A breaking rock’n roll

First, imagine voices at the cross of Julio Iglesias under a hard tequila effect, and Joe Strummer addicted of Harissa…

Imagine then a kind of a Mediterranean Jimmy Page, torturing his electric guitar like a Greek bouzouki.

Sprinkle it all with an infernal beat of pounding feet, and clapping hands and you will get something like a ghost of a T-REX smoking a water pipe in Gaza or Farid el Atrache jamming with the New York Dolls…that is the sound of BOOGIE BALAGAN !

From Sinai to Muddy Waters blooz, Boogie Balagan has invented a musical couscous from the oriental 70’s.

The « Boogie Balagan » blend Middle Eastern vibes with an exhilarated rock’n roll, to convey their message of peace, and break down cultural, linguistic, and physical frontiers of the Middle East.

Peace through music

Indeed, the band, autoproclamed the “Palestisraeli” duet, released his first album "Lamentation Walloo" as a message of peace and multiculturalism.

The Hebrew word “Balagan” means mess, making “Boogie Balagan” a “messy boogie”.

Boogie Balagan is composed by the lead singer Gabri and the guitar player Azri, who created their own story between France and “Palestlsrael”.

At the early 2002 they decided to be entirely devoted to Boogie Balagan. What was at first supposed to be a Muddy Waters coverband, became a unique project, blending the Middle Eastern groove and language with the raw energy of Robert Johnson. A project which shatters walls and barriers so that all could have been put together under the flag of a universal rock.

Azri and Gabri are singing for reconciliation and love, that’s why ‘Lamentation walloo’ is a call for no more lamentations and is telling us the story of an Israeli-Palestinian friendship between children.

They sing in English, French, Arabic, Greek, Hebrew…creating a urban dialect and making this rock’n roll a formidable weapon of peace.

Climbing over walls

“We feel that we just have to stop lamenting on our fate. We would like to cross walls with music and songs. The aim of our music is to show that by mixing lyrics and languages, the message can be carried out in
a cheerful way”.

“We are a bit nostalgic of the time when we were all working together, sharing a watermelon during the break…We used to jam all night with Palestinians who were working in Israel, sharing the “hafla”, the
party” … »

This “French Palestlsraeli” duo has dared to mix styles, blending sounds from their homelands, American rhythm and multilingual lyrics. Everything is “roots”: the music, the words; even the “collector cd box” set is a “matzot bread” filled with Palestinian zaatar spice, salt from Dead Sea, with lamentations from Wailing Wall running through it.

Selection fair 2008