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Stripping down for Folkaleh By Ben Shalev Tags: Israel, independent music  This Saturday, the Folkaleh independent music festival will take the stage at the Levontin 7 club in Tel Aviv. It will kick off at 1 PM and continue until the wee hours, featuring more than 20 mainly Indie musicians and established artists like Eran Tzur and Noam Rotem. Amit Erez, Noa Babayof, Shy Nobleman, Elephant Parade, Windy & Destiny, Elad Zeev, Eli Lass, David Blau, Eli Rozen, Panic Ensemble, Yair Yona, Turtle Haze Candy, Sagi Eiland, and Katamine will also appear. Festival promoter Evil (aka Yuval) Haring promises that a few "special guests" will also perform. The festival's Yiddishesque title, a tongue-in-cheek play on the Hebrew spelling of "folk" and an endearing Yiddish reference to a chicken drumstick, may leave the impression that the festival taking place for the fourth time focuses on folk music. Despite the whimsy sound [of the word], Folkaleh conceals a very serious world view. "Almost no one in the Israeli Indie scene does folk in the original sense of the term, so this is called 'Folkaleh,' rather than the Israeli folk festival or something like that," says Haring. "It's sort of like how rock in Israel is actually 'rockaleh.'" Advertisement The choice of the term "folk" in the title does not derive from any style preference of festival organizers, but from a desire to present Indie music in its most naked, minimalist format. "The ideal in a Folkaleh festival is one man with a guitar like blues singers, and artists who will perform in less streamlined ensembles were asked to be as minimalist as possible," says Haring. Imaginary number What else lies behind this approach? "We live in a world that constantly bombards us with information, and the trend in music - and I know this about myself as well - is to pack as much as possible into every production," confesses Haring, a member of the Lebanon and TV Buddhas bands. "Despite that, a musician who performs solo with a guitar lets fewer elements stretch to fill more space. It's sort of a reaction to the multiplicity of styles, new developments, contents, trends, retro and neo - a modernistic desire to pare it down and try to get to the core." Because the Israeli Indie scene comprises dozens of bands with very limited followings, there is a tremendous need for collective events to reassure performers and audiences that they really belong to a movement. Despite the existence of the Full Exposure marathon of Indie performances and other festivals like Hutz Mi Zeh (Aside from This), and In D Negev, which Folkaleh preceded, Haring says that Folkaleh "confirms that the Indie scene exists." Two years later, Folkaleh's organizers still seem to need this confirmation. The fourth Folkaleh festival will attempt "to give the crowd a feeling of unity, or at least not the feeling that they are alone," Haring says. Another objective of the festival is to expose new artists and lend them an opportunity to perform in an audience of hundreds. That is an imaginary number among novice Indie musicians. Behind Haring's desire to introduce new musicians and permit Indie fans to see 20 acts for the low cost of NIS 50 lies a far more ambitious goal. Folkaleh is an attempt to create a space in which Israel's minuscule Indie scene can comport itself as a thriving local genre for 12 hours. It appears that Haring actually nurses a fantasy that the experience the artists and crowd will enjoy within that bubble, will somehow change their thinking, fortify their belief in themselves, and prepare the ground for an authentic, independent music scene in Israel. Haring published an article on the Walla! Internet site a few months ago in which he slammed many Indie musicians in Israel. "The average bourgeois band doesn't work hard and doesn't want to work hard," he wrote. "I believe that a young band is capable of more than just appearing once every six months in one club or another or the Indie festival of the week, and diddling on MySpace the rest of the time." The article also called on local bands to engage in intensive concert tours in the United States, like those he takes with his own bands. He maintained that this is the only way they can transform music from a hobby to a way of life, and dispel "the division between 'me' and 'what I do.'" A pampered crowd Haring says he regrets some of his statements in the article. "I didn't think enough about the fact that people have to make a living, and that there are musicians who have children, and that not all of them can devote all their time to music like I do," he admits. But he continues to believe that the typical local Indie musician is far too pampered. He describes what he calls "the performance-of-a-lifetime phenomenon," in which musicians adopt the egocentric belief that every performance must be perfect and therefore obsess about sound quality and refuse to perform in venues where conditions are less than wonderful. "The performance-of-a-lifetime phenomenon is a tough one, and a festival like Folkaleh which allows each musician only 20 minutes to perform and no time for a sound check has musicians viewing music as a sport in which overcoming obstacles brings out the very best. That's what happens to bands that tour the U.S. They define themselves in enemy territory, where you have no choice but to sleep on the floor, not shave, and still not become some kind of animal. It's difficult but it makes you mature. It turned me from a listener into a musician - I was sort of reborn." Not only are musicians pampered, but the crowd is too, according to Haring. "People come on a night when a few bands are supposed to perform, and they immediately ask when the band they came to see is going on. As if sex has completely gone out of the music. You don't come to shows like this to listen from a distance, but to be there, to have the entire experience. Folkaleh's format encourages the latter approach. After seven, eight, nine hours, people start to find their feet, drink too much, and enjoy themselves like they should. During the last festival, this place was so crowded and it was so hot that people took off their shirts and sweated on the artists who appeared two centimeters away from them. That was a bit much, and people justifiably complained later, but it was very sexy." Bookmark to del.icio.us   State policy Olmert approves plan for 750 new homes in West Bank settlement of Givat Ze'ev. Sticking to his story Director of 'Jenin, Jenin' swears there are no falsehoods in his movie.   1.   this is an important and good article 09:01  |  daniel 07/03/08   2.   The silent sound of a waterfall. 18:10  |  Francesco Sinibaldi 07/03/08   3.   dude this article sux 21:36  |  shalom 07/03/08

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