Metal Jew

My metal-related workshop in Berlin on November 9th

2009-11-04T19:10:13+00:00

I'm not sure if anyone in Berlin reads this blog, but here's some info on a metal-related workshop I am presenting in Berlin next Monday 9th November 2009 at 5pm. It's part of a really interesting art project called Beneath The Remains taking place at arttransponder:

arttransponder is inviting you to the workshop Journey Into the Known
9th November 2009, 5pm
In this presentation and workshop, Keith Kahn-Harris, author of ‘Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge’ asks: ‘How do we mourn the death of the unknown?’

In the first half Dr Kahn-Harris will put on a multimedia presentation arguing that the history of metal scenes since 1989 are a symptom of a wider process of the ‘unknown becoming known’ whose apotheosis was the revolutions in Eastern Europe in 1989.

In the second half of the workshop, participants will be asked to try and capture and mourn their first exposure to a subculture, scene or previously secret world. Using art, writing or other creative mediums participants will produce a collective ‘scrapbook’ of poignant and nostalgic moments in the death of the unknown.

The event will take place in English. There is a limited number of places available for this event, so please register at info@arttransponder.net. Alternatively you can call the arttransponder art space office on 49(0)30 – 30642400, Thursday between 12 a.m.- 5 p.m. and Friday / Saturday between 2 p.m.- 7 p.m.

within the framework of the exhibition of BENEATH THE REMAINS - Translations of Estrangement and the Politics of Survival
Exhibition / Lecture / Public Art Projects / Workshop / Experiment in Ambient Hearing
16th October - 14th November 2009

Artists: Eduard Constantin (RO) l Cristina David (RO) l Andreea Faciu (RO/DE) l Vincent Faciu (RO/DE) l Tatjana Fell (DE) l Bogdan Ghiu (RO) l Keith Kahn Harris (GB) l Dumitru Oboroc (MD) l Ondrej Svadlena (CZ) l Tim Wolff (DE)

A project curated by Vlad Morariu l (RO)

Hanukah Gone Metal

2009-10-29T12:05:40+00:00

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.

Flowers in the Desert

2009-10-27T13:01:02+00:00

Mark Levine's Heavy Metal Islam book got mixed reviews in the metal community - many people acciused him of only having a superficial understanding of metal. My feeling was that, while the title of the book pomised something it didn't really deliver, the book did provide an interesting insight into youth culture in the Islamic world and the possibilities that rock, metal and other music hold for creating a culture that resists both Islamic fundamentalism and western hegemony.

Levine has put together a compilation album of Middle Eastern rock, metal and hip hop called 'Flowers in the Desert' . It should be out pretty soon. He's also making a documentary based on the book that will doubtless provide an interested contrast to the Heavy Metal in Bagdhad and Global Metal films.

In the meantime, here's a trailer for Flowers in the Desert:

Brief Thoughts on Heavy Metal and Gender Conference

2009-10-12T18:24:31+01:00

I was priveliged to attend the Heavy Metal and Gender conference in Cologne last week. It was a great occasion and Florian Heesch did a great job organising it. It was great meeting up with old and new eggheadbanger friends - it feels that a community of serious, committed metal scholars is starting to emerge.

Ill health and lack of time prevents me recording my thoughts on the conference in more detail but one thing I've been thinking a lot about is my relationship to the metal scene. Would I still describe it as 'ambivalent'? I still have real difficulties with certain aspects of metal - the persistent sexism for one thing. The beercentricism of metal culture also bores me (although I would drink more regularly if my health was better).

I can't deny that I am much more comfortable with the hipster-end of the metal continuum and I sometimes cling to Sunn0))) like a drowning man to a liferaft. Sometimes I feel like an apologetic metaller. Maybe I'm a self-hating Jew and a self-hating metaller?

Yet at the same time, the emerging eggheadbanger community is beginning to convince me that perhaps metal is important, perhaps it has lessons for all.

Gay metal rumour

2009-09-22T13:09:39+01:00

Whilst I am concerned not to post lashon hara on this blog, the comments on a recent post on Invisible Oranges publish an interesting rumour about a possibly gay member of a prominent death metal band. I can't substantiate it, but it seems to me that the necessity of making life easier for gay metallers - who are by and large hidden - seems to override the risks in 'outing' someone in this way.

I wish this were a real advert...

2009-09-18T15:48:19+01:00

[hat tip Robert Popper]

I don't know much about modern dance but I know what I like

2009-09-15T19:12:25+01:00

A few years ago I was flicking channels late night when I came across a programme called 'Summer Dance'. I know v little about this art form and am no fan of classical ballet but the piece I saw on the programme really spoke to me: a small group of women sit in chairs in what looked like an abandoned institutional space. Accompanied by a a minimal, percussive, metronomic score, the dancers make repeated sudden movements that are simultaneously erotic and neurotic. Punctuating the whole performance are extravagent tosses of the head - almost headbanging - that must make the piece intensely draining to perform.

I missed the start of the programme and the credits didn't say what the piece was. The TV listings in the paper gave no details. This was pe-internet ubiquity so I was unable to find out more. I mentioned what I'd seen to a few friends for whom it rang no bells. Infuriatingly the all-female comedy sketch show 'Smack The Pony' appeared to parody the piece a while back but gave no hint as to what the source material was.

Now finally I've been able to identify the piece thanks to a review in the Guardian that seemed to describe exactly what I had seen. It turns out that the piece is called 'Rosas Danst Rosas' by a Belgian choreographer called Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. It's apparently very well-known in the dance world and has recently revived (hence the Guardian review) with De Keersmaeker herself taking part.

Here's a youtube video of all or some of it (it doesn't make clear which) which is well worth watching, enjoy:

2009 - the year of the eggheadbanger

2009-08-26T20:08:33+01:00

Looks like 2009 is turning into the year of the eggheadbenger:

1) October 8-10 sees the 'Heavy Metal and Gender' conference in Cologne . I'll be speaking and I can't wait for the vocal masterclass featuring Angela Gossow!

2) November 10-12 sees the second 'Heavy Fundamentalism' conference in Salzburg. I won't be there and I think it is a shame that in such a small academic field it was scheduled so soon after the Cologne conference (the Cologne conference was annouced first). Still, I really hope it is a success - the 2008 conference was a brilliant experience.

3) December 12 sees the 'Hideous Gnosis' Black Metal Theory Symposium in New York. This is an unapologetically out-there fest of mind-duck theorising about mind-fucking black metal. Nicola Masciandaro, one of the organisers and speakers, presented a virtually inpenetrable paper at Salzburg last year and his blog verges on the incomprehensible - and is all the better for it.

Spin magazine articles on eggheadbangers and yeshiva metallers

2009-08-06T20:12:35+01:00

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.

New interview

2009-08-06T19:43:55+01:00

There's a new interview with me on the Esoterric blog. For some reason, I opened up quite a bit about my childhood and metal's place within it.

Thanks to Ed (a fellow eggheadbanger) for the interesting questions.

Music and inter faith dialogue

2009-08-01T21:22:13+01:00

For the last week, myself and the family have been at a Jewish-Christian inter faith bible study week in Germany - my wife gave a keynote lecture. It's been an interesting experience, particularly since the text for the week was Lamentations, definitely the angriest, most emotional, most hardcore book of the bible.

Still, the most memorable event of the week had nothing much to do with inter faith dialogue or the bible. My kids (aged 6 and 3) sometimes like to dance to tracks on my MP3 player (I have a portable speaker I use for the purpose) and a couple of nights ago asked me to play them something. So I played them Alestorm's metal version of the gloriously silly 2008 Latvian Eurovision entry 'Wolves of the Sea'; a pirate song that begiuns 'with a hi hi ho and a hi hi hey, we are wolves of the sea'.

The kids went berserk! Running around, throwing shapes, gurning like crazy. They had the wife and I in fits of laughter. It felt somehow all the more exciting since we were in our room at a Catholic retreat centre in Germany. Surely no one had ever daanced to this kind of music in this context before. It was a wonderful reminder of music's power to provoke sheer joy in the most incongruous of settings.

Heavy Metal: Controversies and Countercultures

2009-07-20T17:54:45+01:00

Call for Papers

Heavy Metal: Controversies and Countercultures

Titus Hjelm, Keith Kahn-Harris & Mark LeVine (eds.)

During its forty years of existence heavy metal music has been one of the most controversial genres of popular music. Controversies surrounding alleged (and often documented) sexual promiscuity, occultism and Satanism, and subliminal messages inspiring suicide, have all made heavy metal a target of ‘moral panics’ over popular culture. Within the broad category of ‘heavy metal’ new subgenres keep appearing, continuously challenging the more domesticated and mainstreamed versions, making the genre perpetually topical. In addition, with the deepening of globalisation, the music and culture of heavy metal has spread beyond Europe and North America, challenging cultural norms and raising public debates in new social contexts. Although commercially marginal compared to the heyday of its success in the 1980s, the social impact of heavy metal has hardly lessened.

The aim of this anthology is to analyse the relationship between heavy metal and society within a global context. Adopting a broadly social constructionist approach to the study of moral panics and social movements, the book examines two main themes:

a) Social reactions to heavy metal (i.e. controversy)

b) The construction of heavy metal culture and community in light of these controversies

The first theme looks at how heavy metal has been constructed as deviant and as a social problem. Studies that investigate representations of heavy metal in, for example, the media, the courts, religious literature, and other public arenas are welcomed. Because social problems and moral panics always reflect their social context, discussions of social interests and the social and cultural consequences of claims shed light on not just heavy metal as a genre and subculture, but society in a wider sense.

The second theme examines the construction of heavy metal from the ‘inside’, that is, how fans, musicians, music journalists, etc. create the culture of heavy metal and how that culture interacts with the surrounding social and cultural context. This could include ethnographical studies and studies of fan discourse, for example.

While the majority of chapters will be expected to have a sociological or a cultural studies approach, we welcome contributions from a variety of disciplines, including social psychology, anthropology, history, folkloristics, religious studies, gender studies, etc. Contributions that combine aesthetic/musicological analysis with a discussion of the music's social impact, or that explore how new technologies for production and distribution of music have impacted metal culture are also welcome.

Examples of possible chapters include:

· Heavy Metal and the Threat to Public Order in the Muslim World

· Autobiography and the Making of Heavy Metal Legends

· From National Shame to National Heroes: Lordi and the 2006 Eurovision Contest

· Christian Metal

· Heavy Metal in the US courts

· The Nordic Black Metal Phenomenon

Potential submissions could also include case studies of moral panics over heavy metal, ethnographic studies of heavy metal communities, and studies of fan and artist discourse. We are particularly interested in submissions that discuss heavy metal and society in the Middle East, Asia, South America, East Europe and Russia.

Please submit an abstract of up to 250 words and a short biographical note (see below) to t.hjelm@ssees.ucl.ac.uk

The deadline for submissions is 30 September 2009.

The Editors:

Titus Hjelm is Lecturer in Finnish Society and Culture at University College London. His main areas of expertise are cultural sociology, sociology of religion, social problems, media and popular culture. He is currently working on a book on social constructionism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) and editing a volume titled Religion and Social Problems (Routledge, 2009). He is also a member of the internationally acclaimed metal band Thunderstone.

Keith Kahn-Harris is a research associate at the Centre for Urban and Community Research, Goldsmiths College. He is the author of Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge (Berg, 2006) and writes the blog Metal Jew (www.metaljew.org). He is currently co-writing a book on the British Jewish community since 1990.

Mark LeVine is Professor of modern Middle Eastern history, culture and Islamic studies at University of California Irvine and author and editor of several books, including Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam (Random House/Three Rivers Press, 2008 and Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989 (Zed Books, 2009).

Varg speaks

2009-07-08T16:04:42+01:00

Blabbermouth reports an interview by a Norwegian paper with the recently released Varg Vikernes. He appears unrepentant about killing Euronymous (claiming that his life was in danger) and while he admits to racism he says he doesn't hate anyone. He also says there will be a new Burzum album.

It looks like he will do what many of the other people involved in the early 90s black metal scene did - live a quiet life and make music. We'll see. I have to admit to looking forward to hearing new Burzum stuff. To my shame I think Vikernes is an amazing artist, with repellant views.

The End All Around US

2009-06-26T15:20:14+01:00

I have a chapter in a new edited collection The End All Around US: Apocalyptic Texts and Popular Culture The chapter is called 'End of the World Music: Is Extreme Metal the Sound of the Apocalypse?'.

Remember him this way

2009-06-26T15:17:41+01:00

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:

Remember him this way

2009-06-26T13:04:50+01:00

The genius of Koby Israelite

2009-06-19T18:18:46+01:00

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.

International Day of Slayer

2009-06-06T12:00:00+01:00

Today is the International Day of Slayer. Here's what you're supposed to do:

How to Celebrate

Listen to Slayer at full blast in your car.

Listen to Slayer at full blast in your home.

Listen to Slayer at full blast at your place of employment.

Listen to Slayer at full blast in any public place you prefer.

DO NOT use headphones! The objective of this day is for everyone within earshot to understand that it is the National Day of Slayer. National holidays in America aren't just about celebrating; they're about forcing it upon non-participants.

Taking that participation to a problematic level

Stage a "Slay-out." Don't go to work. Listen to Slayer.

Have a huge block party that clogs up a street in your neighborhood. Blast Slayer albums all evening. Get police cruisers and helicopters on the scene. Finish with a full-scale riot.

Spray paint Slayer logos on churches, synagogues, or cemeteries.[erm...maybe not]

Play Slayer covers with your own band (since 99% of your riffs are stolen from Slayer anyway).

Kill the neighbor's dog and blame it on Slayer.

It's Shabbat of course (I myself blogged this on Friday) but what better way of celebrating Motzei Shabbat than with a blast of 'Reign in Blood'?

This is a strange project in that it's hard to tell how tongue in cheek it all is. I'm interviewed on the site as part of a panel of experts. They asked some pretty serious and challenging questions. Have a look and decide for yourself.

Miscellaneous ('aint that a catchy title)

2009-06-01T20:08:01+01:00

My article on Jews and The Wire is now up - I'm quite proud of it.
Invisible Oranges has a post featuring metal versions of Hava Nagila (although they don't mention this one)
I hadn't mentioned Punk Torah before. The ever-woinderful Y-Love offers his take here.

New publications

2009-06-01T20:01:23+01:00

Although neither of these publications have much to do with my metal side, I am quite proud of them:

Jews talking about talking about Israel - article in Haaretz

Communities in conversation: Jewish involvment in inter faith activities in the UK - report published by the Board of Deputies

New publications

2009-05-22T17:20:23+01:00

Although neither of these publications have much to do with my metal side, I am quite proud of them:

Jews talking about talking about Israel - article in Haaretz

Communities in conversation: Jewish involvment in inter faith activities in the UK - report published by the Board of Deputies

Investigating 'The Shield'

2009-05-20T22:07:27+01:00

I'm a huge fan of the US TV show The Shield, which sadly came to an end recently. When I accidentally discovered that Five USA, the channel that shows The Shield in the UK, had mucked about with the season episode, it was an opportunity to dip my toe into the world of journalism. It's hardly Woodward and Bernstein stuff but it made for a fun story - read it here.

Metal Cartogram

2009-05-20T22:03:15+01:00

I blogged recently about the extraordinary History of Metal project. Now here's another strangely beautiful attempt to map the metal world - the Metal Cartogram

I should have blogged this sooner...

2009-05-18T18:11:26+01:00

...but I didn't. The call for papers for the follow up to last November's excellent metal conference in Salzburg is now up.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand it's great that there's another metal conference. On the other, the metal and gender conference in Cologne (which i will be going to) is only a month before. There are only so many metal scholars so it's probably that one or the other conference may suffer attendance-wise. Still, metal people are a committed lot, so a fair few will probably go to both (probably not me alas).

The history of metal - all of it, every little bit

2009-05-10T20:29:21+01:00

I blogged a while back here and here about the book 'All Known Metal Bands'. Now thanks to Brian Hickam (who doesn't have a blog so I can't link to him), I've found out about another, even more ambitious metal art project - the boringly titled The History of Metal:

The History of Metal (T.H.O.M.) is a large scale visual art project detailing the origins, growth, and breadth of heavy metal music. I will attempt to identify every heavy metal band that ever existed, identify different subgenres within metal and their relationships to one another, and create a collection of artworks that represents metal’s place in history, the world, and in popular culture.

I've been a fan of heavy metal music since I was a teenager, but until now I haven't taken the time to delve into the history and genealogy of this unique music genre. I took on this project largely to educate myself and others about heavy metal, as well as to bring attention to what I consider to be one of the most complex and enduring facets of musical culture.

When I originally came up with the idea for T.H.O.M., it was to be a single drawing - a giant timeline that contained every heavy metal band from the 1970's to present day, organized by subgenre. It has since evolved and expanded to include several "peripheral" pieces that investigate heavy metal's cultural presence. The project as a whole currently consists of four pieces - three drawings and a interactive Flash presentation:

The Timeline Study: A snapshot, if you will, of how the timeline drawing is being constructed. This drawing is the first of many tests to determine the ideal configuration of bands on a timeline.
The Metal Map: The Metal Map is a hand drawn and painted representation of the concentration of metal bands in countries throughout the world. Each country has been assigned a color based on how many heavy metal bands have originated there throughout history, with amounts ranging from 0 - 9,396. The map reveals correlations between the popularity of heavy metal and political, racial, and economic climates throughout the world.
Subgenre Interactive: An interactive Flash presentation that allows users to explore the different subgenres within heavy metal, and listen to samples from bands that represent those subgenres.
Metal Subgenre Popularity Index: A large drawing showing the growth and popularity of each of the 14 main heavy metal subgenres from 1970 to 2008.

It's well worth checking out. I love the idea of trying to identify and nail down the entirity of a genre in a piece of visual art. On the one hand it's as futile as trying to nail jelly to a wall. On the other, it's a suitably mythic monument to a scene that is obsessed with making its own mythology. It'll be interesting to see how the project develops.