Monday 20 July 2009

The Rollin' Stones

The Rollin’ Stones began in 1962 and despite numerous deaths, drugs and disaster they appear to still be going strong. It is hardly surprising that a band that has stood the test of time has had to face all these problems, but how did they manage to survive in “the industry” for so long, what is their secret?

It would appear that hard work pretty much had a lot to do with the bands first major break, whereby they were nearly performing every night and so it wasn’t long before they became lucky and became signed with Dick Rowe, who had previously decided not to sign the Beatles.

The band were an unusual bunch as Ian Stewart is dropped from the line-up as he looks “too normal” The fist song goes into the UK charts at No. 12 which rockets the band into the corporate spot light. After working with Kellogg’s rice crispies the band become a household name and play at the Royal Albert Hall.



Using the money the band made from their previous concerts the group travelled to America, which although wasn’t a successes on their first visit due to the unusual appearance and a tendency to be the complete opposite to the Beatles the band began to build up a reputation of trouble and destruction which finds its way back to the UK.

Due to the bands reputation the band become less of a household name but become heroes with the youth, I believe it is this along with the bands ability to churn out numerous songs that has caused a generation of people to grow up with the band. The fans growing up with music as the band members also grow older has allowed the groups music to adjust to an older pace, allowing an audience of 17 year-olds to still be listening to the music at the age of 60, and it is for this reason that I believe that the band has passed the test of time.

Thursday 2 July 2009

The Full Moon

Here I have discoverd a short video with a Vincent Moon interveiw, despite what you may think he is saying first of all it does eventuly become recognisable anglais, proberbly not helped by the poor quality of the video but it definatly makes some intresting listening.




Vincent Moon who is an independant film maker from Paris (France) is renowned for his style of directing music videos which involves using warm colours along side yellow and black. He has worked for such bands/artists as R.E.M and also Arcade Fire.

Here I have included the R.E.M. video so you too can see the effect of Moon's colours and the effect of movement that he creates when directing/shooting a music video. I particuly like how he has mixed the footage of the traffic with the words which keep continuity through the sequence. Below I the video I have also found a short clip of Vincent Moon (in the green parkar) shooting the acoustic version of the same song in a wine shop.