MASHROU3 LEILA - مشروع ليلى

Glocal Talent

2011-11-23T00:49:00.000-08:00

Tarek Yamani is one of my favourite pianists. Not favourite pianists in Lebanon, favourite pianists fullstop. The first time I saw him play I was around 18 years old, and what caught my attention was how fast and effortlessly his fingers moved along the piano, and how much I simply enjoyed listening. He was younger than the rest of the musicians, some of whom I knew because they were teaching in the school I was learning jazz piano in. It was a gig in Bar Louie back in the day when Gemmayzeh wasn't an explosion of bars and clubs every 2m.

A lot has happened from that day till today. Tarek went to pursue music in Holland, where he graduated with honours. He then won the prestigious Thelonius Monk International Jazz Composers Competition in 2010. I learned about this casually from a friend and was shocked that there were no big celebrations in the country to congratulate this enormous achievement. I felt so proud of him, because he was good enough.

From the last time I spoke with him a few months ago, he told me he was working on a CD with a trio. And now I found that he's also working on a film called 'Decoding Bach' in collaboration with director Darine Hotait. I wish him the best of luck in all his endeavours.

http://www.tarekyamani.com
http://www.jazzreview.com/press-releases/item/28243-tarek-yamani-wins-thelonious-monk-jazz-competition-2010.html
https://www.artspire.org/DirectoryDetail/tabid/95/id/1180/Default.aspx

coworker found this on a blog. awesomeness.

2011-09-14T03:38:00.000-07:00

#Graffiti in response to the stupid ads made by the ministry ... on Twitpic

El Hal Romancy - Mashrou' Leila [Official Video]

2011-07-21T12:07:00.000-07:00

Habibis,

We miss you, but we can take seven more days.

Leila's super-excited for this one. El Hal Romancy - a video... This time.. she wanted to hold the camera - she wouldn't pose for this one, she just wouldn't.

She grabbed the camera with few of her friends, few lovers and a bride and attacked Beirut. Beirut wasn't enough, she attacked Trablus. Trablus wasn't enough, but there was no money and no time left. She came back with this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbO9bv4rBnU

watch it - share it - post it on your walls - spread the word - and come kiss Leila on the 29th.

xx

EL Hal Romancy Free Download

2011-07-17T17:03:00.001-07:00

Habibi,

I hope this message finds you inspired, healthy, and in good spirits.

As you might have picked up from my previous messages, I’ve been working on a new E.P. for some time.

If you’re feeling supportive, it’s available for download on iTunes and on Amazon. You can buy it here:

iTunes [http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/el-hal-romancy-ep/id450200841]

Amazon [http://www.amazon.com/El-Hal-Romancy/dp/B005CLTW3I/ref=sr_shvl_album_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1310911654&sr=301-4]

Otherwise, if you can’t buy it online, then you can download it for free off of the band’s website. We have worked so much on the music, recording and mixing it ourselves - so we wouldn't have to answer to any music bureaucrats - we're more than happy to share it with you for free. you can download it on this link:

mashrou3leila.com/ElHalRomancyMashrouLeila.zip

While you’re at the site make sure you check out the photographs Tarek Moukkadem took of us and George Awde took for us for the album art.

Also, the E.P. will be available in print with the album art, the way all music should be kept, as of the 29th of July at the launch at the Hippodrome. I hope you can make it. Salma, my sister, said to me once “dance is for the theatre, or the eyes of a loved one, and when you’re lucky, those two aren’t the same.” I’m not sure I believe that, but either way I’d love little more than to know you are in the crowd while I dance.

Morning kisses on your right eyelid…

Leila

MASHROU’ LEILA – EL HAL ROMANCY [E.P] RELEASE CONCERT - BEIRUT HIPPODROME – JULY 29

2011-07-14T02:13:00.000-07:00

dear citizens of lubnanabad – and revolutionary lovers -

The People’s Republic of Lubnanabad cordially invites you to join us to the biggest wedding of the summer – Leila and Wajih – and the celebration of our new E.P. The event will take place on July 29th, starting 8 pm – at the Beirut Hippodrome [horseracing track] in Mathaf [next to the National Museum of Beirut].

Tickets will be available starting this Friday the 15th at:

- Virgin Ticketing box office - 01 999666
- Coppa Di Pasta - Hamra - 01 341734
- U Shop - United Station Antelias, Hazmieh - 03 979757
- United Dj's Record Shop - Zalka - 03 957344

don't lave that to the last day - 15 days left for the concert!!!

If you’re around town, YOU HAVE TO COME. If you’re in the region, or somewhere close - you have to try to come. We have made special travel packages with Kurban Travels for our friends abroad – you can check more details on: http://mashrou3leila.com/KurbanTours.pdf

If you’re far far away - disneyland, Narnia, Gotham city or somewhere further away – and there’s no way you can make it to Beirut on july 29th - then this is what you have to do:

If you know someone in Beirut - tell them about it. Share the link - invite them to come, harass them with it. Make them take videos to share with you - so you pretend you were there - playing with us, singing with us - somehow. We want to meet all your friends in Beirut, your parents, and their friends - we want your imaginary friends, your BBM contacts, your chat-buddies... your lovers, your colleagues, your children and even grandkids... Everyone - hoping one day - we’ll meet you as well..

This is another special night for us – we’re releasing our E.P, and planning the biggest concert we’ve ever played – for us – for you – the whole thing wouldn’t be the same without you - it would mean a lot to us if you’re there…

love, 3'azl el baneit, and nervous impatience,
Leila

Mashrouleila.com

youtubewalls desktop

2011-06-20T17:43:00.000-07:00

2011-06-08T09:23:00.000-07:00

popping pills for theatrical gravity

Omar Khorshid - Rakset el Fadaa

2011-06-06T11:01:00.000-07:00

2011-06-04T07:28:00.000-07:00

طفيليات تركتها في باطني

تهرج و تستنزفني

طفيليات تركتها في صميمي

وانت لم تعود لي

رميته بين الأمواج

يرقص مع الحوريات

رجمت البحر بدمائي

لونت الموج بدمائي

والصيادون نائمون

والصيادون سابتون

والصيادون خامدون

والصيادون نائمون

والصيادون سابتون

والصيادون نائمون

ينادى إسمك قبل الفجر

وأنت لن تعود لي

رميته في قعر البحر

وأنت لن تعود لي

2011-06-04T07:23:00.000-07:00

This is a nation of thieves, I felt. If I steal here, I accomplish no special act that could help me to realize myself. I merely obey the habitual order of things. I do not destroy it.

jean genet, on living in Nazi Germany. From "A thief's Journal" 1930

2011-06-02T17:09:00.000-07:00

بلعت نفسى

كي أصبحك

لصقت صورتك علي وجهي

ومسحت عنقي بعطرك}

{وهمست إسمك في مرآتي

وكليشيهات أخرى

وخلعت ثيابك

ورأيتني أبلعك

وأختنقت على كلامك

كلامك يزبد من فمي

ولساني في قفصه الأزرق

يتخبّط علي إيقاعٍ

تدقّه أيدٍ

لم أطلب طلائها

2011-05-31T03:52:00.000-07:00

المهور تتناول العقاقير المهلوسة

p.s. salamat from lubnanabad

2011-04-12T06:13:00.001-07:00

Lovers, darlings, friends, cousins, and foes,

I hope this message finds you in the greatest of spirits.

It’s been much too long. I think of you often these days, when I wake up and the light dances on my face, coming in through the window, moving to the doom-tack-tack doom-tack doom-tack-tack-doom on the radio behind Nahawand’s voice on my side-table, as I fight the “oh-no-not-again”s whimpering in the back of my head when I realize another day has passed.

I really do miss you. I wish we could see each other more often, but I totally understand… sometimes one has to wait.
I’ll be in Doha, Qatar on the 15th of this month. I’d love little more than to be in your company, catch up, maybe over tea. I’ll be here:http://thebigdayout.net/ waiting for you anxiously. It’s their first music festival ever, and they’re having a great line-up including Hoobastank, Toploader, and many others. Pass by if you’re there, or close by.

I’ll be in Cairo afterwards congratulating some friends. They’ve done so much and it makes me ridiculously proud to even think about it. Imagine, we all lived through the making of some of the most profound historical events in the region’s repertoire. I’ll be at Masrah el Geneina on the seventh of May, and then at the Jazz club on the eighth. I’ll send you more details in my next letter.

Otherwise, things have finally been getting more serene. I have more time for myself these days, and I’m more at peace with everything around. I spent a lot of time in the studio. The boys have been incredible, doing the mixes and the recording themselves, and running around between their jobs, university, and the studio. I’ll be able to show you more material around July. Again, I’ll send you more details in my next letter.

My mom asked about you the other day. I didn’t know what to tell her. I think she’s on to us.

Can’t wait to be with you again.
Xx
Leila

P.S. Salamat min Lubanabad…

GHADAN YAWMON AFDAL - LYRICS

2011-02-10T01:04:00.000-08:00

غداً يومٌ أفضل

مشروع ليلى

إعادة تصور أغنية كلينت إيستوود للغوريلاز

جميع حقوق الأغنية وأصحابها محترمة

تصوير في بيبلوس: كريم غريب

تصوير في الستديو: ياسمين صاروت

مونتاج و إخراج: ياسمين صاروت

إنتاج موسيقي: مشروع ليلى

مبسوط، ما بني شي

مخبى الشمس بكرشي

مالي عازه، بس مش مطول

غداً يومٌ أفضل

يومٌ أفضل، يومٌ أفضل...

بقى جاي يحكيني إبن الكلب عن كل قضايا العالم

يا رح تتصفف بجانبه، يا أما انك ظالم

بقى تتعلم تتفادى أحاديث بعمرها بتوديش،

لا رح تنقذ أهلك ولا رح بتغير عالم،

شنا الناس دايماً بتنتقم وعمرها ما بتحبش،

قوم بلاش ما تنفصم أشرفلك بس تطنش،

حتسيبك بوعظات جاي من عمارات من عاج،

حكيتهم خيي بتستاهل وإلا بس طعاج

2012 - 1

2011-01-17T13:45:00.000-08:00

2010 was our busiest / biggest year so far – we launched our album, released two music videos in collaboration with young talented directors, played at the Byblos Festival, performed at the Doha Tribeca Film Fest and went back to AUB for a concert with a string septet to raise 20,000 $ for HIV fund with your help.

In Parallel, we’ve been trying to figure out how to play tricks on time. Omaya and Haig graduated in 2009 and have been working in architecture studios for more than a year now, Ibrahim is still in MIT for his masters degree, Andre graduated this year and started working in construction, as for Hamed, Carl and Firas, they’re currently working on their final year projects – so almost done with school. It’s very hectic, trying to juggle between music and our professions – and sometimes one takes over the other. But this is how it works in Beirut – it’s the only way we can push things forward.

So moving forward to a new year– el 7al romansy, bas mish ghalat

-Our first album is finally on iTunes – if you live abroad and don’t have the album yet, here’s the link to download. Share it. If you’ve already downloaded it from online websites and you would like to help us out – feel free.
http://itunes.apple.com/album/mashrou-leila/id403887520

-The Music video for Raksit Leila has passed 100,000 views on youtube, as for Fasateen, it’s on its way – and we’re currently on the works for a third one – updates soon.

-We’re recording new songs – some you’ve heard at Byblos, and some you haven’t – but you will - in no time

-Mashrouleila.com – keep that link in mind – it’ll be active very soon with a lot of material for you to hear/watch/read/interact with.

-We’re building our own jamroom – a place where we can work on music 24/7, day and night / night and day, without having to worry about neighbors’ complaints – fingers crossed.

-Once upon an overnight project, always an overnight project – sometimes fast – and some other times it takes longer – so be patient with us

7ob wa gharam,
Leila from Lubnanabad

ps. we just might come play in a city near you soon

HIV AWARENESS CONCERT - or how Leila played with her seven new lovers

2010-12-17T09:17:00.000-08:00

One week has passed.

It took us a one month of extensive work to prepare for a concert that would last for one hour – but damn it was worth it.

Me and omaya would leave work early so we catch up with Firas and Carl at Andre’s place, who would already be working on the protools files with an electric piano, rearranging the music, restructuring the songs – writing parts for 3 violins, 3 cellos and a double bass. Getting the notes from protools, writing note and lyrics on top to give it to the musicians for cues and intonations. We had made an announcement few weeks earlier that we need cellist and violinists, and we got to meet these amazing 6 - Ramzi/ Nady/ Reef/ Nadiejda/ Anastasia/ Corrine and Miles who was legally back to Beirut a day prior to the concert. This concert was supposed to be the next thing we do after Byblos, and we wanted it to be flawless...

during practice - one week prior to the concert

Hamed was designing the poster – we were practicing twice a week – in between writing songs – and the concert only lasted for one hour – a one fucking amazing hour.

The concert was supposed to be a fundraiser by SCORA for HIV patients to d their CD4 tests every 6 months – one week before the concert the posters were printed and we sent out a message on facebook – hoping a lot of people will come to the concert and contribute for the cause – the concert was sold out 2 days before the event [850 tickets] – and many more showed up at assembly hall to watch the event.

The event raised 20,000 $, that is 400 CD4 tests for HIV positive patients.

Thank you for the support. It meant a lot for us -

the concert - Assemby Hall - AUB - Dec 9

Here’s the message we sent on facebook.

“Once upon an overnight project, always an overnight project.

This one time, not so long ago - we had this communal epiphany - less of a visual calling, more of a flash-forward...

We could have sworn on Leila's honor that we had our own orchestra, we can - but we didn't. We woke up, called upon violins, cellos, and a double-bass, rearranged things we've done until Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, sounded like right amounts of Something Blue and we want you to come watch.

On the occasion of World AIDS day, we are playing a concert accompanied by a String Septet at the Assembly Hall [ AUB ] thanks to SCORA (The Standing Committee On Reproductive health including AIDS), part of LeMSIC (Lebanese Medical Students’ International Committee), in collaboration with the Office of Communications at AUB on Thursday December 9th 2010 at 8:30pm

Ticket prices: 25000 L.L. for students and 40000 L.L. for non-students.

Tickets will be sold at AUB (outside West Hall) and in USJ-Faculte de Medecine, starting December 1, 2010 till December 9, 2010.
[on Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th, tickets will be sold at all branches of Roadsters Diner and Deek Duke]

All proceeds from this event will go towards the HIV/AIDS fund at AUB-Medical Center Out Patient Department, and Hotel Dieu de France.

Here’s the event page on facebook - share it -http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=165720360133261
For more info www.sx-education.org.

WORLD AIDS DAY is to remember that HIV is around - Maintaining the awareness of the necessary knowledge for prevention among people is a must.

Show support against HIV/AIDS discrimination.

Spread awareness.

Spread the word.”

filth- if i were a blues man walking cleche-i'll cringe when i see this in 3 years

2010-11-21T03:11:00.000-08:00

You put filth on my skin
lay a mess in my head
left a taste in my mouth
and burned holes in my bed

You put a taste in my mouth
you lay filth in my chest
now you’re running around
playing games with my guests

You left filth in my bed
let him use my cologne
and all the while im working
wearing my hands to the bone

So drown under my skin
fall into my head
maybe then you'll see
why I said what i said
Cos i worked for the meat
but you put nails in my bread
and i slaved at your feet
but you put filth in my bed

proposal 3c

2010-11-21T03:09:00.000-08:00

come to my house
it's incomplete
but ill build it with my own two hands

come to my house
fair marguerite
i'll build anything you demand

and architects may laugh at us
modernists more learned and such
the neighbors they may start a fuss
about the flowers on our hutch
your mother she just might complain
say this man will bring you shame
even ask you to refrain
from being marguerite my lovely dame

i'll hide money in the back
someday we'll have a fairer shack
but a hutch and flowers's all i can give
and a hutch and flowers's all i can lose

come to my house
fair marguerite
i'll build it with my own two hands

For a camera accident when the cadaver's eyelids quiver on the morgue bed

2010-11-21T02:54:00.001-08:00

How do you tell evil from good
When you just can’t see the point
When it all feels misunderstood
And self is asked to disjoint
From the desires burning in its corpse
How do you pick a road
When all feel like means
To an end that comes too soon
Too close
Too heavy
How do you destroy the self
At the altar of an us
Born in the image of them
And vicodine-numb every last taste
For power
Lost in a sea of bodies
Shamefully drawn to yours
Only drawn in mine
Beating du-dum
Du-dum
Da-dum
When answers lost at birth
Become missing pieces to a jigsaw puzzle in the clouds
And what time spent in between,
Feels retrospect wasted
Copied and pasted
To fit into the puzzle that is you me and the rest of us, and sometimes them
Distilling hour-glass-sand-dunes
For what purpose no one knows
For the likes of us were taught
Very early on
That the self was something to be destroyed
At the altar that is he
Who if whispering little secrets
Is taking little notes
About matters of the flesh, yours and mine
And burning that figment
Drawn to your corpse – only drawn in mine.

2010-11-17T07:16:00.001-08:00

Growing up in a country perpetually at war, sound takes on an immense social significance. You learn to tell the difference between the sound of fireworks, loud crackling sharp successions of beats in the distance, and gunshots, which sound almost the same but echo differently as the bullet breaks the sound barrier. You learn how sound has a Pavlovian affect on a society when you see mothers frantically telling their kids to stay away from windows as soon as they hear a loud thud that sounds like a car bomb. And you learn about the musicality of conflict, when you watch restlessly frustrated, politically castrated bodies swaying to the beats of a Scissor Sister’s track in a bar to drown out the noise of militia-men killing each other amidst the storm right outside. What continuously inspires me is how quickly music can generate a community around itself, a sea of individuals searching for melodies to quiet the all-too-familiar beats bouncing off the Mediterranean Sea as a warship bombs the southern district of their city, and for a lyrical cure to their social anomie, lost in the cadences separating one string of violent beats from the next.

Growing up in a conservative Muslim family, my aunt often told me that singing would result in my eternal damnation. I sang anyway. Music for me is that moment of confrontation with your family, when you discover Nietzche in freshman year listening to The Doors, when you fall in love for the first time listening to Aretha Franklin, when you find out about social justice listening to Tracy Chapman, and when you realize that a completely foreign sound emanating from the speakers of an old stereo can offer you the comfort of knowing that you are not alone in a city where mosques and churches compete to make the loudest sounds, trying to colonize the urban sound-scape of a post-war nation[1]. It is that moment of self-realization that happens when you listen to Bob Dylan’s “Blowing in the wind” at five in the morning while watching the sunrise after a long night of crying over existential angst. It is the intellectual ecstasy of the death of the author in the fragmented meanings of Kurt Cobaine’s lyrics, the fuel for youthful rebellion listening to Patti Smith’s Gloria, and the sensitivity of gender performance separating the emotional Abdul-Halim Hafez’s westernized ballads, from Abdul-Wahhab’s stern adherence to oriental modes and scales.[2]

[1] Samir Kassir, The History of Beirut

[2] Hazem Saghieh, Homeworks Catalogue

2010-11-06T13:34:00.000-07:00

i am an imported identity.
the rhetoric of identity is imported.
so is this blog.
so are my clothes.
so are yours.
why is my identity an issue. i just want to get married.
minus the historical progress of society.
maybe there's power in playing other.
i feel like i belong to another war.
im not one for novelty.
i just dont feel like i think they did.
the ones before.
someday media power will be the solution.
and the war will be over.
till then,
salamat min lubnanabad.

WELCOME TO WIKIPEDIA, THE FREE ENCYCLOPEDIA THAT ANYONE CAN EDIT

2010-10-12T08:08:00.000-07:00

well guess what- someone wrote a wikipedia article on mashrou3 leila [with all the references] - and this was on the main page of the site - check the image above.

check out the page on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashrou'_Leila

and feel free to add and edit if you want - there's always time and space for evolution.

Did you know...
From Wikipedia's newest articles: ... that the controversial Lebanese rock band Mashrou' Leila* started out as a music workshop at a local university?*

VLOGS FROM THE PAST

2010-09-20T04:51:00.000-07:00

MASHROU3 LEILA VLOG003 - SOUNDCHECK SAIDA from mashrou3 Leila on Vimeo.

last year around this time we were sound checking in Saida for the 3erss el Madina street festival. that's when we started the vlog - an it stopped for a while - now it'll be back, on a weekly basis [fingers crossed] - of things that happened, things that are happening and might happen between the 7 of us.

12 ANGRY LEBANESE

2010-09-13T04:46:00.000-07:00

this is one of the most moving and inspirational documentaries I've seen in such a long time. it's till running in METROPOLIS CINEMA in sofil till tomorrow. I think the dates will be extended - not sure till when.
Zeina Daccache is an inspirational woman -
watch it -

The film follows an all-male group of adult inmates, residing in Lebanon’s notorious Roumieh Prison, who experienced the pioneer practice of Drama Therapy/Theatre in 2008-2009 led by the female drama therapist, Zeina Daccache, executive director of Catharsis-Lebanese Center for Drama Therapy.

For 15 months, 45 inmates, some completely illiterate, found themselves working together to present the production of the play 12 Angry Lebanese, an adaptation of Reginald Rose’s 12 Angry Men.
The film shows the diverse rehearsals, the interviews with the inmate-actors, and the interaction with both director and audience.

12 Angry Lebanese-the documentary- is produced by Catharsis with the support of the Italian Cooperation Office of the Embassy of Italy in Beirut in the framework of the ROSS Emergency Program, and in collaboration with the Lebanese Ministry of Interior and Municipalities and the Ministry of Justice.
The film was also screened at The Royal Film Commission- Jordan (January 2010), the closure ceremony of Doc à Tunis Film Festival-Tunis (April 2010) and the closure ceremony of “La Semaine du Documentaire de Fès”, Morocco (May 2010). In July 2010, the film toured in major cities in Australia in the frame of the Arab Film Festival.

The film will be screened daily from the 2nd until the 14th of September at 6:00, 8:00 and 10:00 PM at Metropolis, Empire, Sofil, Ashrafieh.
For info and booking please contact Metropolis at 03 533 710.
For group reservations and fundraising please contact Catharsis at 03 162 573 or info@catharsislcdt.org

« 12 Angry Lebanese - the documentary»
A film by: Zeina Daccache
Cast: The inmates of Roumieh Prison
DOP: Jocelyne Abi Gebrayel
Editing: Michèle Tyan
Sound: Raed Younan
Soundtrack: The inmates of Roumieh Prison
Produced by Catharsis

For more info about the film 12 Angry Lebanese-the documentary- please visit the Facebook page: 12 Angry Lebanese-the documentary.

بس مش غَلَط" .١"

2010-08-05T02:16:00.000-07:00

before byblos, there was a month of rehearsals - a bit more - in bhamdoun - ras el haref - in our previously so called valley fog studios. Though it closed down few days before the concert, after our 70 year old neighbors - who live further down the valley - threatened to get the police since the music was too loud for them - long story short - this is when we recorded [el 7all romansy].

photos by Firas Abou Fakher

2010-08-03T08:47:00.000-07:00

أهرب من قلبي أروح على فين؟ تويتر

‬

it's about time this blog is reactivated -

#mashrou3leila

www.twitter.com/mashrou3leila

الحل رومانسي بس مش غلط

2010-06-08T03:10:00.000-07:00

Summer season is marriage season.
People suddenly are in love, and want to make babies - legally.
And then they want to move into houses.
But they're broke from the wedding.
And from the babies.

فهل تسأل؟

2010-06-06T07:39:00.001-07:00

On a wall in Tripoli

دجام روم

2010-06-06T07:18:00.000-07:00

The Jam room

With people

and things

and strings

when we're making music

We're Back!

2010-06-04T05:51:00.000-07:00

Well, it's about time we mentioned this in our blog!

Well Haig and Hamed have already said their piece on Facebook with the announcements :) I just want to add that it's a great honor to be part of the Byblos International Festival. The lineup this year is incredible (Caetano Veloso, Archive, ....Gorillazzzz!!!) We're very excited and can't wait to share this with everyone.

We're back!! We sort of disappeared for a while, writing, preparing, but new things are happening, new things will start appearing within the next few days, so keep your eyes and ears open!

http://www.byblosfestival.org/MashrouLeila.html

KOULTOUM KALTHOUM KULTHUM KALSOUM KOLTHOUM

2010-05-03T23:55:00.000-07:00

wow - i arrive at work today - carine's on the phone - and no one else is here yet - i guess i am a bit early - 9:40
anyway - i go to my desk, turn on the computer, go to google chrome and woaaaaaahhh - umm kulthum - it's her birthday -

and here goes technology:

Born	Umm Kulthum Ebrahim Elbeltagi Unconfirmed; some time between 1898 and 1904 Tamay Ez-Zahayra, El Senbellawein,Egypt

and that's not all -

Died	February 3, 1975 Cairo, Egypt
Cause of death	renal failure-induced stroke

still - not all - wikipedia tells us funny stories.

Umm Kulthum (Arabic: أم كلثوم‎, born أم كلثوم إبراهيم البلتاجي , Umm Kulthum Ebrahim Elbeltagi; see Kunya; Egyptian Arabic: Om Kalsoum). (circa 1900; February 3, 1975). Various spellings include Om Koultoum, Om Kalthoum, Oumme Kalsoum, and Umm Kolthoum. She was an Egyptian singer, songwriter, and actress. Born in Tamay ez-Zahayra village that belongs to El Senbellawein, she is known as the Star of the East (kawkab el-sharq). More than three decades after her death, she is still recognized as one of the Arab world's most famous and distinguished singers of the 20th century.^[1]

^{ryam idriss just came to work - take that google!}

^bye

OUTUNE.NET - TOP RECORDS - MASHROU3 LEILA

2010-04-20T06:38:00.000-07:00

MASHROU3 LEILA VOTED AS TOP RECORD ON OUTUNE.NET - major music online zine

follow the link for review:

http://www.outune.net/dischi/top-records/indie-world-rock-mashrou3-leila-mashrou3-leila-2010.html

here's a translation from the author - Stefano de Noi

"Rock music, which originated in the United States and further improved in the United Kingdom, has gone the way of globalization, going round the world like the sirian barbat (the ancient instrument from which the lute, the biwa and all the modern violins and guitars are derived), and continuously adapting to the culture, history and the feelings of peoples it reached throughout its journey.

Art is freedom, and music could be considered as the highest expression of freedom among all the arts, as it is free to move, travel and evolve. Thanks to artists such as Mashrou3 Leila, music can show us how to be free by introducing us to diversity.

Mashrou3 Leila (i.e. Night Project, more or less) is just one of the pithy fruits born of different cultures, one of those precious gifts brought by globalization. Folk, rock, jazz, pop mix together with the classic Arabian music, giving birth to a flowing, unruly and deep “corpus”, rich in color and taste.

Succeeding in mixing different influences and sounds into a harmonious, easy-listening whole with a strong hold is the greatest merit of the guys from Beirut. Each song is a singable melody that makes a hit, though many-faceted, and sticks to the ears of Occidentals, not too accustomed to sonorities coming from the other shore of the Mediterranean. Don't let the melody deceive you, thinking of sweet-sounding lyrics and widespread superficiality, as the guys beat hard telling about the meanness of present-day and the horrors of the past… your only problem might be hey do it by blending Beirut slang and classical Arabic, so you will have to trust me."

TRIBUTE TO OMAR AL ZAANI

2010-04-18T03:12:00.000-07:00

Omar Al Zaani (1898-1961) was a revolutionary Lebanese poet that tackled several social, political, economical, and personal issues in a very comical way. When I first read some of his work, I was surprised that it was that old, it really was fun to read!
Tonight there's a tribute to Omar Al Zaani where there will be a book with a collection of some of his works, and a CD with some of his songs (I found songs by him that I already knew but had on idea that they were his) and there will also be a concert where Ahmar Qaabour, Tania Saleh, Mounir El Khawli, and us will be taking a couple of his poems and turning them into songs. Each one of us has around 12-15minutes. I was worried at the beginning, writing music for someone else's words is not something we usually do. We had a hard time to begin with, but then we relaxed and just though of the music, and Hamed adapted the words to songs beautifully. Tonight should be good.
It's at 8pm in the UNESCO Palace. Hope see you there.

leit-mo-leila

2010-04-18T03:07:00.000-07:00

There's a new temporary blog by Raafat Majzoub that is centered around us...
Raafat, we love you!
Check it out, contribute, join in, enjoy!
http://leit-mo-leila.blogspot.com/

Leila in Saida [Summer 2009]

2010-04-17T04:09:00.000-07:00

Saida...

Making Of the video of Raksit Leila

2010-03-31T12:55:00.000-07:00

If you're curious to see how it was done, or to see just how much fun we had, watch the Making Of video

HOW LEILA IS SPENDING HER DAYS LATELY

2010-03-30T22:00:00.000-07:00

Practice twice a week, five hours a week; meetings once a week, two hours a week.
Minimum.
Arguments, disagreements, but new material. Always new material.
We miss performing, but we need the time off for us to grow.
Big preparations for Byblos. It's a lot of pressure, a huge challenge for us! DEMCO Steel times 4!
Meanwhile a lot of new music is popping up in Beirut. It's great! And other events, plays (check out Ashphalt), photo exhibitions (check out 'ma baad lahza' in Masra7 el Madina), art exhibitions (check out 'formless' in Furn el Chebbak) Beirut is explosive this year!

So it's work work work...but also fun fun fun. Making music is fun. It's spontaneous. Sometimes we get carried away with making specific sounds, other times the mood dominates and new sounds are born. Both are rich. Sometimes it's hard to let ourselves get carried away with the music instead of structuring it straight away to make 'songs'. It used to be the opposite. But we're learning to chill and to allow some of the practice sessions to really be jam sessions with no goal other than to play.

exciting times..

SHANKABOOT

2010-03-19T02:15:00.000-07:00

if you haven't seen Shankaboot yet, you're missing out - it takes you t the streets of Beirut - and the streets of Armenia, the other side of th river - See Beirut from the rooftops - day and night. Fun story, very well shot and amazing music - watch first three episodes now - and wait for a new ones every week - shankebooha.

Shankaboot– the world’s first Arabic web-series – takes us into the beating heart of modern Beirut street life through the eyes of Suleiman, our 15 year old, happy-go-lucky delivery boy. Along for the ride are the beautiful Ruwaida and the mysterious Chadi, along with a host of other memorable characters.
Watch the show, play the game and check out Waheed El Booz at www.shankaboot.com
Shankaboot is produced by Batoota Films in association with the BBC World Service Trust, supported by Zico House.
شنكبوت - أول مسلسل عربيّ على الإنترنت - بطلها سليمان صبي عمره ١٥ سنة بيعرف طرقات بيروت كلها بيوصل دليفري وين ما كان وساعة اللي كان. رويدا بنت لذيذة وشادي شاب ما بينعرفلو بيرافقه سليمان بمغامراته الشنكبوتيّة.
شوفو الشنكبوت وتسلّو بالألعاب وتابعو وحيد البوز على
www.shankaboot.com
شنكبوت إنتاج أفلام بطوطة بالتعاون مع صندوق التنمية التابع للبي بي سي، بدعم من زيكو هاوس

Asphalt[u]

2010-03-19T02:01:00.000-07:00

It's been a very long time since we last posted something here - anyway, two very good friends of mine have a play showing soon at zico- "Asphalt[u]". it's written and performed by Pascal Corm [amazing actor] - Music composed and performed by Dzovinar Megerditchian [amazing composer and pianist]. it's on Tuesday the 30th and Wednesday the 31st of March, starting 8:30 pm
at Zico House [174, Sanayeh, Beirut].
Ticekts: 10,000 LL
for reservations call [70598033]
the play is in french.
come - and tell your friends - spread the word -

MATTHEW BELLAMY IN TYRE, LEBANON

2010-02-25T03:13:00.000-08:00

death to matt

nincompoop

and for those who don't know who bellamy is -

My piano playing skills or lack thereof

2010-02-24T17:22:00.000-08:00

http://people.csail.mit.edu/iab02/piece2.mp3

Again any feedback would be great... what color or scenery comes to mind??
I am also missing a title.

Make sure to listen with earphones... spent too much time on the panning

THE KULHAIFATHUM OBSTRUCTION - DLP [by raafat majzoub]

2010-02-23T00:53:00.000-08:00

This text is written by Raafat Majzoub [the same guy who wrote our biography]- check out his blog: http://leit-mo-tif.blogspot.com, and suscribe :)
we love ryam idriss. take that google!

The age of being born, is dead. Talent is dead. Prophets are boring to negligence, dismissed upon their attempts of communicating Nirvana. We are no longer born gifted, we are made. You still don’t like Haifa though.

The peacock-nosed-born-ingeniously altered feast is the new Leila. Haifa has become a household exclamation mark, question mark, comma and full stop, and still is riveted with the connotation of Arab deterioration. People, it’s all about Darwin. In a world where the Opera House in which Oum Kolthoum fluttered was burnt to make parking space for illiterate drivers may not and cannot criticize this product. It is invalid.

1.
Haifa is not here to replace Oum Kolthoum, if anything, she is of the lineage of Souad Hosni. So, Khalli Balak Min Zouzou, and give me a break. I do not understand the acceptance of this, not that. Most of the arguments I get would be, “but Hosni was an actress, so it wasn’t necessary for her to have a good voice”. *beep* Haifa is an actress, now what?
~silence.

Ok, seriously.. now what? Is that it? Nomenclature. Well, ok – then Feiruz is the diva of the reminiscent dull – we still like her – Dalida is the tacky glitter and broken Arabic – we still like her – Egyptian black-and-whites have the most luscious extravagantly erotic belly-dancing, and five-year-olds are allowed to watch. What is this all about? Cleavage? Drugs? Sex?
Look around, thank you.

2.
It seems to me that, in herself – in her essence, Haifa is not the issue. The problem lies in a social chunk – the middle east – that is potty trained to live in the past, to not-do instead of do, to think instead of to execute, and get married instead of buying contraception. Fuck you. Yes you, fuck you – and not the nice fuck you.. the one that you moan to, the one that you like.. no the Fuck you.. the rape fuck you – the one that’ll screw your psych till you fucking drop fuck you; this Fuck you.

3.
Let’s keep Allah off Melody Hits and the likes, this will not be tagged “haram”. If anything should be taken into a juridical dimension, let’s take Haifa, the product and test it. If it works, you shut up.

_woops, it’s already done..Haifa works. And no, it’s not because sex sells, although it does, but a lot more erotica was put into ‘projects’ that died after their first pilots. Ehm, Najla? So shut up.
Now for the readers that are unzipping to AbdelHalim and Asmahan, please do not let me interrupt you – and as a mitigation to “heads off” me – this is not at all about music. Haifa is not about music. She is not about the tick-tack-toe of melody, nor the conservatoire reps, nor the breakthroughs in goose-bump production. Haifa is a cultural product, parallel to any other cultural produce with its own set of rules and regulations that it is liable to.

If we want to blow this out of proportion, Haifa is one of the few of our products that actually worked, besides the shisha. What have we done, as Arabs, since our Golden Age? I’ll tell you. We
A. exported everyone intelligent
B. threw stones at people that felt like thinking
C. put titles on each other so we would know who to kiss and who to shoot
D. made more lines on our atlas to know just exactly where we end and where we begin
E. called onto people beyond the oceans to teach us how to shit
F. made more mosques, more sheikhs to tell us bad things about America the devil
G. are running out of petrol, with nothing else in mind
H. etc. is an understatement

So yes, my lovelies, it is not about Haifa, it is about this ridiculous phobia of the unfamiliar, of the unpracticed, the unattained and the failure to launch into a system that is not supported by gossip and contacts. It is this, the Kulhaifathum Obstruction, the haphazard orientations to invalid references to camouflage a lack of analytical or production capability, that kept us is keeping us and will keep us from ever doing anything. Fuck y*some text missing*

MASHROU' LEILA - RAKSIT LEILA [official music video by yelostudio]

2010-02-13T14:22:00.000-08:00

Mashrou' Leila - Raksit Leila [ official video by yelostudio]

Mashrou' Leila is: Haig Papazian [violin] / Andre Chedid [guitar] / Firas Abou Fakher [guitar] / Carl Gerges [drums] / Omaya Malaeb [keyboards] / Hamed Sinno [vocals] / Ibrahim Badr [bass]

video directed by Jad Sarout / Chadi Aoun / Yasmine Sarout
lit/shot by Nadim Saoma
additional footage by Kassim Dabaji
produced by Maher Safar
set/props designed by Abdallah Hatoum
edited by Chadi Aoun/Yasmine Sarout/Ely Dagher

music produced by B-root productions [ Jana Saleh / Raed el Khazen ]

you can follow Mashrou' Leila at the following links:
http://www.facebook.com/mashrou3leila
http://www.myspace.com/mashrou3leila
http://mashrou3leila.blogspot.com

for more info about yelostudio:
http://blog.yelostudio.com

Album of the 'week'

2010-02-11T12:18:00.000-08:00

"House Without a Door" by Remy and Pascal LeBoeuf

Well we've been quiet for a while, so I thought I'd throw in some new music to check out.
These guys are twins, they both got Scholarships fromt he John and Alice Coltrane Foundation. Remy plays the saxophone and Pascal plays the piano.
They've got some really cool jazz tracks, (I love 'house without a door') and they've also got some more electronic experimental stuff.

http://www.lbjazz.com/
http://www.myspace.com/remyleboeuf

2010-01-24T10:04:00.000-08:00

deleted. unnecessary slamming. true. thanks. i still dont think it's anyone business what identities people take on.

as a matter of fact the only positive reinforcement we've had towards gay identities in regional media was carole samaha. sponsored by pepsi. and this other chick who pulled a pierre et gilles skit in her video. its not called a monopoly unless someone else is willing to cater to it.

Funk, Byblos, Studio El Fann, & "what did she say?"

2010-01-21T03:50:00.000-08:00

I am writing my thesis but i want to be writing music,

because "thesis" sucks.

We are gonna play Byblos in July (Carl's childhood dream).

mine was to play in "studio el fann." (I know, Carl's is cooler).

Firas and I have been using an alternative to "that's what she said."

We now say: "what did she say?"

Please not the phrase was originally developed by Joe.

The summer of 2010 is going to be epic.

funk........YEAH!!!

DAMASCUS TIME

2010-01-21T03:05:00.000-08:00

1:30 PM Damascus Time By Salam Al-Hassan
by Bet7at

DAMASCUS TIME - animation by Salam al Hassan

2010-01-19T23:43:00.000-08:00

Jews and Palestinians, Israeli citizens
AN OPEN LETTER TO METALLICA
January 4, 2010

Halls of Justice Painted Green
Money Talking
Power Wolves Beset Your Door
Hear Them Stalking
Soon You`ll Please Their Appetite
They Devour
Hammer of Justice Crushes You
Overpowerג€¦

(`ג€¦And Justice for All`, Metallica)

Dear Metallica,

Now that the opportunity to truly promote justice for all is in your hands ג€“ will you let the money do the talking, or will you advance change?

We are Jews and Palestinians, Israeli citizens, who enjoy your music and respect your ideas about justice. Due to the prolonged Israeli occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people; and, in the hope of contributing to the growing effort to pressure Israel and its privileged Jewish citizens to comply with universal human rights and principles - we write to you today, urging you to postpone indefinitely your planned gig in Israel.

After Israel`s brutal military attack on Gaza in December 2008-January 2009 and in light of the years-long siege on Gaza, the Palestinian-initiated global BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel) movement has gained world-wide recognition and increasing support. Artists, from musicians to filmmakers, academics, authors as well as various organizations and groups have said NO to the violation and attack on Palestinians` basic human rights and necessities by joining the call for BDS.

It could not be clearer today that staying neutral in the face of the ruthless, criminal oppression of the Palestinians, is not an option. Performing in Israel sends a message of normalization to the racist, violent and unjust Israeli regime, that has been rightfully described by many as apartheid.

The Israeli apartheid is favoring Jews over all Palestinians, including those who are Palestinian citizens and residents of Israel. Palestinians inside Israel`s pre-1967 borders are continually excluded and discriminated in every aspect of social life, such as land ownership, housing, education, health, citizenship eligibility and the legal system.

Throughout Palestine\Israel and in the Diaspora, millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants are still blocked from returning to their homes, or even homeland, and refused compensation for the enormous loss inflicted upon them by Israel. Most of the Palestinians are stateless and many live in refugee camps.

The reluctance of most of the worldג€™s governments to truly pressure Israel continues to embolden successive Israeli governments to commit more violent acts and violate numerous international laws. It is up to us, citizens of the world, to lead the struggle against Israeli crimes and atrocities. Dissociating ourselves from Israelג€™s oppressive policies is a non-violent way to avoid becoming complicit in the killing, wounding, maiming, and robbing of Palestinians, and to object to it.

Unfortunately, for the majority of Israelis to recognize Palestinian rights, a fundamental shift in Israeli mentality is required. After years of attempts to change the minds and hearts of the Israeli public, we believe that this change can now only be achieved through substantial external pressure. We see, as time passes, our society becoming more and more callous, institutionally racist and economically oppressive towards the Palestinians.

Given your longstanding, vocal commitment to ideas of true justice for all, we cannot envision you cooperating with continued Israeli defiance of justice and morality and playing a part in the Israeli charade of self-righteousness. The least one can do in such a situation is to avoid indifference and a ג€business as usualג€ attitude. We appeal to you to add your voice to those brave people, the world over, who boycott Israel, such as musicians Roger Waters and John Williams. We urge you to postpone indefinitely your planned gig in Israel and say no to apartheid until there is freedom and justice here.

Rock on!

Noa Abend
Nitzan Aviv
Yoram Bar-Haim
Ronnie Barkan
Dalit Baum
Eitan Bronstein
Adi Dagan
Hamutal Erato
Rachel Giora
Iris Hefets
Yael Lerer
Edo Medicks
Ofer Neiman
David Nir
Jonathan Pollak
Emily Schaeffer
Ayala Shani
Tal Shapira
Yonatan Shapira
Yana Ziferblat

lilly - ليلى

2010-01-18T01:02:00.000-08:00

Nameless Piece

2010-01-15T19:52:00.000-08:00

http://people.csail.mit.edu/iab02/brahim-concert.mp3

I worked on this piece for some time as a class project. I am not exactly sure what to do with it so i thought i'd put it up here to see people's reactions. The sound quality isn't so awesome but the idea is there.

Any feedback would be great... I cant seem to decide on a name for it. What color would you associate with the sound?

PS: listen to it really loud with headphones!!!!!

WALK WITH ME

2010-01-14T03:40:00.000-08:00

tell your mother, tell your sister, tell your brother, tell your father, tell your friend, tell your uncle, tell your butcher, tell your bus driver, tell your mechanic, tell your lover, tell your cobbler, tell your bookseller, tell your grandparents, tell your hairdresser, tell your manager, tell your facebook friends,tell your children, tell your doctor, tell your dekkanje, tell your carpenter, tell your cat, tell your audience, tell your readers, tell your third-degree cousin, tell your sheperd, tell your bricklayer, tell your ex, tell your accountant, tell your farmer, tell you neighbour, tell your teacher, tell...

group: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=191226202664&ref=ts
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LebLaique
Laïque Pride's Blog: http://lebanese-laique-pride.over-blog.com/

And don't forget to visit the event's page and invite people to attend:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=200480171135&ref=ts

when i say mind blowing - i don't mean avatar

2010-01-14T01:18:00.000-08:00

wow - watch it - everything is animated - wow

let me tell you a secret

2010-01-13T01:55:00.000-08:00

let me tell you a secret -

five or six years ago - in the department of architecture and design at aub, i found a small invitation posted on one of the walls - amongst 100 others - and i took it - without telling anyone - except raafat - and omaya.
it's not stealing - i just didn't want other people to see it. NO, it's not selfishness - i just didn't want other people to see it - i didn't want other people to come - i didn't know if there would be enough space.
we kept it a secret - no one found out about it from the department - no one showed up that night from our department. it was great.
we enjoyed all of it - with the rest of the 200 people who was there - not from the department -
NO - we weren't selfish -
it was a free concert by toufic farroukh at masrah al madina. FREE - we had to keep it a secret.
yesterday - i found this video on youtube, so i wanted to share. it's nothing compared to that concert - but still free to watch - and yasmine shines in it -

i'm at work - i think i will get fired one day for doing this -

7ob

MASHROU3 LEILA AT DEMCO - ALBUM RELEASE CONERT - DECEMBER 19 2009

2010-01-11T02:45:00.000-08:00

photos by Tanya Traboulsi

I've changed my mind about a two-state solution - by Mehdi Hasan

2010-01-11T00:28:00.001-08:00

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 31 December 2009 12.30 GMT
Article history

Israel's Palestinian settlements are now too extensive to make division of the land practical. Instead, it must be shared.
OK, I admit it. I was wrong. How could I have bought into all that idealistic nonsense at the start of the decade, about the prospects for Middle East peace? Why did I foolishly assume that Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat had shattered taboos at Camp David in the summer of 2000? And why did I want so desperately to believe the two sides when they claimed, at Taba, in January 2001, that "significant progress had been made" and they had "never been closer to agreement"?

Perhaps the heady optimism of the 90s had seduced me. That was the decade of hope; of the Madrid conference, the Oslo accords and the historic handshake on the White House lawn. During his first stint as Israeli prime minister in the late 90s, even uber-hawk Binyamin Netanyahu agreed to territorial withdrawals at the Wye River summit.

That was then, this is now. Palestinians and Israelis remain locked in conflict. Netanyahu has returned to office, 10 years on, speaking only of a demilitarised Palestinian state and refusing even to consider allowing East Jerusalem as its capital. His far-right foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who lives in an illegal West Bank settlement, has long been opposed to meaningful peace talks with the Palestinians. A decade that began with Bill Clinton bringing together Arafat and Barak to attempt to conclude the Oslo process, at Camp David, has ended with Barack Obama unable to persuade the government of Netanyahu and Lieberman to agree to a partial settlement freeze. On Monday, the Israeli housing ministry announced plans to build nearly 700 new apartments in occupied East Jerusalem.

It is time to acknowledge that the peace process, as we know it, is dead. There is no longer a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Why? Because, as Virginia Tulley wrote in the London Review of Books, "the conditions for an independent Palestinian state have been killed off by the inexorable and irreversible advance of the settlements". Or, to borrow an analogy from Palestinian lawyer Michael Tarazi: "It's like you and I are negotiating over a piece of pizza. How much of the pizza do I get? And how much do you get? And while we are negotiating it, you are eating it."

Consider the facts. According to Peace Now, there are 120 illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, with a settler population estimated at around 300,000. Some 200,000 Israelis live beyond the Green Line in occupied East Jerusalem – almost the same number as Palestinians allowed to reside within the city. The UN's office for the co-ordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) has calculated that settler numbers continue to grow at a rate of 5.5% a year – which is the equivalent of adding one a half bus-loads of new settlers each day to the 500,000 already living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. On current trends, says the UN, the settler population is likely to double to nearly a million in the next decade.

Throw in Israel's infamous "facts on the ground" – the roads, barriers, checkpoints, buffer zones and military bases – and the settlement project takes up almost 40% of West Bank land. The past 10 years have seen the territory further fragmented, by Israeli soldiers and settlers, into a series of isolated enclaves, with Palestinian communities scattered around the West Bank, disconnected from one another and from the outside world. So, one has to wonder, what will emerge from any future negotiations? A Palestinian state or a bantustan? It is difficult to disagree with the verdict of the former UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, that settlement expansion is "the single biggest impediment to realising a viable Palestinian state with territorial contiguity".

Confronted by half a million settlers living on the territory of a future Palestinian state – one of whom includes Israel's own foreign minister – and another half a million on the way, I can no longer support an illusory two-state solution: on pragmatic, if not principled, grounds. The two peoples are so enmeshed and intermingled that I now believe the land can no longer be divided, it must be shared. The egg cannot be unscrambled.

In November, the chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat – a veteran of Madrid and Oslo – startled reporters in Ramallah when he too confessed it may be time for President Mahmoud Abbas to "tell his people the truth, that with the continuation of settlement activities, the two-state solution is no longer an option". The alternative left for Palestinians was to "refocus their attention on the one-state solution where Muslims, Christians and Jews can live as equals." Erekat added: "This is the moment of truth for us."

The truth is that the dream of "two states for two peoples", born in the 90s, died in the noughties. The two-state solution, the popular and principled option for so long now, is neither practical nor possible. In the words of Israeli academic Jeff Halper, "Israel by its own hand has rendered a viable two-state solution impossible." Its time has passed. So the moment has come, as we enter the teenies, to forget the idea of a Palestinian state existing side by side with a Jewish state, and to argue and agitate instead for the only remaining, viable and democratic option: a single, secular and binational state for Israelis and Palestinians. No longer "two states for two peoples", but "one person, one vote".

[Bayrūt] Machrou3 Leila par Nasri N.Sayegh (Elle Oriental Decembre 2009)

2010-01-02T10:35:00.001-08:00

[Bayrūt]

Le samedi 19 décembre sort le tout premier opus de l’inclassable et désormais incontournable groupe libanais Machrou3 Leila. Underground, Upperground, le public est conquis. Le succès d’une musique inventive et généreuse.
Quand la musique se fait poème, la ville est réinventée.

Avis à la population: Nouveau projet à Beyrouth! Il ne s’agit pas de la construction d’un énième immeuble ou d’un caresse le ciel. Il ne s’agit pas non plus d’une boite commerciale ou d’un centre de nuit. Ni d’un projet de destruction de jardin. Il s’agit de redessiner le plan de la ville. Réécrire la ville avec pour seul instrument la musique. District concerné : la tête de Beyrouth plus connu sous le nom de Rass Bayrūt. Le projet s’intitule Leila. Machou3 Leila. Maîtres d’œuvre : Omaya Malaeb, Haig Papazian, Hamed Sinno, Ibrahim Badr, Carl Gerges, Andre Chedid, Firas Abou Fakher. Dessinateurs designers architectes diplômés ou encore en formation à l’AUB leur passion est commune et surtout musicale.
Au total, ils sont 7. 7 fous. Des fous d’amour. La belle folie !
Machrou3 Leila se propose de retracer les plans du quartier. Dès lors, les lignes de la ville se font portée, le cadastre devient solfège et les impasses partitions. Les silences se faufilent entre les portiques et les beyrouthins s’improvisent personnages de comédies musicales.
La cartographie musicale réinvente la cité. Révolu le temps des rues droites et des angles parallèles, les notes se posent une à une dans le pli des pavés.

En 12 titres, Machrou3 Leila raconte les petites histoires de la ville. La danse de Leila, Zotrine ou encore 3al Saket, les titres défilent et les mélodies s’enjouent, intelligentes, effrontées parfois. Bayrut se peuple de nouveaux habitants. Au détour d’une note bleue, on reconnaît Goran Bregovic, Abdel Wahab, Feirouz, Vivaldi, Les Ritas Mitsouko ou encore Serge Gainsbourg. Un univers pluriel, inclassable. Ces amoureux de pop libanaise conjuguent tout autant Ella Fitzerald et Oum Kalhtoum que Haïfa Wehbé et Björk. Chem el Yasmine est un chant d’amours masculines. Une ode à la tolérance, à l’amour de la différence. « Ne m’oublie pas mon amour » susurre Hamed. Un Habibi comme rarement prononcé et qui semble tout droit jailli des langueurs de Billie Holiday. Dans 3arouss (Mariée) un jeune homme veut présenter sa promise à sa mère. Une promise qui s’avère être un promis. Un amour, dit la chanson, qui couronne les cœurs comme une prière. Une prière à déposer délicatement dans la paume de votre oreille ou dans le creux de la main…

Epilogue. Rue Makhoul. Intérieur. Nuit.
Si bémol et fa dièse accoudés au comptoir d’un bar. Bière à portée de note et volute de fumée en guise de mélodie. Un projet semble en cours. Une croche ? Bémol rougit et Dièse murmure un silence en guise de baiser. La noire et la blanche ne font plus qu’un long temps. Par pudeur, je détourne le regard et regagne la rue. Il fait décembre. La chaussée est glissante. Je trébuche sur une clé, de do. La belle chute! La nuit m’observe et Leila sourit.

Nasri N.Sayegh

2012 minus 2

2009-12-31T09:57:00.001-08:00

lovers -

Before anything else: Thank you. Thanks for the night at Demco, Thanks for the skoun night. We sold out all our candy during the album launch, and the second batch just got delayed (we are not jinxed - we don't own umbrellas or scissors anyways), butt! The CD will be available again in stores on January 7th [ virgin, music now hamra, cd theque - more details early next week]...post-christmas gifting is so hot this season, please - knock yourself out :)

So technically speaking, The album will be available in stores for purchase and for exchange next week [for those who had bad copies from the launching concert, you can change your CDs at a secret location - details will be announced later ]

As for maths, today is a pre-1, 31. We know, it doesn't make sense, but the deal is - tonight is so important that there are places that you normally go into for drinks - that you wont be able to afford anymore - and for that, we cheer you - inexpensively, via - free messaging - we flood your inbox with yet another happy new year note (at least we're not tagging you in meaningless pictures with [HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010] like your other friends are doing ..that in turn will flood your inbox with things like ''hayete, you too'' and ''bedna nwalle3a" and "oh ma GAD, you're so nice" from people you don't know ) oh well, you're all too special.

By now, kellna fassalna fasateen, we2feen bil tabour ma3 7alna.. possibly 3al sakt, hopefully mish 3al 7ajez - 3am nlamme3 shi 3obwa, ta nfajjer yasmeen kirmel tshemma bent el jiran - aw bayya, yelli em bembelela7 ma3 leila, ba3d ma raqset raqseta.. tanlatlet 3a jihad *** yelle msh ader, illa ykhalliya zekra

*all the references are to fictional people*
a personal message from leila and her two sisters, souad and jiji
obviously approved by noone..

Album of the Week

2009-12-28T04:24:00.000-08:00

hehe...take a guess.
If you didn't catch it at our concert, we're selling it at our next concert (Wednesday 30th, in 2 days) so pass by ;) It's a benefit concert for Skoun, an NGO dealing with the treatment of drug and alcohol addiction.

Concert info:
http://www.facebook.com/#/event.php?eid=213613674161&ref=ts

2009-12-27T09:58:00.000-08:00

It was exhausting, exhilarating, and overwhelming. We expected a large audience, we got a HUGE audience. We're honoured and grateful to everyone who came and everyone who helped us out.
We were sold out of 1000 CDs in less than an hour.
There was a long queue, yes, a queue, at the entrance. Yes we were still in Lebanon.
We couldn't believe it.
Again, it was exhausting, exhilarating and overwhelming.

We went behind the stage 30minutes before we were meant to go on. News came to us that we were sold out. We were shocked, ecstatic. With a little alcohol in our blood we were dancing around in excitement. But it was hard not to feel more nervous than usual before a performance. Our CDs were sold out in less than an hour? All 1000 of them? Then we stood still waiting for the the music that Ziad Nawfal had on to end so that we can climb onto the stage. It ended. It was our turn.
On stage we were playing differently than we usually did before. We were more alert, more focused. This was a big deal for us, and we had been working so hard for these moments. It wasn't just some gig that we were invited to do, it was all us. The audience was so big!
It was over, Ziad took over again and we climbed off stage. We were showered with hugs. Hugs from our producers, from our friends who came to meet us backstage, and even from people we didn't know very well. We were thrilled.
And exhausted, and exhilarated, and overwhelmed.

Thanks to everyone who came that night, and all those who made that night possible. It was a night we'll never forget.

2009-12-27T07:31:00.000-08:00

hamed needs a tribe. now. he does not belong. tribe please.

2009-12-17T03:38:00.000-08:00

A33izza2una, Sayyidatuna, Sadattuna, al sa3idiyeh, al 3asha2iriyyeh, al jumhooriyyeh, al allahwiyyeh, wa ruwwad al tishtikitamtam,

It’s done. Those of you who’ve been here for a while will know exactly how much this means to the seven of us. Those of you who came in late, fuck we’re 2500 plus!!!!!

The People’s Republic of Lubnanabad cordially invites you to join us in commemorating the anniversary of the Republic’s institution, and the birth of its founding Matron, Leila, daughter of Marika Spiridon, Liberator of occupied territories, chic by day, skank by night. The celebration will take place on the 19^th of December 2009, Demco Steel Warehouse, Bourj Hammoud, 9:00 PM. Come one, come all. Wear something saucy [Less Georgina Rizk, more Samira Sa3id].

In other announcements:

-WE FINISHED OUR CD!!!!!!!!!!!

-HAMED’S FAILING HIS THESIS, but it’s okay if we get famous we might make it into parliament, and paint everything pink.

-BOB’S BACCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKK.

-The People’s Republic of Lubnanabad is currently negotiating diplomatic relations with Jumhooriyat al Hummus: hummus-nation.blogspot.com/

If anyone’s a publisher publish this guy. He’s a genius. GENIUS I SAY!!!!!! We wanted to collaborate for a little show thingy on the 19^th but time is an imperialist, maybe another time.

-The People’s Republic of Lubnanabad would also like to announce a collaboration between heads of Parliament [Mashrou3 Leila] and a brilliant design/animation/art collective called YELOSTUDIO. YELO shot a video for Raksit Leila that should be out soon. They did a phenomenal job, and have excellent work: http://blog.yelostudio.com/

-Haifa Wehbe is the coolest chick in the middle east, after Nawal al Saadawi.

Eat more hummus.

Salamat.

FALAFEL KHALIFE [ al-fakhira ]

2009-12-15T06:49:00.000-08:00

Genre - I have come to realize, after collaborating with other musicians from here and there, within the ecstatic multi-colored plains of pan-Arabia, that we – as cocktail – like our audicies obscene and our scenes odysseys. It all stands, where structure lays bare for us to repair – not because static deserves to die, but because of everything else. To compose, becomes not the act of making, as opposed having a conversation. To make, brings about playing with notions once restricted – or not. Genre – We have come to realize, after collaborating with other musicians from here and there, within the ecstatic multi-colored plains of pan-Arabia, that we do not need to define *bites falafel sandwich without pickles* anything. If anything, this becomes an experiment of no hypothesis – an erotic dyslexia – a production of sound, ticklish enough to provoke building a playground *licks finger*, a selfish place for more than one person. Maybe these are the wrong questions, I am not a musician – I make music *orders another falafel*, I am not an eater – I eat. Is it a mutual necessity, this relationship of maker versus making *points at violin*, ask it – but I don’t think it speaks any English *sighs, licks finger*.

RAKSIT LEILA VIDEO

2009-12-11T03:34:00.001-08:00

We've been shooting for two days with yelostudio (http://blog.yelostudio.com/) pieces of the videoclip for Raksit Leila, and we'll be shooting the rest tomorrow!
It's been a lot of fun so far, they're very tallented, very energetic, even at the end of the day when they've been shooting non-stop for 12 hours straight. It's really exciting, we're anticipating a great video soon!

MASHROU3 LEILA ALBUM RELEASE CONCERT - DECEMBER 19

2009-12-10T03:09:00.000-08:00

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=189466627314

Album of the week

2009-12-09T04:36:00.000-08:00

"Dance of Fire"
Aziza Mustafa Zadeh.
She's great...

one out of nineteen

2009-12-04T09:02:00.001-08:00

once upon a time, there was an exhibitionist princess, that enjoyed nothing more than getting into herself for you. she constantly critisized constipated conscious minds of not letting her scream whatever she wanted, so she would do it again and again, every night, before seven - she would get into herself for you and scream - so one day, after seven, they took her voice away.
once upon approximately the same time, leila, not the princess, cried three cups of tears and threw them out of her window and prayed that a pigeon would drink at least one seventh of her water - for she might gain a volume she never had. but all the pigeons had left beirut that night, for everyone needed to keep their distance when the seven sounds ...
Raafat | رأفت

ALBUM RELEASE VENUE - DEMCO STEEL

2009-12-04T01:12:00.000-08:00

CLICK ON THE IMAGE FOR A BETTER RESOLUTION FORMAT.
this map will guide you to the ALBUM RELEASE CONCERT venue [DEMCO STEEL] on saturday december 19th. the location is very simple, Bourj Hammoud sea road, next to Gallerie Vanlian.

The countdown has begun!!

2009-11-30T03:20:00.000-08:00

Less than a month left to go before we launch our album... preparations have begun, we're running around, looking for sponsors, getting the posters ready, finalizing last additions to the recordings... exciting times! What with work and university and thesis and design studios etc, it's gonna be tight.
But it's gonna be good.
That's the plan.
Tick..tick..tick..tick......boom.

Album of the Week

2009-11-18T02:11:00.000-08:00

The New Earth Group

It's the name of the band, I think it's the name of their album. Haig, Andre, Carl and I came across them in Rotterdam during the Summer of 2008. They were playing on the Witte de Witt Street in a festival, and selling their album. It's instrumental, it's very good. You have to listen to the songs in order. They merge into each other beautifully. If you don't have it, you can find their music on myspace: http://www.myspace.com/thenewearthgroup

Enjoy ;)

MASHROU3 LEILA ON ARAMRAM

2009-11-17T06:41:00.001-08:00

Album of the week

2009-11-11T01:40:00.000-08:00

Anouar Brahem
"Le Pas de Chat Noir"

If you don't have it, get it. If you do, listen to it again. Not while yuo're doing anything, just sitting, relaxing, listening. Give it the respect it deserves. It's incredible.

Electronic music composition assignment

2009-10-29T20:41:00.000-07:00

http://people.csail.mit.edu/iab02/ass3.wav

We had to spend a couple of hours composing with mic-speaker feedback being passed through some effects and filter racks... I cheated a little and recorded myself playing bass...

NEW GEAR!!!

2009-10-27T21:12:00.001-07:00

Apart from Hamed I no longer own the cheapest instrument in the band...

Mashrou3 Leila on Ruptures (12/10/09) With Ziad Nawfal

2009-10-22T12:58:00.000-07:00

The Interview with Ziad Nawfal on Ruptures

Awesome time at the Studio with Ziad...Click the link above and be sure to listen to the interview!(both parts)

Great photos by Tanya Traboulsi(as always)

UP CLOSE AND VIOLENT WITH LEILA by Faysal Bibi

2009-10-20T09:17:00.000-07:00

[What follows is an article on the band Mashrou3 Leila. It is based on an interview I conducted with three members of the band on May 26. Aishti Gossip has published some totally butchered and edited version of this that frankly sucks balls Aishti-style. I had hoped to have the whole article published in some other local media outlet, but none wanted it. So before this thing fossilizes, here it is, consigned to facebook until I or someone else gets their act together enough to start a website dedicated to coverage of the Lebanese alternative music scene.

Enjoy. Faysal Bibi]

“Ya 3akrout ya sharmout weynak raye7?”

It is a particularity of many languages—Arabic among them—that swearing takes on an ironic but highly effective form of endearment. Mashrou3 Leila’s music is an original and eclectic concoction of psychedelic folk that plays mistress to highly charged lyrics sung in Beiruti Arabic and imbibed with double entendres.

I met with three of the seven members (or the “seven variations”) of Mashrou3 Leila— Ibrahim ‘Bob’ Badr (bass), Haig Papazian (violin), andHamed Sinno (vocals)—at t-Marbouta for a chat.

A quick listen to their music and it is apparent that the lyrical spirit of social critique and commentary made famous by the likes of Ziad Rahbani has found new life in Mashrou3 Leila, though this may not have been intended. When asked about this, Sinno responds, “It’s not consciously political.” He explains the band’s frustrations with the alternative Arabic music scene, in that it reflects very little about the people it is by and for. In contrast, “We’re writing about us and our reactions to what’s around us. It’s a means for us to vent and gives something for others to associate with.”

In the Beginning

Mashrou3 Leila began when Papazian and Omaya Malaeb (keyboards) put up a posting in the Department of Architecture and Design of the American University of Beirut, searching for other musicians to jam with. That was February 2007. From an initial pool of 12 to 13 people that answered the posting, 7 remained to form the band.

Los Angeles was to The Doors what Beirut is to Mashrou3 Leila. “Most of the songs are based on our own experiences in the city,” Papazian says, “We all come from different parts of Beirut, and every part you know has its own culture and history. So imagine when these are brought together: different backgrounds create different sounds.”

The creative process is typically not an easy one to engage with, particularly when your band has a member count of seven. Nevertheless, the songwriting process remains remarkably fluid. “We often start with a theme, perhaps something that one of us has brought in, and this theme then evolves,” Papazian elaborates. It’s a co-creative process between the music and the lyrics, a co-evolution. The fluidity of the artistic process is not lost on Mashrou3 Leila. The song “ Raksit Leila started as something else, random words that on their own translated into their own sentences. Shuffling, reshuffling, experimentation; our music is never finished. Finishing or recording a song is only holding or capturing it at a certain point in its evolution.”

Mashrou3 Leila is a band that welcomes popularity and welcomes radio airplay as an opportunity to bring something fresh to the mainstream. “Contemporary Arabic music: it’s a lot of the same fucking shit, over-barfed lyrics, so fucking artificial. There’s a lot of good stuff out there but it’s hard to find,” Sinno says. He recalls a period when bands like Soap Kills were in the mainstream, but that time was “so temporary” and Mashrou3 Leila is a band that would like to do something about that.

The Scene

The band views themselves as part of a rapidly growing scene of ‘good stuff’, a new wave of alternative Arabic music including the likes of Rim Banna, Tanya Saleh, Tamer Abu Ghazaleh, Jadal, and even the whacky Sheesha Band. This in turn is a scene supported by an ever-increasing number of record labels such as Forward and Eka3.“There’s a collective growing,” Sinno says excitedly, “an alternative approach to Arabic music—it’s mushrooming in the Arab world.” The band has noticed that they are starting to share audiences with many of their contemporaries riding the new Alternative-Arabic wave, a marker of popularity of which they are quite proud.

The six men and one woman in the band are all A.U.B. students, dispersed among design, architecture, and engineering, and in their third or final years. They already have to balance their academic and professional ambitions with the runaway wild beast that the band has become. “We all really really like what we do outside the band,”Sinno says. "We don’t know what might happen academically or professionally,” Papazian adds. “Right now, we don’t have to make the choice, there’s no choice to be made,” Badr tells me. Accommodating their school schedules, the band waited till after spring final examinations were over to being production work on their debut album, and they are rushing have it finished soon largely because Badr will be leaving to start a Master’s in engineering at M.I.T. in September.

The recording and production process is often a sensitive issue for musicians, particularly if a band is seeking to retain a raw or live sound in their recordings. Not so for this one. Papazian tells me the band is fully interested in using technology to their benefit. “The production process could add some new layers, something new,” Papazian says, to the point where fans who already know their songs will feel like they’re hearing them again for the first time on the record. With 11 songs ready to go and two more in the works, the band’s excitement towards being immortalized on record is palpable. “We want to offer something to the musical library in Lebanon and in the Arab region, something new,” Papazian continues. “Something a bit more violent,”Sinno quips.

The band members’ interests extend into the social sphere even beyond the band itself. Papazian and a friend run lubnanabad, a website collective of “art, architecture, film, animation, music; things we’re interested in.” Papazian also has a hand in organizing the eventTalk20.

Sinno has gained some notoriety as one of the stencilists adorningHamra with evocative and provocative spraycan art, largely thanks to a video he made about his work that made its way to YouTube. Interestingly enough, Sinno made the video in lieu of a presentation he had to give for the AUB design department. “I couldn’t get up in front of 300 people and talk about my work,” he says. But “music is different,” he continues, “I do music non-discursively, and I’m not actively trying to make a living from it. It’s also a collective effort. But design, you're doing it on your own; it’s one of those things you can’t really fuck up.”

My Mom Hates Us

Musical Recipe: two parts Mediterranean beatnick, one part gypsy, six-eighths rockstar, four-fifths funky junky. The sonic cocktail hits and we move from drunken bebop to morphine haunts. The vocals lay into the hypercool composition until “Tak-tak-tak! Wal athan ghatta sawt al-BOOM”. Firmly Arabic, firmly self-defacing and self-gratifying, this lyrical boom reflects Beirut: bombshells and seashells, summer sun and summer guns, the smell of flowers and the stink of political powers… Or maybe just “dibs ou t7eeneh” mmm…

The band is clear however that they are not to be classified as ‘Arabic music.’ “Musical style is independent of language,” Badr says, “I can be in a rock band and sing in German,” and, he’s right, it would still be a rock band, not a German band. When pressed to describe their style, they are grappling to find the words. “The rhythm section is more rock,” Badr offers, “the piano more latin, jazzy.” Papazian finally formulates something: “Our music is a funneling of day-to-day life in Arabic rock fusion.” No sooner has he said it though then the three begin squabbling again amongst each other, “But we’re not really fusion….”

One thing is for certain, and that’s the undeniable fact that Mashrou3 Leila’s music appeals to a wide swath of society, to young and old, and to more traditional and more experimental tastes alike. Why? “I think it’s because we’re easy on the ears,” Badr volunteers. Papazian offers a truism, “Different people like us for different reasons. We have different instruments, different layers,” something for everybody. Sinno adds, “I think people like to pick out what they want to listen to, and since we come from such different backgrounds, they always can find what they want in our music.”

That wide swath does not, however, include everybody. “My mom hates us,” says Badr.

One Day at a Time

“3aks al-ser, shou bek ya —” the song, Khoumassiah (named for it’s 5-4 time signature), drops silent leaving you to fill in the blank, the last word, the cussword: say it like you mean it, scream it to both curse and make love to the city you love to despise and hate to adore.

“And your future plans for Mashrou3 Leila?” I ask.
“Undisclosed,” responds Sinno.
“You mean undisclosed to us or to you?”
“Both.”
“Kil yom bi yawmo,” says Papazian, softly.

For the record, the band would like to clear up misconceptions about their name. “Leila is a girl that worked at Patisserie Baidoun that we all knew at different points in our lives,” Sinno tells me. Papazian continues, “She fell in love with a person from another religion and had to leave the country.” Asked what the Mashrou3 is, Badr says, “We formed this band to raise the money that Leila desperately needed for a breast enhancement surgery that would allow her to be reaccepted in Lebanese society.”

Mashrou3 Leila’s debut album should be available for your hard earned liras by mid december.

IN THE BASEMENT - والحياة تعود إلى لبناناباد

2009-10-19T01:27:00.000-07:00

Few minutes for our concert to start. We’re on the stage [I still can’t figure out how we fit 7 musicians plus a gigantic drumset on a 2 x 2 sqm platform - trust me, the probabilities of having that aren’t much]. We’re setting up, and the crowd is waiting. These few minutes before everything starts are one of the best throughout the whole process, throughout the whole performance; everyone is waiting, even me - I want to hear it all over again - it’s already playing in my head.

tic-tic-tic-tic boom. An adrenaline rush through the head. I can’t control them - the hands perform as an impulse - not a reaction to anything anymore; they just move with the rhythm - the groove - the tic-tic-tic-tic boom - it’s already playing in my head.

I have no control over my instrument other than the music that is driving my arms to move, my fingers to press against the strings, the bow to caress them and rape them - rape each other - the collision of the bow to the strings - me and the crowd - and everyone else. the sound would come out distorted - I can’t hear it well through the monitors on the stage -everything else is too loud; I hear the music in my head.

I close my eyes -

I open them.

The music stops in a split second. The only thing that is left is us and them, present in the space.

Everything is over - yet I hear the music in my head.

This non-fiction [fiction] [postmodern / crap] text was brought to you by MORICO TV SHOPPING [don’t sell your soul to the masses, sell the masses to the masses]

BEIRUT SOUKS by raafat majzoub

2009-10-15T23:59:00.000-07:00

here's a post from our buddy Raafat. check out his blog, some other great stuff there.
http://leit-mo-tif.blogspot.com/

" first things first

http://www.solidere.com/souks2/
second things whenever..
we are up for the "FINEST CITY CENTER IN THE MIDDLE EAST"
what developers don't get, i think - is that city centers are not developed in incubators of intellectual restriction - on the contrary, they grow into centers, to inflate and resurrect simultaneously.
the concept of {let's rebuild the old souks} just doesn't get processed in my little head. i am not interested to be categorized within the cult of anti-solidere, on the contrary...especially that now - i live on its periphery, "downtown beirut" is one of the most intriguing pseudo-urban slices you can find. i like the place, now that i stopped reading what people thought of it and who cried because of it. life is cruel, architects are monsters and investors are imposters to our lives, ok - but this is the only way that it could have happened - fullstop, shall we?
we as people living in beirut have learned to - ok, pause rewind, pause fastforward, zoom in - zoom out, chill - denial denial, melancholize...etcetera and so on, except here. the downtown that was molested by its own people was claimed private land by other people, who designed their fairytale --- -- its wierd, its fucked up - but it's beirut. recall forbidden cities, a.k.a southern suburbs of the beirut / recall the silk road, a.k.a hariri qoraitem residence / recall spears traffic, a.k.a barbar..but we all still go eat there and park like fuckiots / recall{{ I <3> }} a.ka. we wanna get drunk even if these rent-paying-aboriginals can't sleep to get up to go to work bukra..and yes we do like it.

people, get over yourselves, but i have a fundamental issue with solidere still, issues, not one actually - but majorly, the abuse of potential. take the souks for example - i do not understand what the input was to start out with, thus to me the architecture is invalid.
was it built on crumbs of ''collective memory'' ? if so, than mr.moneo must have been out of the game, giving the job to a lebanese architect with minimum requirements of..teta having a glass of fresh juice at the old souk .. at least then, he would have part of these memories in his make-up that this project would start to make quasi-sense.
was it build on traces of the old souk? if so - then how? aesthetic traces ... but then, it mimics an image - not a typology. .. it resembles a possible ambiance but tagtails it - dangerous, i think, because it tagtails something extinct. progressive architecture is an element in the production of any city center, ms/mr solidere... what is happening now? i am not against learning from the idea of the souq - but the souq is not about the flip-flop curves and possible archades, it looked as such because that was their once-contemporary building technique...let me make me some coffee as you tell me about the contemporari-ness of this bulk of a mall, we call a souk..4,3,2,1..
i was born in tripoli, i lost myself in tripoli, and yes - there, the souk still exists - i know what a souk is, not as an archi-fart, but as a person, that used it for a while - and this beirut reminisce does not remind me of a souk - i cannot use it as one, it is too blank, too bleh - too diagonally tiled that it angers me even..potential..potential...lost potential.
the entabli fountain, yay!! ok - now what? casper and gambini's next to it?the casper fountain..maybe in a couple of years -how can i stumble upon this souq without using the intended circulation? how can i hide there..make-out there..get lost there - maybe play hide and seek..maybe seek sounds i need,
D&G? you can not be serious.

i feel like a preacher now, and i will not continue, before someone pacifies me with the uniform..so i will stop, my only hope being the big plant pots to sit on - without the king's guards of the holy souk come to tell me to ..shooo..shooo peasant "

VLOG002 - THE CARL CANON

2009-10-13T11:34:00.000-07:00

MASHROU3 LEILA VLOG002 - THE CARL CANON from mashrou3 Leila on Vimeo.

can·on - pronunciation: \ˈka-nən\
Function: noun
a : an accepted principle or rule b : a criterion or standard of judgment c : a body of principles, rules, standards, or norms
Carl loves his Tama.
He loves to shop from Zara and H&M - he likes to dress up.
He likes to take pictures - he finds kick ass cameras -LEIKA- from Souk el Ahad and fixes them.
He likes to make a lot of noise while he's playing on his drums.
He loves Muse. and radiohead. and arctic monkeys. and Kasabian. and -
He likes to be very meticulous while he's doing an architectural model for design - they're perfect.
He likes women - he is not single.
the guy just comes with certain standards, we have to live up to those :)
more about carl - soon -

"what good is a band if they aren't good enough and therefore not making enough money for the guitarist to spend it on things"- Ghandi

2009-10-08T12:52:00.000-07:00

I believe in the wisdom of Ghandi

Even the paintings want to look at her.

2009-10-05T23:14:00.000-07:00

2009-10-04T06:08:00.001-07:00

HOW WE STARTED MAKING sound BOMBS IN SAIDA

2009-10-03T04:37:00.000-07:00

الليل يا ليلى

2009-09-30T03:52:00.000-07:00

Last night in Rotterdam, Last post from Europe, next time you hear from me I will be back in Beirut.
Waiting to see you're wonderful faces once again.
نراكم قريبن يا أعزائي
لاف فروم أباف

VLOG 001 - CENSORSHIP

2009-09-26T11:00:00.001-07:00

MASHROU3 LEILA VLOG001 - CENSORSHIP from mashrou3 Leila on Vimeo.

censorship |ˈsensərˌ sh ip|
noun
the practice of officially examining songs, books, movies, etc., and suppressing parts unacceptable by certain groups in a society. the video captures what happens sometimes when we're performing outside beirut.

saida inspiration

2009-09-25T04:34:00.000-07:00

رحرح حرحر نعنع حلحل رشرش كشكش مشمش بربر فرفر رفرف فلفل لفلف سمسم زمزم مزمز ولول زلزل طرطر قرقر لذلذ فتفت لملم زتزت هرهر همهم دسدس تشتش دبدب لبلب نقنق كنكن فضفض طبطب هدهد زحزح زكزك وزوز طزطز تمتم ترتر بحبح تكتك لتلت رفرف ذبذب زتزت سبسب بسبس مصمص لظلظ طقطق شقشق قشقش قصقص بصبص خمخم خلخل ثرثر ترتر مرمر طرطر دادا ماما بابا واوا كجكج دحدح دبدب

...إلخ إلخ إلخ

TRAVELLING JESUS

2009-09-24T01:56:00.000-07:00

Because in the Rhineland, even Jesus needs a bike.

SOUK EL AHAD

2009-09-20T02:18:00.000-07:00

I was walking in Souk el Ahad this morning, and I found a very old vinyl. The stuff written on it was blured and scratched, I couldn't find anything about the author or the song name, but when I played it,
it sounded very familiar..

the Legend of Carl's Drumset

2009-09-19T10:02:00.000-07:00

Some say, it has the power to kill any sound engineer that mistreats it.

Some say, it has the equivalent energy of all the calories Carl has ever consumed at all his infamous "3asha's."

Some say, it can only be tamed by the beast that is "Carl."

Some say....but then, never "say" again, because they have become eternally speechless from its raw power and beauty.

Behold...

The Legend:

why Bob's argument doesn't hold water (in Lebanon)

2009-09-18T14:13:00.000-07:00

Picture this:

Ding-a-ling, alone on his IBM at his house in Sanayeh, creating ball busting beats, brain boggling bass licks, and a melange of melodic miracles, and then...

3.5 words...

...w ayr, 2in2ata3et elkahraba!

Why all of mashrou3 leila will be replaced by computers...

2009-09-17T08:59:00.000-07:00

Since I am going to be out of the Lebanese music scene for a while, I thought my time would be well spent thinking about how to make mashrou3 more efficient.
But how do u fix all the problems that come out of a 7 member band... ego clashes, long sound checks and annoyingly loud jam sessions
Answer: Computers... lets just replace the whole band with a computer

This is why I will be taking 2 courses this term:
Machine Learning: About how to teach computers to replace architects and designers
Electronic Music Composition: About how to write music with computers

Hopefully, by the end of this term the new mashour3 leila front man will be my IBM thinkpad

Below are some pics of the "crazy" building where I work...

عبوة/صيف ألفين و مئة

2009-09-15T05:58:00.000-07:00

//NOT/AGAIN/RAMI// //I/ALREADY/SAID/DONT/PLAY/WITH/THE/BOMB//

(Berlin Edition)مش زابطة بلا ليلى

2009-09-15T05:01:00.000-07:00

West Berlin

East Berlin(view from the rooftops)

Lost in the Holocaust Memorial

ACHTUNG!

Alexanderplatz

great typeface on Alexanderplatz

How things happened that time in Berlin(read: how I spend my time while mashrou3 leila was going to Jordan)

3AMMAN

2009-09-14T23:28:00.000-07:00

Full of excitement on the way there, full of..(?)..on the way back
Either way, an experience we won't forget.

SNATCH - LEKA2AT EKA3

2009-09-14T23:14:00.000-07:00

Photos Joanna Aniel Bidar

SOOR / TYRE

2009-07-19T02:29:00.000-07:00

no pictures please

2009-07-18T13:10:00.000-07:00

A picture is worth a thousand words...

what's no picture worth?

i think we end up taking our own pictures anyway

2009-07-13T12:30:00.000-07:00

MASHROU3 LEILA - مشروع ليلى

Glocal Talent

coworker found this on a blog. awesomeness.

El Hal Romancy - Mashrou' Leila [Official Video]

EL Hal Romancy Free Download

MASHROU’ LEILA – EL HAL ROMANCY [E.P] RELEASE CONCERT - BEIRUT HIPPODROME – JULY 29

youtubewalls desktop

Omar Khorshid - Rakset el Fadaa

p.s. salamat from lubnanabad

GHADAN YAWMON AFDAL - LYRICS

2012 - 1

HIV AWARENESS CONCERT - or how Leila played with her seven new lovers

filth- if i were a blues man walking cleche-i'll cringe when i see this in 3 years

proposal 3c

For a camera accident when the cadaver's eyelids quiver on the morgue bed

WELCOME TO WIKIPEDIA, THE FREE ENCYCLOPEDIA THAT ANYONE CAN EDIT

Did you know...

VLOGS FROM THE PAST

12 ANGRY LEBANESE

بس مش غَلَط" .١"

الحل رومانسي بس مش غلط

فهل تسأل؟

دجام روم

We're Back!

KOULTOUM KALTHOUM KULTHUM KALSOUM KOLTHOUM

OUTUNE.NET - TOP RECORDS - MASHROU3 LEILA

http://www.outune.net/dischi/top-records/indie-world-rock-mashrou3-leila-mashrou3-leila-2010.html

TRIBUTE TO OMAR AL ZAANI

leit-mo-leila

Leila in Saida [Summer 2009]

Making Of the video of Raksit Leila

HOW LEILA IS SPENDING HER DAYS LATELY

SHANKABOOT

Asphalt[u]

MATTHEW BELLAMY IN TYRE, LEBANON

My piano playing skills or lack thereof

THE KULHAIFATHUM OBSTRUCTION - DLP [by raafat majzoub]

MASHROU' LEILA - RAKSIT LEILA [official music video by yelostudio]

Album of the 'week'

Funk, Byblos, Studio El Fann, & "what did she say?"

DAMASCUS TIME

lilly - ليلى

Nameless Piece

WALK WITH ME

when i say mind blowing - i don't mean avatar

let me tell you a secret

MASHROU3 LEILA AT DEMCO - ALBUM RELEASE CONERT - DECEMBER 19 2009

I've changed my mind about a two-state solution - by Mehdi Hasan

[Bayrūt] Machrou3 Leila par Nasri N.Sayegh (Elle Oriental Decembre 2009)

2012 minus 2

Album of the Week

FALAFEL KHALIFE [ al-fakhira ]

RAKSIT LEILA VIDEO

MASHROU3 LEILA ALBUM RELEASE CONCERT - DECEMBER 19

Album of the week

one out of nineteen

ALBUM RELEASE VENUE - DEMCO STEEL

The countdown has begun!!

Album of the Week

MASHROU3 LEILA ON ARAMRAM

Album of the week

Electronic music composition assignment

NEW GEAR!!!

Mashrou3 Leila on Ruptures (12/10/09) With Ziad Nawfal

UP CLOSE AND VIOLENT WITH LEILA by Faysal Bibi

“Ya 3akrout ya sharmout weynak raye7?”

In the Beginning

The Scene

My Mom Hates Us

One Day at a Time

IN THE BASEMENT - والحياة تعود إلى لبناناباد

BEIRUT SOUKS by raafat majzoub

VLOG002 - THE CARL CANON

"what good is a band if they aren't good enough and therefore not making enough money for the guitarist to spend it on things"- Ghandi

Even the paintings want to look at her.

HOW WE STARTED MAKING sound BOMBS IN SAIDA

الليل يا ليلى

VLOG 001 - CENSORSHIP

saida inspiration

TRAVELLING JESUS