Allan Moon: Born in Toronto, raised in Manhattan, drugged in Tel Aviv, retreated to the Galilee

We all go through big changes. For singer and musician Allan Moon, there have been three that truly altered his life: as a boy, moving from Canada to New York, then to Israel at the age of 16, and finally his move up to the quiet of the Galilee. He’s distilled that life, the essence of memory, the downs as well as the ups, into the songs that make up his second album, Children of the Call (released January 20, 2015 on Songbird Records).

• “I was born in Toronto, raised in Manhattan, drugged in Tel Aviv, and retreated to the Galilee," Moon says. But it was New York that really shaped him. “The ‘80s were an amazing period there. Ed Koch, hip-hop, Keith Haring. I grew up with all of that.”

• It was a wild time, the young Moon running around to clubs and relishing the street life of a city that seemed to be in decay. It inspired “New York City” on Children of the Call, evoking the nostalgia of tall buildings and run-down neighborhoods on rainy days.

• What came next was the move to Israel, ostensibly to finish high school. But it didn’t quite work out that way. “I dropped out and moved to Tel Aviv,” Moon recalls. “I became part of the poetry scene there and had my first book, Word Felon, published when I was 20.”

He became a fixture on Israel’s bohemian arts scene, writing poetry and songs, designing CD covers and producing records for artists like Yuval Banai of Mashina.

But it was a trip up to Galilee that brought the third, and most surprising, change in Moon’s life.

“I fell in love with the place. It’s like New England, far from a desert. Sitting by the Jordan River, something sparked in me. For the first time ever, I felt at home.”

He moved there, releasing his acoustic debut, Song of the Wind. It was a deeply autobiographical, introspective record that captured the peace he’d discovered living on the Galilean. But six years later he’s ready to look outside – and back – from his surroundings.

“I wanted it to be louder,” Moon says. “I got my gang together, Tel Aviv’s finest musicians, each an established artist in his own right.”

So, with the help of people like Kutiman (Thru You), members of Balkan Beat Box and Boom Pam, the sessions began. Children of the Call is a mix of the wistful and the raucous, a cry to arms and a sweet celebration. From the funk that powers Kelly, voices swelling on a husband’s anguished plea to his wife to the long, floating moments of Bodyless, it’s a disc of turns and surprises. The only constant is that it’s quite unabashedly a rock ‘n’ roll record.

“We recorded three takes of Bodyless,” Moon recalls. “The first time it sounded very ‘60s and psychedelic, the second ‘70s, the last time ‘80s. We went with the ‘60s take. But when we were playing it back, I thought I kept hearing helicopters in the mix, so I had to put them in.”

The title track, with its sweeping orchestration, is Moon’s comment on the Arab Spring, and the uprising in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

“It’s my protest song,” Moon says. “I want young people to get off their asses and revolt, to make changes happen.”

But it’s not the only outraged cry on Children of the Call. The lead-off track, the politically incorrect lyrical torrent of Brainwashed rages against the dumbing-down of society and the vanishing of so many social values. It’s also the album’s first video, made with people recruited through the site fiverr.com, where people sign up to do all manner of things for five dollars.

“I’m a fan of the site,” Moon explains, “and I’ve used it for normal things in the past. But I realized having these people mime to the song was a commentary in itself. Why would someone rub himself all over with chocolate sauce and sing along to my song for five bucks?”

With Children of the Call, Allan Moon is loving, caustic, and hopeful. Settled now, he’s come out from the underground and into the light.