Roger Waters: Anti-Semitic Propaganda = A Voice for Peace ?!

by skazm // October 13th, 2010
Mischief

The Jerusalem Post reports that Roger Waters’ stageshow for the Wall will include dropping little Jewish stars mixed with dollar signs as bombs. According to the ADL, an animated scene projects images of planes dropping bombs in the shape of Jewish Stars of David followed by dollar signs.”

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Metal Israel in Exile: Zombie Fest, Pittsburgh PA, 10/10/10

by skazm // October 10th, 2010
LinkedIn, Mischief, Show Review

We went to see the Zombie Fest at Market Square in Pittsburgh, PA. I mainly wanted to catch Icarus Witch, formidable in their own right but also known as the back-up band for Iron Maiden’s first vocalist Paul Di’anno.

Icarus Witch @ The Plate Glass Building

Check out more photos of Icarus Witch and evil Pittsburgh zombies by clicking on the photo you see above.

And here’s Icarus Witch performing their new hit, “Black Candles”.

My husband’s green hat makes a cameo appearance.

Metal Israel: Ozzfest Tel Aviv Photos – 28 September, 2010

by skazm // October 8th, 2010
LinkedIn, Mischief, Show Review

Click on the photo to see more!  All thanks to the King of Israeli Metal Photography, Oleg Hmelnits.

Check out the Soulfly photos here.

Check out this awesome video posted on Facebook by Metalheart of Israeli metal act Desert.

FestiSheretz II – (Cause One Just Won’t Do) 20 November, 2010 – Tel Aviv

by skazm // September 21st, 2010
Mischief

FESTISHERETZ 2

Check out Spawn of Evil here:   SHRATZIM

And here:  MORE SHRATZIM

Dukatalon & Stash at Levontin – 7 August 2010 – Israhellocalscene

by skazm // September 17th, 2010
Jewview, Mischief, Show Review

Originally posted on IsrahellLocalScene

Levontin7 can give a feeling of underground to any performer. First of all, it is under the ground – the ground floor occupied by the bar and the concert lounge being in the basement. It has a low ceiling painted black, dark lighting, a small stage and a pretty good sound. The place isn’t big, not more than 150 people would fit in there, if you ask me, though usually I see much less audience there. A few shows are often held each evening. That, on one hand, makes shows start almost on time, but on the other can make them shorter then expected. It’s surely a successful enterprise for the club, perhaps not so good for the musicians and the audience. Anyhow, Levontin became the usual place for any kind of the so called indie or underground acts – local or from abroad.
On Wednesday, August 25 it hosted our own Dukatalon and Stash.
Stash went on first to give a pretty good performance, about 40 minutes long. In my opinion – the time limitation did them good. The previous show I’ve seen (A recent gig with Underdog in Sublime) was much longer, and got less and less interesting as it went on – though the crappy sound contributed a lot to that feeling. This time, with better sound and no overfeed of material the band made a much better impression. Stash plays stoner rock of the good old classic kind; however the feeling is that the music developments of the nineties were a strong influence. The songs are fun to listen to, even though they tend to remind each other due to the style and the way they are sung. Stash is a five piece band; yet the sound isn’t dense – rather floating and pleasant. The singer has a nice enough voice; however he doesn’t deliver the intensive load of energy I would expect in this style of music.
All in all it’s very suitable music for a nostalgic rock-n-beer hangout, and since we don’t have many bands like that in good old motherland (Buzzer, which isn’t very active lately, and that’s pretty much it) I say – way to go! Anyhow, if you’re a fan of the style you will surely enjoy their show, and if you’re not – you won’t suffer.
Dukatalon is a different case. Their music is truly unique – especially considering the Israeli scene. In fact, the amount of compliments I want to give them made writing this text pretty uninteresting. What they play is sludge, subtly spiced with some doom and hard rock. Musical quality, originality, thorough composing, their own distinguishing sound, great energetic drive and chemistry between the musicians – this trio has it all.
All the components I appreciate in music are present, and the band sounds great both live and recorded. Their long, heavy, low keyed compositions take you into a slow dark psychogenic swirl. The music is felt by the whole body and the damned soul, as much as it is heard by one’s ears. Intense and precise drumming, heavy riffs that blend with the bass, short, melodic and beautiful guitar soloing and occasional roaring vocals that sound as they were coming from a grave – all those components fall into place perfectly and create truly classical compositions. The result – deep and somewhat enchanting music – I could listen to them for hours. This is the sound of Hell slowly melting in them dark red flames, boys and girls. Performing live, the musicians themselves seem to be in a state of a light trance, which is maintained as long as they keep playing. If you’re lucky – you’re sucked into this trance.
The guitarist (and vocalist) and the bassist stood off stage with the amplifiers right behind their backs. The drums were placed on stage – behind them. What can I say, those amplifiers really chew on your soul, enhancing the feeling that you are somewhere inside the music. Dukatalon played for about an hour – starting with a new song and playing all the material from their only album to date – “Saved by Fear”. (The album was produced by the notorious Billy Anderson and released by Sleeping Village and now is going to be re-released by Relapse). I like shows that meddle with your sense of time – and that was the case. When they finished playing the feeling was as returning from some next door parallel reality back to this crappy world. Levontin’s dark basement is surely a suitable place for this kind of sounds.
I’ve been following Dukatalon for about four years now, (almost since the band started out) after I first saw them live in Givat Brener’s legendary Gravitzki pub. Possibly, it was their first show. I still remember very clearly listening to Dukatalon’s music while sitting on the old shag’s porch and looking at firewood burn inside the heating stove on a cool winter night. Seeing a truly great, but anonymous band has always been the ultimate experience for me. Since then Dukatalon recorded an album, got a record deal and toured Europe, but remained almost totally unknown at home. About forty people came to the show – and that with another band – Stash, which has been around for quite some time as well. It was the fifth time I’ve seen Dukatalon live  – and almost every time I saw them with a different bassist. (They’ve switched three of them, I think) This time I was surprised (for the best) to see Lior From M.e.s.s manning the battle station. The aggressive musical approach of M.e.s.s is very different from Dukatalon’s mild heavy and dark rock-n-roll drive, however, the bass player seems to fit in just fine. He brings his own subtle touch, slightly different from what I’ve heard before, but I think it’s only for the best.
The sludge genre is hardly represented at all in our country; right now I think Dukatalon is the only active band around. But we surely have a representative from the top league. Dukatalon is the reason I started to be deeply interested in sludge, a genre I had a merely coincidental acquaintance with, up to four years ago. One can surely find influences of other bands such as Sourvein or Sleep, but for me Dukatalon will always remain number one. I started getting into sludge because of them, and they’re our own local villagers’ pride.

Music Alliance Pact – September 2010 Edition – Featuring GODWRATH

by skazm // September 15th, 2010
Mischief

ISRAEL: Metal Israel
GodWrathHeart vs. Mind
Vocalists using scream techniques are a dime a dozen but Godwrath boasts a female screamer with more cojones than most of the guys out there, topping their aggressive metal groove with a hardcore edge.

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Congratulations to Almana Schora, Behind the Sun and Tal Friedman vhaKrayot…

by skazm // September 12th, 2010
Mischief

As Yoram Allouche from Behind The Sun said in his victory post on Facebook: “Shuki Weiss Productions and 88FM, promoters of the Ozzfest in Tel Aviv, Israel announced today, Sunday September 12th, 2010 that Behind the Sun willperform at Ozzfest Tel Aviv which will take place on September 28th at Ganey Yeshua Tel Aviv!”

Mazal tov – this should be the beginning of awesome things for all of you.

Here is the Ynet article.

BEHIND THE SUN

ALMANA SCHORA

TAL FRIEDMAN v’HA KRAYOT

Metal Israel Exclusive Interview – Alan Robert (Life of Agony, Wire Hangers!)

by skazm // August 30th, 2010
International Interview, Jewview, Mischief

Life of Agony is a band that has influenced my life since my teenage years – Life of Agony is one of the best bands ever to walk the planet. The integrity and honesty they purvey through their music runs strong through the hearts of anyone who connects with it. And that’s a proven fact – Life of Agony have just wrapped up their 20 Years Strong tour in Europe to massive crowds. They enjoy a fan base that spans across generations, and hopefully, they’ll last a lot longer in this crazy world. I got in touch with the uber-talented Alan Robert through Facebook

courtesy of http://lifeofagony.com

MI: Hello, sir. Can I interview you for metalisrael.com via chat one of these days?

AR: Sure! I’m around for the next 30 min – u ready?

MI: Always. Well, almost always. I will preclude by saying how much I love LOA, DFL applied.

AR: I appreciate that.

MI: What’s going on? Tell me about Wire Hangers.

AR: Well, Wire Hangers has been out monthly since April. Final issue of this story arc comes out Sept 1st (this wed). A compiled graphic novel edition will hit stores in November. It’s published by IDW Publishing (30 Days of Night, GI Joe, Transformers, etc.) Some other REALLY exciting things are brewing around it too, but I can’t announce it yet.

MI: AAAAGhhh suspense!!!!! So, you trained at SVA – I know you did the trademark logo (and River Runs Red album concept/cover) for Life of Agony – did you start off drawing comics there? Where did you get your love for comics? I mean, forgive me for assuming you love them, but I think you need to in order to make them. Am I right?

AR: I grew up on comics. My dad had a collection including early Spider Man comics and Detective Comics from the Silver Age era. I got hooked since he showed me those as a kid. I’ve been drawing all my life, so making comics was the natural next step for me. I had the Wire Hangers concept for a long time now, so bringing it to life was a really awesome experience. Especially, published by IDW, my favorite comics publisher.

MI: Is Wire Hangers your first project ever? And were IDW Life of Agony fans? How did you make the hookup?

AR: I actually got the comic deal through Twitter! Around the time I was ready to pitch the concept to publishers, I started on Twitter. I started following some of my face comic artists and writers. IDW’s Chris Ryall was writing a book called Groom Lake. We started chatting over twitter, then trading comics for music. We hit it off right away. I didn’t realize he was one of the main guys over there.

MI: So you have this Internet thing, right? On one hand, a lot of musicians are pretty ticked off with it, because you’re losing a lot of royalties, but on the other hand, like you just said, you can make awesome business connections with it – what are your feelings towards it? I know it’s a pretty general question but any insight is appreciated.

AR: I don’t have any problems with the Internet, I’ve embraced it. You can’t avoid the downloading issue. It’s out there – people illegally download music, books, movies, etc. every day. It sucks for the artists because essentially it affects the whole industry because if record labels, book publishers, etc. lose money in sales, it affects the money they can give to support these projects, which makes it harder for artists to survive being creative- a trickle down problem.

MI: Duly noted. OK… Does the secret stuff have to do with Wire Hangers or Life of Agony?

AR: Wire Hangers.

MI: The temptation to play guessing games is too great. So what’s up with Life of Agony?!

AR: We’ve been pretty busy with LOA getting the 20 Yrs Strong DVD together and the summer tour. Did you see the footage from Poland on our site? 500K people!

MI: What do you think of the fact that metal, true music from the heart like you put out, can go on 20 years strong the way pop acts rarely, if ever do, but meanwhile it rarely makes it on the charts?

AR: We’ve been very fortunate that we’ve been able to build this fan base over time, over multiple generations. We never set out to write radio songs, we just always did what we did. Most of our success was built around our live show and creating tunes that people could really relate to. We always had a more grassroots approach.


I was there!

MI: OK..thanks for that. What is your view about Israel? You unfortunately don’t have much of a following there, but would you play there? Ozzy’s playing September 28 – it’s gonna be huge.

AR: Doubtful, we’ve never been to Japan either…or South America. And I know this music is really big over there. We just never were able to get it together for those trips. Europe has been something we’ve been building since 1993/1994 so it’s super strong for us.

MI: It’s the main metal market anyway in this world. They have taste in this, at least. Have you ever heard any Israeli bands?

AR: No, sorry.

MI: I guess that’s it (for now). Please send warm regards & respect to Mr. Z. for me. Thanks so much for your time. But one more closing question!

AR: Sure!

MI: As you, Mr. Robert, see your career progressing, are you happy with where it is and what else do you want to accomplish before you get out the golf clubs?

AR: Well, first off – I’ve never been into golf, so that’s definitely out…

MI: Yeah that’s Joey’s thing, I was kind of nonplussed by it myself, but to each their own.

AR: …But, I’d really love to move into other visual storytelling mediums like movies or TV. I have a lot of respect for Rob Zombie, they way he’s been able to do his music and branch out as a director. So, for me the future is really an open book.

MI: Many thanks to you and a happy Jew year as well. LOA! LOA! LOA!

Music Alliance Pact – August 2010 Edition featuring Acropolis

by skazm // August 30th, 2010
LinkedIn, Mischief

To download all 36 songs in one file click here

ISRAEL: Metal Israel
AcropolisDivine Cycle
Acropolis is an extreme melodic metal act from Israel. They blend aggressive metal grooves with brilliantly structured songs and melodies. Their debut release, The Aftermath, became a top seller on indie distribution website CD Baby and, incidentally, was very big in Japan.
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Metal Israel Exclusive Interview: Sicknature

by skazm // August 30th, 2010
International Interview, LinkedIn, Mischief

interview perpetrated by the awesome Bela Nagy…egan.

Sicknature is one of the most respected hip-hop producers in Denmark and the underground music world. His music is hardcore and raw, heavily influenced by all styles of metal music. He’s got the knowledge how to translate that energy into hip-hop, and metal’s raw power comes through in his intense beats, sharp hooks and gut wrenching prose.

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