Bill Byrne Artist's Update

Maker Faire Performance

noreply@blogger.com (Bill) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 17:25:00 +0000

Photo by Rebekah Weatherly

I'd like to say thanks to the Maker Faire for having us back this year. This was the first time Suzanne and I performed in a year, and we were glad to be playing in front of an audience again.

When performing abstract electronic music in a live format, it's always hard gauge audience reaction. However, what I can say after having listened to the recording of the set, if you can make a baby cry so loud it gets picked up by the mic, well, you did something right. I will be posting a video and MP3 of the set shortly.

I'd also like to thank Mix 94.7's JB and Sandy for having myself and Sherry Huss from Make on their show on Thursday, here's a link to listen to our interview: Bill from PLI interviewed on JB and Sandy.

noreply@blogger.com (Bill) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:00:00 +0000

Update

So, Suzanne and I are are going to be performing on the Maker Stage at 8:30 pm this Saturday night at the Maker Faire, being held at Austin's Travis County Fairgrounds, Also, I will be part of a radio spot on the Maker Faire on Austin's JB and Sandy broadcast this morning on Mix 94.7 FM, at 8:30am, there's supposed to be a podcast of it, so when I know the link for that, I'll post it here. Thanks!

noreply@blogger.com (Bill) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 15:22:00 +0000

My wife, Suzanne and I will be performing at Austin's 2008 Maker Faire. This is the Painful Leg Injuries' first live show in almost a year! The Maker Faire will be taking place on October 17th and 18th at Austin's Travis County Fairgrounds, here's a link to more info. I'll post the actual schedule times when I know them, we are very excited to be playing live again.

Wii Will Rock You - Make Article

noreply@blogger.com (Bill) — Sat, 31 May 2008 14:53:00 +0000

An article I recently wrote on using the Nintendo Wiimote as a music controller is now published in issue #14 of Make Magazine.

It's on page 145. I take readers through various set-ups for using the Wiimote to control music software, soft-synths, and even MIDI retrofits of some of my favorite circuit bends. Make was kind enough to give spot on their site for links to the freeware, software, videos, and other bits of associated information, click here to read more.

Also, if you'd like to hear the results of musical experiments with the Wiimote, my band the Painful Leg Injuries have released a free download album called The Rich Man's Godforesaken Driver's Seat, with 13 tracks of Wiimote-controllled music.

Click here to listen and download

The Harmful Free Radicals Now Available

noreply@blogger.com (Bill) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:50:00 +0000

My label OKSRNA has just released the first CD-R of 2008, The Harmful Free Radicals' Duplicate Factories of Washington State. To listen to the songs and/or purchase click here.

Aside from being the first CD-R we've released this year, it's also the project that lead to the start of the label. It began in 2003 when myself, and my long-time collaborator Jonah Goldstein (The Unevenness of the Moon’s Surface), found ourselves briefly living on the same coast for first time in many years. We decided to resume our old habit of recording bizarre experimental pop music together and see what became of it. Duplicate Factories of Washington State is result of those '03 sessions plus four years of songwriting, re-recording and editing. It's pop songs in the vein of Gastr Del Sol's Camofleur album, David Sylvain's Blemish, Brian Eno's Before and After Science and Animal Collective's Sung Tongs. But you guys know us by now, those are references only, we've never made music that is easily described.

To download the track Can I Eat The Whole Thing? click here.

The Harmful Free Radicals Now Available

noreply@blogger.com (Bill) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:50:00 +0000

noreply@blogger.com (Bill) — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 16:51:00 +0000

My band the Painful Leg Injuries have released a new free download album called The Rich Man's Godforsaken Driver's Seat. This free album is a collection of my compositions and improvisations made by using the Nintendo Wiimote as a controller for music

To give it a listen click here, or to download it click here.

From the moment I first started reading about the possibility, I've been very excited about the Wiimote as a music controller. When I bought one, and got the software and everything working it was inspiring and I recorded many tracks, and these are the fruits of those sessions. The thirteen tracks in this collection combine compositions with improvisations, the conceptual with the intuitive, and noise with melodies. software, soft synths and samplers, a Pushpin Gameboy Color synth as well as my circuit bent instruments such as my Casio Sk1, Speak and Spell.

Here's video of me performing my Speak and Casio SK1 here. I've been covered by the getlofi and Highly Liquid blogs for this project. Thanks to John from Highly Liquid and getlofi

They are 192 kbps MP3 files, and completely DRM free. Flying Through The Eye At An Alarming Time features recorded samples of me knocking my TV with my Wiimote, samples that were eventually played by my Wiimote. This Is Playful For Diseases is made up completely of improvisations with my Wiimote controlled Pushpin Gameboy synth, and Wiimote played samples of the LSDJ Gameboy tracker software, an anachronistic take on Nintendo gear. Michael Winslow Has His Revenge (On Clever Dated References) features a digital instrument completely made from samples of the 80's actor/comedian.

Thanks in advance, take care.

My Bloomfield College Visiting Artist Talk

noreply@blogger.com (Bill) — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 23:29:00 +0000

Hello everyone, I now have an MP3 file of my Bloomfield College Visiting Artist Talk, which you can listen to by clicking here. Thanks, I hope you enjoy it.

New Animation Work From the Maker Faire

noreply@blogger.com (Bill) — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 16:32:00 +0000

My band/sound art project, The Painful Leg Injuries' performance visuals and live set from the Maker Faire is now posted on my label's (OKSRNA) video page. The animation work here was created using a drawing program for the Commodore 64 and a Gameboy Color with the Gameboy Camera cartridge.

I took this source material and used modern visual and animation software to give it a bizarre anachronistic feel, a mix of hi-tech/lo-tech. Take a look and enjoy.

Visiting Artist Lecture Series At Bloomfield College

noreply@blogger.com (Bill) — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 17:18:00 +0000

The talk went very well yesterday and I wanted to thank Laura Nova, and the students at Bloomfield College for having me speak about my work. There will soon be a podcast available which I'll post links to here. Thanks again.

Visiting Artist Lecture Series At Bloomfield College

noreply@blogger.com (Bill) — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 17:30:00 +0000

At noon, tomorrow, at Bloomfield College, I'll be the lecturer in their Visiting Artist Lecture Series. I'll be discussing my work, my digital photo-montages, animation, sound art and professional projects. If you are in New Jersey and would like to come out, it's open to the public, and there's directions in the link below:
http://bloomfield.edu/about/location.aspx

It's in the Westminster Arts Building on the corner of Franklin And Fremont. If you can't make it there will be a video and a podcast, which I'll make the links available here.

Take care....

New Music Available For Free Download

noreply@blogger.com (Bill) — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 23:44:00 +0000

Now available for free download, a new Painful Leg Injuries album, The Forever Ending Revolutions On Autopilot. Click here to download your copy. It has been released on the net-based label Noise Joy. Noise Joy's Alex Spalding does weekly podcasts for OKSRNA.

This is our first album of long form compositions. Each of the four pieces are based on sections I composed using the Little Sound DJ software on my Gameboy. These were written during my commutes on the New York city subway. I'd then record them when I get home and write new parts for my various home-made, circuit bent, software based and various other instruments. And after the pieces were built, I wrote cello sections for Suzanne to play.

The title refers to the trance-like state I fell into during my commutes. Which I actually quite enjoyed and strangely enough, the daily subway ride is one of the things I miss the most about New York.

Well, I hope you enjoy the new music, thank you.

New Activities

noreply@blogger.com (Bill) — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 13:17:00 +0000

Hello there again everyone.

A couple quick announcements. First my band/sound art/multimedia project The Painful Leg Injuries will be making our Texas debut on October 20th when we will perform at Make zine's Maker Faire. My wife Suzanne will be joining me with her cello, I will be playing some of my circuit bend and homemade electronic instruments, gameboy, some regular old instruments and of course, a laptop. I will also be projecting animated visual art. We are very excited to be playing this show, Make is one of my favorite magazines.

Also, on November 14th I will be giving a talk at Bloomfield college back in New Jersey. I'll be discussing about my various art and professional projects. It's from 12-1p and open to the public. I'll be posting more details as I have them.

Take care.

We Are Now Texans....

noreply@blogger.com (Bill) — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 12:56:00 +0000

Well, you can live in Texas, but not be of Texas. Aside from that we live in Austin, which isn't very much like the rest of the state. So far, we love it here.

On November 14th though I will return to the east to an artist's talk at Bloomfield College in the Garden State. I'll be posting updates here, so take care.

Leaving New York

noreply@blogger.com (Bill) — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 13:19:00 +0000

Sue and I are saying good bye to the big apple and moving to Austin, Texas in about two weeks.

Before we go I'd like to thanks all of our friends and colleagues in NYC the past eight years have been incredible and we will miss everyone. I'd also like to thank all the folks at the School of Visual Arts Photography and Related Media program, especially Charles Traub and Simon Watson, for all the guidance they gave me even after I graduated. And, of course, my students at the Katharine Gibbs School, you've made the past three years very interesting.

I would also like to let everyone know I'll be back in the Garden State to do a visiting artist's talk at Bloomfield College in New Jersey on November 14th. I'll post more details here about this as I find them out.

Take care.

You Tube and Flickr

noreply@blogger.com (Bill) — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 14:37:00 +0000

Back again. I recently went on a trip to Sicily and I have snapshots on Flickr, mostly family photos but while I was there I shot enough plants to begin a new montage.

I've been doing new podcast series of videos that are used to warp their own sound and then I fed the sound back into the video to alter the visual image.

"Here's the first two and there are three more to follow.
"Weeds Between Rocks":

"A Budding Green"

My you tube page : http://youtube.com/profile?user=sirwildbill

Back, Again, To Stay

noreply@blogger.com (Bill) — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 16:25:00 +0000

Hello folks, once again I have neglected this site, mainly because I used iWeb and, whatever, blogging got inconvenient. Now I changed things, I'm using Blogger so you'll be seeing more updates. The biggest news I have right now is that my sound art project the Painful Leg Injuries is playing in Brooklyn on May 20th at a club called Monkeytown. More updates to follow.