Metal Jew

More on Hipster Metal

The excellent Hocemo Li Na Kafu? blog has a thoughtful post reacting my postings on how Metal is getting some respect in the art world:

The metal that seems to be getting all the attention is the sort of metal that lends itself most easily to intellectualisation. Sunn0))), for example, come up a lot, but their lineup of two guitarists and a wall of amplifiers isn't exactly typical of metal bands, and even a few years back their shows were attracting about equal numbers of hessians and bespectacled Wire readers. Black metal likewise has quite a following among the more intellectually-minded metalheads, largely because its sonic extremity can be understood as being part of an avant-garde. This is certainly intentional with bands like Blut Aus Nord, though the overwhelming majority of black metal isn't so high-minded. The intellectual acceptance of black metal seems to me roughly equivalent to the art world's relationship to outsider art or naive art.

The post compares Metal to Punk. Whereas Punk has been effectively incorporated by the art world, Metal is much more resistant:

Metal, however, especially in its more extreme variations, still is threatening to a lot of people, and in a lot of ways, it is far more resistant to being co-opted by the mainstream than punk was. Part of this has to do with aesthetics, but a large part of it is political. It doesn't take a lot of digging to find some extremely unsettling politics in the metal underground. Black metal has always had fascist affiliations. In some cases this is pure provocation, much in the way that the Sex Pistols or Throbbing Gristle employed fascist imagery, though with black metal it is often enough an ideologically committed fascism. Nor is this restricted to the underground. Ever since 1986's Reign In Blood, Slayer have been accused of being neo-Nazis. There are persistent rumours about Pantera's Phil Anselmo having white power sympathies. Homophobia and misogyny are rampant in metal. It's difficult to synthesise this into a mainstream discourse. This isn't a bad thing.

Killed for being a goth (probably)

A woman was beaten and died yesterday, apparently targetted for being a goth:

Link: 'Tragedy beyond words' for family as woman, 20, dies after park attack | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited.

More Metal and Art

Some posted a comment on the previous post alerting me to another artist who has drawn on Metal in their art.  Banks Violette has produced installations reflecting on the relation between rock, murder and suicide, including the early 90s Norwegian church burnings. A future work will feature music by Stephen O'Malley of SunnO)))

Something is definitely happening here. Finally, Metal is breaking out of the ghetto and becoming the inspiration for artistic effort that it always should have been.

Metal and Art

Blabbermouth reports on the fascinating work on Egyptian artist and Metal fan Nader Sadek :

Egyptian artist Nader Sadek has invited Steve Tucker (ex-MORBID ANGEL), Trym (EMPEROR, ZYKLON), Alex Skolnick (TESTAMENT), and Ralph Santolla (OBITUARY, ex-DEICIDE, DEATH), as well as Middle Eastern legend Omar Faruk Tekbilek, Miles Jay (ex-WEIRD AL, FATHY SALAMA'S ORCHESTRA), Liron Peled (RAQUY AND THE CAVEMEN) and Raquy Danziger to contribute to his multimedia installation "The Faceless" that opens September 6 at Michael Steinberg Fine Art in New York's Chelsea district. These musicians worked with Sadek to produce a noise experiment moving in and out of independently conceived death metal and Arabic music tracks. This sonic composition accompanies Sadek's uniquely installed drawings which juxtapose the iconographies of death metal and Middle Eastern fundamentalism, which outsiders often associate with darkness, moon worship, and anti-Christian fervor. "The Faceless" startles the audience into rethinking connections between these two frequently misunderstood and vilified cultures.

Having grown up a death metal fan in Egypt, Sadek works from the knowledge that the Egyptian state perceived both death metal and religious fundamentalism as threats to its power and legitimacy: death metal rebels against religious and political hypocrisy; piety rebels against a bureaucratic, commercialized, and godless world. Through sound, image, and space, "The Faceless" mingles these cultures in thoughtful, frightening, and uncanny ways.

Says Sadek: "For a while now, I've been interested in exploring what different cultures perceive of as extreme. 'The Faceless' grows out of years of walking the crowded streets of Downtown Cairo dressed as a full-on death metal fan (i.e., long black hair, long-sleeve MORBID ANGEL/DEICIDE t-shirts, and an overall grungy look). Then, in a sort of twisted reversal, I decided to walk the streets of New York's Times Square in the black garb of a fully veiled woman. The intense reactions I got in each case confirmed for me the potential of this project. Those experiences inspired me to channel the popular paranoid fantasy in which the fully veiled woman is wrought from a dark death metal world, full of serpents, skulls, demons and dark mountains. I hope that by reflecting back to the audience their paranoid fantasies, which totally oversimplify the reality of Middle Eastern and death metal culture, that my work will get them to question their own prejudices and sense of the extreme."

Hassidic pop

Some guy posted a comment on my blog alerting me to this ultra-orthodox Jewish music site (in Hebrew). There's some interesting stuff on it, including this  youtube video by Lipa for a song called 'Diet'. What's interesting is that it's a light-hearted song (in Yiddish) about (presumably) food with a similarly light-hearted video. I'd always thought that one of the things that defined the ultra-orthodox community was it's shunning of more trivial musical themes  - apparently that's not the case.

Yiddish Metal Madness

Well it had to happen sometime and it finally has - Yiddish Metal has arrived.

Gevolt are Russian Israelis who also do stuff in Russian alone. They're recording an album of Metal covers of classic Yiddish songs, some of which are up on their  Myspace page.  From what I've heard it's a very credible and interesting project.  As Metal Israel (from whom I got the tip about the band) points out, Rammstein is one reference point, at least in the dramatically intoned Germanic lyrics. But there's a lot of folk Metal in there too (they use a lot of klezmer violin). This is a serious attempt at coming up with a musical fusion rooted in both Yiddish/klezmer and Metal.

What I hope is that this isn't the end of it and that Gevolt don't end up as an interesting curiosity. It would be really great to see would be a whole Yiddish Metal scene, but given the paucity of Yiddish speakers outisde the Haredi world that's unlikely to happen.  Still, you do find Yiddish enthusiasts in the klezmer scene and there are some interesting parallels to be drawn between the iconoclasm and radicalism of secular Yiddish culture and the anti-religiosity of Metal. So I guess the future of Yiddish Metal probably depends on finding Metal enthusiasts (or at least those interested in collaborating with Metallers) within the klezmer scene. I haven't met many myself but Scandinavian folk Metallers seem to have no problem finding accordionists and violinists, so you never know...

Conference on music and Israel

Just heard about the following academic conference. It looks fascinating but I doubt that I'll be able to make it:

Hearing Israel: Music, Culture and History at 60 University of Virginia April 13-14, 2008

As the State of Israel approaches the sixtieth anniversary of its founding in the spring of 2008, academic scholarship continues to focus primarily on its political life, religious and ethnic diversity, and foreign policy. Much less attention has been devoted to the cultural life of Israeli society and its impact on evolving Israeli identities across generations. One of the most dynamic yet least studied spheres of Israeli culture to emerge in the six decades since statehood is its music, ranging from the worlds of pop music, rock, rap, and /musikah mizrahit /to classical, religious, and ethnic traditions. To examine these questions, the University of Virginia will host an historic international conference on Israeli music on April 13 and 14, 2008.

This conference aims to generate an interdisciplinary exploration of Israeli music from the multiple perspectives of ethnomusicology, history, sociology, literature, and cultural studies, among others. We invite all specialists in Israeli, Arabic, and Jewish culture to submit proposals for papers on topics related to music in Israel, broadly defined. Both historical and contemporary perspectives are welcome.

Featured thematic rubrics for the conference include the role of music in national identity and nationalism among Israeli Jews and Palestinian citizens of Israel, the changing relationship between religion and secularism, popular culture and political ideology, and the evolution of /musikah mizrahit/ in Israeli society. Along with the academic component of the programming, the conference will also feature two concert performances by major Israeli artists.

Proposals for papers should include names of participants with a brief c.v. and a 250-350 word abstract. The Jewish Studies Program at the University of Virginia will provide meals and discounted lodging for conference participants.

Deadline for submission: October 15, 2007

Please send proposals or inquiries via e-mail or post to:

Prof. James Loeffler and/or Prof. Joel Rubin Jewish Studies Program University of Virginia P.O. Box 400126 Charlottesville, VA 22904-4126 james.loeffler@virginia.edu joelerubin@virginia.edu http://www.virginia.edu/jewishstudies