{"id":9543,"date":"2011-01-15T16:17:45","date_gmt":"2011-01-15T23:17:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=9543"},"modified":"2011-01-17T14:20:31","modified_gmt":"2011-01-17T21:20:31","slug":"lazer-lloyd-blues-band-to-perform-at-levontin-7-tel-aviv-blues-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=9543","title":{"rendered":"Lazer Lloyd Blues Band to Perform at Levontin 7 Tel Aviv Blues Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Lazer Lloyd (right) with Vintage owner Idan and Andy Watts\/Photo: Ayelet Dekel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lazer Lloyd<\/a> walks into the Vintage guitar store on Hamelech George Street in Tel Aviv, saying, \u201cThis is my favorite place in Israel.\u201d\u00a0 Surrounded by an amazing array of guitars, we find a relatively quiet corner to talk about the blues in anticipation of The Lazer Lloyd\u2019s Blues Band (Lazer Lloyd \u2013 guitar and vocals, Moshe Yankovsky \u2013 drums and vocals, Andy Watts \u2013 guitar, Ilan Hillel \u2013 bass guitar and vocals) performance at Levontin 7 on January 23, 2011 in the Tel Aviv Blues Festival.<\/p>\n

My first encounter with Lazer Lloyd was at the Woodstock Revival II concert <\/a>last summer, and his electric version of HaTikvah has burned itself into my memory. Born in the US, raised on the blues and beginning to record with Atlantic Records, Lazer Lloyd changed course after meeting Shlomo Carlebach \u2013 an encounter which led to his move to Israel, where he continues to play the blues, writing his own songs. The Lazer Lloyd Blues Band were the opening act for Snowy White in Tel Aviv last spring, and the band is currently touring Israel with new material.<\/p>\n

Lazer Lloyd can take a guitar on a wild journey and his conversational riffs have the same amazing energy. I asked him to talk about writing blues in Israel, and he took it from there:<\/p>\n

\u201cIsraeli Blues wow\u2026you know it\u2019s obviously very deep. Blues in general, for me it\u2019s the deepest, this is my religion, I grew up on it.\u00a0 The blues is like such an incredible\u2026there is something very powerful in the blues itself, so when you talk about Israeli Blues for me it\u2019s that much deeper, you know, but on the other hand you have to be really careful. My Israeli friends can be very\u2026 Kalut rosh<\/em> (Hebrew: light headed) \u2013 because of all the, how its so\u2026 so much tension here, all the pain that Israeli people have had. I find that Israeli people tend to be a little bit light, so also, you have to be careful not to be too heavy. There\u2019s something deep about just making people happy with the blues with the music.<\/p>\n

So at the shows we try to give them a taste of some things that are really deep, but at the end I really feel that these people really want to be happy, so we rock about a little bit and we have a good time with them. And the blues is deep, but if you see B. B. King and Buddy Guy \u2013 they\u2019re the kings of the blues \u2013 they\u2019re always smiling. They\u2019re singing \u2018how I\u2019m so broken\u2019 but they\u2019re always smiling.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s almost like – make that balance. Make it deep but at the same time, people come, they want to have a good time with the blues. I think that\u2019s the depth of it knowing how to be deep without getting caught into the really\u2026[he laughs]\u2026deep unanswered questions. Sometimes the deepest thing is just laughter.<\/p>\n

I grew up on the blues. I didn\u2019t grow up frum<\/em> [a religiously observant Jew]. Blues goes down into so many areas. I really feel that the first blues man in the world was David Hamelech, King David, I mean if you read Tehillim<\/em>, [Psalms] this is the realest real you can get. I mean, can you imagine a person who\u2019s the king, he\u2019s the king and he\u2019s writing about his mistakes, you know, and big<\/em> mistakes.\u00a0 He\u2019s King David and he\u2019s made big mistakes with women and he\u2019s writing it \u2013 you know what I\u2019m saying, he could have kept it a secret.<\/p>\n

When I listen to John Lee Hooker – he\u2019s so great. It\u2019s the feeling\u2026 it\u2019s so hard to say something you\u2019re just feeling and want to say it without getting anything else involved with it, what people are going to think. To say exactly what you\u2019re feeling, it\u2019s such a hard art and David Hamelech – he really did it. So for me, my struggle with the blues when I was young (this happened before I met Rav Shlomo), I was really struggling to find, ok I hear John Lee Hooker\u2019s blues and I hear Buddy Guy\u2019s blues and Blind Lemon Jefferson\u2019s blues, the musical depth is here but I want to sing, I want to find what my blues are.<\/p>\n

The worst thing for me is when I see somebody trying to imitate someone else. I never want to do that in life. I didn\u2019t want to just imitate, you know, try to be someone else. So the greatest thing was when I met Rav Shlomo and came to Israel I realized \u2013 Hey! Not only is it not in conflict with the blues, but the real depth of being able to really just say over what\u2019s really paining you, I really feel it\u2019s in our tradition. And if you read the Psalms, King David, he was master of all time of being really able to describe\u2026the phrasing there\u2026 every year I\u2019m seeing more, learning Hebrew it\u2019s a deep language, so deep if you read the English translation of the Psalms it doesn\u2019t really give you\u2026 you can read 5, 10 versions of it\u2026 Sometimes my Israeli friends ask me what is John Lee Hooker really saying so I try to translate it \u2013 it doesn\u2019t work so well because well he\u2019s not just saying \u2018ani mitga\u2019agea leisha hazot\u2019<\/em> [I miss this woman] – it\u2019s the way he\u2019s phrasing, it\u2019s so important.<\/p>\n

So this is where I really feel it is the musical content for sure is something that Black Americans, coming from Afro Americans – the blues note. I can show you [he plays it on the guitar) the riff note, the famous blues note, ok that\u2019s a flat five. You hear that sound, that note? That\u2019s one of the notes\u2026ok, now listen, listen to this \u2013 tell me what it sounds here. [He plays something I recognize as a Hassidic nigun<\/em> on the guitar] it\u2019s a Hassidic song. This is a Hassidic song from 300 years ago. This Hassidic music comes about, this flat five note; the only other place you find it is in this Hassidic music. It\u2019s not in classical music. This note is a mistake in the Western World.<\/p>\n

This note it\u2019s a mistake it doesn\u2019t come out, but in the Klezmer, in the really traditional Hassidic melody, they also use the flat five. It\u2019s the struggle note. This is a note that when the rabbis describe what they say in the niggunim<\/em>, this is the note of the struggle of the soul being trapped in the body. This note was like a \u2026you hear that? You hear that struggle? So, for the Black people it was a struggle of mamash<\/em> [Hebrew: real] the body just itself entrapped in slavery. So I really loved finding that \u2026I love that note.
\n\u00a0
\nAll the Classical music I studied my teachers used to get crazy – why do you like B. B. King so much? I said: that note, that one note he plays for me is worth all the Mozart in the world. It\u2019s such a deep note I was so happy to find it, not only intent of the lyrics are really trying to describe what\u2019s really paining you is in the blues, but also the music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Lazer Lloyd has a strong connection to Jewish religion and tradition, his songs are not necessarily religious, and neither are most of his fans. When I ask him about religion, he says:<\/p>\n

\u201cI leave it outside. I\u2019m not a big fan sometimes of religious people\u2026[he laughs again] people who think they\u2019re religious\u2026I\u2019m a fan of real people, you know I like people who are really real\u2026 I don\u2019t want to preach. The thing is, Judaism is so deep, I\u2019ve been studying Torah for 16 years\u2026I don\u2019t want to say anything that I\u2019m not really in touch with, and I don\u2019t feel yet like its something \u2026people ask me why don\u2019t I sing more in Hebrew and I don\u2019t feel like Hebrew is like, even though I can get by on the bus and my wife\u2019s Israeli, I want to write, explain something in Hebrew I don\u2019t feel like I can just do it, because it\u2019s not like really inside me. So also with the religion, people think like because I have a beard they think well, he must be some real\u2026I don\u2019t know, I\u2019m not the typical religious guy you know, I\u2019ve played in clubs and concert tours, and I keep Shabbat\u2026<\/p>\n

I want to explain in music \u2013 what I\u2019m feeling myself\u2026 not what this thing is holding but how do\u2026 you know, you put the water in the jug and you have to see what it\u2019s holding\u2026 I don\u2019t know how to explain it exactly. I feel, especially in Israel, I really feel like we [the band] have a big thing, we bring a lot of people together. We play mostly 95% for people without kippahs and you know because of the politics here people are not, and I\u2019m also not happy with the Haredi politics. It separates the people. Even if I\u2019m going to alienate one person by saying some text that they really can\u2019t relate to \u2013 why do that? I want to connect with this person, you know what I\u2019m saying? You have to be really ready \u2026everybody has to know what their shlihut [Hebrew: mission] is in the world and I feel that for me, I prefer\u2026 when people ask me \u2013 oh, why don\u2019t you\u2026 I just like to hang out with the people and I don\u2019t like to get the religion in the way you know.\u201d<\/p>\n

The show at Levontin 7 will be a blues show, with original songs written by Lazer Lloyd, he describes it as 50% Blues and 50% Blues-influenced Rock.<\/p>\n

Tel Aviv Blues Festival, Levontin 7
\nJanuary 23 & 24, 2011. First set at 20:00, second set at 22:00. Tickets are 60\/70 for each set, 110 NIS for an entire evening, and 200 NIS for the whole festival. To order: www.misterticket.co.il<\/a>, or call: 03-5605084. See the full program here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

AYELET DEKEL<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lazer Lloyd walks into the Vintage guitar store on Hamelech George Street in Tel Aviv, saying, \u201cThis is my favorite place in Israel.\u201d\u00a0 Surrounded by an amazing array of guitars, we find a relatively quiet corner to talk about the blues in anticipation of The Lazer Lloyd\u2019s Blues Band (Lazer Lloyd \u2013 guitar and vocals, […]<\/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-9543","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\/9543","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=9543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9543\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}