Out With Punk, In With ‘Ounk’

Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Crossposted from Haaretz
Man 25 considers itself a performance band in the full sense of the word. While other local indie bands save every penny in order to produce an album and release singles to be played on the radio, Man 25 views recorded materials as a calling card only. Drummer Tomer Tzur (30), guitarist and video artist Gidon Schocken (28) and soloist and text writer Orly Eitan (28) invest most of their efforts in creating an extremely loud show that combines noise, metal, post-punk, psychedelics, and in effect, “every musical genre that generates distortion walls, feedback whistles and screams.”
They describe their music as “ounk,” a genre they themselves invented. “It began with a typo,” says Tzur. “We wanted to write ‘punk’ and instead we wrote ‘ounk,’ and so we went with it. I think it’s a word that does a good job of summing up all the styles that we experiment with, and it has a good sound.”
Why I became the Forward’s Editor-in-Chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
