Interview with Dajjeh (Beirut)

Ghas Attack: Tell us about Dajjeh. First off what does ضجة mean? What was the inspiration behind its conception?

Dajjeh is a collective of seven people putting on punk and hardcore shows in Beirut for a little over a year. ‘Dajjeh’ means loud noise, and usually carries a negative connotation of something disturbing. It started in February 2024 in response to a feeling that there weren’t spaces for us to come together, scream along to the music we love, and release our frustration together. If there aren’t punk shows around you, you gotta make your own, whether they’re good or bad and whether people come or not. So we took the plunge and, thankfully, they’ve been pretty good, too. We hope everyone reading this, in Lebanon, in the rest of the Arab world, and around the globe, starts organizing the shows they wanna see.

GA: Talk to us about the punk scene in Beirut / Lebanon and how it fits into the underground movements there.

A punk scene formed in Beirut in 2005, growing and peaking around 2012 or 2014 or so. The scene got quieter for a while as a result of economic crises, revolts, musicians going other directions, etc. Since we’ve been doing Dajjeh, some of the older bands are coming back and there’s a new crop of exciting bands of all ages. We always remember our debt to the pioneers who came before us, and play their music at our shows. Some people from the original scene are playing at Dajjeh and we hope more and more of them do.

In general, in terms of the underground scene as a whole in Lebanon, punk was always smaller than metal, rap, and noise, and that’s definitely still true. There’s some solidarity across the underground scenes, as all of them are pretty marginal compared to pop and Arabic music. And we love our friends in metal and noise; and are hoping to build more bridges with rap as time goes on.

GA: 
What does the future hold for Dajjeh? Tell us more about what you have planned for 2025 and beyond.

As a collective, our hope for the future is to keep doing this, doing it better and better, and learning as we go. We also wanna see the punk scene grow in as many directions as it can. Dajjeh is not the punk scene, it’s just one event organized by one group of people. We wanna see everyone starting their own bands, writing their own songs, and playing them all the time, everywhere, with us and without us. That’s the dream, and it's happening.

If we ever got to a point where we could host touring acts from outside Lebanon, that would be incredible, as there are so many amazing punk bands that would find a great crowd here. A lot of them even sing in Arabic, which is a plus. But we’re keeping things non-commercial and airfare isn’t getting any cheaper so we’ll see.

GA: 
What are some of the challenges you face as a collective and how do you plan on surpassing them?

Obviously, there was a massive war and that made us stop for several months. The war isn’t really over, but we’re putting on shows again. Other than that, the biggest problem in Lebanon, and not just for us, is that gear and space is expensive. You wouldn’t believe how much drum kits, bass amps, etc. cost here, whether in the brand new expensive import market, or in the really small second-hand market. Because most bands don’t have their own gear, we’re building a backline for our collective. It’s slow going, piece by piece, and we benefit enormously from the generosity and solidarity of people in our community, but it’s been a challenge. Next up is space—most folks can’t practice in their apartments and rehearsal spaces and venues are expensive. We’re working on finding alternative spaces where bands can practice without getting in trouble with the neighbors but Beirut’s a crowded city—there are few truly isolated spaces, and we don’t have a budget to rent them. But we’ve made it this far—we’re gonna keep going.

A list of bands booked by Dajjeh (so far):

• AS_FELT
• CHRONIC TENSION
• GIDDEEE
• JOWAN TOHANNI
• KARAM SAAD
• MOISTY BISCUITS AND THE BROKEN BISCUIT
• OPEN ROAD
• RED TERROR
• SPLIT SUBJECT
• TA2REEBAN
• YABA JUICE