Metal Jew

More on Hanukah Gone Metal

There's a nice piece on Jewcy by Seth Diamond of Gods of Fire, the people responsible for Hanukah Gone Metal in which he explains the history behind and motivation for the project.

Do you have to be orthodox to make good Jewish religious music?

I recently got sent a CD called 'Better Get Ready' by a New York-based Jewish punk band called Moshiach Oi. It's down and dirty, fearsomely fast and undeniably hardcore. The band are ultra-orthodox, probably Chabadniks from what I can gather and the lyrics reflect this with lots of talk about Moshiach and mitzvot. The aggression of punk seems to match the fundamentalism of the message.

Then I heard about an Israeli band called Chasidica (there's a feature on them here). Here's their logo:

While the Metallica-logo shtick would appear to suggest yet another Jewish parody band, Chasidica are much more interesting: their left-field alt rock influences combine with their interest in chassidus and kabbalah to produce quite an intriguing brew (although they too are prone to bouts of tiresome Moshiach-ism).

When I think of bands like this, plus other acts like Y Love or Matisyahu, I'm struck by how pretty much the only Jewish acts who sing about spiritual/religious stuff that I like tend to be orthodox - and often ultra-orthodox. The kinds of Jewish music I can't stand tend to be made by Reform Jews - who I am much closer to in practice - like Craig Taubman or Debbie Friedman. Progressive religion doesn't seem to fit well with cutting edge music, at least in the Jewish case. So the most intriguing music tends to be made by either secular or orthodox Jews and the  centre is mostly pretty mushy.

There's another pattern here: the music I seem to enjoy most seems to be made by people whose views I don't share, even abhor. I seem to like the music of fundamentalists like Moshiach Oy or Burzum more than I do the music of people like me. Perhaps because fundamentalists are good at passion?

So nu am I being unfair? Probably...

Hanukah Gone Metal

It had to happen sooner or later: following last year's Songs in the Key of Hanukah by Erran Baron-Cohen, this year will see the relase of a Chanukah-themed metal album. I recently heard a pre-release copy of Hanukah Gone Metal by the New York band Gods Of Fire.

Although there are a couple of covers, most of the album is original material. It's still shtick though, replete with puns and word play predicated on the unlikelihood of Hanukah (and Jews) getting the metal treatment. So we have 'No Gelt No Glory' and 'Spin for the Blood of Our Elders'. The central conceit is the Maccabees and the Jewish people treated the way Hammerfall treat the Templars - as a legendary band of mythic warriors. Here's the title track:

And here's the lyrics:

On the first night of Hanukkah, I received a mighty dreidel
On the second night of Hanukkah, I received a little latke
On the third night of Hanukkah I did receive the mystical treasure of gelt
On the fourth night of Hanukkah I did receive the sadness of oversided socks

I must see
What it will be!

Hanukkah Gone Metal!
The festival of lights
Hanukkah Gone Metal!
Are you ready for your eight crazy nights?

On the fifth night of Hanukkah I received a golden yarmulke
On the sixth night of Hanukkah I received Judah's steel sword
On the seventh night of Hanukkah I did receive a Menorrah constructed of bones
On the eighth and final night of it all I received...
I received...
The gift
Of
METAL!!!

Spin me a winner baby
Fry it up
You know I'm gonna make you rich baby
Walk a mile in my shoes

I want a golden yarmulke
I want Judah's steel sword
Gimme my mighty Menorrah made of bones
On the eighth night, I DEMAND METAL!!!

Hanukkah Gone Metal!
Are you ready for your eight crazy nights?
Hanukkah Gone Metal!
The festival of lights
Hanukkah Gone Metal!
The festival of lights
Hanukkah Gone Metal!
Are you ready for your eight crazy nights?

It's pretty amusing stuff. I like the 'gift of METAL' line and the metallisation of the various gifts ('a might dreidl' etc). The song, like the rest of the album works well as metal and the band clearly know what they are doing. This isn't pseudo-metal used in a cynical way to promote a Jewish 'message', if anything it is the reverse: the album kind of uses Judaism to honour metal. And hey why not?

Like Purim, Hanukah has become the a festival of Jewish shtick (Gods Of Fire work with something called Major League Dreidl). My niggling worry with this is that to some extent the shtick on Hanukah Gone Metal only works because of the assumed strangeness of Jewish metal. I love humorous music, but I've always yearned for ways of doing metal Jewishly that were 'serious' to the extent that the relation between Jews and metal was as unremarkable as between other nations and metal.

Still, I don't know when Hanukah Gone Metal is officially released, but when it is it's worth getting a copy: it's too damn fun to get hung up on its cultural politics.

UPDATE: I'm informed that the album is on iTunes and Amazon.

Spin magazine articles on eggheadbangers and yeshiva metallers

The latest (August) issue of Spin magazine has a short article on metal in academia, including a quote from me and a number of other 'Eggheadbangers'. The article can be found on p42 of the digital-edition. 

Rather belatedly, I was informed that the June edition of Spin had an article on how nu metal band Disturbed, fronted by David Draiman who has an orthodox background and publicly identifies as a Jew, has a big following among American Yeshiva students. The article can be found on p38 of the June digital edition. I'm not sure how far the phenomenon is real or simply an isolated set of cases, still its interesting to think that there might be an underground metal community in the yeshiva world. There's already an underground Lubavitch black metal band.

Thanks to Brian Hickam for help in tracking the links down.

The genius of Koby Israelite

Last Monday my wife and I went to see Baaba Maal at the Festival Hall, part of Ornette Coleman's Meltdown season. Baaba Maal was amazing but the real suprise was support act Koby Israelite . An Israeli living in London, he is a multi-instrumentalist who plays accordion on stage. He grew up as a drummer and apparently was in 'Israel's first speed metal band' (not sure who he's referring to. His current music is an extraordinary mix of klezmer, jazz, gypsy, balkan and metal music - often switching from one to another during the same song. His stuff is released on John Zorn's Tzadikl label. Has to be heard to be believed. Check him out. Also, there's an interview at Zeek.

Black Shabbis

This is very very exicting: finally it looks like someone has produced the kind of playful, semi-ironic, radical, avant-garde Jewish metal I always dreamed of.  Black Shabbis is a project of multi-instrumentalist Jamie Saft and is out on John Zorn's uber-credible Tzadik label. Here's what the label blurb says:

After two stunning jazz piano trio recordings featuring the music of Dylan and Zorn, dubmeister Jamie Saft returns to his roots with a masterpiece of Jewish heavy metal. Slashing and burning his way through nine tracks of unbridled madness, this is Radical Jewish Culture at its best. Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath and Slayer for the frum, Black Shabbis presents uncompromising and intense sounds from one of the most versatile creative lights in the downtown scene.

I've pre-ordered the CD, which is out at the end of Feb and I'm pretty excited. Could this be what I've been searching for?

Hat tip (as ever) to Jack

Metal Jewish radio show

Montreal's Radio Shalom has a show called the Rocking Rabbi Show presented by metal jew David Lazzar. There are a few shows up on the web page and I listened to one. Frankly, it wasn't my cup of tea. The music - largely radio-friendly rock and metal - was fine but the Lazzar's presentation was in that North American hyperbolic 'rawwk' style that doesn't real work for me (although I do kind of enjoy it when I visit the states and I'm driving during visits to my in-laws in Dallas and Tulsa). There was little  Jewish content either, maybe because there's so little Jewish metal or maybe because Lazzar hasn't found an effective way of synthesising Jewishness and metallness yet.

I also have to admit to not liking the 'rocking rabbi' concept. It smacks of that trendy vicar 'hey kids the bible can be cool - Jesus was the first rock and roller' thing that makes me cringe. The problem is that this kind of approach tends to backfire and make being Jewish and being into rock/metal seem incongruous.

[Hat tip: Teruah]

Deciblog goes Metal Jew

The Deciblog surprisingly goes all Metal Jew on your ass in a post entitled 'Don't Bogart the Charoset':

Let me tell you about my friend Dan. He’s a semi-observant Jew, but he also worships at the altar of Cliff Burton. Dan listens to Ride the Lightning every day while he’s in the shower, driving in his car, reading the newspaper and cooking dinner. He listens to it at work, too (as a part of an extended playlist with Kill ‘Em All and Master of Puppets) — he just turns the volume down on his speakers to avoid annoying his co-workers. Dan eats, drinks and sleeps Ride the Lighting every single day of the year except for the first night of Passover when, in accordance to some tradition he probably made up when he was 11, he only listens to “Creeping Death.” Like, a bunch of times during the day and then once more right before the start of the seder, at full blast, because “Elijah is the original headbanger.”

Read the rest here (actually just 3 youtube videos of covers of Creeping Death, but hey it's all good).

Don't you just love how goddamn tenuous my blog is????

A very metal Purim

So tomorrow is Purim, which for those who don't known, celebrates the survival of the Jews from an attempted massacre in Persia, with drunkenness, dressing-up, skits and general revelry. In honour of the festival, here's some Jewish and some metal silliness. First up, an Israeli animation in which the likes of Ahmedinajad and Bin Laden celebrate the festival (hat tip, as ever, Teruah):

On the metal side of things, enjoy Caninus, whose vocalist is a dog, Hatebeak, whose vocalist is a parrot (neither of them are exactly joke bands and they actually sound pretty good), and revel in the wit and wisdom of Fenriz.

Finally, if I haven't done so before, big shout going out to the splendidly sarcastic Metal Inquisition - my favourite blog at the moment.

Chag Sameach

Great Josh Silver interview

Metal Israel has a great interview with Josh Silver of Type O Negative. It's probably the most detailed interview with a Jewish Metal musician that I've read. Aviva grills him pretty hard on his Jewish identity and his views on Israel. Apparently his great grandfather was a rabbi. Silver himself is an athesit but identifies pretty strongly (he has a mezuzah). On Israel, I had previously thought his views were similar to Aviva's (ie Kahanist) but he appears to be more conventionally right-wing with some ambivalent touches. The most interesting stuff is on his relationship to Pete Steele and his near-fascist leanings. Silver is maddeningly vague on the subject but kudos to Aviva for pushing him...