Getting Infected by Fake Balkans in Jerusalem

So it's been a good month of late-night partying in the parking lots of Jerusalem. First, we had a 'Black Party' with world beatsters Balkan Beat Box in mid-November, put on by the Iriyah (City Hall), in the parking lot just under city hall. Then on Thursday night, Infected Mushroom brought their psychedelic mix of electronica, metal, trip hop and breakbeat to another parking lot in the city center, directly across from the Supreme Court.

Of course Mayor Nir Barakat was at both shows making sure all the young Jerusalemites out there know how much he cares about us and getting a photo op in a room with 5,000 after-midnight revelers. His speech before Infected was especially messianic and went something like this: "You can feel a change happening in Jerusalem, a deep and meaningful change in the air. We're taking back the city." He got raucous applause for that last remark.

The crowds at both shows were mainly people in their mid-to-late 20s into their mid-30s. The crowd was definitely shadier at Infected Mushroom, with the smell of high grade marijuana everywhere by the time Infected took the stage at 1:30 a.m. My brother also almost got my credit card and license stolen outside an hour earlier - I had given them to him to pick up our will call tickets and I'm still not sure what happened exactly but it was a stressful first 15 minutes to the night.

I had already come off a high of running a successful live event for the financial website I work for ending at about 10:30 p.m. local time and requiring many hours of preparation in advance, so by the time Infected came on, I was ready to throw down. The crew was me, my brother, Oren N. who had a big shit-eating grin for most of the night though he doesn't especially like electronic music, and Ilana Rachel of Nachlaot fame. She had quite a story herself as she almost got crushed by the crowd from her front row spot and had to be pulled out by a 250 pound Russian security guard.

Musically, both concerts were on a very high level but Balkan Beat Box was definitely the better of the two shows in my opinion. I wanted Infected to stretch out the electronic interludes more at many points but they kept mixing in more vocals, and I'm not the biggest fan of some of their newer stuff.

I first got into them when I was volunteering on Kibbutz Ketura down in the Arava Valley, 50k north of Eilat. They had just released their double disk, Converting Vegetarians, and I still think the 2nd disk of that album is their best (and one of my top 25 favorite albums of all time - I'll have to draw up an actual list at some point). Some of the local kibbutz kids that I used to go to trance parties with were into them and that second disk was a favorite during the after party unwind.

Anyway, for all the complaining I hear at times that Israel is a live music wasteland, I've caught some great shows since getting here over 5 years ago including Medeski Martin and Wood, Arrested Development, Air, and now BBB and Infected Mushroom. And that doesn't count local favorites Shotei Hanevua who Simone and I saw 10 times before they broke up, Jazz master Avishai Cohen and the now defunct Third World Love.

Check out some pics from the shows (Jerusalem.com/Ben J. gets credit for the first 3) - as always, good times:

Balkan Beat Box (11.11.09)

Barakat works the crowd at Balkan Beat Box

Fans, dressed in Black, wait for Balkan to take the stage

The opener for Balkan, Reggaestan, with my old friend Ziv playing the bass

Simone gets ready to get down

Me in black with some new wave flourishes on my head and toes

Simone, Ora, Charlotte

A crowd shot during Balkan's set

Infected Mushroom (12.17.09)

Infected with large blow-up Mushroom behind them. That thing had some strange eyes, I'm telling you!

Some videos of Infected from Thursday night, 7th night of Chanukah

A Message of World Peace

From Flight of the Conchords:

If every soldier in the world
Put down his weapon and picked up a woman
What a peaceful world this world would be
Redheads not warheads
Blondes not bombs
We're talkin' about brunettes not fighter jets
Oooh Oooh it's got to be Sweet 16's not M-16's
When will the governments realize it's got to be funky sexy ladies?

Here's the video.

I know this is a bit old but these Kiwis are hilarious!

Happy Hannukah All!

Me, Armin and Noam - Because That's How I Roll Biatches!

This post is part of Common Sensorium's "History Series"

So there we were at 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning in July 2004 in Bodrum on the Turkish Riviera. The sea of hotties parted to reveal the hottiest of them all, Armin Van Buuren, World's # 1 trance DJ for 3 years running (he was #3 at the time - he's really picked up his game since then). The moment yielded this picture, our greatest souvenir from our one month trip to Turkey with the possible exception of Erkut's beach towel (long story, can't get into it now but Noam knows what I'm talking about as he was the perp ;-).

click all pics to enlarge them
Notice Noam flashing the 3 there for #3 DJ in the world!

Armin was super nice - and not ditzy at all despite his uber-blond hair and generally 'I'm an awesome Trance DJ guy' attitude. In truth, he actually didn't seem full of himself at all and was just a normal guy and wanted to know how we liked the party.

So how did we come to meet the man who is currently the world's #1 trance DJ? All week in Bodrum, where Noam's old Harvard roommate, Erkut Kokobiachi's parents, have a beach house in Turkey's finest, honeyest beach town, we kept seeing signs for the 'World's #3 DJ, Armin van Buuren'. The party was to take place on a boat (with a light up glass bottom that allowed you to see the ocean underneath!) called the Catamaran that sailed out to sea at 10 p.m. and returned at 6 a.m. Armed only with the vodka red bull in our bellies and our best impersonation of Eurotrash, we set sail on the Gulf of Gökova in the Aegean Sea with Armin's trance synthesizer our syren's song.

In general, our trip to Turkey was awesome - I got a really good impression of the people and country. Turks know how to have a good time but they're also a pretty intellectual bunch and it was cool to be in a country that is 99% Muslim and tell everyone we were Jewish and see what sort of reactions we got (they were mostly positive).

Here are some more pictures from our magical evening with Armin van Buuren, World's #1 Trance DJ, because that's how I roll biatches!

Oh no, too much vodka and red bull!

Is that Armin van Buuren's Jewish stunt double?

And finally, a YouTube video with Armin vB spinning on the party boat (it may actually be from 2007):


Work it Armondo!

Just a Game

So I've got the NFL.com football package which gives me access to live streaming of every NFL game and it's been great. Sunday has fast become my most anticipated day of the week as I wait for friends to gather, drink beer and eat crap I'd never get away with eating for dinner (we had hot dogs in blankets this week).

My favorite team is the NY Giants. I grew up watching Big Blue win the Super Bowl when I was 10 (the famous Gulf War game) and have been a fan ever since. Recently, the G-men knocked off the undefeated New England Patriots to win their 3rd franchise championship - an especially sweet victory due to the way it went down (the 'Helmet' catch and last minute drive to put the Giants on top).

This season has been a fairly disappointing one for the Giants thus far but they went a long way towards salvaging things on Sunday with their 2nd win this year over the hated Dallas Cowboys. As I see it, the Giants really have two problems this year: an erratic defense and an inconsistent offense. After starting out 5-0, they failed to score more than their opponents 5 of the next 6 weeks - something I blame both their defense and offense for. At 7-5, they're on the bubble to make the playoffs. Hopefully they continue to score more than their opponents - if not they will lose games and not make the playoffs.

Which is the great thing about watching football: it's a good excuse to get together with the guys and have some fun but at the end of the day, it matters not whether your team wins or loses. I'll never understand people that go into some sort of deep depression if 'their' team loses. After all, it's just a game. And I get to eat my hot dogs in blankets and drink my beer and see the guys whether the Giants win or lose.