LIVE music photography

Earlier this year I slammed prediction lists as sloppy journalism fuelled by free lunches and freebies by PR agencies and record labels. Looking back this might have been a bit harsh however even in January most pundits were pretty much backing the same acts. Duffy and Adele were top of most lists however bands such as The Ting Tings, Foals, Glasvegas, The Courteeners, MGMT, Noah & The Whale, Black Kids and Vampire Weekend were all receiving a lot of press and radio interest.

Predicting who will be the big names of 2009 is slightly harder than this time last year however one thing which is sure is that the music industry will be in a sadder state on the 1^st of January 2009 than it was a year ago. For years the music industry had been regarded as recession proof and although the causalities of the past few months may have been less high profile than in other industries, this current recession will probably have a more direct impact on music sales and indie labels than any other in history. The recent collapse of Woolworths and EUK has lead to the demise of the retailer Zavvi (formerly Virgin Megastore) and the bankruptcy of the indie distributor Pinnacle has been arguably the biggest blow to the music industry in the past 10 years. In real terms 2009 will be a lot tougher for indie labels and bands and many of them will be relying on income outside of record sales to break even. With fewer independent outlets and distributors labels will need to focus on trying to sell more online and generate more income from other routes such as sponsorship deals, merchandising and concert tickets.

Whilst recessions are undoubtedly bad news for those trying to sell and market music is can be a furtive period for songwriters. Back in the last recession grundge was born spanning an entire new genre of rock music and early 70’s recession generated a new breed of songwriter such as David Bowie, Marc Bolan as well as prog rock bands who were the precursors of the likes of Muse. So is a recession such a bad thing? Yes and no. Evidently fewer records will be sold and more labels, distributors, promoters may go bust but maybe this will be worthwhile of the ones remaining are leaner, tougher and more in tune with the needs of the record buying public. At this point we don’t know who the Nirvana of the 2009 recession will be however I have compiled a list of ten bands and acts all worth following in 2009. One thing for sure is that there is a real appetite for new music and this can only be a good thing for the music industry provided that fans unearth and support new bands.

Florence & the Machine

Florence & The Machine have been tipped as one to watch for quite a while and their single “A kiss with a Fist” received heavy airplay on XFM back in the summer. I saw the band for the first time in June supporting The Ting Tings during the iTunes Festival and was blown away by their originality. The band has won the Brits 2009 Critics choice which will be awarded to them at the awards show on the 18^th of February (my birthday)! This is the second year of this award and last year the inaugural award was won by Adele. The band is also on the NME tour in February and will touring all month with Glasvegas, Friendly Fires and White lies. Interestingly enough they are appearing first on the bill which is same slot as the The Ting Tings last year! Let’s hope they replicate the same success.

The Virgins

2009 will see a series of 80’s influenced new wave bands. The Virgins who are from New York sound like a cross between The Bravery and Franz Ferdinand. So far they have gathered a lot of support in the UK and to date have supported The Pigeon Detectives as well as Mark Ronson on their live shows across the UK. They were recently featured in the Radar pages of the NME and their debut single “Rich Girl” is due to be released in early 2009 on Atlantic Records.

Official Secrets Act

I saw OSA earlier in the month on their second sold out night at The Barfly in Camden. As with The Virgins the band have their roots in early new wave. The band who are signed to the indie label One Little Indian have released a couple of singles. Musically the band remind me of the mid 90’s outfits Menswear and Gay Dad as well we Talking Heads and The Kaiser Chiefs. This band have not received the same hype as some of the other acts on my list however they are excellent live and have a good chance of breaking through in 2009.

La Roux

La Roux (aka Elly Jackson) has been causing a stir for quite a while. The 20 year old London based singer has released her debut single, “Quicksilver” on the indie label Kitsune which has become a club hit and recently featured as the No.1 dance single in the NME’s club chart. Musically reminisant to early Goldfrapp her future releases will be on Polydor and her debut album is scheduled for a release in June. La Roux has already been tipped to succeed by the BBC and MTV so I expect that she will be getting a lot of media exposure in the coming months. During January and February she will be doing a residency at the achingly trendy Yo Yo club in Notting Hill before embarking on a 9 date tour in March with Lilly Allen. La Roux is managed by the same team who look after The Klaxon’s and have a heavyweight team at Polydor supporting her releases.

VV Brown

I saw VV Brown supporting Ida Maria in November at the Scala and blown away by her performance and the breadth of her material. To date VV Brown has only released a debut single “Crying Blood” which has received a respectable amount of airplay and press. She is managed by the same team who look after The Sugar Babes and Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly and is signed to Island Records. VV Brown looks great and musically is more interesting than many of the other new female artists. Comparisons to Amy Winehouse are fairly obvious however her many influences are drawn from the 1960 Detroit scene. I am fairly sure that VV is a very strong contender for 2009.

Lady Gaga

Another female act that’s been receiving a lot of attention is Lady Gaga. Totally unlike the other female acts that I have mentioned Lady Gaga who is from New York sounds like a cross between Gwen Stefanni and Christina Aguilera. Lady Gaga will be in tour in January supporting the Pussycat Dolls, she’s already receiving a lot of interest and MTV support and predict that she’ll be very successful in 2009.

Friendly Fires

Although Friendly Fires have already released their debut album I am happy to tip them as one of the acts to break over to the mainstream in 2009. The band are second on the bill on the NME/Shockwaves tour which also includes Glasvegas. Their single “Paris” is due for a rerelease in the early part of 2009 which hopefully will put them on the map.

MC Rut

Middle Class Rut are a hard rock act from California who have been receiving a lot of radio interest from the likes of Zane Lowe at Radio 1 and XFM. The band were previously signed to Dreamworks however were dropped when the company decided to disband their hard rock label. Musically the band are similar to Linkin Park/Green Day. They are one of the few hard rock acts which have been widely tipped to break in UK market next year.

White Lies

White Lies are an indie guitar band from London who have been causing a stir in the music press over the past few months. The band are signed to Fiction/Polydor the same label as Snow Patrol, Elbow, Maccabees and Kate Nash amongst others. The band are also on the NME/Shockwaves tour and are a priority for Polydor in 2009. Musically they could be compared to Depeche Mode, The Killers and Placebo out of all the acts that I have mentioned in this blog White Lies are for me the one stand out act who I think could become massive in 2009.

Written By John Rahim

The Gibson’s Dark Fire guitar is with out a doubt the most technologically advanced guitar that has ever been made. The guitar which looks very similar to a Gibson Standard Les Paul can tune it’s self and has a staggering 200 presets of different tunings. The PR launch for the guitar which is going to in he shops next Monday has certainly been “interesting”. Last week the PR manager and I went around various landmarks in London and projected the Dark Fire guitar on the side of various London landmarks. Battersea Power Station went smoothly however when we tried our antics at the Tower of London were swiftly cautioned by the police under the anti terrorism act!

Thankfully the launch at Gibson’s studio went without to many hiccups. Justin Hawkins, new band Hot Leg were set to perform a private showcase at Gibson’s studio and to showcase the guitar which needed to be flown in from Germany especially for the occasion. Before the gig I did a couple of PR shots of the band which no doubt will be used to promote the guitar over the coming months. This was the first time I had met Justin and the rest of the band and have to say found them very friendly and accommodating (photographers have the tendency to ask bands do the most ridiculous things).

The gig was very good and very different to the other showcases that I have covered at Gibson’s studios in the past. If you are familiar with Justin Hawkins previous band “The Darkness” you will know what to expect, Hot Leg musically are a mish mash of 70’s glam rock such as Mott the Hoople mixed in with a bit of Hani Rocks and Queen. Hawkins being a great front man pulls it off with effortless ease and the songs although a bit rockier than his previous band are extremely catchy and memorable. Their new single “I met Jesus” is a wonderful pastiche of early Queen and although it may not reach the number 1 slot that Hawkins is hoping for certainly will put his new band on the map. The band are playing across February and March in the UK details of their shows can be found on they MySpace page.

Written by John Rahim

The strange thing about doing this job is that you never really know what you will end up covering. I had been scheduled to photograph the rock act Friendly Fires at Koko however somewhere along the way ended up in the photo pit of the Roundhouse covering the Will Young gig.

This was the first time that I had seen Will Young perform live and although I have never been a big fan of his music I have always thought that many of his songs are extremely well crafted. “Leave Right Now” which is an excellent song was written by Eg White the same songwriter who has recently penned songs for Duffy and Adele and many of his other singles have been high profile writing collaborations.

The show was certainly a mild mannered affair however Young’s performance was impressive. He seemed very relaxed and spent a fair amount of time between songs telling stories about his mum and gran! He has come a long way since winning Pop Idol in 2002 and interestingly his audience was fairly evenly split between 30 something female and slightly older male fans. There certainly are not any Will Young CD’s in my collection however, I can see his appeal and am not surprised that he has done as well as he has.

Written by John Rahim

I guess it’s coming to that time of the year when you start to think about who is going to be the next “big thing” of the following year. Last year my predictions of The Ting Tings, Courteeners and Foals were all fairly sound based on solid support in the press, as well as some impressive live performances. In many ways predicting the bands who were bound to break in 2008 was relatively easy however drawing up a list of possible suspects who will have the same success in 2009 is proving more difficult.

That said one act however who have really impressed me are the 80’s influenced London based four piece Official Secrets Act. I saw them for the first time yesterday evening and was blown away by their performance which was one of the best gigs that I had been to in ages. The easiset way to describe OSA would be to mix Franz Ferdianand, Talking Heads, XTC and The Bravery what you are left with are some of the most catchy and memorable pop songs that you heard in ages. Tom Charge Burke the singer and guitarist is a complete star and is already sporting a supremely comfident swagger. I remember seeing Franz Ferdiand perform at the Barfly in 2003 and I am sure that OSC will replicate their success in 2009. The band who are signed to One Little Indian have already been featured in the Radar pages of the NME and their recent single “So Tomorrow” was Zane Lowes single of the week. Over the next couple of weeks they will be playing at various around the country. Although most of these shows are already sold out I’d highly recommend going along if you are luck enough to bag a ticket.

As yet there are my only tip for 2009 however keep tuned as more will follow in the next couple of weeks.

Written by John Rahim

I have never been a big fan of the Zutons however I was so impressed with their performance earlier in the year at Glastonbury that I subsequently had bought their latest album “You can do anything”. Their third record is very accomplished and my view firmly established them as one of the finest song writing bands in the UK. The gig though last night at the Hammersmith Apollo was a real disappointment with terrible lighting (the bain of all live photographers) and even worse boomy sound which made their songs virtually indistinguishable. In previous years the Hamersmith Apollo was notorious for rubbish sound however of late the sound system has improved. This certainly won’t go down as a classic gig however I hope to see them again in the not too distant future.

Written by John Rahim