Check out Hammercult’s Facebook page.

And check out their awesome photos of the show by clicking on the pic below…

If you don’t want to watch the whole thing, here’s about seven minutes of Kobi Farhi preaching his gospel of world peace through music (which happens to be in this instance through a song called Norra El Norra honoring G-d and the Torah as well as other funky music) posted by Century Media.

Here are the lyrics in case you’re interested

Ahead of their third Israeli tour, English rock band Deep Purple took a stand against other musicians who cancel their concerts in Israel due to politics, saying artists should not take sides in political conflicts, with drummer Ian Paice calling these musicians “real wimps.”

The band spoke at a press conference Wednesday ahead of two concerts they are due to perform in Caesarea on Saturday and Sunday. This visit is Deep Purple’s third Israeli tour. The last time they visited was in 2008, when they played four concerts to full crowds of cheering fans.

In this photo taken Sunday, May 8, 2011, Fans of British rock bad Deep Purple react during a concert in Nicosia, Cyprus.

Photo by: AP

Deep Purple’s vocalist Ian Gillen stressed to reporters that musicians should remain impartial in political disputes, and likened this to making the assumption that Deep Purple supported all of Tony Blair’s policies because they gave a concert in London ten years ago.

Guitarist Steve Morse quipped that left-wing groups did not know what to say to them when they refused to cancel performances in Israel. Saying that in any case, Deep Purple doesn’t respect politicians in their native England, and questioned why their attitude would be any different in other countries.

The band also talked about how it feels to have spent so many years in the limelight. Gillen described the change from the early days of the band, when things seemed far less complicated, to today when he needs to ask for his wife’s permission before going tour.

Gillen also acknowledged that the band is a product of its time and that there is a difference between their music and what is being produced by new bands today. Touching on other aspects of popular culture, he criticized the unnatural way in which reality TV makes people into stars overnight.

Deep Purple also sent a message to their Israeli fans – they are looking forward to performing in what is sure to be an exciting show.

Desert just played their first Swedish heavy metal festival main stage – Rockstad: Falun with the following bands:

Check out more photos of that here.

Check out Desert’s song “The Unsubdued” here…

These inimitable photos of Megadeth were taken by photographer extraordinaire Oleg Hmelnits.  Check out his other work on his portfolio website.

If you are neither a metalhead, nor Japanese, the name Marty Friedman could sound like the Jewish guy from next door. But if you like heavy metal music, the name Marty Friedman is very familiar. He is considered one of the best guitar players in the world, serving as lead guitarist with the Grammy Award nominated band Megadeth, and also known for his many side projects and solo career.
If you are Japanese, then the Friedman name is synonymous as Mr. Heavy Metal, the workaholic rock guitarist, with long curly hair, who last-but-not-least covers popular j-pop (Japanese pop) songs and turns them into instrumental heavy metal pieces.

Originally from Maryland, in the United States, Friedman performed in Israel for the third time on May 31. Friedman was born in 1962 and his musical career is more than impressive.

After playing lead guitar in lesser known bands, he founded Cacophony with fellow guitarist Jason Becker. His first of many solo albums, Dragon’s Kiss, was released in 1988. But the biggest milestone in his career was in 1989 when he became lead guitarist in the already world-famous thrash metal band, Megadeth, which played in Israel this year for the fourth time. Lead singer Dave Mustaine was born Jewish as well.

Friedman toured the world and recorded five studio albums with Megadeth including some of their best selling albums ever from 1990′s Rust in Peace until 1999′s Risk. To be the lead guitarist in such a strong band is the dream of every musician in the field, but Friedman wasn’t completely satisfied. In late 1999 he left to play different styles of music and to live in Japan.

After the move his career continued and developed quickly not only as a guitarist, but also as a producer and media personality. Friedman had his own TV show, which he hosted in fluent Japanese, called Rock Fujiyama. He has appeared often in local media, earning the nickname HebiMeta San, or Mr. Heavy Metal.

Always working on new projects in different styles, in recent years Friedman performed together even with j-pop, pop-punk and trance musicians. But don`t worry, in his solo albums he sticks with instrumental rock and metal, even when he is covering j-pop songs.

His new solo album, Bad D.N.A. was released in Japan in August last year. Friedman and his band started their European tour in April of 2011 with the Tel Aviv Reading 3 show as the final stage.
The organizer and producer of the concert was Yishai Swartz of Raven Music, who has brought many famous heavy metal acts to Israel and is expected to bring many more.

Reading 3 is a mid-sized club in the Tel Aviv port. The show opened with Hatikva, Israel’s national anthem, performed on electric guitar. It wasn`t a surprise because Friedman’s 2007 performance in Israel also opened with Hatikva. A YouTube video of the performance with the excited crowd singing along now has over 97,000 hits.

Friedman’s virtuoso guitar playing with unique techniques were as trademark as his long curly hair. His band was composed of extraordinary Japanese musicians. Although quite young, their musical professionalism, talent, enthusiasm and enormous motivation showed.

The drummer was exceptionally energetic and communicative, even though he only used gesture language, and quite a character. It seemed like he could easily become a leading actor in a traditional Japanese theater.

There was excellent cooperation between the legendary guitarist and his band. Despite performing with such intensity, the show came close to two hours. They played 24 songs including Thundermarch, a classic from Friedman’s first solo album, It’s the Unreal Thing, Elixir and a couple of j-pop covers such as Yuki no Hana from the Tokyo Jukebox. All of it was peformed with electric guitar and distortion. Even if the audience didn’t know the original songs from a totally difference genre, they still rocked.

During the intermission, Friedman talked about the Tsunami tragedy which is haunting Japan, and mentioned how much he loves Israel. It might be a given that a Jewish artist loves Israel, but today unfortunately is not so obvious. Some musicians have even refused to perform in Israel. To hear a performer stand on an Israeli stage and state his fondness for the country could be politeness, or empty words. But in recent years, “I love Israel” is definitely a statement.

It was announced months before on the Internet that Friedman was to conduct a jam session with a famous Israeli rock guitarist. After the finale, the band returned to the stage with Yossi “Sassi” Saharon, lead guitarist of Orphaned Land, the most well-known Israeli metal band abroad and one of the pioneers of the Middle Eastern metal genre. Saharon is also one of the best known metal personalities in Israel.
There are many famous Jewish rock musicians and entertainers in the world. Not as many come here to play. Even less consider moving to Israel. The Israeli music industry has certain shortcomings as well. There are certainly many underground genres which should have more appreciation, support and publicity. Many quality Israeli hard rock, metal, and alternative rock bands have recently earned success overseas: Orphaned Land is one, Salem is another. Israel can become attractive in this musical world as well.

The Marty Friedman show would have been great anywhere in the world, but to see such a quality musical group in Israel added some extra flavor. Plus the fact that Friedman is a Jewish and played Hatikva made the show quite special for the Israeli metal fan.

I love him.

GUNS N’ ROSES guitarist Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal was a special guest at SALEM’s May 6, 2011 concert at Reading 3 in Tel Aviv, Israel. The event commemorated the re-release of SALEM’s cult 1994 album “Kaddish” (originally released by Germany’s Morbid Records), an LP which represents the band’s personal dirge for the victims of the Holocaust during World War II.

Says Thal, ““Even though none of my immediate family was killed in the Holocaust, it’s something that speaks to every Jew. If it’s not the Holocaust, it’s the trauma of the Six Day War, and if it’s not that, it’s the f****** Inquisition. We all feel the sense on a holiday when a family gets together that the gathering would have included seven times as many people if certain events hadn’t happened. I think only Jews would understand that – only we get it.”

Marking Holocaust Remembrance Day loudly
By DAVID BRINN
04/30/2011 21:26

Israel’s veteran extreme metal band Salem will be performing their landmark 1994 concept album with special guest Guns & Roses guitarist Ron ‘Bumblefoot’ Thal.

“I’m a third generation Holocaust survivor,” said Salem’s vocalist and leader Zeev Tannenbaum earlier this week, explaining how a doom metal band came to write and record the relentlessly aggressive album Kaddish, which after selling more than 100,000 copies worldwide in the years after its release, has just been reissued by the band.

“My father lost his whole family in the Shoah and escaped from Poland to Russia to Israel. I heard his stories all my childhood about what had occurred to his father and Kaddish was our desperate cry in memory of the horrors that happened to our families. By doing this album, we sent two important messages: We will never forget, and we are here to survive.”

Kaddish also featured the band’s first song in Hebrew – a version of “Ha’ayara Bo’eret” (“The small town is burning”), adapted from the Yiddish poem “S’brent” by Polish-Jewish poet Mordechai Gebirtig in 1938, written in response to a 1936 pogrom of Jews. The mix of metal and painful Holocaust imagery rustled enough feathers back home to prompt a debate in a Knesset committee over the appropriateness of death metal bands playing songs related to the Holocaust.

“[MK] Dov Shilansky tried to get our video clip banned and the record removed from stores, but I remember Shevah Weiss [a former Labor MK and Holocaust survivor] coming to our defense and defusing the situation,” said the 44-year-old Tannenbaum, by day a senior official at the Givatayim municipality.

“Some people were aghast that a metal band would have the nerve to relate to the Holocaust within a framework they usually associate with facism and violence.”

One person who had a different reaction to the album was Guns & Roses guitarist Ron Thal, who is coming to Israel to perform with Salem on May 6 at Tel Aviv’s Reading 3.

Yishai Sweartz of Raven Music, the record label which is re-releasing Kaddish, sent Thal the music in the hopes he would write a testimonial for the album.

Thal, born Ronald Jay Blumenthal wrote, “This is the most true-to-art doom metal album I’ve ever heard, completely capturing the horror of mankind’s utmost vulnerability to evil and self-destruction. Being someone who lost family to the Nazis in Poland, this album tore straight to my soul.”

Speaking to The Jerusalem Post last week after completing two seders with his family in New York in which he proudly “nailed ‘Ma Nishtana’,” Thal said that he was thrilled to be coming to Israel and to perform the songs on Kaddish with Salem.

“My family is originally from Lithuania and Poland and my grandparents got out in the late 1920s, but many of their relatives were killed. We have no record at all what happened to them,” said Thal, who joined Guns & Roses, one of the world’s top musical acts, in 2006.

“Even though none of my immediate family was killed in the Holocaust, it’s something that speaks to every Jew. If it’s not the Holocaust, it’s the trauma of the Six Day War, and if it’s not that, it’s the f****** Inquisition. We all feel the sense on a holiday when a family gets together that the gathering would have included seven times as many people if certain events hadn’t happened. I think only Jews would understand that – only we get it.”

AFTER ESTABLISHING an e-mail and Facebook relationship with Sweartz and then Tannenbaum, Thal was asked if he would be interested in coming to Israel to help Salem perform Kaddish during the week of Holocaust Remembrance Day. His response was immediate.

“I told them I’d love to be a part of something so meaningful. I was absolutely honored to be asked and I’m working hard to get the songs down exactly as the band does them. I want to do it right,” said Thal, who will be spending three days in Israel around the show with his wife.

Both Sweartz and Tannenbaum were surprised and delighted by Thal’s acceptance of their invitation.

“It’s amazing that during this time when people are calling for artists to boycott Israel, the guitarist for one of the biggest rock bands in the world is willing to fly here to perform with a local metal band for a sacred and important aim like this,” said Sweartz.

“It shows that idealism hasn’t disappeared from the world and that the subject of the Holocaust is of supreme importance to him.”

“It really touched me when he said he would come, I was so surprised” added Tannenbaum.

“Even though we live on opposite sides of the world, we still share the same loss and grief about the Holocaust.”

Tannenbaum also expressed satisfaction that Kaddish, which has been out of print for the last 13 years due to record company complications, will once again be available to fans.

“The rights to the album finally returned to us and we decided to rerelease it,” said Tannenbaum, adding that the music has been remastered at Sterling Sound in New York and features a new cover design and art created by the band’s guitarist, Nir Gutraiman.

Tannenbaum hinted that there would be “some surprises” at the show besides the performance of Kaddish, with Thal and Salem devising some other treats for the audience.

Thal, who enjoys a thriving side career away from Guns & Roses as a solo artist and producer, said that he manages to find projects that inspire him and makes time for them despite his main commitment to G&R.

“I definitely have more passion than time,” he said with a laugh.

“And I have a bad habit of taking on more than I can do and killing myself to get it done. It’s a tough juggling act and Gun & Roses is a big ball to juggle. Sometimes, there’s not a lot of prior notification of a tour coming together and I’ll have to shift around everything else that I’m doing while dealing with the one big ball.”

“But everything in life is doable, you figure out a way. If you want to accomplish something worthwhile, it’s going to take some pain.”

Check them out here.

HT – We Support Musicians Who Play For People, Not For Governments