Snap, crackle pop
A radio bar pops up at the Jerusalem Film Festival
Teder began as the brainchild of Zach Bar and three friends, all of whom are Israeli music lovers and promoters. They started hosting pop-up radio bar nights in different locations throughout Tel Aviv in 2010 that quickly became hugely popular. What began as seasonal summer events is now a community and a movement with a permanent location in Tel Aviv’s Beit Romano. Teder will be hosting pop-up radio events during the Jerusalem Film Festival, featuring eight days of live shows, DJ sets and parties. Bar sat down with The Jerusalem Post to discuss pop-up events, world peace and breaking the barrier between radio DJ and listener.
So what is Teder exactly; a bar or a radio station?
It’s both. It’s a media platform for music and art, obviously because of the radio it’s mainly music, but we’re always trying to enlarge our output of things of showcase to the crowd. We have exhibitions, open-air cinema, we do collaborations with video artists and musicians. We’re trying to get the best from Israel and from Tel Aviv, where we are based. We do a lot of collaborations with international platforms and artists. We just spent 10 days in Krakow, Poland, our fifth year of collaborating with the Jewish Music Festival there. We curate our own content by bringing our favorite DJs and artists to play there. We did a couple more projects like that in Tokyo and St. Petersburg. We’ve been doing these kind of events for almost 10 years that involve music and a hang-out spot, but not limited to that.
How did Teder start?
We began as a pop-up in the summer of 2010. We took over different locations in Tel Aviv and had the radio, live shows and a bar and restaurant. We grew into a community and a platform where you can be updated and consume content.
How did you become personally involved with Teder?
Music was always a big part of my life. I began working in the industry managing bands. I also had a record label and was a promoter. Then my three partners and I got together to form Teder. I’m actually the only partner who’s not from Jerusalem. We began with this pop-up radio bar concept and luckily, it was a big success, so we did another season and another season until it grew organically into live events, festivals and collaboration with institutions. We love to book artists from around the world to perform at our events. It’s an ongoing thing.
How does a radio bar work?
The initial idea was to break the wall between the listener and the broadcaster. When you play the radio, you don’t know to whom you play. This [radio bars] allows the listeners to check it out live. We changed a lot of locations and then in the past year and a half, we found our headquarters. It’s not just a summer pop-up anymore, we grew up. Our spot is in Beit Romano, which was an old textile mall, built in the 1940s. It was deserted for many years and we brought it back to life. We also opened a restaurant called Romano. It’s a big playground for us to have all sorts of events. People can come see a live show, we have record fairs, fashion fairs, all sorts of events, around music and art.
How does that translate to your collaboration with the Jerusalem Film Festival?
We are building a radio station and bringing all of our equipment and sound system, putting up a bar at the lower level of the Cinematheque, and then we bring the best talents who can play, DJ and perform. We didn’t focus on a specific genre; it’s just good music. With the film festival, every day will be a little bit different in terms of the content. We collaborated with local promoters and venues like Pergamon.
What is the highlight for you of the Teder/JFF collaboration?
Last year, we had the most amazing closing party. This year, there are many live shows, so it’s hard to decide, but the closing party will probably be my highlight. I love that every day, we have a different style, different guests. It makes it very exciting for us. We are going out of our natural habitat being in the film festival and in Jerusalem. Our main programmer is David Rachmani. He’s Jerusalem-born. So he really managed this program for us.
What are your hopes for the future of Teder?
I hope for world peace and to be able to go to Ramallah. That’s my real hope. We look at people for what they do artistically. All artists and musicians are welcome to work with us and be a part of this movement. We believe in what we’re doing and in bringing people together in this way, all background and ages, from everywhere around the world. I really hope to expand that to territories that right now we can not go to, like Ramallah for instance.
For more information and details on Teder x JFF, visit www.facebook.com/ events/1369375876494042.