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January 31, 2008
TO MULTITASK, OR NOT TO MULTITASK?
Another Multitasking extravaganza last night, as I DJ'd at the Venice Rocks club in Venice, CA and also performed with Charles and Patrick as Circus Diablo. I gotta think long and hard before doing too much of that - its pretty hectic doing a show AND DJ'ing and its the second time already this year I've done it!! But we had a great time all around, and as I have already posted on my MySpace page, the band played as a three piece. Performing like that has its own set of difficulties, but also holds unique possibilities too. Its just WAY different to a band like Camp Freddy, that has a ton of guitars most of the time, or even the standard four piece rock band, where I am either singing, or playing guitar, and there is always another guitar to help out and fill in the holes. The three piece is a hard beast to get right, cos singing and playing is its own problem. And then there is a LOT less room for mistakes, cos when you make one...... no one else is there to cover it up!! But the gig was a total punk rock affair, and by all accounts we actually pulled it off! We sounded good, and gave it tons of attitude, and most importantly, all three of us enjoyed it. I have been toying with the idea of doing a solo record for a while - not because I think it will go double platinum and change the face of music as we know it(!) ..... but because I can, because I love to create music, because Patrick and Charles make a GREAT rhythm section, and because I think I have some good songs hidden away in my head. So thats the plan for a little while. We have a great, tight, three piece unit and all three of us write good tunes. So I am gonna collaborate with Patrick and Charles and see what comes out. More news (and the usual 'fly on the wall' look at the process) as it happens.
SO - The CAMP FREDDY CHARITY show takes place at The Knitting Factory in Los Angeles on March 14th. The charity is TEEN PROJECT, which is the love child of Lauri Burns. A product of the system, she lived in 24 different homes in the first five years after leaving the system. Now a successful business woman and foster mom, Lauri is unwavering in her mission to ensure that foster teens have all the opportunities that normal teens have. This benefit will raise much needed funds to provide housing for these kids. The tickets are $35 and are available at www.knittingfactory.com or at The Knitting Factory box office. Come down and help a great cause - The Section Quartet are doing their fantastic string quartet versions of contemporary rock songs, and the legendary LINDA PERRY will also be playing. No doubt Linda will do a song or two with us, and we are also planning our usual cast of characters to get up and rock with us. See you there.
Let me answer a couple of questions before I get outta here. First of all, the first question asked on the last post is from LCKX, who asked me if the ever-changing line up of Circus Diablo drive me mad. Well, I suppose I have already answered this by posting that I am gonna do a solo record!! The thing is that everyone had projects and bands already. We were not four 18 year olds against the world. We all had many other things happening - and the changing line up was a way to actually get out there and promote the great record that Billy, Ricky and myself made. Was it frustrating that we couldn't go further? Sure. Am I totally happy with what Diablo has done so far? Yes. Might we do another album together at a later date? For sure. Do I now wanna eliminate the revolving door syndrome? YES!!!
And Spencer asks me about the Steve Jones Signature Les Paul that is being made by Gibson. I spoke to Steve about that very guitar only a couple of days ago ..... and I have to say ABOUT TIME!! His white custom is one of the most influential Les Pauls of our time, and its great that Gibson are honoring him with a run of his own signature guitar. And OF COURSE I am in line for one of those. But just remember something. You can put on a black Seditionaries parachute shirt, jump into your leather pants, and you can now buy his guitar. But that doesn't mean you can play like him!!
Thats it for today - February is upon us already, and I have a few trips out of town scheduled. A Vegas weekend (always fun) and a trip to Nashville .... and All New Camp Freddy Radio every week on Indie 103.1FM. Last night, we ran a show that Dave and I had taped a few days ago - a fabulous 80's Hair Metal Special - two hours of music that you would turn down at a red light!! Its now up on the Podcast page as usual. Our very own Paul will be in LA next week, so maybe someone else can record the show next Saturday and email me the MP3? Someone let me know. In the meantime - Tune in and rock out!! .
Billy
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Posted by vivelerock at 08:02 AM | Comments (10)
January 27, 2008
NEW CFR AND DIABLO SHOW
A quick update on this Sunday morning for y'all! First and foremost, you will see a new little button on the left side of this page. The MYSPACE button. Yep. Thats right. I got overcome with emotion for about three minutes and created a Billy Morrison profile! I joined the ranks. Figured I would need one if I go ahead and do a solo record this year (which I really wanna do, creatively) ..... so off you go and add me. Also wanted to tell you that last nights Camp Freddy Radio show is up now on the Podcasts page and also available if you subscribe to the I-Tunes Podcasts. Don't forget that we are doing a 'Circus Diablo' show on wednesday night. Its a show with a difference ..... we will be a three piece! As Ricky is trucking around the UK with The Almighty, Rob jumped back over to Korn and who knows where any of the other guys are right now, we have been messing around in a rehearsal room as a three piece. And we liked what we heard. So thats how this show will be played. A three piece. Never done it before, but I have to tell ya ..... its a lot of fun!! So come down to Venice Rocks on Lincoln Blvd in Venice on wednesday and witness the "Billy Morrison/Circus Diablo" Power Trio!! HAHAHAHA!!! LOVE IT!! For now, thats all she wrote.
Peace
Billy
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Posted by vivelerock at 10:22 AM | Comments (16)
January 25, 2008
I.S.P. HELL
Thats what happens when you try and make things faster, newer, stronger, better. They just stop working altogether! The whole week since I got back from Sundance has been 'sans internet' and all because I made the educated decision that my ISP wasn't as fast as it could be ....... and the 'new, better' service promptly didn't work!! So I have spent days figuring out whats up, with tech support feeling like they now know my most personal details, and a working knowledge of DHCP leases, IP addresses and stuff that I JUST DON'T NEED TO KNOW!!! Anyhow, I am back online again, and yes, it is indeed faster - by a hair. Was it worth it? Probably not. Will I sleep better knowing that my materialistic, 'keep up with the Jones' attitude has been sated by a kajillion MBPS upload speed? Maybe. All I know is that life without the web is a scary, dark place. Even scarier, in fact, than the dark places available to us ON the web!!
OK, so Sundance was SO hectic, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world. The actual Camp Freddy gig was a fairly low key, last minute affair. We were asked about a week before if we wanted to jam, and literally called a couple of friends on the day of the show to actually put the set together. Dave Navarro had previous commitments, so Billy Duffy came up and played lead for the evening. Cisco Adler, Scott Ian, Johnny Fayva and Nuno Bettencourt all jumped up at various points, and the 500 people that saw the show had a great time. The gig ended with me at the top of a HUGE drum monitor, surveying the whole scene (and wondering exactly how to get down again!!) and it was a great way to finish off a few days in the snow. But you can forget a V-Blog - I looked at the minimum footage I remembered to get and its not worth it. It was so 'Go Go Go' the whole time, that the stuff I did get is lame. Even lamer than usual!! So we'll do a good one soon. Instead - enjoy the Moose pic. I did!!
The DJ gig was also successful - T-Mobile had put together this really cool 'cyber-diner' type place with a bunch of great food and computers everywhere. I spun for two hours before moving next door to play the Freddy show. I have definately been getting better and better on the turntables and felt confident for most of the set. I always have a few 'moments' throughout when I wonder what to play next, or if I press the wrong button! But I figure its the same as guitar playing - no one really notices if you recover quickly and well!! Big up to Justin and his mate who had the tenacity to bug me until I got em in!! Hope you both had a great time. It was my pleasure to help, and you all need to know that when I can, I will.
I will have news on a few things at the end of the month. Plans are coming together, and 2008 is shaping up. I FINALLY put a 'Billy Morrison' MySpace page up - we'll see how I feel about it in a month or so!! The address is MySpace.Com/BillyMorrisonMusic - and you can click on the pic above to take you there - feel free to add away. Right now, I need to hunker down and hide from the torrential rain that we have here in LA right now (feel better about yerselves, London!!) and hope that the SoCal sun shows its head around here soon. Ask your questions - lets do some of that again. Back at the weekend with Dave and an all new CFR. Till then - PEACE!!!
Billy
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Posted by vivelerock at 08:26 AM | Comments (12)
January 19, 2008
WHICH WAY TO THE 7/11?
SO COLD!! I mean its REALLY cold on the mountain here. Kind of ok when you are walking around town, but on the slopes....???.....check out the pic. Looks like I was on my way to knock over the local 7/11!! But it was great skiing - really cool powder and some killer black runs. Today is the day I work - DJ show and the Camp Freddy show. The radio show is still on back in LA - Dave and I taped one before this weekend which will run tonight at 6pm. Its a great show with Kelly Carlson (Nip/Tuck) as our in-studio guest. She was fabulous and it really was a funny and engaging show. I ran into Perez Hilton yesterday who said he enjoyed last weeks show, so tune in on Indie 103.1FM tonight at 6pm for more of the same.
I have no idea why the photo above happened! One minute I am hanging out on Main Street, just taking a breather from the absolute craziness of the day, and the next minute I am getting accosted by a huge oversize Ronald McDonald that looked slightly stoned!! So what the fuck, right? Out came the camera, SNAP.... and off he waddled!! Don't ask me!!
Its all fun and games up here in Park City - I have grabbed a few frames here and there on the video camera, (and check out Nigel Skeets weird and wonderful shot of me at the ChefDance event a couple of nights ago!!) but its tough to carry cos I am always loaded up with big bags full of stuff I absolutely had to have and will absolutely never use. More about that when I actually edit the stuff together (when I am back in LA) - but if I managed to figure out the encoding, there should be a video below taken on my stills camera of my wobbly and completely unprofessional style of skiing!! Gotta dash, but have a great weekend and I'll be back with the full Sundance review and update next week. Oh yeah - and as always, the Podcast of the show is now up on the site for those of you who missed it.
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Posted by vivelerock at 08:00 AM | Comments (7)
January 16, 2008
SUNDANCE A GO GO
Posted by vivelerock at 06:26 PM
January 14, 2008
THREE PLACES AT ONCE
More details for those of you who are ..... um ......detail-minded!! As well as the previously announced charity show in Los Angeles on March 14th, Camp Freddy will also be playing at the Village At The Yard in Park City, UT this coming Saturday as part of the Sundance Film Festival. Its the same night as my DJ appearance, and I will also be (by the miracle of modern technology) on an ALL NEW Camp Freddy Radio show on Indie 103.1FM. I believe I now hold the record for actually appearing in THREE places at once!! The gig will take place on Saturday 19th January (I am afraid its invite only, but if you are at the festival there is always a way to sneak in!) and I will DJ immediately after I get offstage at the T-Mobile Diner next door with Donovan. CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT THE VILLAGE AT THE YARD SITE. The CFR will, of course, be a taped show with Dave and myself. Last Saturdays show is now up on the Podcast page and, as always, available from I-Tunes if you subscribe to my Podcasts. Thanks to Paul, as always, for making it all work. I gotta go - Circus Diablo rehearsals await, and an evening full of loud rock and roll. Love it.
Billy
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Posted by vivelerock at 03:31 PM | Comments (8)
January 12, 2008
CAMP FREDDY AT TEEN BENEFIT
Its Saturday morning, the sun is shining, and despite Dave being in Vegas for the AVN's there will STILL be an all new CFR tonight on Indie 103.1FM (how do they DO it, I hear you cry!!). Figured I would get a quick post up to tell you all that Camp Freddy will be playing a small 7 song set at a benefit show here in Los Angeles on March 14th at The Knitting Factory. The charity is called Teen Project, a foundation that is looking to build a sober college housing facility for teens coming out of the foster care system. Matt and Scott will be away with Velvet Revolver so we look forward to rocking a few tunes with Stephen Perkins behind the kit, and a few friends helping out with vocals and guitar. We do know that rock goddess Linda Perry will be performing herself, so maybe we can persuade her to do a song or two with us!! Check with the club for details cos I don't have any right now!! All I got for you is this crazy pic from Mean Streets magazine of Matt and myself taken up at the Strip when we went to see Linkin Park play at The Key Club. It must have been Halloween, although Matt has been known to go for dinner at SushiYa dressed like that!!
Lastly (but most importantly) my good friend and partner in crime, Mr Dave Navarro, and his directorial debut, Broken, are up for a bunch of awards at this years AVN in Las Vegas. I want to wish him the best of luck, and congratulations on being nominated. Can you all send some love and respect his way today please as the awards are announced tonight. Big UP and massive respec'!!
Peace
Billy
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Posted by vivelerock at 08:01 AM | Comments (10)
January 10, 2008
FOUR
So the keen eyes among you will have seen the MySpace profile for Circus Diablo has changed and the picture is now of a four piece band!! And I want to say that it has been SO much fun up to now - a huge thank you goes out to Brett, Billy and Ricky. We are all still close friends and its not a drama. Its more a case of realizing that the 'rotating member' thing just wasn't gonna work. And because of everyones schedules, we were unable to tour as much as we would have liked. So the mutual decision has been made - here we go with Circus Diablo V2.0. Myself on lead vocals and rhythm gtr. Rob Patterson on lead gtr. Patrick Cornell on bass and Charles Ruggiero on drums. New songs have been written already, more are being crafted as we speak, and we have been rehearsing as well this week. Its different for me - I now return to the familiar place of having a guitar around my neck!! So check out the band at its first show with the new slim look at Venice Rocks on January 30th. The flyer is below (yes I have ripped another Banksy off - he is the modern day Warhol, and besides....his art makes great flyers!!).
OK - starting the year as I mean to go on. Questions.....
Paul - I will actually see about some live Diablo stuff on here as a gift from us to you. Not immediately, but once we get out in the summer and get into touring mode, that is something I am happy to do - good suggestion mate.
Danni - As someone else has said already. it has, up to now, been a random selection of band members on Camp Freddy radio - with Dave and I taking the lions share. And with the movie stuff - horror is better for me than suspense, but I'll watch a good nail-biter every now and again. Saw Premonition and loved it. Haven't seen Perfect Stranger yet.
Slice - Not a bad idea! A live DJ Morrison set, complete with some IM messaging etc. I am willing to do that. But I would need some help with the streaming technology. I am not set up to do that stuff, and dont understand it. Mind you, thats never stopped me before!! Let me look into it.
Tucker - Welcome to the sunkissed shores of Camp Freddy Radio. Let this be a place that can whisk you away from the cold, grey Welsh hills and into a tropical paradise of music, video, blogging and all things entertainment. Or maybe just hang out here when you wanna read some mindless shit!! Ha ha - welcome!!
Alec - Living La Vida Loca you are!! Nice to see you are still around. Have fun mate.
Cori - Actually I have two pairs of the important stuff like the Diablo ones. One get worn and used and the other takes up space in a closet, getting dusty and forgotten about. Why do I do that??
Beth - Well I did have some Namm stuff lined up, but I changed my plans and I am now gonna be in Park City the whole time for the Sundance Film Festival. I am DJing up there at a T-Mobile Diner thing so this year I am afraid that Namm will be Morrisonless. I am sure that they will cope!!
A few other items of interest (or not) - Those of you who have been around here for a few years (has it really been THAT long??) will remember me spending some time writing and recording three tracks for an American Idol finalist, Ryan Starr (the female, not the male!!). Apparently they are being released on an album very soon - I will get the details soon, but they sent me the mastered tracks to listen to, and they sound great. Haven't listened to those three songs since I did them, but they stand up well. I played most of the instruments on them and wrote the songs with my friend Jed Leiber. And talking of Jed, another one of our co-writes, the old Doheny track Evergreen got a make over before Christmas. I resang the vocal and Charles played some drums on the song and once we mix it in a week or so it will be in the movie Basement Jack. That's the movie I played a cop in, and plans to do a killer green screen video for the song are still firmly in place.
I also wanna quickly thank our very own Richard for sending me this dynamite pic of the Pistols, way back in 1978, getting off the bus in Memphis. For a Pistols fan like myself, its always nice to see new pics surface and new accounts of the goings on back then. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ONLINE NEWSPAPER ARTICLE ABOUT THE SEX PISTOLS VISITING MEMPHIS. Finally, I think that Camp Freddy will be playing a small charity show in Los Angeles on March 14th. As I haven't yet had the 'final' word, I think I should keep some details to myself for now, but it appears that Stephen Perkins will be on the drums, and a certain Linda Perry (one of our all time favorite guests) is also involved in the event. So details of the charity and the venue once someone tells me for sure that this is locked in. Thats it from me - I gotta go have breakfast with Mr Sorum, hit the gym, pass by the WGA benefit and then get stuck in to one of those new Diablo tunes in my studio. Sounds like a good day. Later.
Billy
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Posted by vivelerock at 07:40 AM | Comments (5)
January 05, 2008
LET ANOTHER YEAR BEGIN.
As the dust settles on 2007, we all gradually return to work/school/the couch and continue doing what we were doing before! For me this means a few things - and the first would be that Circus Diablo are regrouping next week for some rehearsals. We are playing a small show in Venice, CA at a club called VENICE ROCKS on January 30th to air a couple of new songs, bust out a guitar or two for me, and generally brush the cobwebs off and start the process of being a band again and writing for album number two. It'll be fun to play, and it will also show us how V2.0 of the band is going to work in 08. It looks like we can also tell you that we will be performing at this years FANGORIA convention in LA but more details on that one will have to wait until we have them. Primary focus is on writing some killer new songs and starting the process of getting in the studio.
I am also DJing at the T-Mobile Diner in Park City, Utah on January 19th. Its part of the Sundance Film Festival. Basically its an excuse for most of Hollywood to disappear into the snow, run around having parties and get free swag all day long. Oh yeah - and there are movies there too!! Donovan and I are gonna DJ on the Saturday night - it should be a lot of fun, and Sundance itself is always amazing. Seeing as I busted out my skiing moves once already this year, I feel I can get out on the slopes again so hopefully a nice V-Blog will be coming your way soon!
Tonight is an all new CFR with Dave and myself. Its been a few years now and Camp Freddy Radio is still going strong. We move into another year committed with Indie 103.1FM and Dave and myself have some fun shows ahead this year. Who knew we would be legitimate FM radio Disc Jockeys?!?!? I love doing the show and Indie has been behind us the whole way. LOTS of respect to everyone at the station, and if you are new to this site, or just didn't know that we had the show, tune in tonight (and every Saturday night) at 6.00pm PST for two hours of genius radio, only on 103.1 FM.
I have a few plans for myself for 2008 that are really exciting, and as usual, this site will be the place to get the news first. No point in detailing a bunch of stuff that hasn't happened yet, but I start the year creatively fired up, enthusiastic about a few project ideas, and full of gratitude for my life and the people in it. Stick around and be part of it all. Questions are invited again - feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer. And fire off any ideas you guys have about the site. How can you be a part of it? How can I bring you all the content to want? All ideas and suggestions welcome. Thats it from me - I'm off to put tonight's playlist together. See you out there sometime this year.
Peace
Billy
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Posted by vivelerock at 08:45 AM | Comments (16)