{"id":16906,"date":"2011-12-27T03:53:41","date_gmt":"2011-12-27T10:53:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=16906"},"modified":"2012-01-02T00:06:39","modified_gmt":"2012-01-02T07:06:39","slug":"playpausereplay-indie-yeled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=16906","title":{"rendered":"Play\/Pause\/Replay – Indie-Yeled"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Yael Deckelbaum\/Photo: Elizur Reuveni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the old days, when everything was better, parents had it easy: no internet, no cell phones, and when you wanted to amuse the kids, all you had to do was say: Go out and play.<\/p>\n

In those halcyon days in Israel, of one state-owned television channel, there was one Children\u2019s Song Festival, and it took place once a year, on Hannukah. The format was simple: popular musicians (Avi Toledano, Yardena Arazi, Yehudit Ravitz, Gidi Gov, Tislam and Mashina) sang songs written for children by Ehud Manor, Matti Caspi, Uzi Hitman, Yoram Teharlev, Shaike Paikov and other well known songwriters. The glitter and pyrotechnics of large-scale productions and promiscuous proliferation of festivals led to its demise in the mid-80s, and all that remained of the Children\u2019s Song Festival in its heyday were the memories and the music.<\/p>\n

Thirty \u2013 forty years down the road the Alma music gang decided it would be fun to look back at those songs with new arrangements from contemporary musicians in the alternative Israeli scene. This past Hannukah weekend, Indie-Yeled, a concert of songs from past festivals, took place at Tmuna Theatre, a fringe sanctuary located in the Montefiore neighborhood, where artists\u2019 studios and caf\u00e9s keep company with the auto shops and strip clubs. Featuring Yehu Yaron, Yael Deckelbaum, Altneuland, Hadara Levin Areddy, Batsir 76, Adam Ben Ezra, Boris Martzinovsky, Haran Yaffe and Guy Dayan, the Saturday morning show was full to overflowing. This writer opted for the late night mid-week show aimed at slightly older children, as Batsir 76\u2019s lead singer Ohad Levy put it, \u201cTonight there\u2019s no cotton candy, no temporary tattoos, but we do have beer.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the first electric blaze of sound to the final goodnight well past midnight, this show easily found its way into the post-summer of 2011 city dwellers, reluctantly stumbling their way through adulthood, all too often without certainty, income, security, or hope, and often with a child or two along for this bumpy ride.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m still a kid,\u201d sang Altneuland, \u201cit\u2019s a riddle and I have no answer\u201d the rock arrangements taking the 1980s song (Edna Peleg\/Nimrod Tene) into 21st century adulthood. Haran Yaffe gave an edgy guitar rhythm to tale of his imaginary friend Tin Tan (Miriam Yalan-Shteklis\/Kobi Oshrat); imaginary friends are such a comfort during dry spells in one\u2019s social life. Each performer sang a song or two, with the original versions of songs from the festival played over the house speakers between sets, while the words were projected on a screen above the stage to facilitate participatory nostalgic singing.<\/p>\n

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Hadara Levin-Areddy\/Photo: Elizur Reuveni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Good music is good music and even after 30 years the songs more than hold their own, in this musically diverse evening from Batsir 76\u2019s mellow folk-rock sound, to Adam Ben Ezra\u2019s playful percussion on the double bass or jazzy duet with Yehu Yaron as peas and carrots plea: \u201clet us grow up in peace\u201d (Avner Kanner & Yoel Lerner). Some, like Hadara Levin-Areddy, took it down and dark, with a gritty blues version of Ehud Manor and Matti Caspi\u2019s song about a search for a lost dog \u2013 Bunny. Recalling that in her acquaintance with Manor, he used to play with songs on the piano, moving between Hebrew and English, Hadara also added a verse in translation: \u201cIf you see her looking happy\/I think you should know she is not\/she is secretly sad and secretly crying\/for something to eat and a friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Yehu Yaron and Boris Martzinovsky\/Photo: Elizur Reuveni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yehu Yaron and Boris Martzinovsky went way out and took Shaike Paikov\u2019s song Ima (Mother) all the way back home to create a deranged poetic alternative Russian ballad hybrid with extravagantly playful rhythms. Then they put down their instruments and accompanied their chant of \u201cEin li Kesef\u201d (I Have No Money \u2013 Ehud Manor\/Ariel Zilber) with music stand and loudspeakers as percussion: \u201cThe situation is bad\/I\u2019m already mad\u2026I have no money\/That is what Dad says\/It\u2019s the end of the month\/and I\u2019m stuck with only one shekel.\u201d No need to comment on the relevance here.<\/p>\n

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Guy Dayan & Adam Ben Ezra\/Photo: Elizur Reuveni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But hey, it\u2019s the holidays and these are children\u2019s songs – the overall atmosphere was one of fun and games, with the alt-rock arrangements giving the songs a delicious twist, like a swirl of dark chocolate. Adam Ben Ezra and Guy Dayan passed instruments back and forth with childlike zaniness with their interpretation of \u201cHopa Hey\u201d on clarinet, kazoo and what you will. Yael Deckelbaum was a magical presence with an acoustic tale of moonlight, followed by a righteously BAD cover of the fun-to-sing \u201cYeladim Tovim Yeladim Raim\u201d (Good Children Bad Children \u2013 Ehud Manor\/Yehudit Ravitz) with Adam Ben Ezra. Young, old, good, bad and in-between \u2013 it was a fun concert for all children and a wonderful alternative holiday diversion that deserves repeated play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the old days, when everything was better, parents had it easy: no internet, no cell phones, and when you wanted to amuse the kids, all you had to do was say: Go out and play. In those halcyon days in Israel, of one state-owned television channel, there was one Children\u2019s Song Festival, and it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16906\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}