also marginalised in the UK more than elsewhere. The Glastonbury festival never features acts of this kind, whereas equivalent festivals elsewhere in Europe such as Roskilde, are much more welcoming.

Is this a problem? Probably not...

live8

Hassidic Metal - the real deal

Not sure how I've missed David Lazzar before. A Lubavitcher Metaller with 3 albums to his credit. Anyway, some kindly soul e-mailed me a video of his.

The musical backing isn't too bad (in the video it appears his musicians are not lubavitchers) but his vocals are pretty lousy. I've just ordered his album and I can't wait to revel in songs like 'I want my Rebbe'. Nice...

I've always felt though that religious fundamentalists like Lubavitch are well suited to Metal.  It is after all, the music of extremes.

Here is the video:

Download A_David_LAZZAR_HARD_ROCK_Tour_2005.wmv