“In The Heat of Tel Aviv” is a fast dance track originally sung by Sarit Hadad in Hebrew language. This track started with a slow tempo intro accompanied with some ethic instruments, then transformed into a 4 on the 4 type of dance track which I really like. ( Trance Music is one of my music roots. Yes, Electronic music is always the best! ) The vocal parts is somehow melancholic but in an aggressive high temper way. Since most of the demos I have got are the typical R & B dance tunes, this trancy hebrew song stood up from the crowd naturally.

In order to keep the essence of the mysterious mood, we decided to retain the style of the original arrangement. I did the music programming in LOGIC and gave the lyricist some directions. We then spent 2 days in the studio recording with Yumiko. The intro part is basically a ballad, and then becoming wild and aggressive after the beats kick in. 

Due to the nature of the voice of Yumiko is kind of bassy and thick, we were a little bit worry about if she can handle such a dynamic vocal singing style. After hours of trail and errors, Yumiko’s voice was extremely exhausted due to long hours of screaming and shouting singing in the vocal booth. She took a rest and quickly come back and insisted to sing again. I really appreciate her working attitude, she is the artist who is always looking for the best performance. Once again, we got a take that both of us and the record company are happy. 

Later, the record company decided to put this track as the one of the single in the album, and that was last year.

2 days ago, I got a message in facebok. Boaz Arad, a journalist from “Yedioth Ahronoth” ( The biggest Israeli daily newspaper)  who now stays in Beijing has heard our version of “In The Heat of Tel Aviv”. After some talk over the phone, he told me that he will publish this feel good story about Israeli hit pop song now got it’s own Chinese “version” being played to millions and millions of people in mainland China and in HK. I was a bit shocked and excited. Seems like there is a shapeless bridge between me and somewhere I don’t know much – Israel.

 Yesterday, Boaz sent me a copy of the newspaper:

In English: 

The Headline is: “A Tart in a Mercedes Benz riding the streets of Beijing” (That’s a take off on the original Hebrew lyrics of the song)

And the sub: “A Chinese language version of Sarit Hadad’s biggest hit is rocking the dancefloors in China”

How do you say “Party”* in Chinese? A Sarit Hadad song has been doing great in the charts in China and Hong Kong and rocking the dance floors of the world’s most populated country.

Yumiko Cheng, a successful Shanghai-born film star and pop singer which now resides in Hong Kong, is very well known in China – not only because of her fantastic voice and acting skills but also because of two well-documented incidents involving wardrobe failures during live performances.

While working on her new album, which came out a little more than three months ago, her producers were looking for a good, catchy dance tune – but couldn’t find any in Hong Kong. Through Yumiko’s record company, they approached different international labels which sent them various samples and demos.

One of the record labels, EMI, sent in a copy of Sarit Hadad’s “In The Heat of Tel Aviv”, better known as “A Tart in A Mercedes Benz” – probably the Israeli singer’s greatest ever hit. Both Yumiko and her producers immediately fell for it. “It was exactly what we were looking for”, says James Ting, a Hong-Kong based music producer and DJ which worked with Yumiko on the album.

Through the record label, an official request to use the song was sent to Israeli pop star Ivri Lider, who wrote the lyrics, and Israeli dance producer Henree, who wrote the music. Both agreed. Ting didn’t change even one note in the song – only the words were completely re-written in Mandarin Chinese.

The song, now telling the story of everlasting love and called “Five Centuries”, is doing very well in the charts and, according to Ting, is being promoted heavily by Yumiko’s record company which think it has “huge potential”.

And what do the Israelis behind the original song think about the new Chinese version? Ivri Lider heard it yesterday for the first time and thinks it’s “really cute”. Henree simply says it is “pure genius”.

“I was very surprised to hear the song”, said Sarit Hadad. “It is a big honor for me. I’d love to have an opportunity to perform it together with Yumiko. I’ve always dreamed of performing in China one day, who knows, maybe now it might happen”.

*”Party” is the name of Sarit Hadad’s famous album in which “In The Heat of Tel-Aviv” is included.

According to Boaz, this story had massive impact in Israel – an amazing feat considering they are two days away from general elections. It was picked up by every possible tv and radio show, which played Yumiko’s song back to back with the original, and discussed in bbs’s and forums. Here (http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3668162,00.html), for example, it was picked up by Boaz’s newspaper’s own web portal. The comments are super positive, both praising Yumiko’s voice and appearance and loving the fact that an Israeli song was picked up in such an “exotic” place like China… J  

Wow, I never expect something like this happen, and it seems the power of music is bringing two different cultures into one place. I wonder if there are any audience in Israel singing “In The Heat of Tel-Aviv” in Chinese…….

BeChom Shel Tel Aviv ( In The Heat of Tel-Aviv )

Hebrew version by Sarit Hadad:

Five Centries – Chinese Version by Yumiko: 

Note: there is a big mistake in the opening credit of Yumiko’s music video, which it says, ” Composed by James Ting”. I only noticed this after the release of the MTV (which is already too late), the credit in the original CD clearly written: ” Composed by Co Lider, Ivri/Mizrahi, Eli (Henree)/ Au Lideer, Ivri/ Mizrahi, Eli ( Henree)   Produced by JamesTing.com

Have a listen to this, if you understand Chinese, it may bring you some smile.

For those who don’t understand Chinese, the very first and the last song in this medley was written by me. And I produced this song for a 9 girl group “Cookies” few years ago.

Click here to listen New Version

Below is the original version by Cookies.

It is a great fun to:

1, Visualize my little musical idea in my mind.

2, Realize the idea into a music demo with the help of computer equipments/ synthesizers.

3, Sell your idea ( demo ) to record company, artist singer.

4, Amplify your idea with more budget from the record company, and hire top grade musician  to enhance the experience / spice up the tracks.

5, Communicate with lyricist  and see if he/she can breath in some new life into the song.

6, Further extend my idea by conducting the singer how to perform on such song. ( I usually drive the singer  crazy/ super exhausted during the vocal sessions. ask some of the singers I ‘ve worked with if you want more evidences. )

7, Finalize my song ( or it gradually becomes the artist’s song ) in the post production stage by fixing, vocal tuning, editing and mixing.

8, Seeing my tiny melodic idea becoming a real product which people cannot see or touch, but can feel and  listening to. Then if I am lucky, I may hear the audience started to sing with the song, or even …… move their body, and started to ….. Dance. ( on street/ YouTube )

9. Witness the musical impact to the world from the audience’s physical music response.

10. Sit back, relax and think, ” Hey, this song is written by James Ting. ” And wear a smile or tears on my face.  And most importantly, Thank GOD.

Click here to see some music response.

HOW TO SING LIKE A PRO

Check out this Remix version of Yoshiki playing drums, you will be amazed.

If you like YMO, this is for you!

YMO vs SPEED

“Shonentai from Johnny’s – Video Scratch”

Invader House ( the animation is actually very cool! )

Before the the Macbook Air, I was always looking for a small portable PC or UMPC during the past 2 years. I have tried the Samsung Q1 and the HP 2131 Mini-note PC. Both of the Samsung and HP are Vista system based machine and I bought them just because of its size. However, the design of the PC itself is way too slow for running the latest Vista, which gave me lots of pain during usage. And the battery life is very short, I can only use these machines for 1 to 2 hours without power adaptor. Even though the size is small and the price is cheap, I got turned off by the bulky power adaptor and I can hardly use them, so what is the point?

Not until I go back to the good old home of Macintosh Computer ( AAPL). With Macbook Air, I can finally enjoy the light weight beauty and the convenient of an ultra portable computer. Running OS X has already give me a home feeling, what’s more important is, I am now running my PC software on my Macbook Air using VMware Fusion. This magical software act as a bridge between Mac and PC platform and it can even allows me running both system at the same time. In the unity mode, I can bring my PC application window on the desktop of my Mac, cool Ah?

Gradually, my life style has been changed by the slimness and the powerful cpu of Macbook Air. I started to bring my computer out almost everyday. Whenever I know I have to go outside for a few hours, I will grab my Air without any hesitation. One of the reasons I have decided to start this blog is also because of the Air. Since Air is everywhere …..

I am not intending to write a review for the Macbook Air, however I would like to mention a few secret methods that I have discovered myself while using the notebook. During outdoor usage, the time span of the computer battery is a crucial issue to deal with. Since I mainly use my Macbook Air for reading E-book, typing, or brainstorming with application like Novamind Mind Map, ( I seldom do music outside my studio ). In order to give the computer a longer battery life, I usually dim the brightness of the monitor to just level 3 or 4 ( using the brightness button on the Air and set it to 3 “tick” only ). Then I invert the color of the whole screen by pressing “control + option + command + 8″ keys. This will change the background of the screen in black and the text in white color, which gives me a better view of the text during the daylight outdoor.

Also make sure you have turn off the Airport and keyboard lights when you don’t need it, and running less applications will also help reducing the power consumtion.

By applying these techniques, the computer use less power and I can easily squeeze the battery life form 4 to 6 hours.

Without using the power adaptor, six hours of computer work outdoor totally gives me an alternative working environment and lifestyle. If you want to write your new book, blog, essay in the park, on the beach or at the top of the mountain where no power supply can be found,  these methods can be a life saver.

I must say, this is the best show I have ever seen in my life. Believe me, I am a pro musician and have seen a lot of concert, from David Bowie, Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails, Chemical Brothers, Prodigy, Coldplay, Gwan Stefani, Pink FLoyd, Kraftwerk, Kinki Kids …… to countless pop Stars from Hong Kong, and tonight, I have seen the best one.

As I arrived in the Asia World Arena at 7:50pm, I saw a crowd of people lining up to the venue, and I didn’t see anyone dress in a ” Visual Rocker” style, so I naturally asked myself,” Is this really the place of X Japan concert? ” Anyway, I just get in the venue and got myself a beer which cost me HK$50.

As in Japan, the first night of the X show usually delay for whatever reason, and tonight we have waited for 45 minutes. Once I get  in to the concert hall, I discovered some pink hair HIDE alike audiences, then some more, and more and ……. more. Most of the fans tended to dress like HIDE. The scene of red pink hair really reminded me of the good old days. ( Yes, I did have orange red hair for over 2 years in 1998.)

Finally the show began under the thunderous screams of the audience, we saw Yoshiki playing piano and Toshi singing a ballad song. I don’t really know the song names, since I only know some classic X big hits.

Then after a short piano playing, Yoshiki quickly goes to his drum set and start playing a fast heavy rock track. Then all of a sudden, the “HIDE” alike X fan who stand in front of me started to bang her head like a machine, people stand up and trying to find his/ her own space to do the big banging action….. all in just 3 seconds!

Thousands of Crossed hands “X” gesture told me that I am in the right place with the right crowd.

From the ultra big TV screen behind Yoshiki’s drum set, we saw HIDE playing guitar. Just in case you don’t know, HIDE is the guitarist from X Japan who died 10 years ago accidentally in his own home.  The technical production is so good that we can feel HIDE is totally alive and Not dead, since his guitar playing footage is perfectly in sync with the other band members. Too bad there was no 3-D projection of HIDE tonight.

After a break, there comes Yoshiki holding a bunch of roses walking to the stage front. The girl who stood beside me got a rose from yes, Yoshiki, as well as her boy friend. I was standing right next to the front stage which costed me HK$1300 ( US$167). Fucking expensive! That’s what I thought last week. But of course now I know that I have spent the right money.

From the internet, I got the rundown of the show tonight:

Last Song
Rusty Nail
Week End
pata solo
longing
art of life
drum solo
紅
DRAIN
without you
tears
endless rain
I.V
X
say anything (ending)

In “Kirenai 紅”, Sugizo from Luna Sea is coming out as a guest guitarist. I am not a big fan of Luna Sea, but I think they have made the right choice of choosing the  guest player.

According to the announcement from Yoshiki, tonight is the first time that X Japan perform outside from Japan. When singing the song “X”, all the band members except Yoshiki were wearing China Dresses. And that make a big difference from all those gigs they have performed in Japan. You won’t see any visual rocker wearing china dress playing tempo 160 heavy metal track anywhere else, only if they come to Hong Kong. Then it comes the national anthem, “X”. I saw Toshi ( in China dress ) doing the X jump …..

The sound system, lighting and the projection is in top class production, and I have met my musician friend Larry, who is the responsible for the live recording tonight. ( I was hoping that he can took to to the backstage…… but no…:-(

Anyway, I must say the guys from X Japan really know how to manipulate their audience, in a good way. Especially during the end of “Endless Rain”, Toshi lead the crowd singing the chorus with him and that lasted almost Endless!

“ * ENDLESS RAIN, FALL ON MY HEART kokoro no kizu ni

LET ME FORGET ALL OF THE HATE, ALL OF THE SADNESS”

Another classic moment was born. My attention was on a super cute looking Japanese girl who stood behind me N rows, crying endlessly at the end of the 30,000 people “X Freaks Choir”. What’s most amazing is, most of the audience tonight are Hong Kong Chinese people, and their mother tongue is, of course Chinese. But under the influence of X, everybody seems to learn a foreign language fast and accurately.

Besides wearing China dresses, Toshi also spoke some Chinese during the whole show as well. Usually I don’t buy this, but he seems to speak the right sentence correctly in the right moments, I will give him credit for that. And in return, the Chinese audience all sing in Japanese + English.

The audience response is a priceless reward that every artist/ creator is looking for. I think X Japan has already developed a new religion with endless die hard fans. It worked 15 years ago and, it is still working now, and hopefully it will be the same in the future.

With the support from the other band members and technology, “Pink Spider” HIDE’s spirit and soul, will be sustaining long in our heart.

I am always happy to see the friendship made between Japanese and Chinese people. ( Half of my family members are from Japan. ) And tonight, thanks to X Japan, I have got myself a beautiful memory.

Check out some of the X Japan products:
X Japan CD Collection

Here is a video of X Japan Countdown Live 2009:

Anyway, I am so happy to see him doing a good job interviewing all the unrelated celebrities about Fighting on TV. He also made the opening beat by himself with the vintage synth gear in our home. Check this out.