Yovav (Jay) Meydad's Personal Blog

Yesterday was an exciting day for Roy Zu-Arets and I. An album we’ve produced especially for the holiday season called “Snowflakes Piano Holiday Classics” was officially released.

If you were looking for an original music album to treat yourself or give as a gift in the coming holidays just visit iTunes , Amazon or order as a physical CD.

In “Snowflakes” Roy played in his unique style, renditions to seasonal classics such as Silent Night, Joy to the World, Jingle Bells and others. The result is a charming album that uniquely convey the serenity, joy and magic of the season.

You might ask yourself what do two Jewish guys have to do with Christmas songs? Well, we don’t. But when we first listened to the melodies without reading the lyrics, we actually heard a wide variety of music styles that show we are all coming from the same roots, including Israeli folk (O Little Town Of Bethlehem), Sephardic Romanca (The First Noel), a Classical composition written by the great (Jewish) composer Felix Mendelssohn (Hark The Herald Angels Sing), Blues & Soul (O Christmas Tree). Plus, if you look closely at the snowflakes that are on the cover you will see that in the center of each one of them there is a Start of David. I noticed this only after Ken sent his final design, so I assume it was a sign from above that we are doing the right thing.

I know I am biased, but when Roy called me a few days after we finished recording all the tracks and said “I hardly listen to my complete albums after they are done but in this case I keep listening to the songs over and over”, I knew we created a very special product.

The beautiful artwork was designed by Ken Messenger who used to be on my team at at Snap and now runs his design studio. Highly recommended designer.

Here’s a version of Jingle Bells that we posted to our YouTube channel.

Let it snow.

Update (1/26/2010):
There is a new iPhone app that eliminates the need to configure FStream. Read about it here.

Original post starts here:
According to Google Analytics this old post of mine is one of the most popular on this blog. It is time to refresh the list, add new Israeli radio stations streams and fix the broken ones.

The updated list below uses a stream url structure from fm1.co.il. Simply launch FStream on your iPhone / iPod Touch and configure it to use the following streams. Enjoy.

Galaz -  http://www.fm1.co.il/playnow/glz.asx

GalGalaz -  http://www.fm1.co.il/playnow/glgltz.asx

88fm -  http://www.fm1.co.il/playnow/88fm.asx

Kol Hamusica (classical music) -  http://www.fm1.co.il/playnow/kol-hamusica.asx

Reshet Aleph -  http://www.fm1.co.il/playnow/reshet-aleph.asx

Reshet Bet -  http://www.fm1.co.il/playnow/reshet-bet.asx

Reshet Gimel -  http://www.fm1.co.il/playnow/reshet-gimel.asx

Regional stations

Kol Hacampus (one of my favorites, run by students, plays plenty of alternative music) – http://www.fm1.co.il/playnow/campus.asx
Radius 100fm -  http://www.fm1.co.il/playnow/100fm.asx

Radio Tel Aviv 102fm -  http://www.fm1.co.il/playnow/102fm.asx

Radio Lelo Hafsaka 103fm -  http://www.fm1.co.il/playnow/103fm.asx

Radio Lev Hamedina -  http://www.fm1.co.il/playnow/91fm.asx

Radio Emza Haderech -  http://www.fm1.co.il/playnow/90fm.asx

Radio Kol Rega -  http://www.fm1.co.il/playnow/96fm.asx

Radio Jerusalem -  http://www.fm1.co.il/playnow/101fm.asx

Radio Haifa  -  http://www.fm1.co.il/playnow/radio-haifa.asx

Kol Ramat Hasharon – http://www.fm1.co.il/playnow/kol-ramat-hasharon.asx

A few weeks ago my friend Roy Zu-Arets (disclosure: I created his wikipedia page) who is the most gifted musician and very original composer I have had the luck to meet and I began working on a fun side project that involves music & social media. We call it “The Vibe Of Now”.

The idea behind “The Vibe Of Now” is to create a musical micro-blogging experience – release of original compositions that are created in a spontaneous, immediate, unplanned and instant way and reflect what the composer is feeling at that moment. The entire production process is also very fast. We meet at Roy’s studio in Hollywood three times a week (Mon, Wed and Fri) for 1 hour. It takes us 45 minutes to record a piece, mix the video with stereo audio that we pull out of the recording console and publish the clip to YouTube.

Both of us have worked and released products that reached millions – I have done it in the internet space at Snap, JDate and ICQ and Roy has worked as a composer, pianist and producer with many artists, performed in prestigious halls in front of thousands and produced platinum and gold albums. But this small side project has its own magic and is very exciting for both of us. Users from all over the world send us their feedback on the music videos and how they touch them. Our YouTube channel metrics are growing week after week – the number of daily views, subscribers (now is a good time to become one), friends, comments and ratings.

A few days ago we reached a new major milestone with the release of Roy’s first solo piano solo album (after a 20 year career of playing, producing and composing with and for others) called “Confessions of a Composer”. The album features selected tracks from the first series Roy released to YouTube during the summer of 2009 plus a few bonus tracks recorded with guest musicians. You can buy the album on iTunes , Amazon or order as physical CD.

We are also about to put the “The Vibe Of Now” concert. It will be a very original and different show from a typical piano recitals, and it will feature the album pieces, variations on a theme of known songs but with some twist, and original compositions that will be composed during the concert together with the viewers similar to the process that happens at the studio. If you are interested in bringing Roy to your venue, university, tech-conference, town hall or your next corporate event, please contact us.

Next for us are a few additional mini projects:
* A special album for the holidays which is being finalized these days (Update: It is now live)
* Collaborations with some of LA’s finest musicians
* A 100% live session that we will stream to the web using UStream and twitter
* And probably a few more fun projects since the tools we have in our hands allow us to do almost anything and take it to the masses.

Last thing – this project would not exist without users’ feedback. So if you have one for us, a request, suggestion, media inquiry, touring/booking request or a testimony/album review, please contact us using this form or on twitter – royzuarets or jaym.

The bootlegs for the two Pearl Jam concerts that I saw in LA were released a few days ago and today I finally got them.

What I find cool about them is the way the look and sound. They concerts were recorded and manufactured by a company called Kufala based in Paso Robles. Their unique eco-friendly chipboard packaging was the first thing I noticed. Their turn around time from purchase to delivery was super fast (less than 48 hours!). No wonder the band selected them to manufacture all the bootlegs of the tour, and If you are a Los Angeles base  artists who is looking for a bootleg recording service you should check them out.

Moving on to the sound quality of the bootleg. Although I was pretty surprised from the audio quality of my videos that I captured using the Ultra Flip HD , the bootlegs sound fantastic which makes it a completely different experience.

Now I am starting a long project of mixing my HD video setlists with this audio. I have a little over 50 songs to work on and hopefully Final Cut Express will make this a fun experience. The biggest pain would be syncing audio and video without a clapper. I will probably master video editing techniques once this project will be completed around the end of the year.

Only 6 days ago I  saw Pearl Jam performing an excellent show at the Gibson Amphitheater. However, last night is by far the best rock concert I have ever seen and one that will probably become one of the most memorized and mentioned shows in Pearl Jam’s 2009 tour.

Reasons:

1. Set: plenty of non-hits you don’t hear often – Faithful, Unemployable, Footsteps are just a few example. Between yesterday’s show and last week’s show I saw them perform 35 different songs. Only 9 songs were played in both shows, 5 of them are from Backspacer (Got Some, The Fixer, the fantastic Unthought Unknown, Just Breathe and The End) so they still sound fresh, new and very exciting.

2. Fans: The fans energy level was a lot higher than last week’s first show and the band reacted well to this. When the special guest (see below) came on stage the roof exploded off.

2. Gibson Amphitheater Acoustic: I said it in my previous post but must say it again. The sound quality in this venue is fantastic. During the first encore opened with Eddie team with a string quartet and performed Just Breathe, The End and Lukin (you got to see the video). Unlike last week’s show, last night you could actually hear the strings providing incredible cover to Eddie’s voice.

3. Special guests: the highlight of they evening. Into the 2nd encore Eddie said something like “what makes certain nights special is the presence of one person in the room…” and then he surprised/shocked everyone and invited Chris Cornell to join the band. Their performance of Temple Of The Dog’s Hunger Strike was fantastic. Chris’s voice sounded so good and the band performed it so well.

And finally, right before we thought we have seen everything, in the middle of the final song, Alive, as the song’s guitar solo started, Mike McCready handed his guitar over to Jerry Cantrell (Alice in Chains) who made my ears bleed…

What an epic performance that I am so happy I captured on my Flip HD (all songs except for two). It was difficult not to sing & jump and luckily my battery lasted all the way to the end. When the bootleg will be released I plan to get it and mix the video with high quality audio.

BTW, looks like my Hunger Strike video was picked by the RollingStone. Nice.

Here’s the entire playlist embedded in this page. Just hit the play button, expand the video to a full screen mode and turn on the volume.

Update (10/8/09): My buddy Bill went to the last Pearl Jam concert in LA last night. He was gracious enough to take my camera and shot the entire show. After you are done watching LA3, you might also want to check out LA4 playlist. It was a fantastic night as well.

Let’s rock!

Wow!

Pearl Jam put together a spectacular show last night in front of a full Gibson Amp (~6100 seats) in LA.

The concert opened really strong with Why Go, Animal, World Wide Suicide and Got Some which were just the beginning to a well performed, top-notch rock concert. Other than those four songs, the set list included 6 other songs from Backspacer (which is fantastic album), a mix of old songs from the all of their previous albums, including a few non-hits they normally don’t play like Rats.

Ben Harper who did the opening show, joined the band in the middle of the first encore and played Red Mosquito (video is from the Portland show) and his sliding guitar sounded fantastic and added plenty of depth to the song. The show ended, after almost 2.5 hours and two encores, with Neil Young’s classic Rockin’ in the free world.

The sound and acoustic the Gibson Amp provides is world class, and the stage & lightning design were extraordinary (pictures here). My only regret is that I left my Digital SLR at home and only had my iPhone with me to document it. At the seats I had those could have been amazing pictures.

Bottom line — The way Pearl Jam plays together, the way they interact with the fans, the way the fans participate in every song and sing all the lyrics, is what makes Pearl Jam the best (live) rock band in our generation.

Here’s a video another fan took last night of my favorite tracks from the new album, Unthought Known.

I have known Roy Zu-Arets since our sons attended the same day care a few years ago. Since then I have been closely following his unique journey in life which includes music, Judaism and a constant struggle of a musician trying to make it big.

After all, it is not easy to do what he is trying to do given his background. He started playing piano at the age of 3 and began his professional music career at the age of 12 (!). In his early twenties he was already a busy music producer, composer and pianist in Israel. He played with many artists, produced mega hit records and concerts like Rita‘s “A Great Love” 4 times platinum album and tour, HaYehudim (The Jews) debut album called “Separate Reality”, one of Meir Banai’s albums and many others including Guy Zu-Aretz (his brother) upcoming album. He wrote scores for movies and theater and had a successful and busy career in the Israeli music industry. But then he decided leave everything behind and went after his dream – move to the US to become a musician in the premier league. He first spent a few years in New York where he attend Julliard & Mannes music academies, and then he moved to Los Angeles where he is trying break into the small, close group of Hollywood movies score writers. In the mean time, he is slowly establishing impressive milestones n the US which including producing Taking Back Sunday’s “Where you want to be?” platinum album, and writing MacHeads soundtrack, but he has not gotten to work on a really big movie since in Hollywood it is very difficult for a “nobody” to become “somebody”.

This might change though, very soon, thanks to the way he uses YouTube to share his talent, music and work process with the masses. Every morning, as part of his warm-up, he improvises melodies based on his mood and feelings. None of these melodies were composed before and he does not memorize notes – he “simply” plays the melody that is going in his head at that very moment. His studio neighbors, owners of a video production company, heard him play and suggested to video tape those short improvisations and publish them to YouTube as part of a documentary series called “Confessions of a Composer”. The videos are recorded using two iPhone 3GS phones, the sound is recorded separately using Roy’s studio equipment (thus the high quality), and then they mix and edit everything to a short video clip that gets posted to YouTube. This entire process happens 5 days a week, Mon-Fri.

I predict that it is just a matter of time until one of Roy’s improvisation videos will become a major hit on YouTube. Naturally, the variation on a popular songs tend to get more traffic and views (probably not enough views given the quality of these videos), like Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours” (see embed below), Michael Jackson’s Earth Song and Black Eyed Peas – I Gotta Feeling. But the improvisations are even more fascinating to watch, as they truly show his qualities as a composer and pianist.

From what I have gathered from Roy, the amount of feedback he has been getting after a few weeks of daily videos submissions is unbelievable. This includes comments, ratings and many emails from YouTube viewers from all over the world. More than that, a well known Hollywood director who stumbled upon one of his videos and loved it, already came to meet Roy at his Hollywood studio.

So, here are two video clips that illustrate how talented and versatile he is. My recommendation is to subscribe to his channel as well as go back and watch all the videos uploaded since the project began on July 13th. You will get a daily injection of heavenly and inspiring music from such an extraordinary & gifted talent.

If you love music and read Hebrew you should make a habit and read Haoneg, a fantastic blog written by Guyha.

Beyond being a very talented writer and someone with great taste in music, Guy is also running a small label called Hiss Records that signs artists he and his partner, Morphlexis, love to hear.

This is how I was introduced to Nadav Azulay and his debut album that was produced by Hiss. From my first listening to Nadav I was blown away by his personal lyrics, music and signing. This young guy is an evidence that there are some great young Israeli rockers out there. It is just a little harder to discover them.

You can listening to the full album & read the lyrics on this bandcamp page.

If you want to learn more about Nadav and his music listen to this radio interview. Beyond the chit chat, Nadav and his partner, Gil Nemet, performed live many of the album songs and a few others unplugged. And if you fast forward 12:30 minutes into the mp3, you will hear a live performance where Gil plays drums and piano at the same time!

And here’s a taste of Nadav and his band in action, something I hope to see in person on my next trip to Israel.

Berry Sakharof performed last night at the Avalon Hollywood club in Los Angeles and gave a great 2 hour rock concert, and as in every Berry’s album and live shows, it was decorated with fantastic electronica (thanks to Gidi Raz on samplers) and some middle-eastern motifs.

Few other things to mention:
- Adi Renert can play keyboards for rockers and not just for mainstream artists. Very refreshing.
- Aviv Cohen is an amazing young drummer. I was really impressed with him.
- Oren Lotenberg is like an all around basketball player when it comes to guitars. You want to have someone like him on your band.
- At the age of 51 Berry is still miles ahead of many young Israeli artists in his ability to write, compose, and perform fantastic Israeli rock.

Below is one clip of Kama Yossi (with a talented trumpet player I can not remember his name named Lior Ron, who saw this clip on YouTube and contacted me) and I have more on my YouTube page, including Birthday (with Infected Mushrooms). Too bad my flip camera could not capture the great sound quality this venue provides.

The additional clips are on this playlist.

Preface: This post is about a 55 years old dude who for the past 30 years has been defining and shaping the Israeli alternative rock scene. If you like alt-rock but don’t speak Hebrew yet, Fortis is a very good reason to learn the language…

Last week, eight years since his last studio album, Rami Fortis released his new album which I finally put my hands on. And he did it like no else would – a magnificent triple (!) album (“because in 2 years the format of a disc will extinct…”) full of the good old Fortis sound and many brilliant tracks.

Judging from the video below it is the best show in Israel these days. I just wish he will have a mini US tour and visit Los Angeles as part of it.

Watch in HD. Despite the poor sound quality you can feel the energy pretty well. The lighting is great as well.