Metal Jew

Israeli troops play with popular music in Hebron

During my time doing research on the Israeli metal scene in 1998 I heard an interesting story: Apparently an Israeli metal fan was doing his military service in an undercover unit in Hebron. Every day he was woken up early by the call to prayer from a nearby minaret. So he snuk into the mosque and replaced the tape of the call to prayer with one of Sepultura's 'Beneath the Remains' and the next morning Hebron was awoken by death metal.

Now this story was never corroborated so it's possible that it's some kind of urban myth. But, assuming it is true, it raises some thought-provoking questions about the politics of metal. On the one hand, the story highlights the oppressive nature of the occupation - the ability of Israeli soldiers to create mayhem at will. You can hear echoes in this story of how music has been used in military oppression and torture in the Iraq war and indeed other wars. On the other hand, you can read the story as a kind of nihilistic form of resistance at the insanity of the religion-stoked war between Israelis and Palestinians. Let's not forget that the militant settlers of Hebron, whom the IDF is protecting, are hardly metal fans. Israeli conscripts do not stop being metal fans once they join up and the story provides a hint of the complex ways in which a love of metal can both reinforce a kind of imperialism and stoke a kind of disorder that undermines military discipline in potentially subversive ways. As ever, metal is an ambivalent presence within 'real world' politics.

This story has been on my mind again due to the viral circulation of this video, made by an IDF unit in Hebron:

Unlike the Sepultura story, this prank does not appear to disturb the daily lives of Palestinians in Hebron. The dance seems to have taken place on a back street and the music itself looks like it's been overdubbed. But there's a similar kind of politics at work: the gap between the relative freedom of the IDF to 'play' in Hebron versus the lack of freedom of Palestinian residents is still stark. Again, the IDF soldiers seem to inhabit another world, not only from the Palestinians, but from the religious Jewish settlers in Hebron. The incongruity of Ke$ha's music in this context is even greater than Sepultura's (at least death metal is a sound with resonances of conflict) and perhaps this, together with the image of soldiers performing a choreographed dance while fully armed, gives the video a kind of whimsical quality that is sort of endearing.

Are some contexts too 'serious' for pranks to be appropriate? Can the pranks be read as cynical comments by soldiers stuck between two sets of fundamentalists? Does the lack of freedom of the Palestinians to engage in such pranks neccessarily mean that no one else should either?

I'm not sure what the answers are to these questions. What I do know is that they are worth taking seriously. As ever, popular music opens doors on the complexity of the political.

Shout out to Boom Pam and Koby Israelite

I feel hugely guilty about not giving a name check to the excellent Koby Israelite album King Papaya which came out a few months ago - I got a promo copy but never mentioned the album. More recently, the same publicist sent me a copy of the new Boom Pam album Puerto Rican Nights. The latter represent an intriguing fusion of klezmer, surf guitar and punkish attitude. The album's quite fun but I have to say that one of the band's most distinctive features - the use of tuba rather than bass -  just doesn't work for me. The only place for the tuba is on the Curb Your Enthusiasm soundtrack (and btw what are the semiotic implications for Seinfeld's soundtrack being the bass guitar and CYE being the tuba?).

Three songs that I forgot

Further to my last post, Jo rightly pointed out in the comments that I forgot Dancing (Lasha Tumbai) by Verka Serduchka, the splendidly nutty 2007 Ukrainian Eurovision entry.

I also forgot Bolt Thrower's 'Inside the wire' and Melechesh's 'Rebirth of the nemesis': the opening riffs on both of these songs would be strong contenders in a 'riffs of the decade' competition.

Songs of the decade (full version)

I've contributed to 'best of' lists when I wrote for Terrorizer. While it's a thrill to have a voice in these processes of canonisation and memorialisation, I also find coming up with my choices eye-wateringly difficult. The problem is that my listening doesn't work on an annual basis and I've never liked the relentless process of listening to every latest release. The other issue is that in recent years I have become more attached to individual songs than to albums. This is partly because mp3 players and youtube have eroded my attention span, but it's also because an individual song can approach perfection, whereas most albums tend to sag and lose me at some point. Another problem is more prosaic - every time I decide on a list I invariably forget something. So those caveats aside, here's an unordered list of songs that have given me a great amount of pleasure over the last ten years (no time to insert links I'm afraid - most are on YouTube and iTunes):

Outkast 'Hey Ya'

Electric Six 'Gay Bar'

Jennifer Lopez 'My love don't cost a thing' [I'm not joking - it's a cynical lyric in many ways but the tune is stunning]

Hatebreed 'This is now'

Sunn0))) (featuring Julian Cope) 'My wall'

Celtic Frost 'A dying god coming into human flesh'

LT United 'We are the winners' [Lithuania 2006 Eurovision entry]

Pirates of the Sea 'Wolves of the sea' [Latvia 2008 Eurovision entry]

Ruslana 'Wild dances' [Ukrania 2004 Eurovision winner]

Akerkocke 'Verdelet'

Finntroll 'Trollhamaren'

Clutch 'Burning beard'

Kylesa 'Unknown awareness'

Laibach 'Tanz mit Laibach'

Melt banana 'Shield your eyes, a beast in the well of your hand'

Hammerfall 'Hearts on fire' [The best video of the decade, witht the Swedish women's curling team]

Muse 'Hysteria'

Rammstein 'Feuer Frei'

Bubba Sparxx 'Ugly'

Goldie Looking Chain 'Guns don't kill people, rappers do'

Nile 'Lashed to the slave stick'

The Streets 'Fit but you know it'

Portishead 'Machine gun'

System of a Down 'Toxicity'

Meshuggah 'I' [okay strictly speaking it's a mini album - but it's all one track]

Andrew WK 'Party hard'

Velvet Revolver 'She builds quick machines'

Boris/Sunn0))) 'Etna'

Now I know that it's a pretty bizarre list and that as a mature academic I should have a more considered list of thoughtful albums. Of course I do have albums I've loved this decade (e.g. Celtic Frost 'Monosheist', Sunn0))) 'White One' and many more) but the fact is that none of them have given me as much pleasure as even one of these individual songs. 

What the list reveals is that there are two styles of music that I love more than anything: novelty songs and extreme metal. What the connection is between the 2 I'm not sure. Maybe it's one for me to ponder with a therapist.

If I was more energetic and I had more time I'd make a mix tape of this selection for download, but it's pretty easy for any reader to do so - go on, you know you want to.

Remember him this way

When Elvis Presley died in 1977, the New Music Express which was then smitten with punk, ran a front cover with a picture of the pre-army Elvis on stage. The headline was 'remember him this way'. This is pretty much what I am feeling about the death of Michael Jackson. Yes I feel bad for his kids. But he hadn't produced any music of note since 'Bad', his messianic hubris was appalling, his relations with children were at best bizarre and at worst abusive, his financial extravegance was disgusting.

So I will be remembering Michael Jackson as the extraordinary talent of the Jackson 5 era, when he voiced some of the most perfect pop ever created. Sure his 80s albums were also good, but it was in the 70s that he was truly extraordinary. It was of course his experiences in that time, being famous as a child, that probably damaged him irrevocably, making seeing him on stage as a kid bittersweet.

So, remember him this way:

 

A haunting response to war in Lebanon

Last weekend I attended the biannual conference of the UK branch of IASPM (the International Association for the Study of Popuar Music) in Glasgow.  It was a fascinating conference with some really high standard papers and a great social programme. In another post I will discuss the paper I presented. I was on the same panel as Swiss PhD student called Thomas Burkhalter, who is the founder of an interesting project called Norient:

Norient – Independent               Network for Local and Global Soundscapes - focuses on experimental               and urban music and music scenes all over the world. As an international               platform it aims to understand and show the many and often contradictory               faces of cultural globalization and localization through articles               about music, urbanism and politics, «authenticity»,               «modernity», «place» and «transnational               spaces», written by musicians, scholars and music journalists               from Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe and the US. norient also               produces and co-produces larger and smaller projects and events.              

Thomas's paper discussed how some Lebanese sound artists have reflected on their own experiences of war in their country. One of the artists discussed was the trumpeter Mazen Kerbaj . One of the pieces that Thomas played by Kerbaj made a big impact on me:

Starry night (an exceprt of which can be played at this link) was recorded on Kerbaj's balcony during the Lebanon war of 2006. Kerbaj produces strange, breathy and sometimes harsh sounds from his trumpet, while Israeli bombs fall on Beirut in the background. It is a haunting piece of work that explores war's soundscape in a unique way. Usually I think of war as endless noise, Kerbaj's piece reveals the eerie silences that punctuate the explosions - silences that are in some way more disturbing than the noise as the wait between explosions can be agonising. His instrument both echoes this dialectic of noise and its interruption but also counterposes it with a strange animalistic presence that reminds us of the animialistic humanity that war reveals.

I guess the piece speaks to me in part because when I lived in Jerusalem from 2001 to 2002, the nights were sometimes punctuated by Israeli bombing raids on Bethlehem, just a couple of miles down the road. Although of course I was not the target of the bombs, they did not make for a comfortable night sleep and the punctuation of night time noises with explosions was very unsettling.

Article on Eurovision

I just had an article published on Guardian Comment is Free about this week's Eurovision Song Contest.

The betrayal of the legacy of John Peel

John Peel is one of my all-time heroes. Through his show I discovered artists as various as Napalm Death, The Bhundu Boys, The Wedding Present and Grandmaster Flash. Since his death a couple of years ago I have become increasingly annoyed at how his memory and legacy is represented.

The variety of the music he championed was extraordinary, but the 'guardians' of his memory are too often much more conservative. Take the 2007 John Peel day which was celebrated by a host of gigs by new and unsigned bands across the country. Nothing wrong with that, but where was the grindcore, the hip-hop, the reggae, the African music. Glastonbury now has a John Peel stage dedicated to upcoming bands. Again, nothing wrong with that, but the acts are mostly quirky indie bands.

It's becoming increasingly clear that the memory of John Peel is out of step with today's 'narrowcast' culture. Instead of being celebrated for his commitment to heterogeneity and difference, he is celebrated only for his commitment to novelty in one section of the musical world.

Hate crimes against goths and emos

Here in the UK, the trial is currently taking place of a gang of teenagers who [are accused of] savagely attacked a goth couple, leading to the woman dying and the man suffering brain damage.  The attack appears to have been motivated by nothing more than the desire to have fun attacking people who looked different. It's nothing more than racism in another form.

Then I see a report on Blabbermouth that:

According to La Crónica de Hoy, several hundred Mexican heavy metal, "skate punk" and alternative rock fans joined forces last Friday (March 7) in the in the center of Querétaro, Mexico to confront a group of "emos" (followers of the "emo" subculture, which is short for "emotional") who regularly use the city center as a gathering place. Four people were injured and 28 persons were arrested (22 of them minors) when more than a thousand youths clashed in the area of Jardín Guerrero, Plaza de Armas

Equally disturbing is that:

An Internet campaign is reportedly being waged to launch attacks against "emos" in other parts of the country, with various web postings portraying emos as "homosexuals" who give a "bad image" to tourists who visit their towns.

Now I'm with a large section of the metal world in that emo leaves me cold, but I really feel on the wrong side of the battle here. This is the side of the metal world that makes me sick. The side that, for example, made Kurt Cobain despise the metallers amongst his fans as they reminded him of the bullies and jocks in school.

Metallers didn't attack the goth couple. In fact there are sections of the metal world that, to outsiders, probably look similar to goth. Still, when anyone is attacked for being a member of a youth/music culture the metal world should be on the victim's side.

Against Copyright Term Extension

The following is from an e-mail from the Open Rights Group. It should be pretty self-explanatory:

Thanks for signing our Release The Music petition in 2006. You helped us win the battle against copyright term extension in the UK. Now we need your help again. The European Commission are discussing a proposal for term extension.
This is truly urgent because the UK government will be reassessing their 'no' to the term extension lobby in light of the new proposal. So if you oppose copyright term extension for sound recordings then sign our new, Europe-wide petition, now.

Please also be sure to tell your communities about the petition, whether via your blog, podcast, mailing lists or just down the pub. In particular, if you are in touch with digital rights activists in Europe then please push the petition link in their direction and ask that they sign up too. The website is available in English, French and German.

If you've still got some energy left after that, please write to your MP about the issue. A Private Member's bill for copyright term extension will have its 2nd reading in the House of Commons on 7 March. We need more informed opponents of the Bill in Parliament so please tell your MP just how you feel on this issue. For advice on how to write to your MP and suggestions for the kind of arguments that work in this context, please read our blogpost.

Finally, if you're not already, please consider becoming a supporter of the Open Rights Group. Your regular financial contributions enable us to raise awareness of digital rights issues by staging events across the country, lobbying the British and EU Parliaments, and monitoring and engaging with the national and international press. When politicians talk to ORG, they know they're talking to a group that is funded by their voters, and they listen and act accordingly. So please, support the Open Rights Group!