Scandalous opinions

I use to be somewhat involved with a Second Life music forum. However I’ve come to the conclusion if I actually said what I thought, it would not be received well, and if you can’t say what you really think, why participate? I’ve concluded that posting certain opinions were the “movers and shakers” move and shake would have a negative effect on my so-called “Career in music”.

Inflammatory opinions don’t really belong in a public forum anyway. The most profound use of a public forum would be the distribution of valuable information. However they are rarely used that way.

On the other hand, Blogs are the tailor made for opinions, inflammatory and otherwise. With this in mind, I present a few opinions and if they offend anybody I suggest they stop reading my Blog.

Talent in Second Life

There is some talent but just like real life, it’s a rare. Second Life is jam packed full of act that will cause you to lose the will to live. While I have no problem with people getting their ROCK STAR fantasy out in the open. But the sad fact of the matter is these people work a lot more then they should. People wonder how we are going to get new people involved in the music scene. Well if they go to a show and see “Joe utterly horrible” they will probably assume most the music in Second life sucks and not bother to attend any further shows. Remember, the write up on “Joe utterly horrible” said is was one of the HOTTEST artists performing in Second life.

Speaking of write ups…

Everybody ask for one, and yes I have one chocked full of purple prose. These are utterly pointless. I have a website, why don’t you just post a link in the notice. I’ve never read anything that inspired me to check somebody out.

Worshiping mediocrity

There are a few people that can string a few cords together, remember most the words to the songs. If they play cover songs they’ll probably raise to the ranks of one of the “Popular kids”. People are comfortable with what they know, and I don’t have a problem with that, but when they confused comfort with talent I have a problem.

Get DJs and Karaoke acts off the LIVE MUSIC listing.

DJs are NOT live music. They are an MP3 collection and a stream. It requires NO TALENT to be a DJ and more to the point it’s not in anyway live music. I personally feel the acts that sing to “Back up tracks” are nothing more then Karaoke and should be treated as such. Once again, if a new person comes to a show, and it turns out to be nothing more then Karaoke, they are not going to grasp what Second life has to offer. A sad fact about the Karaoke scene in Second life is it has all the horrors of Karaoke with none of the fun. In real life you can sign up and make an ass of yourself at Karaoke night. Here you just get to watch somebody else make an ass of themselves. Don’t forget to tip them and join their group.

Act that charge a fee to play

This is a very hot topic on the music related forum mentioned at the outset of this rant. My opinion is an artist that…whoops, acts that charge a fee are greedy bastards. Do they have any idea how much money venue owners spend per month to provide artist and music lovers a place to enjoy live music? The largest portion of this expense is covered right out of the venue owner’s pocket. And while most venue owners are good sports and willing to throw a few dollars to the act (pay the fee), the act is just adding insult to injury. Just another bill for the venue owner to pay.

I have the same expenses other act have and manage to make enough Linden in tips to cover those expenses. I have a beach house and a stream to pay for, and I still cash out a few times a month to have money in real life for strings and a new guitars.

How much of a difference would that 8-20 $ US make? Not much. I’m more then willing to let the venue owner keep that to help pay for his HUGE overhead. He’s giving me a place to work my craft. God bless him.

Thinking inside the coffin

And finally, the last opinion. While I lurked silent at the forum, I noticed that people kept talking about the same solutions to problems that didn’t work before.

SL Radio: Second life Radio stations don’t work. People are comfortable with what they know, and the few Second Life artist that make music that is legal to play without paying publishing fees is not going to break a radio station.

Second life Music magazines: The music scene is way too fragmented to make it worth the effort. The vast majority of acts do nothing worth reporting about. So the magazine becomes as pointless as the fluffy writes ups posted in group Spam.

Mega events to raise awareness of live music in Second life: Pointless masturbation. The faithful come out to see their favorite acts and everybody gets the warm fuzzies. I just played one of these events without even knowing it. I found out after the show when they sent me a “Thank you for raising music awareness in Second life” card.

I would love to see anybody do something new even if it was remarkably stupid. Doing the same things that don’t work over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of crazy.