Camel Drop Crew Interview

Q: Who stands behind Camel Drop Crew?
CDC: We are two DJs. Adam Mados aka “Scarz”, and Mark Vilther aka “Munchiez”.
“Scarz” was born in Beer-Sheba in 1989. He used to skate and paint most of the time. Scarz was exposed to Drum and Bass music when he watched a skating video in 2005. The movie is called Darkstar Batallion. One of the movie’s sound tracks was played by Amon Tobin; Sordid. This track inspired Scarz to enter the Drum and Bass music scene.
“Scarz” Mados is characterized by playing drum and bass music, liquid tech-step and drumstep. Scarz is also responsible for editing all the promotion video clips that they use in their parties.

”Munchiez” was born in 1989 in Ukraine. He immigrated to Israel in 1998 and settled in the south. His first encounter with the genre was thanks to a collegue friend, Lina, who took him to a dubstep party at the “Barzily Club” and since then, he says he met his true love. Munchiez” plays dubstep, liguid bass, deep bass and filthstep. He is also the art designer of their party flyers.

Q: How did you come up with the name Camel Drop Crew?
CDC: CAMEL was chosen because we live in the southern city Beer Sheba, which is called in Israel The Capital of the Negev. The Negev is a desert, and like other deserts, one of its symbols is the camel. Beer Sheba is surrounded with camels and we see them all the time. DROP refers to the sounds that we play – we drop tunes to our music.

Q: How did you team up?
CDC: We were good friends in our youth. We used to skate and listen to heavy metal together.
The army had taken us to a different ways, but after a few years we met again at a Dubstep parties in Tel Aviv. We went to many bass parties in Israel and while doing that we felt that this kind of music is missing in Beer Sheba. Therefore, we decided to bring the message to the Capital of the Negev. We were really surprised to discover that the southern audience was excited and open to this kind of music and there’s great demand to it.

“We felt that this kind of music is missing in Beer Sheba. Therefore, we decided to bring the message to the Capital of the Negev”

Tell us about the electronic music scene in Beer Sheba.
CDC: The electronic music here in the south is very colorful, and the major scene is Trance and Psychedelic Trance. There are many club / outdoor parties that host known DJS from outside who play with the local southern DJs. The two leading clubs are BARAKA and FORUM which often perform big productions. However, our music style – drum and bass – hasn’t penetrated into the southern audience awareness yet. In addition, one of the largest institutions in Beer Sheba, Ben-Gurion University, which produces great street parties for the students, is giving a stage to the mainstream music, and we feel that it is not open, yet, to our kind of music. We really hope that this concept would change so we could be a part of it in the future.

Q: How does your geographic location affect your work?
CDC: The main difficulty here in the south and in Beer Sheba is the terrorism attack from Gaza Strip. Some of our events were cancelled due to the massive rockets attacks and fragile security situation. Another difficulty was that most of the clubs in the south were not familiar with Dubstep and drum & bass music, so they disregarded us and there were rarely any parties. However, things have changed here since we established Camel Drop Crew.

Today, we have events twice a month and we are getting more recognition in Israel. We hosted some big Israeli producers and DJs like Vibes Attack, Submob, Shekel and Nechi Nech, Boosleg, Dj Pipe, Fuss, Red Eye Family, Plug-in Crew, Shoko Luuv and Missgosha, DJ Adi Lev, Bassick, Pilot Brothers, Tetrix Bass, Bleh and others. Also, we did a collaborative project with Noise Industry at the Baraka club. This was a successful experience and thanks to our hard work, Camel Drop Crew got in to the people’s awareness in the south.

Q: Where have you performed?
CDC: Grace Bar in Beer Sheba is our home club and we also played in the Forum, Baraka and Ha-Halutz 33. We’ve also played in clubs in Jerusalem (Bass Club), in Tel Aviv (Lima Lima, Barbie, Volt, Levantine 7, Sublime), in Ashdod (Lotus Bar), in Hadera (Kinsey) and in Kiryat Haim (Ha Nemala).

Q: What can we expect from you in this coming year?
CDC: This year we will continue bringing this music culture to the south. Tel Aviv’s “crazy” scene inspires and pushes us forwards. We believe that we are bringing something fresh and interesting. What drives us to continue with this project is the crowd that comes to every party and supports us big time. Also, Israeli DJs and producers show more support in us. We are hoping to grow and have big street parties not just in Beer-Sheba, but also in festivals in Israel, and host more famous DJs from abroad.