MICHAEL LEVY
MUSICAL BIOGRAPHY
From very humble, VERY self-taught musician - to Global Web STARDOM...it has been quite a journey!!!
I first entered the unsuspecting world in the Spring of 1968 - and if it was not for music, I could at least have possibly found an interesting "alternative career"...as a spitting image double of the "Half-Life" computer game character, "Gordon Freeman"!! ;o)
It was not until I was 12 years old, when faced with the daunting prospect an elementary practical music exam at my first year at secondary school, that I had to learn my first ever tune - my father tried to teach me to play the first few notes of "Hava Nagila"...it was that simple accomplishment in 1980, that got me hooked on teaching myself to learn to play music, forever!
When I was about 14, I heard a live concert of Medieval music for the first time at Rufford Old Hall near my original hometown of Ormskirk, Lancashire. I was immediately fascinated how the sounds of this music were able to transport my first ever "Musical Adventure in Time Travel"!!!
After the experience of hearing this ancient music, whilst all my ache-faced peers were buying tacky records of "Bananarama", I was geeking out & buying records by David Munrow...
THE STORY OF MY LYRE MUSIC
My 8 albums of mystical, meditative lyre music, literally started off as nothing more than my countless experiments on my "Klezfiddle1" Youtube Channel - with nothing more than a VERY cheap & nasty PC mic and webcam (courtesy of my bargain basement "Argos" catalogue!) to record my videos with!
I am originally a self-taught Klezmer fiddler, hence the name of my Youtube Channel ("Klezmer", for the uninitiated, is the traditional Jewish Wedding Music of the tragically lost Eastern European Shtetls) - I just adore playing"Roots Music"...
Below is a video featuring clips from my new remixed & extended album, "The Klezmer Fiddle" (available now, on iTunes, Amazon MP3 Store & CD Baby: http://cdbaby.com/cd/MichaelLevy2
For many years when I lived near Manchester, I was involved with a mixed bunch of musicians known as "The Klezmer Kollective" :
Our main somewhat "Semitically Surreal" annual gig, was the "Edale Folk Train"...
This unique phenomenon, featured our sometimes 12 piece authentic Klezmer Band, playing the quaint traditional Jewish Wedding Music of the Eastern European Shtetls, live, to a rather "captive audience", comprising of the utterly bewildered commuters travelling on the train from Manchester Piccadilly to Edale!!!
After getting utterly sloshed whilst doing the Klezmer gig on the train, we alight at Edale, stagger to the "Edale Rambler" pub, do another live Klezmer gig there, get even more sloshed, stagger back to the train station...& those still left standing, do yet another gig on the train back to Manchester!!! Here are a few classic photos...
"The Klezmer Kollective" used to also meet up monthly for a jamming session at a quaint pub called "The White Heart" in New Mills, in the heart of rural Derbyshire for many years...until we were booted out by the landlord in favour of Big Screen Football!
Tragically, one of the founders of the group, Michael Kahan, the incredibly talented classically trained violinist, was brutally murdered in 2008, just a day before he was due to celebrate his 40th birthday. His Klezmer fiddle playing was an inspiration to me, and although he is gone, at least some of his amazing music lives on...
FROM MY DIRE, DISMAL DANK SPARE ROOM IN GROTTY SALFORD, TO GLOBAL WEB STARDOM!!!
All my myriads of mainly "Semitically Surreal Madness" videos seen on my "Klezfiddle1" Youtube Channel, were recorded in my grotty spare room, in the dank, dire, rising-damp-ridden little "Coronation Street-Style" terraced house where I have the misfortune of living - in darkest, dismal Salford, near perpetually "Rain-Ravaged" Manchester, UK...
Here is what my poor little "lounge" looked like in 2001, when I bought my quaint, Edwardian Time Warp "house" (which in the year 2000, had no indoor toilet!), for the price of a second-hand car...
During 2002, not only was I sad, single & living in Salford - I was also unemployed, sad single & living in Salford! I manged to literally "Air my Angxt" during this dark times, in a series of 3 local community radio shows, which I wrote & broadcast, called "Rabbi Mikey Prozac's Rant Hour!" (co-hosted by my similarly sad, single, unemployed & living in Salford co-host, "Mikey Seroxat")...
My original, bargain basement "Spare Room Youtube Broadcasting Studio" from 2006 - 2009 can be seen in all it's grotty (but thankfully by this time, redecorated!) "glory" below:
Here is a selection of some of my most recent broadcasts on Youtube:
MY MOST WATCHED YOUTUBE VIDEO OF ALL TIME!
Besides my Klezmer album, "The Klezmer Fiddle" (available from iTunes, Amazon MP3 Store & cdbaby.com), one of my most early, original very "Lo Fi" Youtube videos of my live arrangement on electric fiddle, of the first track of this album, is now one of the most watched videos of Klezmer music on Youtube, in the known Universe!!! Here it is, in all its "Manic Glory"...
SITAR AND LYRE - "ANCIENT ECHOES"
In my opinion, the most interesting video I have so far posted on Youtube, has to be of my collaboration with the amazing Manchester musician, Dominik Johnson.
The video below, "Ancient Echoes", features Dominik's awesome Sitar playing, in duet with my replica 3000 year old Lyre of the Ancient Hebrews, my fiddle, with Tabla accompaniment:
The complete track of "Ancient Echoes" is available to download from Dominik's new album, "Instrumentals" - now available from iTunes, and cdbaby.com:
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/dominikjmusic
THE MUSIC OF ANCIENT GREECE - THRASHED ON AN AXE!?!?
By way of significantly unsubtle contrast (& on an ever-so-slightly less meditative mood of tranquility!!), my most "musically" adventurous experiment on Youtube to date, has to be my "somewhat unique" performance of the Music of Ancient Greece...thrashed on my twin-humbuckered red-bellied BEAST of an electric guitar!!!! Check this out:
What inspired this "Deluge of Decibels"?? Well, according to the writings of Plato & Aristotle, the ancient Greek Dorian Mode was the most "manly" of all the ancient Greek musical modes - it was even used to inspire bravery & courage in battle! So, for definately the VERY first time in 2500 years - the manly sound of the ancient Greek Dorian mode...THRASHED ON AN AXE!! Almighty Zeus...LET'S TURN UP THE JUICE!!!!!!!!! ;o)
The images in this surreal video depict the most manly of all the Ancient Greek conflicts...the Battle of Thermopylae, where in in August, 480 B.C, King Leonidas and the 300 Spartans, who along with 700 Thespians fought to the death in holding back against the Might of the entire Persian Army at the Thermopylae Pass...
The piece I am playing in this bizarre video, is a genuine fragment of ancient Greek music from the 2nd century CE, by Mesomedes of Crete! It is called "Hymn to the Muse"...I just hope, for the sake of my poor mortal Soul, that the Muse is amused, by this surreal little "musical" experiment!!! ;o)
The ancient GREEK Dorian Mode, was the equivalent intervals as E-E on the white notes of the piano (EFGABCDE) - this must not be confused with the MEDIEVAL "Dorian" mode (still named so today), which is D-D (DEFGABCD)...,some medieval "scholar" (presumably seriously sloshed sensless on Mead at the time!) hopelessly misinterpretated the Latin texts of Boethius - and gave ALL the ancient Greek musical modes THE WRONG GREEK NAMES!!! For some reason, we still use these totally incorrect names today...
For the correct names of the original ancient Greek modes, see:
http://www.harmonics.com/lucy/lsd/corrections.html
Full details on all this fascinating historical stuff, can be found in the quite frankly amazingly extensive "History of the Lyre" section of this website...
WHAT DO I DO WHEN I AM NOT RECREATING THE SOUND OF THE LYRE OF THE ANCIENT HEBREWS IS MY SPARE ROOM???
When I am not busy recreating the sounds of the 3000 year old Lyre of my very own, very ancient Levite ancestors in my spare room, until September 2009, I worked in darkest, dismal Salford, Lancashire, as a Support Worker, helping adults with learning disabilities to feel a valued member of the community in which they live...
Prior to this, I was a self-employed piano teacher (for the "Terminally Tone Deaf") for miserable 10 years, between 1992 - 2002. I ended up self-employed, because having gained my very interesting, but vocationally useless degree in Philosophy from the University of Hull in 1989, (one of my exam questions was "Reddish Green. Discuss"), it then seemed that nobody was ever going to employ me!
Indeed, my "Graduate Career" prior to 1992, included anything from working at Southport Circus (shovelling Tiger poo!!), and after I had finished clearing foul feline faeces, in 1991, I ended up busking George Formby songs outside my local branch of "Tesco" - the act was such a hit, that I even took the gig ON TOUR...to "Quik Save", Ormskirk!
The story even found its way into "The Manchester Evening News"! Here is a link to this vintage article from 1991:
More of my many life's mayhems can be read in the following link to a story featured in "The Jewish Telegraph", published prior to the release of my first album:
A HAPPIER FUTURE - AT LONG LAST!
In September 2009, I tackled my "mid-life crisis" in taking the plunge of ending my "Lonesome Lyre-Strumming Batchelor Life" & relocating from the Dank, Dire Dismalness of Salford to something less "Saul-like" & mercifully, much more soothing and serene...& finally moved to live with my partner Rosalind near rural South Wales! I sure don't miss Salford Precinct anymore...
WHERE TO SEE ME PLAY LIVE PERFORMANCES ON MY LYRE?
I occasionally take my lyre, repertoire of ancient Greek, ancient Hebrew, ancient Egyptian, ancient Mesopotamian & ancient Hebrew music, (& a small selection of my 3 CD albums to mercilessly flog!), to
CHEPSTOW ACOUSTIC MUSIC CLUB:
http://www.chepstowacousticmusicclub.com
Come check it out sometime!!!
