Yovav (Jay) Meydad's Personal Blog

Last night I took a day trip to the dead sea to see two of my favorite Israeli musicians performing on the same stage at the beautiful venue of Wadi Zohar, a natural amphitheater located in a creek right next to the dead sea. I’ve seen both musician perform many times in the past 15-20 years and last night was one of the top concerts of both.
 

Ehud Banai, one of my favorite Israeli artists, has recently released a new fantastic album called “Drops of the Night”and went on a tour. As a matter of fact, he is not just an artist, but one that I have been following, and influenced, by for 25 years.

His debut album “Ehud Banai and the Refugees” was the first vinyl record that I had purchased and the track “Your Time Is Over” was one of the first songs and one of my favorite ones he has released.

Here’s a sample from Ehud’s concert. Don’t miss it.

Amir Lev, one of my favorite Israeli rock songwriters has recently released a new live album that was recorded in the Zappa Club, Tel Aviv. Guests: Berry Sakharof & Geva Alon.

Fantastic as always.

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If you love music and read Hebrew you should make a habit and read Haoneg, a fantastic blog written by Guyha.

Beyond being a very talented writer and someone with great taste in music, Guy is also running a small label called Hiss Records that signs artists he and his partner, Morphlexis, love to hear.

This is how I was introduced to Nadav Azulay and his debut album that was produced by Hiss. From my first listening to Nadav I was blown away by his personal lyrics, music and signing. This young guy is an evidence that there are some great young Israeli rockers out there. It is just a little harder to discover them.

You can listening to the full album & read the lyrics on this bandcamp page.

If you want to learn more about Nadav and his music listen to this radio interview. Beyond the chit chat, Nadav and his partner, Gil Nemet, performed live many of the album songs and a few others unplugged. And if you fast forward 12:30 minutes into the mp3, you will hear a live performance where Gil plays drums and piano at the same time!

And here’s a taste of Nadav and his band in action, something I hope to see in person on my next trip to Israel.

Berry Sakharof performed last night at the Avalon Hollywood club in Los Angeles and gave a great 2 hour rock concert, and as in every Berry’s album and live shows, it was decorated with fantastic electronica (thanks to Gidi Raz on samplers) and some middle-eastern motifs.

Few other things to mention:
- Adi Renert can play keyboards for rockers and not just for mainstream artists. Very refreshing.
- Aviv Cohen is an amazing young drummer. I was really impressed with him.
- Oren Lotenberg is like an all around basketball player when it comes to guitars. You want to have someone like him on your band.
- At the age of 51 Berry is still miles ahead of many young Israeli artists in his ability to write, compose, and perform fantastic Israeli rock.

Below is one clip of Kama Yossi (with a talented trumpet player I can not remember his name named Lior Ron, who saw this clip on YouTube and contacted me) and I have more on my YouTube page, including Birthday (with Infected Mushrooms). Too bad my flip camera could not capture the great sound quality this venue provides.

The additional clips are on this playlist.

Preface: This post is about a 55 years old dude who for the past 30 years has been defining and shaping the Israeli alternative rock scene. If you like alt-rock but don’t speak Hebrew yet, Fortis is a very good reason to learn the language…

Last week, eight years since his last studio album, Rami Fortis released his new album which I finally put my hands on. And he did it like no else would – a magnificent triple (!) album (“because in 2 years the format of a disc will extinct…”) full of the good old Fortis sound and many brilliant tracks.

Judging from the video below it is the best show in Israel these days. I just wish he will have a mini US tour and visit Los Angeles as part of it.

Watch in HD. Despite the poor sound quality you can feel the energy pretty well. The lighting is great as well.

Dan Toren celebrates 20 years of creating music by releasing a very cool mashup of one of his first songs with one of Tamuz’s classics.

You can listen on Dan’s myspace page or download it from his website

Very very cool.