The summer is on its way out already (although today was a peak for sun and heat!) and a summary is overdue. Here are in no particular order a bunch of images and videos.
Starting with the latest video project for Burning Head which we have started shooting this week, finishing Sunday and Monday if everything goes well. The artist is Starkey and the Label is Ninja Tunes and hopefully you will see that in this page pretty soon, here is a sneak peek.
Burning Head's latest music video in the making Burning Head's latest music video in the making
I shot a making-of for EMI’s new band To Kill A King, up in Bradford, for a 4 song EP video directed by Jack King. Watch out for this as this will be awesome, I can’t wait to see the 4 videos!
Ralph from To Kill A King on the set of the My Crooked Saint video
Sneak Peek of My Crooked Saint music video(s)
Video again, I participated in shooting a fun acoustic video for Olly Murs and Rizzle Kicks’ “Heart Skips a Beat”. The video was directed by Toby Lockerbie, and, apart from through my 5D, was mainly shot from GoPro cameras he set up everywhere including on the football or held by himself on top of a long pole. The sound was recorded on site, no cheating, that was really fun. Check out Toby’s excellent videos on Rizzle Kicks’ website here. The song was number ONE on iTunes for a few weeks!
Olly Murs at the acoustic video shoot
Acoustic rehearsal before the take - Olly Murs and Rizzle Kicks
And the actual video:
Rizzle Kicks again with pics from the making-of of the video shoot for their single “When I was a Youngster” directed by Toby Lockerbie.
Harley from Rizzle Kicks on the set of "When I Was A Youngster" music video
Jordan from Rizzle Kicks on the set of "When I Was A Youngster" music video
And more Rizzle Kicks with a live video we shot at the Camden Barfly here as well as a part of documentary shot at Proud2 at the O2 Arena. I don’t know if and when these documentary on RK, all produced by Jim Shreim, will be online anywhere as they are currently unreleased.
Rizzle Kicks after their show at the Camden Barfly
Best wishes to you all for this new year and decade!
In the Loud Pixels news: a recoding of the site to incorporate all 4 sections of my work on a single landing page: Main photography – Video productions – Loud Pixels – Loud Pixels Live (videos). The video productions site is a brand new one, using the magic of Wordpress, it now includes all my video work, including interviews (Lemmy, Tony Benn vs Nicky Wire, Hussein Chalayan, Needtobreathe), documentaries (The Like tour documentary – contact me for the password), Live videos (many bands!) and the Burning Head music video productions.
Talking about Burning Head, 2010 was a great year for us with 3 awards for our music video Tricil – The Emancipation, released on Clear Notice Records, which has also be voted #1 of the 100 best music videos of 2010 by MusicVideoJam. We’re looking forward to working on new exciting videos in 2011 so spread the word!
In other news, Cancer Research UK will have their Sound & Vision charity event at Abbey Road Studios in February where they auction a series of music memorabilia and fine art prints to raise money for the charity. This year two of my prints will be put on auction there (Paul McCartney and Brian May). Last year this event had performances from the likes of Robert Plant and Paul Weller. Very excited about this.
As for the Live photography this year was a busy one as I shot 183 bands, that’s one every 2 days on average! The Chronological archive gallery (in the menu) should now be up to date. Two of my shots (Vampire Weekend & a portrait of Mona) were published in the Guardian over Christmas. Latest were Interpol, Human League, Performance, Labrinth, Annie Mac, Roller Express and The Pogues.
This is getting mad and I never find time for blogging and the news are stacking up untold, that’s unless you follow my Twitter. So a short summeray and hopefully I’ll expand in the next few days with what has been going on on the Loud Pixels front.
The tour went great with the prettiest band this side of the galaxy, The Like, who rocked the stages of many cities in Europe. I am giving the final touches to the documentary edit and will hopefully be able to say where and when this is going to be broadcast. More videos as well were added with American rock band Needtobreathe as well as Punk legend WIRE playing an intimate show at The Lexington earlier this month. All this will be shown very soon in here. As well as a number of stills galleries featuring Klaxons, Warpaint, Mystery Jets, Band of Skulls, Wire, Tinchy Stryder, Amy MacDonald, Pete Lawrie, The Charlatans twice, Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip twice, Shaun Ryder, Chuck Ragan, Gaslight Anthem, Maceo Parker, The Like, Detroit Social Club, Pearl and the Puppets, Liz Lawrence, Mona and Diana Vickers! Jeeez now I realise how long I haven’t updated this blog for !!! And presently getting ready to shoot Therapy? playing Troublegum at the Forum supported by Dinosaur Pile up.
On the Burning Head side, our music videos Calculus (Stretta) and The Emancipation (Tricil) are entered in the London Short Film Festival 2011 and are presently both in the top 3 of the Shooting People November movie of the month judged by triple Palme d’Or nominee director Michael Winterbottom, but more importantly we received 3 awards for The Emancipation, one in the US (Jamfest indy film festival) and two in London at the Renderyard Film Festival, good times! We’re accepting propositions for new music videos so get in touch via www.burninghead.co.uk!
And as per usual, working on some very exciting new things, that I’ll probably too easily not find time to blog about but will try anyway.
But for now en route vers de nouvelles aventures.
Z Berg of The Like, backstage in Hamburg - Oct. 2010
A series of new work here to start the week with an update.
Some live first with L.A.’s all girl band The Like performing two brilliant shows in London. The first at the Institute of Contemporary Art which we filmed and the series of clips will be very soon on the Loud Pixels Live collection. Here is a teaser with the song “Why When Love Is Gone”.
The next night they were playing in the cosy Islington pub and trendy venue the Old Queen’s Head.
The Like at the Old Queen's Head, London, Sept. 16 2010
Another live gig with former Razorlight’s Andy Burrows and his new band I Am Arrows playing the legendary 100 Club on Oxford Street. Note that the 100 Club is once again under threat of closure, mainly due to the ever increasing rent imposed to the club by the building’s owners, join the Facebook support page.
I Am Arrows at the 100 Club, London Sept. 23 2010
A few other images with a game of cricket in the nets of Lord’s last week where Scouting For Girls’ Roy, Greg and Peter were playing England cricket team’s Tim Bresnan and James Anderson before posing next to the authentic Ashes.
Scouting For Girls for a nets game at Lord's, London Sept. 23 2010
Scouting For Girls for a nets game with Tim Bresnan and James Anderson at Lord's, London Sept. 23 2010
And finally the party given by Run DMC’s Rev Run for the launch of his Foot Locker RUN NYC collection. DJs at this Aqua Kyoto party included Rev Run, Mark Ronson and Tim Westwood, all joined by a great crowd including Shingai Shoniwa from Noisettes, Paloma Faith, Keisha Buchanan, Jamelia, Roisin Murphy and more.
Keisha Buchanan at Rev Run's party, London Sept 21 2010
Mark Ronson at Rev Run's party, London Sept 21 2010
That was last night, in front of a totally ecstatic crowd, Pete Doherty and Carl Barat singing from the same mike again, The Libertines reformed and totally rocking the place, under the watchful eyes of Amy winehouse. Great emotion, totally made up for a horrible weather and a challenging lighting . Here is the gallery!
The Emancipation is the name of the track from Tricil chosen for our second music video with Burning Head, starring the talented Miss Maleficent Martini and we can now showcase it as it is broadcast to promote Enter Calico, the iPad application project produced by the label Clear Notice. The video has been entered into the Vimeo Festival + Award judged by the likes of David Lynch, Roman Coppola or Nicolas Schmerkin. You can also help by nominating it, just copy the video link http://vimeo.com/13230643 into the nominating page there. It has been entered to the UK Music Video Award 2010 as well.
Some more projects are already in the oven on the BH side. But some video actions are up as well on the Loudpixels collection and a new dedicated page should be added pretty soon. For the time being you can watch the two videos of CONVERGE performing at ULU on July 16th as well as Pulled Apart By Horses performing at Camden Crawl a couple month ago in London. These have been seen thousands of times and add yourself to the viewers and spread the links!
And for the good old music photography, the latest additions were Converge performing at ULU on July 16th (shot from the balcony where I was set to film as you can see above ), as well as two rather unlit shows and which have the common point that we were only in the pit for one song only, not because that was the plan but because security didn’t count to 2.. but if you ever tried to argue with security you know what I’m talking about . That was PiL, aka John Lydon’s Public Image Ltd, at Shepherds Bush Empire on July 19th as well as Good Charlotte last night July 27 at Koko.
Converge at ULU, London - July 16 2010
PiL at Shepherds Bush Empire, London - July 19 2010
Great summer so far for UK, splendid weather and hot festivals, well until today that is but I’m sure the sun will be back. Now I did it again, not updating regularly and there was quite a lot of action since last time so it will be another quick summary.
Last big news was the first Burning Head produced music video, we now have just finished our second video! This was a commission for the Mancunian electronica label Clear Notice, on a track called Emancipation from the talented electronica artist Tricil (Atlanta, USA). We can’t show it online for a while but this will be part of a very original release pretty soon so more on this later – there should be some kind of preview online in the www.burninghead.co.uk site soon. The video features Miss Maleficent Martini, the front-woman of the band Maleficent, and she is a truly talented dancer.
Snapshot of the new Burning Head video for Tricil "Emancipation" out soon on Clear Notice's Enter Calico
Since last updates I went photographing Dead Can Dance’s half Brendan Perry at a really nice show at the Union Chapel, it was great to hear this very familiar voice- as I have been listening to DCD a LOT, beautiful.
Brendan Perry performing at Union Chapel, London on June 10 2010
Then I left for the homeland to photograph French’s biggest metal festival, HELLFEST in Clisson near Nantes, France. This had caused many controversies provoked by a stupid minority of extremist catholics who probably thought this Hell festival was going to feature black masses, sacrifices and who knows the conception of a few antichrists? It is funny how narrow minded some people can be. Thankfully they got ridiculed in their action and the festival was really nothing but a very friendly yet very loud feast of metal. The line up was a real pleasure for the big heavy metal crowd, although the press was handled in an appalling way (or at least for photography) and the pit was invaded by half a hundred photographers of all sorts, which is nothing wrong really, if there had been a hint of organisation to ensure that the ones that are working (and there was already a lot of us) can actually work. Will give it a miss next time. My highlight was Jello Biafra who preformed a truly awesome show in the Terrorizer tent.
Alice Cooper at Hellfest, CLisson, France, 19 June 2010
Slash performing at Hellfest, CLisson, France, 19 June 2010
Motorhead performing at Hellfest, CLisson, France, 19 June 2010
Followed three busy days covering the photography in the VIP & backstage area at Hard Rock Calling 2010 (headliners Pearl Jam, Stevie Wonder and Sir Paul McCartney), another great HRC weekend ending up in gigabytes of photos from which here is a selection: Hard Rock Calling Day 1, Hard Rock Calling Day 2 and Hard Rock Calling Day 3, featuring The Hives, Gomez, Elvis Costello, Bill Wyman, Tiffany Page, James Morrison, The Chakra, Lissie, More Than Me, Alejandro Escovedo, Melissa Etheridge, Diane Birch, Corinne Bailey Rae, The Gaslight Anthem, Robert Francis, Rox, Joshua Radin, Crowded House, Urban Voodoo Machine, Joe Echo, Crosby Stills and Nash and the Jonas Brothers with their mate Frankmusic, pfiou.
The Hives at Hard Rock Calling 2010, Hyde Park, London, June 25 2010
Gaslight Anthem at Hard Rock Calling 2010, Hyde Park, London, June 25 2010
Bill Wyman and Micki Free performing at Hard Rock Calling 2010, Hyde Park, London, June 26 2010
Diane Birch at Hard Rock Calling 2010, Hyde Park, London, June 26 2010
Corinne Bailey Rae at Hard Rock Calling 2010, Hyde Park, London, June 26 2010
That’s all for tonight, lots of things in the pipeline, more in the next blog update!
I’d better update before the festival season kicks in and I’ll have far too many images in a short time!
One big news is that not only the BURNING HEAD site is online but our first music video, Coffee Machine by Born Dressed, is online! We have received already a lot of great feedback and feel free to give you opinion on here. There should be a launch party soon, watch this space (or my Twitter account here). This was shot in part at the Brixton Dogstar, a really cool and stylish bar with the nicest staff. It is starring Roxy Velvet and of course Paul Gravity the man behind Born Dressed (and ex M.A.S.S. & Hey Gravity!).
Burning Head is the brainchild of Franck Trebillac and myself, adding video production to our respective creative bows. More work in progress including another music video and a fashion video clip, hopefully all online mid July.
Recent shows covered were Brian Jonestown Massacre, Pennywise supported by Strike Anywhere, and Liars all on different days at Shepherds Bush Empire, Roses Kings Castles the new project of Adam Ficek (ex-Babyshambles) at the Chapel of St Barnabas and the new queen of Pop, Lady Gaga at the O2 Arena shot from the furthest we’ve ever been placed at the O2 so far, upstairs on the opposite side, that was a nice collection of huuuge lens on display during Telephone and Brown Eyes.
Lady Gaga's Monster Ball Tour at the O2 Arena, London, May 31st 2010
Lady Gaga's Monster Ball Tour at the O2 Arena, London, May 31st 2010
Ellie Goulding at Shepherds Bush Empire, London, June 9 2010
Adam Ficek of Roses Kings Castles at the Chapel Of St Barnabas June 7 2010
Pennywise at Shepherds Bush Empire, London, May 16 2010
Myleene Klass at the Classical BRIT Awards, Royal Albert Hall, May 13 2010
A lot of exciting things coming this month and I wonder when I’ll find the time to sleep! Follow me here and see my galleries being updated on my Flickr account.
Non-Stop bank Holiday weekend (Holiday?? what is a holiday?) when the Camden Crawl is overlapped by two shows from the godfather of all punks, the one and only unequaled Iggy Pop with The Stooges playing their 1973 cult album RAW POWER!
Ok forget chronological reporting, here is a gallery of the fantastic show from Iggy & The Stooges. I really don’t understand where Iggy finds all this energy, I mean, you could see the pogo didn’t last a full song as punters were getting tired. Tired? Iggy doesn’t know that word. And he keeps jumping in the crowd from the stage on and on (when not inviting the crowd to join him onstage!). It was also very moving when he was asking for the lights to be on the audience to salute them and everyone would stand and put their hands in the air as a rock’n'roll standing ovation, awesome!
Iggy Pop - Iggy & The Stooges at Hammersmith Apollo May 3rd 2010
The crawl wasn’t quite a sunny weekend out and about, Saturday was rain rain and rain, leaving me drenched and cold by the time most of the shows were done. And Sunday was freezing, and it looks like a lot of crawlers didn’t find time to dry and gave up on waiting outside in the cold. Anyway here is for the artists covered here, in a total random order, all linking to my Flickr galleries:
And as a preview, a video of a sonic mayhem I like to hear, energetic warm up set from Pulled Apart By Horses at the Black Heart pub before their show at Electric Ballroom later. I Punched A Lion In The Throat, awesome.
And to finish with this update, the first of a series of show by Fergie, Will.i.am, Taboo and Apl.de.ap at the O2 Are.na in Nor.th Green.wich, the BLACK EYED PEAS last night!
Black Eyed Peas Perform At The O2 Arena In London, May 5th 2010
More music photography news to tell and a lot more coming soon!
I had the chance to be invited as an exhibitor at the first edition of the new music photography festival Images En Scène taking place last weekend in France (La Roche Posay) alongside Francis Vernhet and Jacques Bisceglia to name a few. I had a great time, I received a very warm welcome and everyone was absolutely great. Quality exhibitions, live music, a debate on radio and lots of friendly new people met. I didn’t take my camera much with me so no images here but I’m guessing there should be images of the festival popping up on the festival site or on Flickr at some point. A big thank you to Yves Lafosse, Didier Coupeau and really everyone in the team!
My collection of 50 fine art Digigraphie prints will hopefully be seen in London soon! (and if you are interested in organising an exhibition for it get in touch).
This led to a brief appearance on French TV as you can see:
For some reason I appeared on the BBC’s “Bang Goes The Theory” on the same week, even though that was shot last summer, very odd .
Now busy times ahead as well with the famous Camden Crawl this weekend in, well, Camden, with an average of 15 simultaneous shows at any moment in various venues I will regret I wasn’t serious enough in my morning jogging resolution this year!! So if I don’t have an heart attack before Sunday night I will post some news here but I reckon you should follow me on Twitter for up to the minute news of what is going on in front of my lenses! And of course everything will end up on my Flickr gallery very soon.
And then more coming this way for a busy May starting with Black Eyed Peas at the O2 Arena!
. Here is the gallery!
. That was 
