01 Gabi My Friend

Recorded at Ambience Studios, September 2008

NEMEK are:
KOBI OR - Text + Vocals
BOAZ GOLDBERG - Electric Guitar, Drums, Wind Chimes

Produced by Boaz Goldberg and Dar Nahmias
Mix: Dar Nahmias

Music: Boaz Goldberg
Text: Kobi or

This track is taken from a future album release by NEMEK.

* * * 
English lyrics for NEMEK (text by Kobi Or; translated from Hebrew by Boaz Goldberg) -

Necrosis! I despise all countries except Iceland
It's dark there, there's ice, you can be alone
And yet there are more people there than the north/south pole

I despise the army except for the Special Operations Forces
It doesn't matter if they are in Africa or Russia or North Korea or the United States
They are allowed to kill

I despise the Israeli army
Even his special operations forces are not allowed to kill enough
How fun it is to have pieces of meat spinning in the air

If I were an oligarch
I would steal atomic bombs from Ukraine
and celebrates with them on Jerusalem, Damascus, Moscow, Cairo, Pekin
But not on Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland

I love the band The Mouth & The Hoofs
Because there is such a disease
And I think what drives the band members is disgust
Hatred of the human race
Let the plague come, oh let it come
Men are murderers and exploiters! Women are whores

I think Hitler, Mussolini, Franco
and their imitators in the colonel regimes in Greece and South America -
They knew that fascism would not succeed, would not conquer the world
That the human dwarves will win in the end
The skull symbol that the Nazis wore means
We will meet death in the end
Hitler shot himself the day he was elected chancellor

When I write about suicide
I don't think about me
But about the kamikaze pilots
About Joseph Goebbels and Magda

I think you are not noticing
that the statue of liberty is unable to move
Funny to call something that cannot move - liberty
The juxtaposition between the word liberty and the word statue is funny

The word necrosis (NEMEK) is not an acronym for Nurofen, Morphine, Cocaine
This word calls to speak on its behalf
Humans, humanity, are a rotting wound
Meat on the bone in the ovens
And the ovens will also go up in smoke

The bunker will not save you
He did not save those who were competent, sane/ crazy among you
First we destroyed Berlin - now we will destroy you.

* * *

Hebrew lyrics for NEMEK (text by Kobi Or): 

נמק! אני מתעב את כל המדינות חוץ מאיסלנד
שם חשוך, יש קרח, אפשר להיות לבד
ובכל זאת יש שם יותר אנשים משבקוטב הצפוני/דרומי

אני מתעב את הצבא חוץ מאשר היחידות המיוחדות
לא חשוב אם הן באפריקה או ברוסיה או בצפון-קוריאה או בארצות הברית -
להן מותר להרוג

אני מתעב את הצבא הישראלי
אפילו ליחידות המיוחדות שלו לא כל כך מרשים להרוג
איזה כיף שחתיכות בשר מסתובבות באוויר 

אילו הייתי אוליגרך
הייתי גונב מאוקראינה פצצות אטום
וחוגג איתם על ירושלים, דמשק, מוסקבה, קהיר, פקין
רק לא ברייקיאוויק בירת איסלנד

אני אוהב את להקת הפה והטלפיים 
כי יש מחלה כזו
ואני חושב שמה שמניע את אנשי הלהקה זה תיעוב
שנאת המין האנושי
שתבוא כבר המגיפה שתבוא
הגברים רוצחים ונצלנים! הנשים זונות

אני חושב שהיטלר, מוסוליני, פרנקו
והחקיינים שלהם במשטרי הקולונלים ביוון ובדרום אמריקה
ידעו שהפשיזם לא יצליח, לא יכבוש את העולם
שהגמדים האנושיים ינצחו בסוף
סמל גולגולת המוות שהנאצים ענדו אומר
אנחנו נפגוש בסוף במוות 
היטלר ירה בעצמו ביום בו נבחר לקנצלר

כשאני כותב על התאבדות 
אני לא חושב עליי
אלא על טייסי הקמיקאזה
על יוזף גבלס ומגדה

אני חושב שאתם לא שמים לב
שפסל החירות אינו מסוגל לזוז
מצחיק לקרוא למשהו שלא יכול לנוע - חירות
מצחיק הצירוף בין המילה חירות למילה פסל

המילה נמק היא לא ראשי תיבות של נורופן, מורפין, קוקאין
המילה הזו קוראת לדבר בשמו
בני אדם, האנושות, הם פצע הולך ונרקב
בשר עצמות בתנורים
וגם התנורים יעלו בעשן

הבונקר לא יציל אתכם
הוא לא הציל מי שהיו מוכשרים, שפויים, מטורפים ממכם
קודם הרסנו את ברלין - עכשיו נהרוס אתכם

NEMEK (Kobi Or & Boaz Goldberg) - "Nemek"

A Garage Frat Rock-N-Roll session from 1993, Tel Aviv, Israel
All tracks produced by The Kavranim

Uri Inbar - Electric Guitar
Boaz Goldberg - Bass Guitar
Tzvika (Cooper) Kupershtein - Organ
Gadi Ben Elisha - Drums
Oded Erell - Lead Vocals

Recorded at The Garage, Avineri Matzberim, Summer 1993, Tel Aviv
EP Assembled & Edited by Boaz Goldberg

Sleeve photo: Eliran Knoller
Sleeve design: Boaz Goldberg

* * *

Get this blast from the past that`s been hiding in my cassette collection for thirty (30!!!) years - Part II.

Summer 1993. A few months have passed since the recording of the TUGBO 93 session (The Unnamed Garage Band Of 1993, which I uploaded here as part 1) - and a lot has changed. Yoni quit and a little after him, so did Max and Eli. I went back to the Third Ear bulletin board, and I didn't wait long for Uri to call. A new door has opened. Sooner than later I found myself rehearsing with a new band. Everyone around me changed, and this band also had a name: The Kavranim.

If TUGBO 93 was searching for something, and therefore, thanks to this, managed to sound at times like some Post-Punk, Krautrock, sludge or something indeterminate - with a mathematical tight drummer, a keyboardist who came from jazz and a guitarist who liked fuzzy wah-wah - The Kavranim’s strategy was to perform covers of garage songs that we really liked. In The Kavranim we only did covers, and the concept of "original material" didn't seem to belong. The whole point of the new band was to revive this form of Garage - and that was the whole content.

In the new line-up it was also possible to try to specify the genre we were trying to focus on, because the musicians aspired to these places. Uri Inbar, also known as Uri the redhead (later The Shakranim's guitarist) was a genius illustrator with an unbelievable hand. He came from the basics of classical drawing, and at least in terms of techniques, he took his illustrations into the realms of Crumb's pop art. He was also crazy, like me, about Atari's 1K games, and he translated all of that to his electric guitar. What interested him was to reproduce as accurately as possible the tremolo of The Calico Wall’s "I'm A Living Sickness" or The Sonics` extreme Fuzz in "He's Waiting". And he did it.

From the relatively abstract thing of the previous line-up, we became a more focused band that ticked off covers that almost no one knew then, except for a few who were really into the scene. For example, at this stage The Fluorescents band had already started to do their magic (and we wanted to do a first show before them). Besides, there were Zikney Tzfat and Subway Suckers; And there were several other relevant bands from more experimental places of Metal and Punk and Noise-Rock. But in any case, a band focused on Sixties Acid Punk, aka 60’s Garage, in Tel Aviv`s 1993? There was really, really not much of that.

It was summer 1993, exactly one year after The Fuzztones appeared in Roxanne Club and changed the lives of several people in Israel. I was there with other friends, but now I found out that Uri and some of his friends were also there and experienced it.

When I asked Uri’s friend, Oded, if he could sing, he promised that he could sing "like a singer who ate broken glass", a reference to the aesthetics of Iggy Pop and Lux Interior. Oded Erell studied in Uri's high school, and he was also an artist. He talked a lot about the Renaissance painter Caravaggio and Handel's hymns that he really likes to dive into, and from these places Oded came to Garage and Rock-N-Roll.

So, What you’re about to hear sounds like a real frat party session, with enthusiastic frenzy around "Louie Louie" and all, much like you get in those classic iconic American teenage comedies. And it all happened here in Tel Aviv.

Dig The Kavranim, brothers and sisters!

                               ♡ !!!! PLAY VERY LOUD!!! ♡

The Kavranim - Have Love, Will Travel (Richard Berry cover)

The Kavranim - He’s Waiting (The Sonics cover)

The Kavranim - I'm A Living Sickness (The Calico Wall cover)

The Kavranim - Louie Louie (Richard Berry cover)

The Kavranim - Strychnine (The Sonics cover)

The Kavranim - All Black and Hairy (Screaming Lord Sutch & The Savages cover)

The Kavranim - Blues Theme (Davie Allan & The Arrows cover)

SuperShaker is a postmodern electronic duo from 1990's Tel Aviv

Super! (A-Side)
Shaker (B-Side)

All music  written* & produced by SuperShaker
Compiled, edited & recorded @Dvirsky's Studio, Summer 1996
* (except samples)

SuperShaker are:
Dvir Volk - 90's sources (beats), programming, Midi, keyboards, editing & engineering
Boaz Goldberg - 60's sources, bass

SuperShaker photos: Noam Wind
Single assembled & edited by Boaz Goldberg

* * *

SuperShaker - another little treasure I discovered hiding in my cassette collection. This is a postmodern duo by Dvir Volk and me from 1996, which, like so many notable titles in the 90's, also received the word "super". The idea was to merge 90's big beats with samples of Mod bombs and Rhythm and Blues hits - and then, through the amphetamines that the samples get, to create something new. It wasn't what they called "Big Beat" back then. At the time we were working on SuperShaker, Fatboy Slim had yet to release his debut album, and his first single, released in March 1996, was not so impressive for our ears. We didn't understand exactly what we were doing, so, at least in our eyes, it turned out gracefully.

We didn't try to create something new in the modern sense of the word. Let's say that the atmosphere in which we operated was so postmodern, that in the show itself, under the influence of some promo photo of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd from 1967, it was very important for me to show that my bass guitar was *not* plugged in, and this is to emphasize the synthetics of the music we created. I performed with the guitar on me but without any cable. I wanted to look sort of like a mannequin on Carnaby Street in 1966, and I think it worked. After all, our one and only performance took place at one of the Glory Nights Mod parties.

I remember myself standing there in front of the railing of the gallery, next to the DJ stand where Dvir was playing the tracks, and catching Gabi (Charlie Megira) on the stairs with Natan and Michal Boaz (his first girlfriend), staring at me, his eyes popping from the strange doll idea.

Dvir and I, SuperShaker. At the time we were both members of Cnaque/pop band going on a musical side project. While things in Cnaque/Pop became a bit nerve-racking about the contract that NMC would or wouldn't offer (there was a meeting at Cafe Tam, after which we were left in the air) - SuperShaker was a fun and refreshing release from all the Cnaque madness.

That summer of 1996, I hung around at the apartment of Dvir and his flat-partner Lisa Peretz, there in Arlozorov near Yehoshua ben Nun. Dvir was a golden guitarist, everyone knew that, but in the summer of 1996 - an early stage in his musical career - not many knew that Dvir also knew how to work with midi and create electronic music.

In the A-side track you hear, for example, the drums of Charlie Watts (who recognizes from which Stones song?) put on a loop and holding the whole thing. Or the Kinks' "You Really Got Me" riff being flipped and manipulated. And the crazy moogs from the easy listening classic "Kaleidoscopic Vibrations" also came to the party. The B-side came out more in the atmosphere of a band that we really loved then (and still love) - Saint Etienne. You can also feel strong lounge influences like Towa Tei (the Japanese guy from Deee-Lite) and Stereolab. After all, we are talking about a summer in which the phenomenon of Mike Flowers Pops was powerfully enchanting. For a few months, it seemed that the whole world turned into a beautiful Easy Listening album cover.

SuperShaker (Dvir Volk & Boaz Goldberg) - What's Shakin` - Full Single - Super! (A-Side)

SuperShaker (Dvir Volk & Boaz Goldberg) - What's Shakin` - Full Single - Shaker (B-Side)

Boaz Goldberg aka ZICO (1974) is a documentary filmmaker, musician and an interdisciplinary artist. He worked as a music journalist for more than a decade ("Zman Tel Aviv", "City Mouse", "The City", "Israel Today") and meticulously covered the alternative music scene in Israel. Goldberg later had several editing and directing jobs in many television programs. He also dabbled in painting, photography and recording music.

In the 90’s, he was the first Rock-N-Roll & Mod DJ in Israel, and played bass for the Tel Avivian Punk-Britpop band Cnaque/Pop. In 2000, he had a brief collaboration with the now legendary Charlie Megira (Gabi Abudraham). Together they formed Les Lost Boys (Naarey Ha-Hefker). They recorded Megira’s hit, “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow”, and worked on the song “Pink World”, which is revisioned in ZICO's album, HEADLESS ELVIS.

Goldberg later joined 80’s Israeli Rock-journalist godfather, Kobi Or, for a noise-drone duo called NEMEK, and then formed the short-lived experimental concrete duo Nail and Flashlights (MVP). All of this led him into the world of documentary filmmaking. “Tomorrow's Gone”, a full-feature about the life and death of Charlie Megira, is his debut documentary. “HEADLESS ELVIS” is his debut album.

NEMEK (Kobi Or & Boaz Goldberg) - "Nemek"

ZICO (Boaz Goldberg)

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