https://www.parfaitluz.co.uk/blog daily 0.75 2026-02-18 https://www.parfaitluz.co.uk/blog/jason-steidman monthly 0.5 2026-02-18 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67b48b0cbc94e21d97834b12/8de05be3-3b1a-403d-9e15-b11fd7a9a844/Audiopollination_2022_closeup.JPG Blog - Jason Steidman - Lightsweetcrude - Sophie: For my first question I normally like to start with how people got into Light Shows, but I I want to ask, why don't you like calling it a light show? Jason: I mean it is the historically correct term. Since the beginning, and you can wonder what the beginning of this art form or this practice is; You could go right back to what was called the Phantasmagoria of the late 1700s, early 1800s. That's a way cooler name. “Light Show” is the term that was used in the 50s when this sort of began, and that's something that should be underscored, it didn't begin in the 60s, even though that's like the most popular, iconic and well-known era of it. It was the 50s. It's always been referred to as light show, but I find that light show does not serve this art form well as a way of describing it or giving it credence as an art form. When you say light show, it's very superficial. People associate that with either something that's totally supportive of another entity within a performance or show; or something that's completely superficial. If you actually Google “light show”, you'll find Christmas events that are displaying lights and stuff like that. One thing that this art form has had a lot of problems with since the beginning is being acknowledged as an art form. I just find that “light show” relegates it to something that's supporting something else like a band or a carnival. . https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67b48b0cbc94e21d97834b12/807b5c3a-0f37-41b7-84fe-5603c3e90473/kensington.jpeg Blog - Jason Steidman - Lightsweetcrude - Sophie: Do you come from an art background? Jason: Not really, it’s something I’ve been into my whole life, but I come more from like writing and music. It’s something that I've been dabbling with since I was a kid, and even took a couple of classes here and there, but no, it was never a serious pursuit. Sophie: Do you think that being a writer or studying writing influences the way that you approach art? Jason: Definitely. The more you explore and learn about one medium or one area, it definitely informs other things. The deeper you go into one thing, and the types of questions you start to ask. That obviously that just opens doors, it opens ways of thinking. Asking certain questions makes you ask other questions and it just sort of opens things up that you take with you elsewhere. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67b48b0cbc94e21d97834b12/a3f7adb4-62c2-47f2-99ec-1e24fc33a358/JS_photo_May_2022.jpeg Blog - Jason Steidman - Lightsweetcrude - Sophie: I’ve seen online that you've done live installations. How do you approach that as opposed to if you were performing with a band? Jason: Well, that's the thing, I find that it lends more credence to what we're doing when we're not an appendage to something else. There’s a lot of times I do art festivals and stuff like that, I apply and they have me back. And they almost always want to put me with a band. It's natural, I understand it. It’s been part of this art form since the beginning, but towards the beginning it was also paired with poetry. How I approach it, there's a lot more freedom. You’re also responsible for a lot more. There is this thing that, if there's a band performing, I feel obligated, instinctively that I have to connect with that performance somehow. Which I'm not saying it's a drag , but there's no way around it. If you're doing something kinetic, obviously you're going to connect with the rhythm of the music. There's no way around that. If the music ends, you may feel that you’re obliged to either turn off your projectors, or pull the shades down on them for a moment just to acknowledge the ending of the music. I find that there's no way around that for me. I have to do that. The time I mentioned where I was performing with the bass player and I filmed it, we hadn't coordinated the endings of the pieces. That was just something that I noticed, it looked terrible that the music ended and the projections were just carrying on regardless. So that's always stuck with me. If there's music going at the very least I have to acknowledge its tempo, its ending and beginning. I find that when you're doing your own thing, an installation is completely different. You're freed from all of that. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67b48b0cbc94e21d97834b12/724154a1-f5f2-48c7-b07e-29d1b0f71911/IMG_4249.jpg Blog - Jason Steidman - Lightsweetcrude - If two projectors are overlapping and you block the light out of one of them, you're suddenly giving the other projector a little framed space. Just to give you an example, this is something that was evolving over quite a while. It was actually kind of hobbled during this installation or performance and all I had were three circular masks. I usually have many different types of masks, but I forgot all of them in Toronto. It's very upsetting. So you see that heart? That was just an object that at a certain point I just placed on the projector that’s doing the rightmost image. And it just allows that middle projector to cut through within the heart. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67b48b0cbc94e21d97834b12/8851320d-2394-445c-8c81-8ca382611ef1/lightsweetcrude_AXD.jpeg Blog - Jason Steidman - Lightsweetcrude - Sophie: So where do you pull your inspiration from? Like do you have references or is it just vibes? Jason: When I began doing shows, and for a long time, Glenn McKay, Joshua White, Heavy Water, and the Single Wing Turquoise Bird were front and centre of my inspirations. But also, art itself, even though I was never an art student, that's something that I'm always exploring. I'm always in the middle of one or more books and exhibition catalogs. All I do with Instagram is follow art galleries, museums, that type of thing. And even just sort of the philosophy behind types of art or artists inspires me in many different ways. Surrealism in particular, is something that I've been reading about for years. I took a course when I was in university but I can't even think of how many books on surrealism I've read because I find it fascinating. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67b48b0cbc94e21d97834b12/030e37ab-f841-41c2-a23e-da04e8e15bd5/ThatWas_SpokeClub_2015_Colour.jpeg Blog - Jason Steidman - Lightsweetcrude - Sophie: What you mentioned before about feeling the need to conform to the music, Light shows do kind of make more sense with experimental music or jazz. Being able to experiment together as artists, instead have to conform to what's going on. Jason: Yeah, and say if you were saying going on tour with a band, then that might be different because then there's ways of working in experimentation and choreographing that. It was interesting because I worked for 15 years as a recording engineer and producer, and one of the last things I did was this band that I recorded for a couple of days. And then through some weird coincidence, I also did projections for them one night at a club. And, through recording them for however many days we spent in the studio I knew their music inside and out Even though I was sort of like, you know, poo-pooing the whole band thing I did it for a long time. But this is one of the most amazing ones because I knew every note they were going to play. So that, you know, that does make me feel that like it could be different if it was a thing where like you were going to work together for an extended period of time and really know everything that was going to happen. And also, for them knowing everything you're going to do. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67b48b0cbc94e21d97834b12/dd290db8-5970-486d-ad94-642e86e43597/Geary_Lane_2016.jpeg Blog - Jason Steidman - Lightsweetcrude - Sophie: It's probably good there isn't a standout one where you're still having nightmares about it. Jason: Exactly, there was a thing where I was asked to do projections for a band from New York called Woods, who were kind of like a psychedelic,folk-y kind of band. And it was at a club where there isn't like an elevated area. it's not suited for this type of thing. But I set up like on the floor in front of the stage. Didn't even think twice about it. But the band that opened for them was this band called Parquet Courts. I didn't think anything about it. I I didn't really check out their music. I was really more thinking of the band that I was asked to be there for. Even though I was good to do some projections on this first band. But part of the way through their set, the kind of punk influence came out, and suddenly there was like this mosh pit forming, and people slamming and it was getting closer. It was like this whirlwind of people that were getting closer and closer to me and I was just like oh my god this is insane. My entire table, my projectors are going to be just destroyed. Like it's nightmare. And then these four huge guys who had come out for the band that I was projecting for, I didn't even know who they were, they just formed a line and just stood there guarding my set up and pushed the people away and just protected me. It was crazy. So yeah, I mean, neither of them are best or worse, but they just absolutely stand up. https://www.parfaitluz.co.uk/blog/alex-simpson-sons-lunaris monthly 0.5 2026-02-16 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67b48b0cbc94e21d97834b12/0ce75f7e-8fff-431f-81c2-5dd69a1fcda5/Unknown-4.jpeg Blog - Alex Simpson - Sons Lunaris - Sophie: So, how did you get into Light Shows? Alex: So basically The Yardbirds photo, was like really the thing that kicked it off. I've been playing with my band for a while now and a few of the people that listened to us had told me like hey you should check this out since you play that like late 60s early 70s style [….] you should check out this thing called liquid light. And I was like, “I don't know what the hell that means.” And the art is such like a weird thing to describe in the first place, knowing it, and then people that have seen it in passing are trying to describe it to me. So I had the most vague description of what it was. Like they were using dishes and liquids in it, and they were projecting it. I was like, "what does that mean? And it really wasn't until that photo came up that it basically clicked. I've been working in the concert industry for about eight years now. So I've seen all the stuff that's done in “modern times”. That old school projection style is no longer the go-to thing. So I was looking at that photo and with my background being like “I've never seen what this is how are they doing that?” and that was when I really started to deep dive into what is liquid light and is and they were doing that and getting into the tunnel from there. Sophie: What did you use to learn about it? Alex: So in some ways the pandemic was actually like a good thing for just me having a ton of time off. You know, in a couple of days I'm coming up on like doing this for five years. Sophie: Happy anniversary! Alex: Thank you! It's the light-aversary! Let's go! That was smack in the middle of the pandemic at the time. So I call that the anniversary because that's the first time I have a photo of random dishes on an overhead trying it out for the first time. It took a few months of studying really before I could even grasp some of the concepts. But a lot of it was Google and YouTube and just trying to find things. I came across Steve's [Pavlovsky’s] stuff fairly early. And I came across videos of other things, but they weren't like How-To. They were just basically, here's a 45 minute background to watch while music happens elsewhere or some thing like that. And those videos I would look at them and have no idea what's going on, but I would watch the whole thing and try to imagine it. The first [one I did'], it was probably from one of Steve's videos, honestly, because he's one of the only ones that really has detailed YouTube instructional videos; And that's probably how I put it together, that the overhead projectors were used. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67b48b0cbc94e21d97834b12/b9537b47-f4a8-4e15-a5b1-e394deafc1f7/Unknown.jpg Blog - Alex Simpson - Sons Lunaris - Sophie: So how does your digital setup work? Alex: So the main thing is I have this road case that I built out. I have to give a shout out to Shane from the Dregs Light Show. He did like a road case kind of box thing, and I just carried that idea into fitting what I needed to do with my stuff. Shout out to Shane. He's great. He started doing the light show stuff a little bit after we started doing it. And then once we found him, we were like, "Let us teach you all that we know, and go." He's just been doing great ever since. And we're like the only two in the area that actually do what we're doing. So big support. But anyway, he was the one that I initially saw doing like a road case kind of setup. And I was like, that's a great idea. I need that for myself and basically I just built out what I needed I have a couple drawers on the bottom where I store all the cables and cameras and stuff like that. I have the video mixer Velcroed and mounted to the top where I can use it. There's a spot for my laptop and that connects with the MIDI controller. There's a camera rig that's set up inside the box where I mount cameras and various other objects and stuff to the inside of the box. And then I’ll sometimes set up camera off to the side and do some live stuff as well. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67b48b0cbc94e21d97834b12/5567cb58-03bb-490d-be44-319c28fe7059/Unknown.jpeg Blog - Alex Simpson - Sons Lunaris - Sophie: Is that resolume? Alex: Yep that's Resolume. Resolume is pretty much the standard that I see in all video applications on a concert scale for even the simplest of things. Fully recommend Resolume wholeheartedly from a liquid light standpoint, but also from a concert video and audio perspective. There's so much Resilume can do that I'm not even touching. You can get into video mapping or syncing up BPMs off of tracks that the artist is playing to and have that sync up perfectly with the lighting rig and the videos that are happening. So it's all really cued up and streamlined. I just do the bare minimum where I'm like “video and go.” And the MIDI controller, there's a little bit you can see of my preview monitor in there, which is mounted in the box. That top left square, you can see I have a camera on the right side of the box, which is pointed at the stage. And that's how if you see on the projection in the center, there's the guy playing guitar. So I'm doing an IMAG with that. Just anytime there's a solo or something I'll put the vocalist that's singing at the moment or the guitar player or keyboard player, I'll put them up there. There are a few different ways that I do that, I also get a lot of my video feedback with that, where you just have the tunnel where it just extends into infinity. So I love that because it just even a little bit of the musician up on the wall just gives that like big concert feel. This room is like a probably like 300 cap room or something like that, but everyone that shows up gets like the full, large scale concert experience. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67b48b0cbc94e21d97834b12/f4ecffdd-7352-4314-bc59-935a9c99f8b4/Unknown-5.jpeg Blog - Alex Simpson - Sons Lunaris - I have like one extra in this, in the way I've been running things right now. Where one thing I'll do is there's this app called, It's just called Fluid. It's an iOS app. I've used my phone so far for this, but I worry because it's a very small screen. I'll take the output from this and it’ll go to that fourth output on the video mixer. And it just allows you to just touch the screen and it just works as if it's fluid going. There's all these settings that you can get into on the side of different parameters and all that, save presets, whatever you want. But I'll take an output from this into the video mixer. And then sometimes I'll just have this off to the side on a stand and during the show I'll just project that. And that's a lot of fun. That's like a digital version of like the finger plate which I was doing just using vegetable glycerin in a petri dish and then dyed it with black ink. And then on an overhead projector, [I would move my hands across it] it, and that would just create streaks of white. Then they would slowly collapse in on themselves and go away again. And then you throw that through like a color wheel or warp wheel, whatever you do You’re just kind of throwing black ink everywhere, the whole time you're doing like spiral shapes or whatever. But that's kind of like a less messy, digital form of that, where you're just touching the screen and it's following the tracking of your fingers, and then you're still projecting that. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67b48b0cbc94e21d97834b12/2d5b3afa-6b58-42b9-a38c-bc1e51fba550/Screenshot+2025-07-22+at+16.35.29.png Blog - Alex Simpson - Sons Lunaris - Sophie: I had a question written about this too, perfect. I hope it's not you crying or anything. I hope you're okay. Alex:: No, no, just... I forgot the key to unlock the stuff with my cameras and my gear. so I showed up and I was like, “well, I can't go home because the show's gonna start.” So it was just, oh, what do we do? Sophie: See that still looks good! What did you do to make all that work? Alex: Let’s see, what cameras did I not have? I didn't have the IMAG camera that day. So nobody was going up on the wall. I didn't have my MIDI controller, so in Resolume I had to click and drag everything with the mousepad, which was very slow and annoying for me, but it's one of those things that the audience doesn't get to see that part. I just get to be annoyed with myself all night, And I think I had like one turntable, I had access to and one camera just out of sheer luck. Because Justin the my guitar player and the other guy that does this, there was a date I couldn't the show so he went and did a show himself and he brought whatever basic stuff he needed and one of them was a camera and a turntable. So one camera was not locked in. I basically just had my laptop. I mean, actually, it was super lucky that he did that because otherwise I would have locked the long HDMI that goes from the output of the box to the projector. It was still out because he did that gig. Otherwise, I would have had... I would have been able to make it work, but it would have been a three foot HDMI cable and me leaning over the balcony on top of the projector. You know, I would still make something work, but man, would it be bad. Sophie: So that was your most disastrous gig ever. Alex: Yep. Yeah. I'd say that, that so far is the most disastrous gig ever. And now I keep spare keys everywhere. Sophie: You learned you learned the hard way. Alex: You know, just got to learn somehow. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67b48b0cbc94e21d97834b12/bbf9a9fb-b20d-4291-9a81-1e5f6f2faf77/Unknown-1.jpeg Blog - Alex Simpson - Sons Lunaris - Sophie : So if that's your most disastrous gig ever, what’s the best gig you've ever done? Or your favourite? Alex: I don't know. I'm inclined to say the cheesiest thing and say the next one. But I only feel inclined to say that because every single gig I've done has just been growing on top of what I did on the last one. I kind of ended up sending you the photos basically in chronological order, just because that's how I was going through my phone. But in all of that, there's, visually to me, a clear progression of, "All right, things are getting figured out, they're getting better.” So I don't know. I think whatever the next one is, is the best one. It's just going to be a culmination of everything I've done. There are some things that I enjoyed doing more. Like that small tour, which was with the band Neighbor. And just going on tour is always fun. I've done that a couple times, but that was the first time that I went on tour as a projection artist. Sometimes when you get into very large rooms like that, you're basically just plugging into a video wall, which can happen. But I still like front projection over everything. Again, there are pros and cons to literally everything. But I'm still a front projection fan. I like being able to turn off the front light too, and just get lost in the sauce. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67b48b0cbc94e21d97834b12/6b5596c0-a81b-4afd-a3dc-7b8d828609bd/Unknown-2.jpeg Blog - Alex Simpson - Sons Lunaris For me, the Yardbirds one was huge. Just especially how quick that came about. But yeah, I mean, I've gotten to work with a lot of high level artists and stuff like that. One of the things I sent you, on the far left of that woman over there is Neil Young's sister, which was cool. I did some light work and handed off to Willie Nelson's son. He goes by Particle Kid. And there's a couple of those in there where we did with a band called Ghost of Jupiter and the keyboard players in the band, Mo and he's touring all these huge things. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67b48b0cbc94e21d97834b12/83af8c60-693f-44dc-97ee-08b7e4f74dd8/Unknown-3.jpeg Blog - Alex Simpson - Sons Lunaris - And there's this one picture on there, she's out on tour right now with Gigi Perez, who is opening for Hosier. So just because, you know, being in the circle, I'm in and also having been in live concert production, I've met all these people and gone to work with a lot of the people that go on and do these giant things. Yeah, just just knowing that if anyone thinks about like, “hey, we got this major tour or an idea going on it for XYZ big name artist”, or something, knowing my name is floating around out there as someone that does it is just great to know. Sophie: Do you think that performers normally know what a light show is when they do it with you for the first time? Alex: For the first time, I'd say they generally don't know unless they're like a deadhead type or they're into the Allman brothers. If they're in the scene where they've been exposed to it, they kind of know what it is. Otherwise, generally, they have no idea. But a lot of the people I've ended up meeting anyway, it's kind of like that secret thing is like, "Oh shit, you know about this. We're about to be best friends." Sophie: Yeah the second you meet anybody and find out they’re into projectors or light shows, you’re just like “Right, that’s you done for the night. Sit down” Alex: Exactly, we’re talking. We’re best friends. And that’s how a lot of that ends up going with at least the artists that I've had connection with, is they've been around it in one way or the other for one reason or the other and then it you know comes up and they were like, "Ooh, let's talk." But yeah, generally if they're not in that sort of scene they don't know. But I end up working a lot mainly with people that do know. Just because they're the ones looking for it. They're going to seek you out and pay for it and. It's easier to do the job when you don't have to defend why the job has to be done. And so that's why I end up working with a lot of people that are in the scene, there's like an Allman Brother's tribute that I work with a lot, or this residency is with a Grateful Dead tribute. The people that I'm working with there learned about me because I was just doing stuff actually for a promoter's birthday. There's a local music promoter having his birthday party and he just invited all his favorite musicians together and he had us doing the lights and stuff. We've done parties, bar mitzvahs etc. Yeah, we've done whatever at this point. We have, I think we have two weddings in the books for the end of this year as well. https://www.parfaitluz.co.uk/blog/lumia-the-origins-of-par monthly 0.5 2025-02-24 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67b48b0cbc94e21d97834b12/87b427c5-caad-41fb-8708-952af96e387a/LLSPORTFOLIO4.jpeg Blog - Lumia - The Origins of Parfait Luz - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.parfaitluz.co.uk/home daily 1.0 2026-01-18 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67b48b0cbc94e21d97834b12/6b5212be-5d40-45da-a189-f709c1a57664/logo+white+text.png https://www.parfaitluz.co.uk/booking-1 daily 0.75 2026-01-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67b48b0cbc94e21d97834b12/a9e045d8-f0f4-4bd3-adc1-aff871fee1cc/Screenshot+2024-11-18+at+12.45.04.png https://www.parfaitluz.co.uk/gallerypl daily 0.75 2026-03-05 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67b48b0cbc94e21d97834b12/53fddde5-e115-486a-8c34-8632ef2ced97/KIA_5631.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67b48b0cbc94e21d97834b12/83d54d31-6265-4d15-bd2c-c98c4a84094c/io+pic+1.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67b48b0cbc94e21d97834b12/12c273be-195a-403e-ac68-95a8e5678700/KIA_6083.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67b48b0cbc94e21d97834b12/29586092-cb17-4815-8294-94c17024efe7/KIA_6166.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67b48b0cbc94e21d97834b12/f23cb524-29db-4d9f-89cc-abdf7fd5122e/IO+PIC+3.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67b48b0cbc94e21d97834b12/3e5efe69-e46b-4ec9-98ab-6203bf6e0189/DSC_7287.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67b48b0cbc94e21d97834b12/5387ffe7-7d0c-4ad9-8ac2-8bac4db3dbad/IO+PIC+2.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/67b48b0cbc94e21d97834b12/7458acd3-dd5b-4e80-9284-5a51b7b452e2/KIA_5828.jpg https://www.parfaitluz.co.uk/shop daily 0.75 2026-01-15