by Leanne Mckenzie

Stefan Livingston’s love of music is evident from the moment he begins to speak to us, via ZOOM, from what looks suspiciously like his bedroom.

You see, music is what Stefan does…

His life has been spent gigging in bands, recording, writing and producing, accumulating a massive skillset that was meant to launch him squarely into Scotland’s live music community.

But then…COVID happened

And as he speaks eloquently of his aspiration for his band ‘Icarus Moon‘-

“an indie funk rock blend, for those who like ‘Chilli Peppers‘ but with a more modern ‘Catfish and the Bottlemen‘ twist”

-the reality of our new ZOOM world hits home.

We are all sitting in our separate wee rooms, listening to this musician talk of the music that we cannot see him play live, cannot feel his presence, cannot be cajoled left and right by a beer soaked moshing front row in a sticky floored windowless club in what could be in any part of the UK.

But thankfully my Gen X jadedness does not seem to be mirrored in Stefan.

His attitude is positive. Unlike the lazy millennial ‘muso’ stereotype repeated so often and so… er…lazily… in the media… Stefan is organised.

“We began to understand that its gonna be a lot tougher to get gigs after lockdown finishes, there’s gonna be a big backlog of bands, a lot less venues. It inspired us to work a lot harder to just try and be ready for when this all finishes.”

He and his bandmates quickly focused their time and attention on transforming their group into a highly organised business whilst doing their best to combat that disorganisation that can so easily creep in in real life.

Stefan understands there will be obstacles ahead:

“With social distancing…its gonna be difficult for people to come back together and have that same gig atmosphere…”

But, true to the unwavering positivity he has shown throughout our ZOOM call, Stefan says he is actually optimistic for the future of emerging music artists.

There is a bright side.

Younger bands, he says, will learn how to promote themselves online better.

Then he smiles,

“after all this, live music will be better than ever. That’s my hope…”