Metal Jew

Foreboding for 2008

I'm writing this with 4 hours to go till 2008. My musings about the passing of another year tend to occur twice a year, on Rosh Hashanah and on Jan 31st. The former I devote to my own personal inner life situation (sounds terribly Californian I know) and the latter for wordly things like my career and the state of the world.

In that spirit, I approach 2008 in an odd frame of mind. 2007 has been a good year to me and my family: reasonable health, interesting and productive work, lovely kids. I'm optimistic and excited about all those things for 2008, but in terms of the world situation I can't shake a terrible feeling of foreboding.

In that gloomy spirit I contributed to a piece on The World in 2008 for Open Democracy. Here's what I wrote:

A climate of failure

In thinking about 2008, it is instructive to think back to 2001. In September of that year an event that no one (at least among political commentators) had foreseen had, by the end of the year, caused dramatic changes to the global political environment.

What is interesting is to compare the kinds of cataclysmic events that engender far-reaching reforms, policies and responses, with those that do not. Terrorist attacks, at least in the western world, evidently do have the capacity to radically and speedily affect change. Whether or not you agree with the “war on terror” there is no question that its launch in the months after 11 September 2001 has caused far-reaching global social and political change. In contrast, “natural” disasters appear to have a much weaker capacity to change the world. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 generated (highly imperfect) localised responses and (according to Naomi Klein) its aftermath may have served as a test-bed for long-term changes in global capitalism; but in the end its consequences were limited.

Despite the progressively high profile of global warming as a political issue, there has yet to be an environmental 9/11. The problem is fourfold:

* no individual environmental catastrophe can be conclusively linked to man-made climate change

* even the largest environmental disasters only affect a relatively small proportion of the earth

* the idea of “the natural” as a realm independent of human activity is dying incredibly hard

* those who deny that manmade climate change is occurring have done an effective job of nurturing widespread doubts. 

Climate change may well mean that 2008 will be another year of deadly and extreme weather events. The frequency of such events is likely to increase but the chances of a concomitantly dramatic increase in political action to combat climate change are slim. True, climate change will remain a major political issue in 2008; indeed, after the Bali conference of December 2007, international negotiations are likely to be frenetic. The problem is that such discussions are unlikely to translate into any dramatic short-term concerted action of the kind that will be effective in the window of opportunity we are likely to have left.

2008 is likely to be a year of sound and fury that may well signify very little in the long term. There will be no shortage of political battles and controversies, no shortage of shocking disasters, no shortage of war and bloodshed. Yet action against the most fundamental problem that human beings face will be patchy, uncoordinated and largely ineffective.

To sugar the pill, I leave you with one discovery that gave me a hige amount of pleasure in 2007 - videos of Hi NRG diva Divine on youtube:

Metal for kids

I bought for my kids the Rockosaurus Rex  CD and we've been listening to it together in the car over the last couple of days. The (anonymous) creators have produced Metal versions of kid's classics such as 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' and 'The Wheels On The Bus'. To my delight, my son loves it - I'll make a Metalhead of him yet.

What I appreciate about the CD is that it seems to have been produced with genuine care and affection. Perhaps it was an ironic joke for the musicians but it doesn't sound like it. Kids don't get irony after all. The arrangements are clever and varied and some of them, like 'Skip To My Lou' reveal hidden depths to seemingly facile works (no, I'm serious).

The CD made me think: perhaps the key to a good cover version is love...

 

The aesthetics of perfection

Over the last year or so it's become increasingly clear to me that I am attracted to songs more than I am to albums.  This brief post (my 300th!) is a first attempt to try and work through this.

I seem to love songs that encapsulate something that I will call the aesthetics of perfection. What I think I mean by this is an aesthetic that finds pleasure in works that perfectly embody an aesthetic or genre. I'm aware that this definition is somewhat tautological, so let me also put it another way: the aesthetics of perfection  is an aesthetic that finds pleasure in the encapsulation of the macro within the micro; an aesthetic that finds pleasure in the embodiment of an entire genre in a single work of art.

The aesthetics of perfection can be found in an album or even an entire oeuvre but it is more acutely expressed in a single song.

The aesthetics of perfection distill art into a heady brew that can be overpowering (overly sweet or overly alcoholic depending on which metaphor you prefer).

The aesthetics of perfection involves a replication of genre rules that is so perfectly achieved that it transcends mere replication. Cliche is turned into the sublime;  the overly familiar is turned into the wondrously unique.

It seems to me that the aesthetics of perfection are to be found most regularly in the most critically derided, populist musical genres. What those who don't share the aesthetic see as hackneyed trash, aesthetes with the appropriate sensibility see as transcendent.

I'm going to give three examples of the aesthetics of perfection.  Initially I tried to write descriptions of why I think the aesthetics of perfection beats so strongly in them, but in the end time and language defeated me. To a certain extent, the aesthetics of perfection are so ineffable they resist anything but the most painstaking description (and I don't have the time to devote to this just yet).

I've used youtube inserts not because the videos are particularly interesting, but because they provide an easy easiest way of inserting music into blog posts:

1) Judas Priest 'Painkiller'

2) Dragonforce 'Operation Ground and Pound'

3) Man 2 Man meets Man Parrish 'Male Stripper'

My adventures on the wheels of steel

The nice people at Jewdas were kind enough to let me DJ for them at their Hanukkah knees-up last Saturday. As ever the event was in a cool location (a disused boys club, no a disheveled arts centre, in Hackney) and there was an infectious sense of play and impish transgression to the whole occasion (glamorously attired ladies serving shots of Palwin, footage of shechitah and circumcision, one guy dressed as a cow).

Much to my surprise they let me DJ for the first hour or so - the first time I'd ever done this (not that I told them that beforehand). I didn't attempt to do anything complex but all things considered it went pretty well. I started off with some strange Jewish-themed noise terrorism from Barzel, Towering Inferno and Drone Lebanon; then proceeded via Laibach's version of 'Hatikvah' to Metal and Punk cobvers of Jewish standards by Orphaned Land, Gevolt, In Extremo, Yidcore and The Makkabees; then finished off the some Jewish rap from Blood Of Abraham, Hip Hop Hoodios, Y-Love and a few others.  Of course the rap went down best but a few people said they liked the noisier stuff and one woman commented on how good it was to hear Orphaned Land.

Whilst I don't think I've found my new profession, I'd really love to do some more DJing in the future.

Metal and Kahanism

Metal Israel recently blogged about Josh Silver of Type O Negative's myspace page. The page is festooned with JDL logos that show his Kahanist sympathies. He's also posted a couple of interesting soundscapes, one of which has an intriguing holocaust theme. It makes a perfect kind of sense that Silver is into this stuff:  Pete Steel of Type O Negative is renowned for his social-Darwinist views and his - ahem - ambiguous attitude to racism and fascism. 

I'm intending to write an extended essay on Metal and Kahanism at some point - I am encountering quite a few Jewish Metallers sympathetic to Kahane's thoughts. Needless to say I am absolutely opposed to Kahanism, but I am going to try to write with as much respect as I am able. What I don't understand though is why Kahanists tend to get upset when their ideas are described as totalitarian fascist...

Ladino Metal

My Facebook buddy Mordechai alerted me to a piece of Metal-Judaica I'd never heard of previously: In 2003 the German Folk Metal band In Extremo (whom I have to confess I had only barely heard of till now) released the song 'Sefardiam' on their album '7'. The song is a cover of the Ladino standard  'Avraam Avinou' (Abraham our father). I have to say that it absolutely kicks ass: