Living Live | Music, Video and Events » Scooby Stew

Music Video of the Year

Scooby Stew — Thu, 27 May 2010 15:54:05 +0000

Is this apparently. To be fair it’s pretty darn good.

‘Underwear’ by FM Belfast

Scooby Stew — Thu, 27 May 2010 11:38:30 +0000

This is still a music video blog, I haven’t gone crazy and started talking about women’s underwear, yet. It’s been a while before I have spotted a new band about to hit the big time. It’s also been a while since a new artist has emerged from Iceland. I am talking about the band ‘FM Belfast‘. I don’t know what it is about Iceland that seems to make awesome bands. I cannot think of a single Icelandic artist that are not amazing, granted there are few.

Their song ‘Underwear’ sounds fresh and fine. With a lucky break on a TV ad or getting picked up by radio 1 I reckon it could be a big hit this summer. It’s got an awesome music video too. It seems to follow the vibes of small town kids that I am seeing a lot of recently. By that I mean alternative people stuck in boring small towns. Here are the lyrics and video to ‘Underwear’

We are counting down the days, until nothing

We are running down the street in our underwear, we are running up the hill – it’s over there

Cus nothing ever happens here.

Where everyone keeps off the grass, no littering, no loitering, no nothing, no nothing, no nothing

We are running down the street in our underwear, cus nothing ever happens here.

We come from a place where we count the days, until nothing

Lissie – Bad Romance (Lady Gaga Cover)

Scooby Stew — Mon, 17 May 2010 13:35:58 +0000

I have always taken the opinion that covering songs can be good and can be bad. It’s bad when you have just ran out of ideas or you are not creative enough to do your own thing well. But cover are good when you get creative. You can be just as creative in covering songs as you can with writing your own.

So we like to reward good covers here at living live, and here is a pretty awesome one. It’s not that creative, but it is bloody good.

Them Crooked Vultures Album Up Now

Scooby Stew — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:12:41 +0000

Not only is today the Release of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 but the eagerly awaited album by Rock Super-group Them Crooked Vultures is now available to stream on Youtube. I’ve had the first listen of the album and can safely say you will not be disappointed. This is rock and roll like you have never heard it before.

It has the unique sounds of a concept album, the pounding rhythms of a classic rock band, the swagger of the blues and all this with distinct modern overtones that thumps the mainstream music industry square in the crotch then runs off with its girlfriend.

Here is the first track and perhaps the best off the album. Stick with it and at 2.44 you will know exactly what I’m talking about!

Dubai Sound City Festival Takes Off

Scooby Stew — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:33:50 +0000

When you think of music festivals, you probably immediately think about sitting in a muddy British field being rained on sat next to some hippies. But there are swiftly becoming more options to enjoy the best in live music without getting dirty.

Festivals are becoming more urban, with the likes of the O2 wireless festival in London that take place in Hyde Park. Now the fastest developing urban scape on the planet has its first festival. Dubai is a special city for many reasons. It has transformed from barren desert land into one of the most modern cities on the planet in less that 20 years. It is host to the very nearly finished Burj Dubai, now the worlds tallest building at a simply massive 818 meters tall.

The First Dubai Sound City Festival took place last weekend and featured nearly 50 British bands. The likes of Human League, Doves, The Futureheads, Happy Mondays, The Wombats and Echo & the Bunnymen took to the stage at one of the 6 venues in the centre of Dubai that hosted the festival. With a population of 2.5 million people, you can see why the festival has attacked so many British band to perform in Dubai. With the music industry supposedly struggling to cash, Dubai and the United Arab Eremites is largely seen as an untapped resource for music sales.

The festival is rightfully hailed as “the worlds hottest winter music festival” and its not just because of the temperature. It’s worth booking your flights to Dubai in time for next years festival, which is sure to be even bigger and better.

Empire State Of Mind

Scooby Stew — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:49:43 +0000

Here is the new video for Jay Z’s track Empire State of Mind. It’s one of my favourite tracks of the year and the video is pretty cool to. Good Work.

Interview With an Event Production Manager

Scooby Stew — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:29:58 +0000

Last night we conducted an Interview with a local Entrepreneur who has started his own event production company. Here it is:

What’s the nature of your business?
I provide a range of services in the events, music and video industries. Anything from full event production, equipment hire, studio music production and television/film production.

Do you have any other business?
No

Do you have any business qualifications?
I do not

How did you take your first step?
It was a gradual progress that I guess started when I got my first job as a technician in the events industry. I immediately took to job and you have to continuously learn new skills to keep up. I had a keen interest in music and video production previously began building a stock of my own equipment and eventually began starting doing paid work for people in my spare time. I also worked my way up to being the technical manager at venue and from this learned the skills to run events as well as managing a team and a business.

Did you use a business plan?
I let the business grow naturally by making contacts threw working shows and gradually getting in larger and larger projects. It’s very much who you know in this business. Reputation is important, so by in a way our business plan has been to always provide and excellent service and continue to make new contacts in the industry.

How did you market your business?
We are a new and exciting company with a real passion with what we do. We stock only the best equipment and provide only the best service for customers in order to maintain a great reputation and gain new business.

How much of a risk did you take to start the business?
What started as a hobby naturally grew into a business over a period of 4 years. For this reason risk was always minimal as I had a steady income threw out, continuing to work employed with other companies and building up savings until I was getting enough business to safely commit all my time and invest more money. I was fortunate to get free second hand office furniture and made use of anything free I could get my hands on.

What did you have to sacrifice?
Working long hours meant I had to scarifies in my social life but that’s it really. I had to sell my car and to invest in a pair of used vans but they are small sacrifices really.

What were your main aims and goals how did these goals come about?
Well our main goal it to continue growing until we can provide enough equipment for entire tours and festivals. We have a team of technicians now and we all want to be working on the biggest and best shows in the world. Ambitious, but achievable as far as we are concerned.

Were you realistic about your ambitions and goals at the start of the project-give examples?
We’ll the business has grown better than expected each year. This year we got deals to run our first festivals and tours, albeit relatively small and local ones. But it is experience that we build on each year, so as long as we continue to progress as we have and keep on getting bigger and bigger shows we will continue to reach our ambitions.

Do you employ anyone?
Yes, I have always employed self employed technicians to work on our events, but this year i have taken on our first 2 regular members of staff working 3 days a week in the office, as well as working on site whenever we do events.

Did you find it hard to create a team that you could trust?
No. From working in the business for a few years you meet lots of technicians and get to see how they work in high pressure environments. I met all of my team doing the work I now employ them for, so I chose them knowing they were up to the task. I employ a very open management role, where I am always honest with my employees under the condition that they are honest with me.

How do you encourage and convince others to commit?
I think a very open and honest working environment is key. I only want people working for me that are committed to a career in the events industry and that appreciate that working hard for my company is perhaps their best shot at getting to where they want to be.

Have you made any unpopular decisions along the way?
It’s sometimes hard to keep a group of competitive individuals happy when I cannot give them all work on some events. Sometimes I have to give work to more suitable individuals over employees that have been working for me for longer because they are more suitable. This is sometimes unpopular with other employees but is accepted.

What are the main advantages and disadvantages to running your own business?
I enjoy getting to make they key decisions. But the main advantages in a business like this is that I have a lot of equipment that I can use for my own use, and can lend to friends and relatives if I wish. Having a big PA system means i throw an awesome party.

Has it changed you as a person?
I certainly got into it quite young which made me grow up pretty fast. It’s made me a more confident person and Im a lot happier getting to do something a enjoy for a living.

How does running the business affect your social or personal life?
It certainly takes up most of my time. I don’t get to socialise as much as i used to and my circle of close friends that i don’t work with is perhaps smaller than before. But the amount of free time i have varies depending on the amount of shows I do in a week. some weeks I will have evenings and weekends free, whilst others i could be working for a week non stop at a festival or tour.

Do you have a system for time management?
Just to be honest with my staff and employ a reliable and honest team. I give credit where credit is due and provide only constructive criticism. I’ll also always look to offer employees with new training for new skills to better them and the company.

Do you have any other goals or ambitions for the business?
It would be nice for it to eventually grow to be large enough for me to employ someone to manage it full time and give me the option to eventually sell and retire.

Has the recession affect your business?
It has but with a kind of neutral effect. There has been a small decline in events happening, whereas there has been a increase in larger events. But the recession has made people shop around for better prices instead of sticking with their regular suppliers which has worked in our favour, as we have got a lot of work from people who could no longer afford to go to stage electrics.

Since start the business what has been the highpoint?
This year has seen a couple, I think our first Festival providing full event production successfully was a particular highlight.

Since starting the business what has been your low point?
There was one show over a weekend where we went completely over budget so I had to convince the staff to work at a reduced pay to reduce the loss.

Would you changed any decision that you made along the way?
Probably not, any mistakes I have made have been small, and its all been a learning curve, as long as you learn from your mistakes its still progress.

New Fang – Them Crooked Vultures

Scooby Stew — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:48:27 +0000

Here is the first complete track to be unearthed in studio quality from hot new super group Them Crooked Vultures. “New Fang” comes from the as yet untitled debut album, though if rumours are true its will be named “Deserve the Future”. The album will be released next month in the US & Canada but a release date for the UK and Europe has not yet been announced. More when I know more…

Rat Attack – The Southern Lights

Scooby Stew — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:15:13 +0000

More good stuff is emerging from the Exeter music scene. Rat Attack are a young hardcore band that have grown up in the Exeter punk scene over the years in various bands. After recently signing to Lockjaw records, you can find their latest record “This Is Art” at HMV, Play.Com and Amazon.

Friend of Living Live Carl Shanahan has just directed and produced a fantastic video for their single “The Southern Lights” filmed in Exeter’s Cavern Club. The Horror theme is just in time for Halloween. Enjoy.

Rat Attack – The Southern Lights from carl shanahan on Vimeo.

We Are Back!

Scooby Stew — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:21:09 +0000

Apologies for the site being down over the past few weeks. It’s all sorted now and we are back!

I Gotta Feeling – Quebec University

Scooby Stew — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 11:52:28 +0000

You know we love music video’s here at living live, and if there’s something we love even more it’s music videos that are done in one take. So we love this fan video made buy the students of Quebec University in Montreal for this one shot one take epic video for Black Eyed Pea’s track “I gotta feeling”. This is going to be massive.

Muse Live and “The Resistance” – Review

Scooby Stew — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:33:27 +0000

I was lucky enough to catch Muse live at their homecoming gigs at the weekend. A sell out crowd of 10,000 people on both Friday and Saturday set the stage for Muse to unleash their new album “The Resistance”

On the whole it was a good night. Being local their was lots of familiar faces around, but as a whole the crowd was disappointing. They were not the usual type of crowd you would expect at for Muse, but perhaps the sort of crowd they have thrust upon themselves over the last few albums. There was little passion or eagerness around which lead to a pretty laid back feel for what is not a laid back band.

Muse were on good form. The event production was great. It’s the third time I have seen Muse live, and it was probably the least engage I have seen them perform. Muse are relentlessly flawless live, but in my opinion they have been getting worse ever since Absolution, both in live performances and in writing new music. It just goes to show how amazing they were to begin with that they are still one of Britain’s best bands. But they have lost their drive, their angst and it feels like they have lost the passion which is part of what made them become one of the true greats of British music.

Black Holes and Revelations for me was disappointing, as it started Muse on their way to becoming a pop group instead of the unique rocking indie band we had come to love. Unfortunately the good old days of Showbiz and Origin of Symmetry are all but gone as their new album “The Resistance” continues their push into the mainstream with poppy, and in some cases R&B sounds. The production is more like a Madonna album than a rock album, and for the most part it feels overproduced and soulless. It’s not a bad album, far from it. But this is a new Muse, which lacks their fiery soulful origins that made them so great. It may well be one of their best selling records, but it ain’t got nothing on Origin Of Symmetry or Showbiz.

On a whole, disappointing from Matt Bellamy, who is probably individually a contender for best British vocalist, guitarist and pianist of all time. (oh and songwriter)

Now For Good News

Scooby Stew — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 14:38:52 +0000

After a fairly disappointing Reading festival this year, Despite an electric performance by and ever excellent Radiohead, and a surprise performance by Them Crooked Vultures, there is some exciting news about.

Them Crooked Vultures have announced a US and UK tour, including a gig at Plymouth Pavilions on the 10th December. I for one am gutted as I will be in the united states of Canada at the time. There is also a tasty sneak peek of the track Scumbag Blues Below.

In other exciting news electro genius’ LCD SoundSystem are working on a new album and are billing it as the “album of the decade”, only 5 month late. The album is likely to be released some time next year.

“I’m opening a book on how long it will take after this record’s release for people to be saying ‘If this was released five months ago, it would have been the album of the decade. I’m working on a song called ‘Why Do You Hate Music?’. Everyone seems to hate music right now, even people who make music. I’m doing what I set out to do on ‘Sound Of Silver‘, which is take more chances.” Claims front-man James Murphy.

Sounds good to me. Sound of Silver is one of my all-time favourite albums, its a flawless piece of work with a really unique sound. Definitely one for the collection.

Music Video: Red Mist – War Drums

Scooby Stew — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 12:03:14 +0000

It’s been a busy summer here at living live. We have met lots of cool new people and made some great collaborations, working on full event production, producing records, visuals for raves and now back to where we started, Music Videos.

Last month I collaborated with new Director and Editor Carl Shanahan lending my camera work to film a video for Exeter based metal band “Red Mist”. Hopefully have some bigger things in the pipeline so as always, stay tuned.

Here is the Final Cut Courtesy of Carl Shanahan:

Red Mist – War Drums from carl shanahan on Vimeo.