On the right side of the street

Debuting their latest album, pop trio Reines Girls will perform in good company at the Barby Club in Tel Aviv.

By DAVID BRINN
Good vibrations. Their album has recieved rave reviews 390 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Good vibrations. Their album has recieved rave reviews 390
(photo credit: Courtesy)
The gods of irony are probably cracking up.
Tel Aviv trio Reines Girls are debuting their new album Nishmor Al Haverim (Take Care of Your Friends) next week with special guests who are definitely not “Reines girls” – Tamar Eisenman, Rona Kenon, Emily Karpel and cellist Hadas Kleinman.
According to the band’s guitarist and singer Roi Friedlich, whose deep-throated vocals and spunky guitar pop have created a local buzz, the group’s name is derived from a slang term coined by Dann Ben-Amotz in his Dictionary of Spoken Hebrew.
“The term ‘Reines girls’ was used in the 1970s to describe unattractive women whose dates would walk with them on Reines Street, a side street of Dizengoff, so fewer people would see them together,” explained the 37-year-old Friedlich last week ahead of the debut show on February 29 at the Barby Club.
But as evidenced by the quartet of the above desirable females willing to share a stage with them, these Reines Girls – rounded out by Gai Goldstein on bass and Nir Wetstein on drums – do not need to walk in the shadows.
Take Care of Your Friends, the band’s second album after their 2009 debut, has received rave reviews in the local media, thanks to its first single, the effervescent “Slow Motion,” which Yediot Aharonot called “a juicy slice of 1960s energetic pop & roll.”
Reviewing the entire album, Israeli entertainment magazine Pnai Plus came to the conclusion that “Reines Girls are still the rock group that does it best in Hebrew in 2012.”
“We worked on the album for about a year, and I think the results speak for themselves,” said Friedlich.
The band members all grew up in the Haifa area but only coalesced into a unit when they moved to Tel Aviv in 2004.
“We got together around the time of our army service and then got back together seven years later,” said Friedlich, adding that in the interim, he had studied film and Goldstein had become a graphic artist. But since then, Reines Girls has become their priority.
Based on the musical results of their first two albums, it was the right choice.
Produced bv Avihai Tuchman, who will join the band on guitar at the gala premiere, Take Care of Your Friends will likely sound as good live as it does on record. And don’t forget to bring a date, whether you go via Reines Street or Dizengoff.