Boom Pam
produced by Shantel
Essay Recordings AY CD 05

Magic surf guitars from Tel Aviv kicked by tuba & drums on an ecstatic Mediterranean spicy Balkan trip!

Forget the daily headlines and immerse yourself in Tel Aviv's vibrant music scene. If there's a sound you can't find here in this offbeat Mediterranean metropolis, it probably doesn't exist. The music brewed up by the BOOM PAM four is the acoustic equivalent of a high-energy drink. They already have a cult following in the Middle East, and now they have wowed European audiences as well in their gigs with Shantel at his Bucovina Club in Berlin, Frankfurt and Zurich. This CD, released worldwide exclusively on the Essay label, marks their recording debut.

It is hard to categorize their music. So maybe we should invent a new category for Middle Eastern surf rock with a pinch of Balkan, a touch of irreverence and a lot of groove. With their two surf guitars, minimalist percussion and distinctive tuba is a real ear-opener. The unique blend of Mediterranean, Balkan and Greek styles, sweetened with Jewish melodies and fattened up with surf rock and circus music is positively cinematic. But you certainly won't be staying in your seat for long.

Boom Pam on Boom Pam: "Our mix really describes Tel Aviv ... a place where people from all over the world meet. This sound is a sharp cocktail of all the different styles that collide here. And we try to bring them all together."

The musicians are fed up with the klezmer cliche that still tends to be associated with Jewish music. "Nobody listens to klezmer," they say in unison. "Klezmer is the stuff that's sold in airport shops as ‘the music of Israel'. Well, there is usually some klezmer in it, but that really isn't what's happening here… that's what's popular outside Israel, but it isn't what's happening here. And there's a lot happening here."

Producer Shantel was quick to recognise BOOM PAM's talent and he brought them along to shows in Frankfurt and Cologne. Wherever they performed, they really fired up the audience. In the Middle East they had already played the biggest venues and festivals. They headlined the opening of the Jerusalem Film Festival, creating a sizzling atmosphere at the legendary Sultan's Pool club for the premier of Emir Kusturica's latest film Life is a Miracle.

Following their work with Shantel, it is only logical for their debut album to be released on the Essay label. The recordings were made last year at the legendary Babylon Central Studio in Frankfurt using original 1964 Fender Twin Reverb amps. Sound engineer Marcus Darius helped to develop a classically warm, yet fresh and precise sound using old analogue reel-to-reel tape recorders, reverberators and generous helpings of vodka. "We met Shantel two years ago. With him and his label, we now hope to bring our music to as many people as possible all over the world." Colin Bass aka Sabah Habas Mustapha (of 3 Mustaphas 3 fame): Twanging guitars of Tel Aviv mix heady Eastern Mediterranean cocktail: At first was the word around the night-clubs and parties of the Tel Aviv music scene. Boom Pam. Two duelling electric guitars, pumping tuba and rocking drums. A Balkan, Jewish, Greek, Mediterranean mix-up bringing the crowds onto the dance-floor with the atmosphere of an alcohol-soaked wedding party. Word-of-enthusiastic-mouth brought them to Germany, playing alongside future producer DJ Shantel. Back home again, they continued playing weddings, bar mitzvahs, parties and clubs throughout the country, while their cover version of the Greek hit "Boom Pam" - with Israeli rock star Berry Sakharof - became a mega-hit. Success hasn't fazed them - they're still wild, weird and wonderful. Boom Pam to you. (from the WOMEX catalogue).

Boom Pam

Uzi Feinerman: guitar, banjo & vocals
Uri Brauner Kinrot: guitar, saxophone & vocals
Yuval "Tuby” Zolotov: tuba
Dudu Kohav: drums & percussion

VIDEOS: @ YOUTUBE

TRACKLIST

01 Wedding Song (Uzi Feinerman/Uri Brauner Kinrot)
02 Gross (trad. arr. by Boom Pam)
03 Souvlaki #3 (Uri Brauner Kinrot)
04 Otto Chiconi (Uri Brauner Kinrot)
05 Weijl (Uzi Feinerman)
06 Kova Plada (Uri Brauner Kinrot)
07 Let Me Touch (Uzi Feinerman)
08 Dalida (Uri Brauner Kinrot)
09 Lajdi (Uzi Feinerman)
10 Munt (Uri Brauner Kinrot)
11 The Souvlak (Uri Brauner Kinrot)
12 Love Song (Uzi Feinerman)

Bonus tracks

13. Hatul VeHatula (Uri Brauner Kinrot/arr. by Boom Pam)
14. Adi Adios (Uzi Feinerman/arr. by Boom Pam)

Bonus video clip

Hatul VeHatula directed by Asaf Korman

ABOUT BOOM PAM

Although the band has only been established since 2003, BOOM PAM already have a cult following in Israel. Their cover version of the Greek song Boom Pam, performed with rock star Berry Sakharof, was a massive hit that flew straight into the Israeli charts in 2004. It had already been a hit in 1969 for the Greek singer Aris San, who emigrated to Tel Aviv in the fifties and was one of the first to use E-guitar for Greek music.

Meteoric as their career may have been, BOOM PAM did not simply appear out of nowhere overnight. It all began when the band’s guitarists Uri and Uzi moved into a flat together in the south of Tel Aviv and started experimenting with oriental guitar sounds. After a few guitar-fuelled nights and some compositions of their own, they called up their old school friend Tuby, a superb tuba player, and asked him to listen to what they’d come up with. Tuby didn’t hesitate for a minute. A new band was born Once they had enough pieces, they played their first gig in February 2003. All they needed now was a name. Just one week before the gig, they hit on BOOM PAM in homage to musical rebel Aris San. Even now, their eyes shine at the very mention of his name.

For a year, BOOM PAM performed as a trio in clubs and at weddings. Tuby played bass drum as well as tuba. But with his pedal foot threatening to take on a life of its own, the band started looking around for a drummer. And what could have been more obvious than to ask another old friend? Just one phone call to Dudu Kohav was all it took to persuade him to leave his spiritual mountain retreat near Jerusalem and join them in their musical experiment: “I haven’t a clue what you’re up to, but why the hell not?” The new band member didn’t have much time to get to grips with BOOM PAM’s repertoire, because their first foreign gig was already booked: Shantel, who had discovered the trio on one of his visits to Tel Aviv, had invited them to perform with him in Berlin. And so, as though they had been this sort of thing all their lives, they stormed the German State Opera House on the boulevard of Unter den Linden, transforming it into a hot and sweaty dance-fest that had the entire 800-strong audience on its feet.

Press reactions on their live shows ”The reaction of the audience was expressed by howling, breaking plates, hand clapping and mental dancing on the dance floor.” Haaretz ”I can officially say that Boom Pam’s live show will drain the juice out of you and kick you topless out to the street with a smile all over your face… Boom Pam play exquisite Balkan-surf-rock fuelled with a nuclear energy reactor that even “Vaanoonoo’s” (Israeli nuclear ex-cone freedom fighter) balls would have blushed being close to them.” Walla

“Probably the hottest name in town.” Time Out Tel Aviv

“Boom Pam succeeded in dismantling the audience from an anthropologic point of view and kicked them out of their chairs on to the dance floor on to a voyage.” Zman “This time, Bucovina Club has a visit from our partner city of Tel Aviv. And what a visit! Boom Pam was the sensation at this year’s Museumsufer Fest. Just imagine two guitarists playing Balkan brass band sounds sweetened with Jewish melodies and driven along by a drummer and a tuba player. The whole thing smacks of the typical surf guitar sound you might expect to find in a Taratino film. They put Alexis Sorbas through the mangle, and they don’t spare the Middle East either This incredible cocktail is played with precision and heightened to the point of ecstasy – which is no less than you’d expect of the Bucovina Club, really. This is how a Tarantino soundtrack would sound if the film were set in the Balkans. This band plays music that goes straight to the heart.”
Journal Frankfurt

Yuriy Gurzhy (DJ, Russendisko) saw Boom Pam perform in Tel Aviv: “When they started playing a few hours later, I was in the audience in front of the small stage. Most of them were young people talking in Russian, Hebrew and English. The Boom Pam sound was an exotic mix of Arab and Greek pop, Gypsy music and surf. Within twenty minutes, the audience was dancing. Although the music was entirely instrumental, three Russian punks with lurid hairstyles and a bottle of vodka were singing along enthusiastically. The atmosphere just got better and better: Vodka and Red Bull was the cocktail of choice. The dance-floor was heaving. Some dancers couldn’t even fit in, so they clambered onto the stage.”
(from his blog of 16.03.2004)

"...When they slide in and out of 'middle eastern' scales and in to waltzes that ride the tuba bellowing um-pa-pa um-pa-pa, the dance floor goes nuts galloping along the beat and jumping up and down like pogo sticks. After two encores BOOM PAM leaves the stage with a 'lehayim'." Fader Magazine U.S.A
(from an article about the Bucovina Club @ Schauspiel Frankfurt in Germany)

Boom Pam:

Uzi Feinerman: guitar, banjo & vocals
Uri Brauner Kinrot: guitar, saxophone & Vocals
Yuval “Tuby” Zolotov: tuba
Dudu Kohav: drums & percussion