While London had The Batcave and Manchester had The Hacienda, Tel Aviv had The Penguin Club. This is the story of Israel's underground music scene: Post-Punk from Jerusalem, Synth-Pop from Tel Aviv, and New Wave that London didn't know existed.
In the early 1980s, a small club on Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv became the center of Israel's alternative music scene. The Penguin Club (HaPinguin) was where you'd hear Joy Division, Bauhaus, and Depeche Mode years before they became mainstream. It was Israel's CBGB, its Batcave, its Hacienda.
Israel produced one band that made it internationally: Minimal Compact. Based in Amsterdam and later Brussels, they created dark, hypnotic post-punk that earned them a cult following across Europe. But back in Tel Aviv, dozens of bands were making music that fused Middle Eastern melodies with European post-punk and New Wave.
The Israeli alternative scene of the 1980s is one of the most under-documented music scenes in the world. Rolling Stone never wrote about it. NME never covered it. AllMusic barely acknowledges it. But it existed, it was vibrant, and it produced music that deserves to be heard.
80sMusic.co.il is the first attempt to archive this scene comprehensively. If you know something we don't, we want to hear from you.