these pics: Alan Tilston

looking forward to tonite at the Forum. Who’s coming? spinning tunes from 10:30. Joining Chicane for ‘Purdy’ sometime after midnight

PLAY: Purdy (Chicane remix, Billy’s edit)

Purdy Orbitmixer

Purdy Multitrack (all elements)
x24 16bit WAVs (in a ZIP Folder): Purdy_stems.zip

Purdy Stems (8 stereo subgroups)
x8 16bit WAVs (in a ZIP Folder): Purdy_stems.zip

PLAY: Purdy (Billy Buttons mix).mp3

pic: Laurie Mayer

thanks for the pics Alan Tilston

A few dates for the diary:

June 8th release of physical CD of “My Oracle Lives Uptown

(finally a CD How could I have forgotten to release my album on CD?!?)

July 2 live performance on “Morning Becomes Eclectic” with Jason Bentley . Will be talking with Jason and performing some tracks between 10am and noon LA time (PDT/ GMT-7)   http://www.kcrw.com/music/programs/mb

mini-feature on mr Jason Bentley ubermusicmeister of KCRW
In the ‘corridor-of-coolness’, deep in the KCRW bunker. Notice poster for ‘The Drop’

the haloed live music studio

JB at the controls. This is where MBE is cooked up every weekday morning!

Jason conducts a tech tour for Lynda.com

studio toys?
(I’ll find out and let you all know!)

kcrw photos courtesy of: http://www.lynda.com (excellent learning resource imho)

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Friday July 10 at 9:15 pm.   Performing a new work (music and poetry) live on “The Verb” at the Radio Theatre at Broadcasting House, London. To be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3.

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Thursday 23rd July: Deejaying at Can Can (Mark Moore and Jerry Bouthier’s night) at  Cable  

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Other WO deejay dates for the summer t.b.a.

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Will also post release date for next single ‘Purdy‘ (with remixes) as soon as possible.

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Same with black cab session – will post details as soon as they become available.
 

stay tuned

	New single Optical illusions (EP) Released: 13th April
	New album My oracle lives uptown (digital download) Released: 18th May 2009

My video is on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECD-4SS9TGU A proud moment because I have never done anything like this before. All done on laptops. Richard Shea and I spent long hours editing and assembling. Final Cut Pro was a hard mountain to climb and in the end we mostly used Sony Vegas.

This first video is made to the Dr Meaker remix of ‘Optical Illusions’. He mixed it at Olympic Studios in South London. Sam Matthews was the mix engineer. I really like the sound they got there.

I still can’t get over the fact that this fabulous studio is about to close.

Brian Jones and Jimi Hendrix at Olympic in the late 60s.

There will be a video version for the Billy Buttons mix in a couple of days. Watch this space.

button 1

button 2

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button 6

press buttons
more on post 20

The incredible trumpeter Byron Wallen is featured on my album

Panscan

Yes, it’s an Audio and Design ‘Panscan‘. The secret’s out.
That’s where the glow worm was born. This device has served me well as a variable speed and depth tremelo unit for guitars, synths, bass and vocals over the years. And now it has spawned my album cover. Bravo Panscan!

Russia

I’ll be participating in the  Anglo Mockba Festival in Moscow at the very beginning of May
Deejaying  ‘Most‘ club in Moscow Friday May 1st
and at Winston Freedom Clubbin, Novosibirsk, Siberia Saturday May 2nd.

The other attendees at the festival  (all from from the UK)

• Gavin Turk, artist
• Stephen Frears, filmmaker
• Rosie Millard, journalist
• Jake Chapman, artist
• Martha Fiennes, filmmaker
• Michael Nyman, composer
• Dan Crowe, journalist
• Amanda Eliasch, photographer
• Dasha Zhukova, entrepreneur
• Hugo Rifkind, journalist
• Danny Moynihan, curator
• Stephen Daldry, filmmaker and theatre director
• Lucy Freud, artist
• Henry Holland, fashion designer
• Stephen Jones, milliner
• Myriam Blundell, curator
• Anthony Haden-Guest, journalist

More details to follow

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Monte D’Oro

Laurie Mayer’s Mojave Desert Tortoise Monte is awake after his long winter hibernation and enjoying a breakfast of poppy petals, his favourite, in the Spring California sunshine.

Snowball

Snowball has gone Glowball

Abbey Road Studios
still going strong

A few things coming up: 

Tonight the ‘Listen Again‘ option for Dave Pearce runs out on the BBC iPlayer. This is where I chose my top anthem.  So get it while it lasts!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ds8mj
I see that he has Jeremy Healy doing his anthem choice tonight!
 

Monday, March 30
Mastering the updated album at Abbey Road.
 

Tuesday, March 31
off to BBC 6 Music to pre-record an interview with Chris Hawkins. Am not sure when it will go out.
 

Jodie Harsh is doing a remix of ‘Optical Illusions‘

Wednesday
Going to spend all day rigging up ProTools 8. I’ve been on ProTools 6 for far too long. Expecting lots of computer agony and ecstasy.

Or maybe not
 

Thursday, April 2
To The BBC World Service at Bush House in The Strand. Fascinating place. This is to discuss my forthcoming trip to Russia.

The rather enormous front foor of Bush House.

The halloed portal to the North West Wing

Friday, April 3
On BBC Radio 2, live on Claudia Winkleman’s Arts Show (I’m on somewhere between 11pm to midnight but catch the whole show from 10.
 

Saturday, April 4
4:45 Live with Lauren Laverne on BB6 Music (show runs 4-6pm)
 

Sunday
Working on a project that is top secret for the moment
 

Monday April 6th
Taping a radio program for Q Radio. Just loads of my favourite tracks from past and present and a little background to each one.
 

later that night, at midnight
Live with Janice Long on Radio 2
I’m bringing in half a dozen tracks that have influenced me over the years and we’ll be discussing them 
 

Wednesday 8
Pre-recording with the legendary  Mark Radcliff and Stuart Maconie

Rob da Bank on Radio 1  interview recorded, to be aired just before release of album
 

I will put in more dates as I know them. It’s been great that ‘Optical Illusions’ has been played on the radio quite a lot. Now that there are new versions it’s all getting a bit discombobulating. Richard and I are going to make a second promo disc so we can kind of catch up with it all.

4th March

Friday again! It only seems like a couple of days ago that it was last Friday. I have spent much of the week grappling with Final Cut Pro and and am only now starting to get moving. It’s a wonderful tool but it comes with a five inch high stack of manuals and about 99 ways of importing and exporting film clips.

I also had one of these in my system and that slowed things down. There’s nothing so taxing to the spirit as computer malfunctions. Even a small ‘error message’ can bring on the blues. It feels like a deep personal wound. 

And one day soon I’ll fire off a screed about my frustrations with a certain national telecommunications company. This is is not supposed to be a blog about techno-angst but some monopoly corporations get very complacement. Grrrrr!

Anyway, as I said, the creativity is back in flow so my first video endeavour will be completed on Tuesday. Come what may. But I won’t be writing my “A-Z of Video Editing” for a while yet.

One thing I should announce with certainty is my album release date is Monday MAY 4th. So in a couple of weeks I will be out on the campaign trail!

It’s a beautiful sunny day here in London, England. Sunglasses might be required. I’ve just checked on snowball and he’s slumbering contentedly in his favourite drawer of the freezer. Notice the bowl by the way, I was careful to bring that down to the right temperature before putting him in it.

I will keep you updated

W

ps, the bug has been successfully vanquished

[but he has a lot of cousins]

  –“Kicking off with the radio edit, the ep features remixes from hot new dubstep / jazz breaks DJ Aaron Jerome, who has gained critical acclaim for his debut album ‘Time To Rearrange’ (Aaron’s recent remixes include Gotan Project, Future Loop Foundation, Roy Davis Jnr and Little Dragon), and dubstep remixer Trenchman, who came to prominence with his remix of Lil Wayne ‘A Milli’. The ep also boasts mixes by Bristol’s Dr Meaker, a well known face on the drum and bass scene”. Finally there is the Billy Buttons mix, a more subtle rearrangement of the vocals and atmospherics by William Orbit“.  Press release from Kobalt Digital

 [Dr Meaker has mixed his mix again and is even BETTER!]

                                          1.   optical illusions (radio edit)

                                          2.   optical illusions (aaron jerome remix)

                                          3.   optical illusions (trenchman remix)

                                          4.   optical illusions (dr meaker remix)

                                          5.   optical illusions (billy buttons mix)

post 1

There’s a great remix of Optical Illusions by Trenchman. I’ll will post a clip next soon along with some others that I am awaiting.