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February 28, 2006

HOME ON THE RANGE - UPDATE

Most of you seem to have figured out already that we now have a Circus Diablo profile up at MySpace. I have a friend looking after it for me, but I can log in and take a look around when I want. And that place is SO addictive. No wonder I stayed away for so long!! Anyway, the page is up - CLICK HERE TO TAKE A LOOK. So for those of you who havent yet been over there, go ahead. Become a friend and do ...... whatever it is we do on these sites!!!

As promised, another V-Blog entry today. The gun range footage is very short – I didn’t really ask if I could take a camera in there, and didn’t really want to piss those guys off!! They’re all big, tattooed hunters, and of course, they’re all armed to the teeth!! So I just snuck a quick bit of footage and edited it up. My groupings on the target showed I was hurrying to get the footage – I’m usually a lot closer together!! Anyway – any excuse to squeeze off a few. At least I’m back in business with the video stuff. As and when there are enough questions, or I do something relatively interesting, I’ll do another one.

I have to stop listening to the Circus Diablo record. I’ve been driving around in the car, blasting the songs, and I have totally lost perspective on it! Best to just send it off to Mastering and listen again when it comes back. That’s the problem when you are a perfectionist – you just cant stop tweaking! But as I have said before, that is against the rules of this record, so ENOUGH ALREADY, BILLY!!!

So - the whole My Space thing. For some reason I have never got into it. Not that I think its rubbish. In fact I think its a great site. I just never got around to doing it. The Circus Diablo and Camp Freddy My Space pages were/are not run by us. But I am going to change that. Leave it in my (capable?) hands and I will begin the daunting task of building a MySpace page AS WELL as everything else I have going on the web!! Should be fun.

Thats it for today. See you guys soon.

Billy

Posted by vivelerock at 08:04 AM | Comments (15)

February 27, 2006

THE FAT LADY SINGS (AGAIN)

Done. Finished. Put to bed. We actually finished the record on Sunday. Did the final tweaks and sequences and got the thing ready to send off for mastering. I am very proud of this record. We kept to our initial idea of not getting carried away with studio trickery and keeping it live and raw. And on listening back to the finished thing this morning, I feel we achieved that. So now we send it off to be mastered and I'll get started on artwork. I am sure that Ricky and I will have a few meetings soon about different ideas we have for the record. Billy will be off any day now on The Cult tour, so we will head up the 'think tank' for release ideas. But thanks to modern technology, we can email, call, IM and Webcam him anytime we need him!! Crazy! And for those of you listening to CFR last Saturday, you will have noticed that I busted out the Ants cover from the record. Hope you caught it.

With the Oscars fast approaching, Hollywood again becomes a gaggling mess of parties, drunken fools and a LOT of agents in dark suits!! I shall, no doubt, attend a few of these little soirees and will give you some inside reports from them. As for the actual nominated movies ..... well, I dont even know what they are this year! But no doubt Brokeback Mountain and Walk The Line will clean up. We shall see.

Leon - VERY interesting take on my recent trip into the 'blackness'. You are probably right. You cant go 'Up' without coming 'Down'. A very important rule of Physics, and also the first thing you learn when you start taking drugs!!!

Shad - I actually checked out The Cult TV thing this morning. And I thought the band sounded great. Of course I miss playing with them - it was a lot of fun. But they are doing their thing, I am doing mine, and I am greatful to have been a part of that in 2001.

Paul - No. I havent met Axl. Yes I have heard the new GnR stuff (....er....!!!) and all the Freddy hats sold out two years ago. When we get the new site FINALLY up and running, we will have new tees, hats etc. And yes, I am going to work out some Circus Diablo tee shirts soon.

Simon - Current artists that inspire me include Incubus, The Darkness and Oasis. But there are very few 'Trent Reznors' or 'David Bowies' out there.

The tattoo pic seems to have excited a few of you. Glad to have been of service! And with that, the day is fast catching up on me and I have to leave the house now. I know I keep promising another video blog, but I PROMISE I'll get it together this week. Leave your questions on this post, and I'll do em all on video. Maybe I'll get this 'Gun Range' Blog together - its about time I got out there and 'blew some shit up!!' OK - take it easy everyone. Have a great day and play nice together. Back soon.

Peace

Billy

Posted by vivelerock at 10:19 AM | Comments (13)

February 24, 2006

THE DARKNESS

I gotta say - being creative has huge upsides. The feeling of being able to communicate feelings and emotions through playing music and singing is a fantastic one. Enjoying a good life, and doing what I love to do should never be underestimated. But when the darkness strikes ...... boy, does it hit hard!!!
I just spent a week fighting off the demons - demons that we all have. Isn't it weird how the head can tell us stuff that just messes with us. How despite, on paper, things can appear to be all sweetness and light, we can perceive it all to be crashing down into a huge pile of shit around our ears. So after a week of watching Netflix and Tivo, and just staying out of my own way, I feel better. Sometimes I just need to check out of the human race for a while. I used to get loaded to do it - now I think I've found a somewhat healthier alternative!! Either way, I wanted to check back in and say hi to everyone. Obviously there has not been a lot going on in my world. I can discuss 24 or the Imax series of Shark DVD's!! But music has taken a back seat, so not a lot to tell. We have finished recording and mixing the Circus Diablo record. Ten songs in 24 days. Now THATS speed recording!! I'll be spending one more day in the studio very soon, getting all the 24bit files together to send to mastering, and that will be that. Now we have to figure out 'The Plan'. Obviously with Billy out on the road with The Cult, playing shows is difficult. But not impossible. We will be looking closely at schedules, and we all agree that sometime this year, we would like to do a string of shows in the UK. We'll see what we can come up with - and work it out with the release of the record.

So I am sure that the coming weeks will be full of meetings, discussions and planning, to figure out the best way to get the record out and available to you lot. I have begun working on the artwork, and we will all be listening to the record and seeing what tracks should go to radio. From now on, I am pretty happy with whatever happens. It was more about writing the songs and getting them recorded for me. And I am very happy with the way it sounds - raw and exciting. The rest of it is all beyond my control. Sometime in the summer is my guess for release, but I will keep you posted as details arrive. All I know is we did a great version of Ants Invasion, the Adam And The Ants track from Kings Of The Wild Frontier. I was a HUGE Ants fan back in the day, and it was a blast re-doing that track 'Diablo style' - loud guitars and massive Sorum drumming. I'd been singing the track for years anyway in my head, so singing it was a breeze. Maybe I'll bust it out on CFR tomorrow - whaddya think?

Right - it appears that business is back to usual here on the blog. So I should get that camera out and give you lot another video blog. Apologies for the break in service, but we all gotta take care of the craziness, right?! Thank you all for being here, and its nice to be heading towards the light again!!! I put up another pic of the new band, just because I like the cross-processed color they used in that shot. And I also put up a very 'Brokeback' looking pic of Dave tattooing my stomach .....
See you over the weekend.

Billy

Posted by vivelerock at 08:36 AM | Comments (33)

February 20, 2006

UPDATE

A quick update to let you all know what's happening. We are back in the studio this week to finish the Circus Diablo record. I've been driving around with the mixes in my car since last week, and I am REALLY happy with them. When a song makes me wanna drive my car into a brick wall, just for fun, I know its a good one!! We will be all done by the end of the week. I missed doing CFR this weekend but to be honest with you, my heads a mess right now. Too much stuff floating around between the ears! I'm sure that the medical profession would have a term for it - ADD, Depression, Psychosis, whatever the fuck they would call it. I choose to say I'm just a fucked up ex-junkie, and sometimes it gets weird!! I'm used to it - whatever. So hang in there, and normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

Billy

Posted by vivelerock at 08:42 AM | Comments (24)

February 16, 2006

STUDIO HEAD

Its quite amusing really! We started off just deciding to record two songs at Matts, just to hear what they sounded like with a real drummer. And its turned into a crazy dash to finish 10 songs fully recorded and mixed to finish off a debut album!! We are back in the studio again this week - yesterday we tracked two more songs, and today and tomorrow is about mixing them. By our estimation, we will probably be able to finish all 10 songs by next week. Completely self-financed and self-produced, the Circus Diablo album has really built itself. We didn't initially plan on doing it like this, but I'm really glad we ended up deciding to record all the songs. Speed recording 101!!! Most big budget albums take three months to record. A lot of tweaking, smoothing and massaging goes on, and a lot of the time, all the mistakes, character and 'live feel' gets lost along the way. Because of the way we have approached this record, we will have done it all in under three weeks total and it has retained a really great vibe to it. No Auto Tune or Beat Detective has been used - and we are all in agreement that the finished mixes sound all the better for it. Computers really aid the recording of modern albums, but sometimes you can end up 'LOOKING' at music. And music should be LISTENED to, not watched!!!

Not a lot to tell really - life tends to pass you by when you get 'Studio Head' - disappearing into a darkened, air-conditioned room at around noon, and emerging 14 hours later into the dead of night, to creep home, get some rest, and then get up and do it again the next day! No interesting human contact, no scintilating conversation, no chance encounter to tell you about. It all becomes about the EQ of the hi hat, and the chinese food delivery at 8.00pm!!! And I love it. Being able to create music is really cathartic for me, and enjoying the process (and staying out of the results) is SO theraputic. Oh - by the way - I seem to have used a few big words in this post, so don't even bother correcting my spelling!! I know ..... I left school WAY too early!!

So I'm gonna get some coffee, wake up and get an hour with my wife (we kinda nod hello as we pass in the hallway everyday, and thats it! Feels like I haven't seen her in days.) and pack up the laptop to hit the studio again. I will take the camera and try and get a V-Blog in for tomorrows post. There's a few questions I can answer and maybe get you a quick soundbite of one of the songs as we mix it. Stay tuned kids!!

Peace

Billy

Posted by vivelerock at 08:06 AM | Comments (22)

February 13, 2006

ANOTHER NEW WEEK BEGINS

That last V-Blog seemed to be really popular, judging by the hit count for the last few days and the emails I received. Seems like you all wanna see me get inked!! Oh well - MORE TATTOOS!! Seriously though, it was a very large file, and very server-intensive, so I figured I would calm down a bit and do a text-only post today. Another V-Blog later in the week, for sure. Unfortunately, we had to re-run a past CFR at the weekend, as I was in the studio mixing the Circus Diablo record, Donovan was out of State, and Dave was at home, not feeling too good. Hope you are feeling better, mate. Never mind - an all new CFR will be happening next week. I will be there for sure, as we will hopefully be finished with the record on Friday. Two more songs were mixed over the weekend, and they sound great. And the Circus Diablo site was updated as well, with an 'official' pic of the three of us. We managed to squeeze a photo session in while we were in the studio and I thought I would put a nice 'cross-processed' shot up as todays pic.

This week is more of the same for me. A small rehearsal with Ricky today, just to go over the two songs that we plan to record 'live' for the album. A business meeting later in the day. The all-important Valentines Day tomorrow, and then studio for the rest of the week. Now lets just think about Valentines Day for a second. Hallmark-invented for sure, this is a day that REALLY pisses me off. Dont get me wrong - I am ALL about showing my wife how much I love her. But shouldn't every day be a Valentines Day? I mean, if you are just dating, or screwing around, or being casual, you dont really have the desire to celebrate that 'one special person' in your life ...... just in case they dont turn out to be 'The One'!! Once you are in a committed relationship, surely every day becomes important. You strive not to take your partner for granted, buy some flowers every now and again. Take them out for a nice dinner once or twice a week. Take that holiday you know you both need. So WHY do we need to buy overpriced roses, a shitty little card that costs WAY too much, and a meal that (if you can get a reservation anywhere) ALWAYS gets spoiled by crowds of other people doing exactly the same thing? But the funniest thing is that even though I feel like this, my wife will wake up to a card, some roses and be taken out to dinner tomorrow night!! How much more hypocritical can I be??!!! Oh well. At least I can vent on here.

Terri - My favorite culinery indulgence would have to be pancakes and syrup! And the ones at the Sunset Marquis Hotel are the absolute best. However, I have been known to hit IHOP and do a couple of shortstacks in my time!! And I am listening to the new Darkness album and my recently arrived Wasted Youth (UK) cd's.

Kate - YES!! Getting tattooed hasn't changed a bit! It still hurts, especially somewhere like the lower stomach. But you know that going in, so you get into that 'zone' headspace, where nothing can phase you. And dont hold your breath about the CF show. Even if it happens (which seems unlikely at this point) it was to be a corporate show anyway. Be patient - we are trying to work out what CF is doing this year.

Shad - I'd be happy to put up some tattoo pics on here. Just email the pics to me and I'll put em up in a tattoo section. Anyone with any art, get a shot, send it in, and lets have a Tatts section.

Jezzi - I did get my card from you. And yes, how ironic that you sent the 'stomach' pic with it..... "and this is what it used to look like!!" Thank you so much (and thank you to everyone else who sent me cards, e-cards and Happy Birthday posts. I love you all. Regarding a message board/forum - I will look into it. If its easy, I'll do it.

Jay - Great question. Yes, I do miss touring. In fact, I miss it a lot. But I dont miss touring in a Chevy Van, and staying on couches!! And being in a bus, and having the 'good life' on the road involves a huge amount of cash. Usually record company cash. So its a catch 22 situation. Camp Freddy gives me the buzz, even though its not a tour. We do travel, and we do it well, so its always fun. But I would love to do another long, detailed tour sometime. We'll see.

Mary - Well, the engineer is actually the guy who plugs things in, makes adjustments, operates the desk most of the time, and generally knows how to work the studio. He does what the producer asks him to do.

Leroy - Awesome!!! Let me think ...... ok, my dream band would be Matt Sorum on the drums, Steve Jones and Billy Duffy on guitar, Chris Chaney on Bass, Dave Navarro doing lead, and me singing. Hold ON........oh.......thats Camp Freddy!!! Try this then - John Bonham on drums, Phil Lynott on bass, Steve Jones and Jimmy Page on guitar, and Iggy Pop singing. HELL YEAH!!!!

OK folks - I am off to start the day. Thanks for being here and thanks for sticking around. Have a great day, be nice and I'll be back soon.

Peace

Billy

Posted by vivelerock at 08:17 AM | Comments (21)

February 10, 2006

THE BIRTHDAY V-BLOG

Birthdays. I’ve never really been one to hold a huge party, celebrating the fact that I’ve managed to hold on to another year on this planet. There have been many years in the past when it’s seemed a birthday has marked ‘one year nearer to not having to be here at all!!’. But these days I feel a little differently about taking part in the human race, and yesterdays birthday was a nice, low key, relaxed affair. My close friends wished me well, my wife bought me some cool new dunks and took me for a nice meal, and I let one of my closest friends tattoo me. Dave and myself finally did the CORE tattoo over at Mark Mahoney’s Shamrock Social Club on Sunset Blvd. And Mark let Dave do a bit of my tattoo, and me do a bit of Daves. That’s kind of an intimate feeling, letting someone actually color your skin with needles!! See todays V-Blog for a quick look at the proceedings. Thanks to all of you who posted, mailed and emailed Birthday wishes to me – really made my day. And by the way.....why "Core"? Well, basically. although Camp Freddy has had a huge rotating door of guest artists appear with us over the last few years, there are five core members, and Dave and I are two of them. So we decided that we would remind ourselves of that!! Stand by for Sorum and Donovan to join us, once they see the majesty of Mark Mahoney's work!!

WARNING: The V-Blog today is over 8 minutes long, which means a LARGE file size. High Speed Internet Connection is STRONGLY advised. Either that, or a lot of patience!! If we find that it is just too long for you guys, I'll stick to shorter blogs, and divide them up into Part One and Two in the future. In fact its probably too big for the net, but I'm gonna try it anyway.

And now we get on with another year!! My life is blessed and I continue to be able to play guitar and make music, be married to an amazing woman, and have the kind of friendships in my life that I never dreamed existed. We’ll be finished with the Circus Diablo record by the end of next week. Seems like we might attempt to make it a full album. We have the material, and we want to try and get as much of it down as possible. With the time restraints that we have, maybe we’ll do a couple of ‘live in the studio’ tracks and play them all together, as a band. Minimal production. We are also going to do an acoustic version of one of the songs. It’s a way of getting as many tracks onto the record as we can, in the very short time available to us. Most albums take two or three months to make. We are doing this one in 14 days!! We’ll see – I’ll give you a track listing once we finish next week.

Not a lot else to tell you right now. Still waiting on some Freddy news. And still working on scheduling the rest of the year. Its a strange one, when you get asked to do quite a bit of work, but other balls are still in the air. You have to figure out if you should say no to this job, in case that job works out for you. But what if that one doesnt pan out. Then you've said no to this one, and you're left with nothing. I spend a lot of my time trying to figure out the best move. Quality problems, for sure, but problems nonetheless. I eventually find myself just leaving it all up to the Universe. If I try and control how it all works out, I drive myself crazy. I believe in 'If its meant to be, then it will be". Doesnt make the waiting any easier, though!! So check out the V-Blog, have a great day, and I’ll be back at the weekend. You are all a huge part of my daily life – thank you.

Peace

Billy

Posted by vivelerock at 08:16 AM | Comments (31)

February 06, 2006

WHAT? NO V-BLOG??

Sorry!. Its running away with me again. Time, that is!! One minute I am looking forward to a day off to watch the Superbowl, and the next minute, two days have gone by, and its back in the studio again tomorrow. So apologies for the lack of a Sunday V-Blog .... I just didnt get around to it. And I am at home, getting some computer files ready to transfer over for tomorrows session, and thought I would do a quick check in. Congrats to The Steelers - I was hoping Seattle would win, but only cos a few friends of mine were at the game and are huge Seahawks fans. But that didnt work out, so never mind! The Stones were .... well, they were The Stones. Old, but VERY cool!! And the game was great. I went over to Macy's party at a hotel and hung out playing poker and watching the game. A good time was had by all.

The previous evening was also pretty cool - we did a special CFR with none other than the beautiful Gwyneth Paltrow as our guest host. She was fantastic, very laid back, and I believe that she had a lot of fun. Dono had to leave the show halfway through, so the two of us finished up the second hour ourselves. Much love to Kirsty, Donovan.

And here I am, on a Sunday evening, listening to the different tracks that we did on the demo of the song we are recording tomorrow. This record has been done in a really easy fashion. Probably because there is no music business involved at all!! We got together, demoed the songs at my studio, talked to Matt about re-recording them properly in his studio, and that was that. We are now well under way, with seven songs tracked and three mixed. There is talk of maybe getting in a rehearsal room and recording a couple of songs that way as well. We want to try and put as much stuff on the record as time will allow. Of course, Billy is getting ready to go out on the road with The Cult, so we only have a limited time to complete whatever we decide to do. But we just keep stepping into the studio every day and doing what we can. The songs that have been mixed sound raw, loud and exciting. Exactly what we were going for. Overthinking can sometimes be the downfall of a great track. So we pretty much kept the arrangements and instrumentation as we had it, and just re did the songs with Matt playing drums. Tomorrow is a track called Hello, Goodbye, and I'll see if the video diary can get a boost while we are in there. You know if I have time, I'll do it. So for now, I better get back to work. Need to get this shit done and settle in for some Surface and some 24.

Peace

Billy

Posted by vivelerock at 07:21 PM | Comments (27)

February 03, 2006

A QUICK LOOK IN THE STUDIO

So we have been in the studio the last few days and todays V-Blog is just a slice of what’s been going on. Its just an attempt to bring you guys in a little – warts n all. I always used to like seeing clips of bands doing their thing in the studio so I see no reason why we shouldn’t be able to do just that here on the blog. The tracks sound great and we will be finished recording them pretty soon. We’ll go back in a week or so to mix and master them, and then we will be done. Who knows when we will be able to get out and play. Billy will be busy with The Cult tour for a while (and by the way, I will NOT be playing bass with them.) and I will hopefully have something going on that will keep me occupied for most of the summer. So we will just have to fit some shows in when we all have breaks. We are trying to work out a few shows during the summer, but it is so tough with everyone’s different schedules (not to mention that some balls are still in the air and we don’t know where they might land). Its pretty safe to say that once the summer season is over, we will probably be able to get out and do a quick run of gigs. But it will be a while. For now, we will be getting the ball rolling with the EP, a tee shirt or two, and we’ll take the rest as it comes. We would, however, like to see a few examples of some Circus Diablo artwork. Maybe a logo – maybe a typeface. I wanna put a bunch up on the CD website, so if you feel particularly creative, feel free to mess about in your artwork programs.

Superbowl Sunday – it’s that time again folks. This year, as the Raiders proved to be somewhat ….. less than average (!!) ….. I will be shouting for the Seahawks. And I will be shouting from Macy Gray’s Superbowl Party at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel. A charity event to aid Macy’s Music Academy, it’s a worthwhile cause and a great way to watch the game. A lot of my friends are out in Detroit, so I’ll be able to just kick back with Jennifer and enjoy some of that tiny finger food (that they usually serve at these things – I need about 15 of the little fuckers just to get a mouthful!!) and the HD broadcast of the game.

Mr Duffy just walked into the studio, so I should go and get my head back into this track. Hope the V-Blog is amusing, and I’ll be back on Sunday with the usual Selection, and a recap of the week. Fun fun fun.

Peace

Billy

Posted by vivelerock at 09:03 PM | Comments (16)

February 01, 2006

JUST CHECKING IN AGAIN

What up everyone? I just updated the news section of the Circus Diablo site and there is a funny clip of me recording up there right now. One of my old Les Pauls developed a ground problem, and had a terrible hum going on. After a little while, we discovered that if I shoved the jack of the cord between my toes, it eliminated the hum altogether. Genius. Except that trying to play the part with the guitar propped up in the air and my foot wedged onto the cord was a lot easier said than done!! All part of the creative process I'm sure, but weird nonetheless!! CLICK HERE TO SEE THE VIDEO. Other than that, there's not a lot going on right now. I'll do the usual Sunday selection question and answer V-Blog this weekend, and no doubt I'll take a camera into the studio tomorrow - we are in for a few days straight so we should get a lot done.

The pic today is from the acoustic thing that Ricky and I did - thats Rolan Bolan singing and Brett Hellings shaking his moneymaker between us. Not the greatest quality pic, but what the hell. News of a CF show or two is slowly filtering into my world. Nothing definite or locked in, but you know you'll read it here first when its 100%. I am currently trying to finish a song called PILLS in my own studio, which will be the title track of the movie Tripping Forward. Time is a ticking and I really need to knuckle down and finish it. Trouble is - so many Netflix movies arriving, so much Tivo to get through!! Watched Red Eye last night - not bad - Rachel is very cute and does a great job, but the story was a little far fetched. Good entertainment though. And I am trying to catch up on past seasons of 24, and THAT is some dedicated television viewing, I can tell you!! But I am going to sign off and turn the studio computers on right now.....for sure.....absolutely......right after I watch a quick episode of Commander In Chief!!!

See ya - back tomorrow.

Billy

Posted by vivelerock at 09:31 AM | Comments (15)