Ready For My Close-Up

Yeah, I know I've been talking about it for months, but I think I'm finally just about ready to release the brand-new IsraelHour.com. For real this time.

The site links to this blog, so we may start to get a few eyeballs. Which, I guess, means I'll have to start posting here much more often.

And for those begging for podcasts of The Israel Hour...I think you'll be pleased...

Great Concerts Coming to NYC!

Mofaim.com tells us that there are some incredible concerts coming to New York and elsewhere over the next couple of months.

Ehud Banai is going to be in San Francisco, L.A., Miami, Minnesota, New York and Massachusetts.

Chava Alberstein will be in Toronto, L.A., Stanford and Chicago.

And this is cool...

Shlomo Artzi and Shalom Hanoch will be coming to New York, Miami and L.A. following their very successful series of shows this past summer in Cesaria.

Finally, New York will be hosting a "Super Show" featuring Margalit Tzanani, Kobi Peretz, Yair Amit, Yaron Ilan, the Prozak Trio - and Kochav Nolad stars Yehuda Sa'ado, Shir Biton and Hadar Ozeri.

Visit www.mofaim.com for full details.

Support Israeli music in the USA - and when you buy your tickets, make sure you tell 'em you heard about the concert on The Israel Hour!

An Impressive Track Record

Just heard on Reshet Gimmel:

For the first time since it was released more than a year ago, the latest album from the Idan Raichel Project - "Mima'amakim" - has dropped out of the list of the top ten best-selling albums in Israel.

The album has gone double platinum, selling more than 80,000 copies in Israel.

This week's #1? "Miss Music" by Sarit Hadad.

Kdam 2006

After a successful event last year, the Israeli Pre-Eurovision Song Contest is coming back on March 15th!

In my opinion, that's great news for Israeli music and its fans.

Here's the line up of performers:

- Maya Buskila
- Rama Masinger
- Stalos & Oren Chen
- Shlomo Gronich
- Michael Kirkilan
- Aviva & Maya Avidan
- The "GameBoys"
- Guy Harari
- Gabi Shushan, Sherry & Uzi Fux
- The "Diamonds"
- Tzippi Mash'hid
- Eddie Butler

(Is it just me, or are many of these performers relatively unknown?)

The performers will also perform a special tribute to Ehud Manor, z"l, for whom the Eurovision was always a very big deal. He wrote hits like Yizhar Cohen's "A-ba-ni-bi" (which won the Eurovision for Israel in 1978), Ofra Haza's "Chai" (1982) and Dafna Dekel's "Ze Rak Sport" (1992). Manor also wrote "Z'man" for Mira Awad, which competed in last year's Kdam.

Save the date!

Gidi Gov - Back on TV

I never had the opportunity to see "Laila Gov," Gidi Gov's weekly TV show in the 90s - but jusging from the CD compilations that were released, I always wished I was able to watch.

After an absence of several years, Gidi is coming back to Channel 2, hosting the morning show when "Keshet" is on the air (for those who don't know, Channel 2's programming is handled by three companies: Keshet, Reshet and Telad. Each company handles designated days each week.).

His co-host? Shiri Artzi...Shlomo's daughter. Should be interesting.