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Surprisingly, and wonderfully, Chris Needham will have his own Metal & Chat show, entitled 'Bang the Head That Does Not Bang' on Resonance104.4FM (http://www.resonancefm.com/audio.htm) from 1pm Tuesday 4th October, for 6 weeks.
Chris was the star of the alternately ludcicrous and touching video diary 'In Bed With Chris Needham' in 1990 or thereabouts, featuring his fantastically useless band Manslorter.
A Melbourne teenager, Novak Majstorovic, has just been convicted of burning down a church last year. He appears to have been pretty well plugged into the Metal scene. In response the following, surprisingly thoughtful comment from The Age newspaper, puts the whole thing in perspective:
Link: Don't simply demonise death metal - Opinion - theage.com.au.
Mobius, in his Orthodox Anarchist blog reports an interesting encounter with an Xtian missionary at Israel's Metalist festival. He doesn't mention the irony that Megadeth's Dave Mustaine - the headliners of the festival - is a Jewish Xtian.
Headline Band10:30 - 11:30 The MaccabeesSouth London boys drawn by romantic intuition to hone their talents on the coast, their post punk styling with elements of drum and bass are bought bang up to date by the dirty driving bass and drums of Rupert Jarvis and Robert Dylan Thomas, the razor sharp twisting sibling guitar presence of Hugo and Felix White and the twitching, jerking, eyes to the ceiling feet to the dance floor vocals of Orlando Weeks.
I think the name is one chosen at random as far as I can tell. Still, interesting that Jewish imagery is deemed acceptable for this sort of thing - progress of sorts.
I got a slightly innacurate mention on the website of Israel's finest barbarian Mesopotamian Black Metallers Arallu :
Keith Harris of the British magazine "Terrorizer" is writing a thesis on the band's song "Metal Rules the Globe", which will be included in his upcoming book
Actually I am writing a chapter in an edited book called 'Metal Rules the Globe' that will feature a discussion of the song 'Satanic War in Jerusalem'. Still, flattering to be considered worthy of a mention!
Well, Metal Israel is now up and it's looking pretty impressive too. The first few posts include a fascinating interview with Kobi Farhi of Orphaned Land particularly focusing on his complicated attitude to the relationship between Judaism and Israel.
What's interesting about Metal Israel is that its 'editor' is a female orthodox Jewish Kahanist whom I had a brief correspondence with a few years ago. It's clear that Kahanist fundamentalism and Metal are pretty compatible. It could provode the basis for a distinctictly Jewish form of Metal. This is of course a dillema for me as I abhor these views, whilst at the same time I longing for a Jewish Metal scene.
The other problem with Metal Israel poses for me is that it makes much of my blog fairly redundant! My brief news postings don't really compete with Metal Israel's reviews and interviews. More and more I think that Metal Jew is going to become a more general blog.
Link: Metal Israel.
I actually had a letter published in the Jewish Chronicle responding to a column by Melanie Phillips . Interestingly, they edited it to make it a little less vitriolic. The original version is below but I've put the original version in brackets:
[Recent condemnations of Amos Oz and more generally of the Israeli left by Melanie Phillips, reveal the ignorance and double standards behind her self-righteous version of Zionism.]
Melanie Phillips seems [utterly] unaware that it was secular Jews that developed the Zionist project in its formative years and beyond and that many had deep roots in the political left.
IsraelShe appears similarly oblivious of the existence of the sizeable religious Jewish peace movement in Israel and outside – organisations such as Rabbis For Human Rights that are simultaneously committed to Judaism and to leftwing Zionism.
Renowned scholars such as Gershom Shalom, Martin Buber and Yeshayahu Leibowitz who combined invaluable contributions to Jewish learning with deep misgivings about the nature of the Israeli state do not appear to be part of her worldview.
She [is] also [appears] ignorant of the many sociological studies that show how the majority of so-called ‘secular’ in fact do take part in certain [‘religious’] religious Jewish practices such as making a Seder or fasting on Yom Kippur.
IsraelMelanie Phillips [reveals the rampant] shows the hypocrisy [behind] of many of those on the right who claim to love Israelbut who have no real love or appreciation for the complexity and vibrancy of Israeli culture.
She condemns those who criticise Israeli government policies when it suits her and then disparages Israelis like Oz who have a [deeper] deep understanding and love of Israeli [than they could ever possibly appreciate] when they support the government.
In general I'm not too unhappy about the changes - I was possibly just a bit too vitriolic. However, the change they made on the last sentence goes beyond mere editing to actually rewriting. I don't disagree with it and I can't be arsed to write and complain but it does stick in the craw a little...
Now this is intriguing! A site entitled 'Metal Israel' and with a cool logo to boot. It says it's 'coming soon' and I'll be waiting...
Link: Metal Israel.
The June issue (yes I'm a little behind the times) of Zeek features an interesting article on DJ SoCalled's intriguing 'SoCalled Seder' - as the name implies a hip-hop version of the Seder. It dwells on the fascinating irony that the current wave of 'radical' American Jewish music and art is subsidised by the mainstream Jewish community:
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