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April 16, 2010
Playing beats, love and life
Raquy and the Cavemen bring their world-class music to the city.
JEANIE KEOGH
An Israeli-born teenage boy beating out his rebellious angst with hard rock rhythms on a drum kit and a girl from Brooklyn drumming up her Middle Eastern roots on the doumbek. Together, they became Raquy and the Cavemen, a New York City-based band that will hit Vancouver later this month, playing songs from their soon-to-be-released album Green Lovers.
Call it percussive fusion that brought Raquy Danziger and Liron Peled together, a throbbing intensity that led to their union as a couple and pulsating magic they send out to the world when they perform.
“It’s that chemistry between you. The crazy energy that’s running between us, that electricity is really what drives people really mad in our shows,” Peled said.
Danziger agreed. “When we started making music, of course, we thought, ‘This is incredible,’ but probably everyone who makes music thinks that way. But, then, when we play it for people and we see their reaction, we realize that everyone’s feeling the same thing and that we’re creating something very powerful and moving. I’ve played with some of the best musicians in the world and I don’t have that with anybody else,” she said.
Danziger’s musical beginnings were as a classical pianist. Her strength in rhythm and her love of math led her to trade in the ivory keys after studying drumming in India. Following a not-so-beaten path – she is one of the best and only professional Middle Eastern female drummers – she picked up the doumbek, an Arabic hand drum, while she was in Tel Aviv. A year later, she found herself on the fast track to a full-time career as a freelance doumbek player accompanying other musicians in New York.
“I didn’t have such amazing chops because I’d only been playing a year but, because I used to love to accompany and I was good at that ... a lot of the musicians wanted to play with me, so I just started getting a lot of work. I didn’t have to have another job and could just spend all day practising,” she said. Danziger also plays the kemenche, an Iranian instrument that resembles the violin. She admits that if it weren’t for the kemenche she would miss the melodies of the piano.
She now divides her time between the Middle East, where she practises with seasoned musicians in Istanbul, and then brings her knowledge back to New York, where she teaches workshops and offers free lessons to prodigious players. “I have a bunch of students that are some of the best doumbek players now in America, and it’s really fun for me to teach people at that level,” she said.
Peled marched to the beat of a different drum before making his way to Danziger. He fell in love with American bands Rage Against the Machine and Metallica, and took up the drum at age 10. It wasn’t until moving from the land that defined his hard rock influences that he sought out the more traditional beats of his own country.
“I heard it growing up. It sort of stuck in the back of my head but I hadn’t actually played it when I was in Israel and, when I started playing, I was really drawn to it,” he said.
Debuting as a six-piece band – donning Middle Eastern robes and reciting incantations was the inspiration behind the name Cavemen – they pared down the members until they were a two-piece band with Peled on the dumset, a combination of different Middle Eastern instruments that he invented for a gig that required he build a drum kit small enough to fit on a plane.
To date, Peled is the only one in the world who plays the dumset.
“The transition was a little difficult at first because it’s not something that you can learn. There are no teachers, no instructional videos and, as far as I know, I’m the only one in the world who plays that setup, so I had to teach myself,” he said.
The other transition was the adjustment in 2006, when the two decided to end their romantic relationship but continue playing together.
“There are challenges, but I feel like some of those challenges were actually really healthy. For example, one of our best shows ever we had a big fight right before the show and then the stage manager came and said, ‘OK you’re on,’ and I thought, ‘What do we do? How can we play music after this big fight?’ But actually, the emotional charge from the fight came out through the music and gave us one of the best shows ever,” admitted Peled.
Danziger also believes the split strengthened the musical bond between them. “I feel like the separation put the relationship through a filter and only the beautiful things came out. People say that since we broke up our chemistry has become much stronger,” she said.
So if you’re curious to see the manifestation of how a love of music became a love between people, you’re in for a magical treat April 29 at St. James Hall. The night also features local percussionist Pepe Danza’s ensemble Drum Prayers playing with community member Sandi Millman, founder of Drum Mama Studios. Danziger will be offering workshops, April 27-29.
If music be the food of love, Raquy and the Cavemen will play on.
Jeanie Keogh is a Vancouver freelance writer.
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