Tracks featured on
Most played tracks
Fear And Joy
Charlie Megira Und Hefker Girl
Not On Label•2006
Thanks!
Your suggestion has been successfully submitted.
Charlie Megira And The Hefker Girl
Charlie Megira And The Hefker Girl
Charlie Megira And The Hefker Girl has been played on NTS shows including From The Depths w/ Drakeford, with Fear And Joy first played on 18 September 2020.
Band formed by Israeli musician Charlie Megira and michal kahan.
Also spelled: Charlie Megira und the Hefker Girl Charlie Megira und Hefker Girl Charlie Megira & The Hefker Girl Charlie Megira and the Hefker Girl
Background
In the 2000s, Charlie was dating Michal Kahan, an active singer and guitarist in the Tel Aviv scene. He and Kahan were living in Jaffa, a blown-out section of southern Tel Aviv that was then, and remains, a magnet for artists, with cartoonish murals decorating alley walls, and Arab flea markets overflowing onto the streets.
Together they released a 12-track album, as Charlie Megira and the Hefker Girl, entering a world of goth-inflected post-punk. “Fear and Joy” where Charlie abandoned his surf-rock reverb for the same cold, metallic production that launched a plethora of early ’80s Joy Division clones out of England. And while “Nothing” truly echoes the memories of a make-up drenched Robert Smith, “Kiss of Death” shows Megira reemerging from his private UFO to create a Sonic Youth-ian noise-scape, with Kahan conjuring a low-fi Siouxsie Sioux vibe behind the microphone.”.
In 2008, Charlie Megira & the Modern Dance Club was formed. At Charlie’s behest, Kahan moved from guitar to drums and the group was rounded out with Tal Fatale on bass and Javi Scheiner on rhythm guitar. With the Modern Dance Club, Megira enjoyed his first proper LP release and logged his first European tour. And it would prove to be his most assaultive project to date.
The “Love Police” album was first released in 2009 as a single LP on Germany’s Burnout Record Store label and then again in 2011 as a double LP on Eran Yarkon’s Guitars and Bongos Records of Oakland, California. The album showcased a grungier, more driving vision of trashy post-punk, with Megira snarling in English over a gut punching wall of crazy electric guitars. “Elvis Is Not Dead” captured a new, unchained Megira, screaming lyrics about whores while attacking his guitar with vicious, methodical abandon. Love Police confronts the senses, from the racially and sexually provocative cover to the distorted, screamed vocals within. Megira would later confess that the album was heavily influenced by San Francisco hardcore outfit Millions of Dead Cops.
Yet just as Megira was harnessing momentum with the new band, he’d hit a rocky patch with Kahan. Since the beginning of their relationship, Megira and Kahan had been in lockstep with each other as lovers and as musicians. Like Lux and Ivy of The Cramps, Charlie and Michal made for an amazing rock ‘n’ roll spectacle: he the alien rock star and she the talented vixen with an attitude. The break-up, which happened on Charlie’s 38th birthday on October 10, 2010, was the end of a significant chapter in Megira’s career.
Later Megira was married to Seurat (Sash) Samson and welcomed a son in 2012. Then the Megiras announced that they were leaving Israel and moving to Berlin. He thought himself too old to continue a career in music, seeing the move as an opportunity to focus his development as a chef and a painter. But even so, midway through 2013 and after a short “hiatus”, he formed The Bet She’an Valley Hillbillies - named after the homeland he’d recently left behind.
(See more in the Hillbillies page)
Font: —David Katznelson, June 2019 https://numerogroup.com/blogs/stories/charlie-megira-a-sun-shining-backwards
read more
Charlie Megira And The Hefker Girl
Charlie Megira And The Hefker Girl has been played on NTS shows including From The Depths w/ Drakeford, with Fear And Joy first played on 18 September 2020.
Band formed by Israeli musician Charlie Megira and michal kahan.
Also spelled: Charlie Megira und the Hefker Girl Charlie Megira und Hefker Girl Charlie Megira & The Hefker Girl Charlie Megira and the Hefker Girl
Background
In the 2000s, Charlie was dating Michal Kahan, an active singer and guitarist in the Tel Aviv scene. He and Kahan were living in Jaffa, a blown-out section of southern Tel Aviv that was then, and remains, a magnet for artists, with cartoonish murals decorating alley walls, and Arab flea markets overflowing onto the streets.
Together they released a 12-track album, as Charlie Megira and the Hefker Girl, entering a world of goth-inflected post-punk. “Fear and Joy” where Charlie abandoned his surf-rock reverb for the same cold, metallic production that launched a plethora of early ’80s Joy Division clones out of England. And while “Nothing” truly echoes the memories of a make-up drenched Robert Smith, “Kiss of Death” shows Megira reemerging from his private UFO to create a Sonic Youth-ian noise-scape, with Kahan conjuring a low-fi Siouxsie Sioux vibe behind the microphone.”.
In 2008, Charlie Megira & the Modern Dance Club was formed. At Charlie’s behest, Kahan moved from guitar to drums and the group was rounded out with Tal Fatale on bass and Javi Scheiner on rhythm guitar. With the Modern Dance Club, Megira enjoyed his first proper LP release and logged his first European tour. And it would prove to be his most assaultive project to date.
The “Love Police” album was first released in 2009 as a single LP on Germany’s Burnout Record Store label and then again in 2011 as a double LP on Eran Yarkon’s Guitars and Bongos Records of Oakland, California. The album showcased a grungier, more driving vision of trashy post-punk, with Megira snarling in English over a gut punching wall of crazy electric guitars. “Elvis Is Not Dead” captured a new, unchained Megira, screaming lyrics about whores while attacking his guitar with vicious, methodical abandon. Love Police confronts the senses, from the racially and sexually provocative cover to the distorted, screamed vocals within. Megira would later confess that the album was heavily influenced by San Francisco hardcore outfit Millions of Dead Cops.
Yet just as Megira was harnessing momentum with the new band, he’d hit a rocky patch with Kahan. Since the beginning of their relationship, Megira and Kahan had been in lockstep with each other as lovers and as musicians. Like Lux and Ivy of The Cramps, Charlie and Michal made for an amazing rock ‘n’ roll spectacle: he the alien rock star and she the talented vixen with an attitude. The break-up, which happened on Charlie’s 38th birthday on October 10, 2010, was the end of a significant chapter in Megira’s career.
Later Megira was married to Seurat (Sash) Samson and welcomed a son in 2012. Then the Megiras announced that they were leaving Israel and moving to Berlin. He thought himself too old to continue a career in music, seeing the move as an opportunity to focus his development as a chef and a painter. But even so, midway through 2013 and after a short “hiatus”, he formed The Bet She’an Valley Hillbillies - named after the homeland he’d recently left behind.
(See more in the Hillbillies page)
Font: —David Katznelson, June 2019 https://numerogroup.com/blogs/stories/charlie-megira-a-sun-shining-backwards
Thanks!
Your suggestion has been successfully submitted.
Stay up to date
Subscribe for recent radio highlights, one-off events, goods drops and much more…