You thought you were safe. There you were, watching Tel Aviv's Monotonix from a safe distance during its last show here in town, as the audience collided on the floor with the band like deranged pinballs. As it has always done, Monotonix shunned the stage, opting for a more face-to-face immediacy. Sweat and beer sprayed as shirtless singer Ami Shalev stomped through the crowd, flapping his wings and positively seething into the mic. The trio's opening number had started off with drummer Ran Shimoni setting his kit on fire. The sweetness of lighter fluid still lingered with the smoke and sweat. Yonatan Gat's guitar was an apocalyptic mix of sonic noise, feedback, and classic rock riffs strangled out of the instrument from atop his amp. Things were getting wound up. And you thought you were safe. Sucker.

It's that moment when the vicarious becomes visceral. Somehow the swirling physicality that was before you has now consumed you, and you find your self holding a portion of the drum kit over your head as people behind you carry the drummer as he continues to play. The whole scene is heading to the street. Call it a revival, call it a tantrum, call it rock 'n' roll.

Monotonix floors it. That's not a comment on speed; Monotonix plays on the floor.

"Just to try to be more involved in the crowd and get people in your - how you say? - eye level," says guitarist Gat over the phone as he rolls from Montreal to Ottawa. "That the crowd and the band will be the same. That's the main idea behind it. We tried it the first time three years ago in Israel - it was our first show - it was a kind of crazy show, so we decided this is the best way to do it."

But things can get out of hand.

"It's happened sometimes where people get really wild," he says. "I mean, it's OK; we try to do things that will make them not violent, just try to make people get free and feel good about things and not getting violent or anything."

According to Gat, Israel isn't necessarily a hotbed of rock 'n' roll, especially the kind of over-the-top insanity Monotonix brings

"Yeah, we got a few problems in Tel Aviv," he says. "Sometimes they shut down our show, they said because of the volume we playing, and we kind of messed the venues. We don't play a lot of shows in Tel Aviv, so it really doesn't matter right now. Because most of our working in music is happening right now in Europe and in the U.S. and in Canada, so it doesn't bother us at all right now."

A Monotonix performance is more akin to a rugby match than a concert. Besides its obvious passion for rock 'n' roll abandon, you'd think the social and political unrest in Israel would creep into the music as well. Not the case, says Gat.

"No, no, no, no, no," he says. "We try not to involve the politic situation and all the issues in Israel right now. We [are] kind of [an] independent mind, thinking about music without being involved in Israeli politics and everything. We do not try to say we are not Israeli. We are not an American band or something like that. We are an Israeli band - a rock 'n' roll Israeli band."

Gat draws his sound from classic rock guitarists like Ritchie Blackmore, Jimi Hendrix, and Jimmy Page. The group has no bass, so he handles the sub-sonics as well as the lo-fi thrash and twang. The drums get molested, beat up more than beat on, and Shalev sings as if he is on fire. This sort of thing happens at a Monotonix gig.

"There was in Knoxville, Tennessee, some one guy took out lighter fluid during the show poured it over himself and set himself in fire," says Gat. "It was OK, just his hair."

Israeli audiences are a little more subdued.

"Sometimes they stand and sometimes they are a little bit afraid of us," Gat says. "So they are a little bit back off. Right here in the States, people get into the show immediately and dance. It's different, yeah."

But there's fire...

"The fire-setting we enjoy at our show is very controlled," he says. "We are checking the venues, with the promoter, if we can do the fire. And if we can't do it, we don't do it. In the places we do it, it's not dangerous at all, it's OK." Uh-huh.

Monotonix has taken several stabs at capturing its live insanity in the studio. Gat thinks the band has finally nailed it for an eventual release with producer Tim Green (of The Fucking Champs) at Louder Studios in San Francisco.

"It's very hard to do it," he says. "We have tried to do it for a long time. And in the end finally we succeed when we recorded with Tim Green at San Francisco, a very talented recording engineer. He captured the live energy for our live show and it was amazing, because we played live in the studio how we play live in the show and only the vocals and a little bit of the guitar was overdub.

Still, there's nothing quite like being there as the music gets stripped down and amped up, like the very human behavior it sets out to celebrate. It's a friggin' parade.

"People join us with their own instruments," Gat says. "And right now, during a few shows we [are] taking the drums out of the venue so people dance in the street. Basically, it's fun." 

Monotonix

w/Chylde, Ian Downey is Famous, Thinguma Jigsaw

Bug Jar, 219 Monroe Ave

Sunday, July 20

8 p.m. | $6-$8 | 454-2966, bugjar.com