DV Diary Dates

Events featuring "The Dark Villager" this season!

26th October

7.30 pm St Mary's Church , Whittlesey , Cambs, UK

Violin solo at the 'annual' music concert
I will be performing a movement from the 4 seasons (Vivaldi) on solo violin
plus a fun opening piece with bodrhan and flute
(No Kilt this year, sorry!)


14th November

7pm Whittlesey Library, Cambs UK

I am producing a video documentary for a client that will be premiered on Nov 14th.

It documents his journey through the 'Deep South' in the 60's, 80's and his revisit again earlier this year.
It is focussed on the Mississippi, local life and industry (cotton) the history, and the music.
In particular, he is a friend of Jerry Lee Lewis and it follows his journey for his early years (when they met in Peterborough UK) to the current day and his recent 78th Birthday where they were reunited.

He will then give a talk about his experiences shown in the video

Jerry Lee Lewis will receive a personal copy of the video


24th November

The Eastrea Centre Hall
all day till late

I will be the audio producer / live sound 'guy' for this event
I might possibly be playing something live (undecided yet) and a bit of DJ'ing
come along for some early cheesy seasonal cheer

Electronic Wedding

Electronic Wedding...?
No, not Robots getting married......!
but my brother Robert is!

My music creation has been taken over the last couple of months with producing a short 'set' for my Brothers Wedding Reception, (the crazy evening bit after the boring formal stuff is out the way)

(I'm also playing violin for the actual ceremony bit)

Me being me, I didn't want to re-do old tracks (plus most of my tracks are dark and depressing, or at least too sarcastic or weird for a wedding)

So I've now got the music kit to do it live with (and a couple of visual surprises I'm working on - no I'm not playing naked)

The tracks are meant to represent a journey through music and life
or a musical journey
or a journey of life through music
or ... you get the idea....

I've pretty much completed three of the four tracks:

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1: Love Life

LOVE LIFE - Click to play

The 'love life' video is longer as I give a quick talk through of the equipment I'm using and how I'm using it to control elements of the track, as well as keyboard parts and vocals, to play live.

"love life" is meant as a big opening  (with orchestrated introduction) and a play on the words love-life  / or love LIFE
-----

2: Journey

JOURNEY - Click to play

Journey has an Orb feel to it and musically and lyrically is a kind of journey through some of the things in me and my brothers lives (beach, fens, london etc)

----

3: "Everything"... still working on this one,  happy, upbeat, Pet Shop Boys style

----
4: Music of our lives

MUSIC OF OUR LIVES - Click to play

Upbeat dance floor pop to end with. The lyrics are a humorous trip through music and genres from 70's to present day

----

I've also been working on some other ideas that won't be used for the set and may or not end up on You tube etc... such as this one:

STRANGE STRANGER - Click to play
(strange stranger, that's me)
----

till next time!
-DV

Demo Mix 2013

Demo Mix 2013

Work in progress: Mix of some tracks I'm writing at the moment.
Some of these may get finished, some may not, some may be used for a couple of performances I have coming up, on the other hand they may not. Who Knows!

 Demo Mix 2013

New Macbook Pro and Logic 9

I got a brand new macbook pro yesterday. (The last one died early last year) I also bought logic pro 9 too so I'm well set up now! I went off mac for a while but this is great!..loving it!

I Seriously can't afford it but unfortunately (or fortunately) is pretty much essential for a musician / teacher / producer so gotta be done, it's an investment as it were.

Basically I have an interview soon and havn't a hope in hell of getting it without a Mac to prep on. Plus it's not the 1st time that's happened, had one a month ago that would have gone so much better if I'd had time to prepare on a mac. No guarantee I'll get the job of course but it's gotta be a help to have the tool for the job, it's not easy preparing a lessons / demo on a mac / logic when you havn't got one!

My Last macbook was one of the standard white plastic ones, 2008 I think, and had a Turkish layout keyboard which was a nightmare ( as I bought it in turkey when I was working there)

This is the aluminium macbook pro, with backlit keys, miles better! and the new OSX is really set up well for musicians ( the old one was not)

 

 

I bought the cheapest macbook model at £999. My mum has just bought a new laptop with windows 8. It cost £369 and has massively good specs, actually on paper better than my high end PC i got a year ago! (apart from the bus speed and grapics) and better specs than this mac (larger HD, faster processor, more ram)

But for some reason, macs just run fast and quick, well this one does ( last one wasn't great). Well above an equivelent spec'd windows machine. I think it has a much higher bus speed... ? It literally took me 2 minutes to get it all up and running, logged into email and registered. Starts and shuts in seconds and runs logic brilliantly.

More importantly it's actually been set up properly for musicians Hurray!! About time they caught on that a high percentage of their users / buyers and artists and musicians.

I've already downloaded about 20GB of free updates and jam packs for garage band and logic. massive amount of sounds to play with already before looking at other plug ins. Ordering and downloading Logic was so easy and quick. Very impressive. I already have an apple ID from my last mac and from my ITunes label, so didn't have to set that up.

I love the backlit keys, totally designed for playing on stage in the dark.

and the best bit is it comes with a little packet containing two apple stickers and a cleaning cloth. Well worth the extra £600 for those alone ! Maybe they should market it as the worlds most expensive and exclusive stickers.

Thanks to My wife for suggesting / encouraging me to get it. Hopefully it will help me get the job I need and want and even if not, it is a highly useful, excellent, impressive (and expensive) addition to my music arsenal. I consider this an addition , not a replacement to the last one, it's a much better beast altogether just to be considered a replacement.

After I finish my current track I'm working on, you can guarantee my next one will be produced on the new macbook.

-Till next time
-DV

Beats Orchestra

Into Music?

Peterborough Area?

14-19?

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Global Freezing....?!

What happened to global warming? It's minus 6 here today. They'll soon rename it Global shifting... the icebergs are headed south they say....

You are Extraordinary (1st new release for 2013)