Metal show last Friday, Battle for Jerusalem... I was meaning to write about it sooner but I was too sore to do anything, and I still am. Which basically means the show was great. If I come back home with the ability to move my head and hear what you're saying it means the show was shit. If I come back home and am incapacitated for at least three days it means the show kicked major ass.

So this time I wasn't incapacitated, I was simply sore, which means the show didn't kick ass, but it was good, decent metal and that I had a relatively good time.

First band that came on was Dagor Dagorath. Even before they kicked into the first song, and were just standing still under the dim spotlights with faded smoke changing shapes in the air, they had an amazing stage presence, and somehow I felt a darker, more sinister presence, within this momentary stillness... I couldn't really put my finger on it, but it felt insanely empowering. They gave a pretty good performance, especially considering their lead singer is a woman and pulled some awesome black metal vocals throughout the entire set which unfortanately didn't last very long.

After three or four songs, there was a change of equipment and a band called Mind Corruption came on. They were... uh, how should I put this? They looked and sounded like something out of an Asterix and Obelix nightmare. The lead singer was the weirdest thing ever. He had a beard and glasses, which made him look like a religious Jew (which he of course wasn't because it was Friday night), and wore this kind of helmet with fur and horns and wielded a sword which at first I thought was plastic until he started swinging it around and the lights reflected off the blade. I was in the front row and felt like at any moment, this sword is slashing me across the face. Besides that, he was jumping around the stage like a little kid... it was completely absurd. The music was terrible, just as horrible as I thought it would be after hearing them on MySpace.

Then, Birth came on. Their vocalist was "meh," their drummer was "blah", their bassist was "ugh" and their guitarist was "wtf?!" I think the soundguy did a terrible job with the soundcheck because all I heard was the guitarist atrocious riffs. I barely heard the drums or the bass, whereas the vocalist I couldn't hear for shit!

Then, another change of equipment and it was the end of the world when Abrage came on stage. You know how in big metal shows, the crowd is usually standing in the first, second, third, fourth and sometimes the fifth lines before there is the mosh pit somewhere in the middle? Well in this case it was the first line and the pit right after that. With Abrage and their fucking asshole vocalist who kept encouraging the crowd to smash into each other by making cirlces with his index finger, the pit basically kept hitting people in the first row, including me.

So imagine being me - a 163 cm, 43.5 kilos woman. Now I'm already shitting my pants with those big ass bulls playing the human blender two feet behind me. What is worse than being thrown into the moshpit in my situation? Yes, having the pit thrown into ME. That's exactly what happened and I found myself flying face first onto the stage and landed on my elbows and thighs.

I got some sick bruises out of it, but basically after that happened, I slowly crawled to the back of the room right outside the danger zone.

I was in too much pain to really be paying attention to Abrage's music but I did manage to single out the guitarist who played suprisingly much better than all the other members. His talents should be put to better use in another band, seriously.

Another change of equipment and stage display, meanwhile the soundguy playbacked some other songs, including Blood on Your Hands, to which I said 'fuck this!' and headbanged my neck off. Wearing an Arch Enemy t-shirt, it was clearly my role.

Among the crowd, I was stunned to see four kids, not older than 11 or 12, one was wearing a Cradle of Filth shirt, another was wearing Dimmu Borgir, another was wearing Azamoth and the fourth was wearing some random black metal shirt with skulls and stuff. Two of them had long hair and were headbanging their little hearts out the entire show. Man, if only there were more Israeli kids like that!

In any case, Azamoth were the next band to come on. They were the typical black metal band with the black and white Kiss-style makeup. Their riffs were terrific and got me headbanging a little. But the singer's voice was lame. He sounded like a dying frog. All these other bands after Dagor Dagorath had much longer sets. Dagor played like three or four songs, whereas the others all played nine or 10 songs each. I was forced to suffer it waiting for the band I actually came to see - Arafel.

They came on after Azamoth and after a long change of scene and change of equipment. But it was worth the wait. Arafel kept me headbanging their entire set. They started with one of my favorite Arafel songs - On the Dark Way - and ended with another one of my favorite songs - Serpent Land. The way they incorporated the violin with the guitar solos was spectacular, and their riffs, ever changing throughout the songs, sent shivers of pure, dark pleasure down my spine.

The only thing that really disappointed me with all performances was that none of the drummers used a double bass but settled for a double pedal. And the drum kit itself was pretty basic. There were no extra tams or cymbals, no special percussion sounds... it was pretty basic and boring. That extra dimension that elaborate drums add to the sound of black or death metal was simply not there, and it was upsetting to say the least.

In any case, here I am with my sore neck and my nice, bruised up knees, looking forward to better days of Israeli metal, or simply for days where international metal bands decide to enlighten the Israeli crowd by coming to play here more often, goddamit!

Soon there will be the Anthem fesitval though, where a nice array of international bands will be playing, but I won't be going due to lack of funds...

So let me rephrase my previous statement and say, here I am with my sore neck and nice, bruised up knees looking forward to better days of financial situation when I can afford to see international metal bands live here in Israel.

Peace, love and it's Fog, not Frog!

 

Dagor Dagorath:

         

Yesterday was Pride in Jerusalem. It was great, very colorful, very funny, very moving at times, excruciatingly hot, a lot of fun, people from all over the country, there were even some foreigners, it was just awesome. And what was great about it was that there weren't as many anti-protesters and not as many security officials.

What still sucks is that there still is an enormous amount of homophobia, even by moderates and secular Israelis.

 

 

My cousins are sill vehemently against it, fucking homophobes, born and raised. Yet, we still live in a democratic country, at least theoretically.

When people ask me how is it that I'm straight yet still go to GLBT marches and events, I say because I would do the same for any group of Jews who look to be accepted by their fellow Jews in their own Jewish nation. It only makes sense, doesn't it? Besides, I want my country to be democratic in practice, not only in theory, and by supporting different groups of people, especially the GLBT community whose sole struggle is for their right to love, this kind of democracy can be achieved. And lord knows Israel can use a bit more free love among so much animosity in all other areas of Israeli daily life.

Peace, love and אהבת חינם!

 

 

 

Last night I went to my first metal night in Jerusalem. It's surprising enough that there is one metal bar in Jerusalem, and it's even more suprising that now there are two.

I had to go experience it for myself and maybe, just maybe, have a little faith in the Holy City, that there is such a thing as a community of Jerusalemite Metalheads, hopefully comprising of more than just me and my ex (while neither of us are originally Jerusalemites to begin with).

And so, that's how I found myself in Scream Metal Bar on Shlomo Hamelech, downtown Jerusalem. It had all the appropriate cliches of a regular lounge - a classy bar, high tables and chairs, sofas, an upstairs section with some more sofas - with a touch of metal - posters of metal artists on the wall (including Angela Gossow), people dressed in black, metal chains, t-shirts of metal bands, mohawks, piercings and tattoos left and right, the bouncer dressed the same, and of course there was the music, loud and angry, just the way I like it.

I didn't know anybody there, so I decided to sit on the couch for a while and seeing as I am in Israel, somebody is bound to notice that I am along and walk up to me and strike up a conversation. Eventually, that's what happened. The people I spoke with were very nice, three men and a woman who seemed like they also came here alone and had just met randomly and started a conversation seeing as they all share a love for the same music blasting from the speakers.

The was, however, one problem (there's no shortage of these in Israel) - the ban on smoking in bars and restaurants certainly did not apply to Scream. EVERYONE, that is everyone except for the two dogs that were there, were smoking. By one hour, the place was going up in flames with all the smoke. I couldn't breath though all the windows (all two of them) were open, and my eyes were itching so bad I started tearing. Another thing that sucked was that despite their hardcore appearence, none of the metalheads were headbanging, which is what I was hoping to do that night until my neck would break. They were blown away when I told them I don't smoke, and were totally dumbstruck when I added that I also don't drink. So I decided to leave my fellow metalheads in their boring little hotbox and chose clean lungs. Safety first, right?

And so, with red eyes, a distant ring in my ears and cigarette smoke in my hair and clothes, I went on my merry way, in the middle of the night. I walked all the way home, which took about 30 minutes, hoping that the fresh midnight air would rid my clothes of the horrible stench. With my shoulders back, my head high, I walked, clutching a small bottle of pepper spray with my thumb on the trigger. Safety first, right?

The walk was in vain. The clothes and my hair still smelled horrible. The ring in my ears was getting faint, and my neck was not stiff. This was not how I was hoping the end the night.

Next weekend, at the Yellow Submarine, there are some local metal bands performing live. I paid 45 sheks to break my neck and my eardrums, this better be worth it.

Peace, love and "giving our blood to the Doomsday Machine!"

 

Oh yeah! And we're back with more of moi!

Yes, for those of you who just joined us, this space was deleted because of a tiny 2 pixels photo of a cartoon depicting a nude woman just standing there doing shitall. In fact, we found traces of much more obscene nudity on other photos featured on this site, including a naked dominatrix with a male slave licking her boots, and a topless woman wearing a strap on dildo with a man giving her head (these were deleted upon the owner's own initiative of avoiding pissing off Windows Live once again).

Now why would Windows Live choose to delete this awesome cool space because of the pathetic 2 pixel cartoon and not the other crazy pics remains a mystery. In any case, Riot Grrrl is back, very unfortunately censored. But back nontheless.

Meanwhile, I was using this other space: http://hadass16.spaces.live.com

So you can check out what was going on while you were away.

And now to resume regular programing...

Fuck this, I'm hungry. I'll think of something to write later.

Peace, love, and freedom of expression shall prevail, you pathetic ameobas fucked beyond repair!