The saga continues

I’ve never had any problem with politics. I remember my Father taking me aside and telling me, “Son…everything is political and everything is personal”. My Dad never struck me as a deep thinker but the older I get the more wisdom I see in that.

Politics are just the mechanics of promoting an agenda. Politics are not bad in and of themselves and the only people without agendas are severely mentally challenged.

Soooo…(try and follow a long here it gets a little weird, but makes sense when you think about it), if you proposed the agenda of, “Hey, let’s put music first and not have a bunch of Politics mucking it up”, you would need to employ politics to promote that agenda.

Did I blow your mind?

DID I BLOW YOUR MIND????????

Anyway… back to the saga.

You may recall a new and much loved venue was about to have it’s staff trained by Pod People overlord Moody, and I mentioned she was crazy, ineffective and possibly EVILLLL and they canceled the training session.

The good guys win. But then… the saga continues.

Well it kind of continues. Seems “Someone” (quotations because I think “Someone” is my biggest fan) read my critical comments about Moody and MNP (I found out what it really means, “Management not performers”), and made sure Moody got an eyeful of my witty bon motts and pithy observations.

Seems The Moody didn’t enjoy my musings and decided it was time to TAKE ACTION!!! Of course she had already DESTROYED my career (snicker), so there was nothing more she could do to me. She decided to punish the impudent venue I so appreciate.

She told the venue she would not be renewing any of her performers there. Oddly, this is kind of… fucked up. But things being fucked up is Moody’s “A” game. The Venue is very supportive of good music and that is why I love it. It’s developing a reputation of presenting good music.

Moody has a couple of good acts, but most are… not so good. I’m not pointing figures or naming names, but the fact is Moody, aside from being crazy has little musical taste. I suspect she courts acts to exploit purely on audience reaction. And remember, popularity has almost nothing to do with talent in Second life.

Moody’s performers could have benefited by playing a venue that is developing a reputation for featuring good music. But the bottom line is, Moody’s ego is more important to her then what is in the best interest of her clients.

This seems to me a bit… wait for it… POLITICAL.

So in the end, the good venue continues to do what it set out to do in the first place. Promote some good music. Zorch continues to play shows, add members to the Zorch Nation and sell MP3s in spite of the fact he’s too arrogant to be a vital part of the Second Life music community.

So once again, the good guys win. I love happy endings.

Community

One of the most corrosive concepts in the Second Life music scene is the concept of the Second life Music community.

I’m well aware of the warm fuzzy feeling the word Community instills, but the simple fact is “community think” is never as all-inclusive as it seems. We always want people that think as we do in the community, so any attempt to create a wonderful all inclusive community involves a good deal of politics.

Community = Good feeling

Politics = Bad feeling

Once you attempt an all-inclusive community conceptually, you have to birth it into existence by including people. Every idea works until you get people involved.

Once you add people to the mix, suddenly the desire for establishing orthodoxy appears. Once the orthodoxy is established, heretics can be singled out and dealt with appropriately.

This is a totally normal group dynamic, but it’s a long way from all-inclusive.

I’m probably the biggest heretic of all because I recognize the fact an all-inclusive community is a myth, and frankly, a detrimental myth.

Why do I call it detrimental? Simply because it underlines methodologies that don’t work.

With up to 80,000 people online at any time, best numbers shows around 1,500 are attending “Live music events”. And I feel should mention “Live Music” includes DJs.

I’ve also been told there are around 300 musicians performing in Second Life, if all of them were playing at the same time, 1,500 attendee divided by 300 performers mean would be pulling in five people per-show.

I understand it does not work like that. But getting a practical model of how it does work is almost impossible. There are “Live music events” listings and you could look at that and say there are four live music events happening between 1 PM SLT and 2 PM SLT. But that would not be accurate. It seems the venue owner doesn’t list most the events I play at all. I’m sure this is more of a norm then people realize.

Of course all of this is mathematical masturbation. There is NO practical model to analyze the performance of the current methodologies. All we can say with certainty is it’s not making any significant headways in getting people involved with live music.

Instead of an all-inclusive community, we need to develop the growth of “Organic communities”?

Organic communities happen naturally (hence the name). An example would be the help POL gave me at the start of my epic climb to the upper part of the bottom. He saw a musician that fit in with what he was doing and started featuring me at his shows. Of course, venues open to what POL was doing would also be open to what I’m doing.

Another example would be recently, Blindboy and myself made a “Lanny sandwich” with a new artist we both like named Lanrete Moonite. I played before him, drawing my crowd, and Blindboy played after him drawing his crowd. In the overlap between shows, people got an ear full of Lanny.

I feel Artist, Venues and Listeners make up an organic community. It’s informal and works pragmatically because there is no need for orthodoxy or politics. The informal nature also prevents it from trying to be all-inclusive. If we ever did try to establish it formally, suddenly things would change drastically.

When people wake up to the fact, community is where you find it, suddenly things will move toward growth.

Technology abuse

The following are my thoughts and I’m not implying anybody else needs to subscribe to my particular esthetic.

In Second Life there are a whole slew of people that sing with back up tracks. I’m not addressing these people at all. They really have little to do with music I don’t consider them part of the actual “Music scene”. They are really one step away from being DJs and I don’t consider them musicians either.

What I want to talk about today are musicians that play with recorded tracks they’ve recorded themselves.

Most of theses enterprising fellows are writing their own music and putting a lot of effort into presenting it in the best way they know how. However, I’ve never once seen it work. The end result is always seems to be that of a frosted turd. Lots of creamy sweetness covering shit.

Why does this happen? I have a theory and let me bounce it off you.

I think when you conform to the norms of music (words rhyme, cord progression works) things sound musical. Put behind that the bombast of drums, bass, syntho sampled magic, automated back up vocals, and suddenly something mundane can seem very musical.

But it isn’t musical it just SEEMS musical.

Music is not about conforming to the norms, although that does work 90% of the time. Music is about expressing musical ideas. The problem is, most so-called musicians understand the conventions of music, but have no grasp of what a musical idea is.

Of course, the vast majority of music listeners don’t understand what a musical idea is either. It seems the more fresh and original a musician’s expressions become the smaller their audience becomes.

I’ve seen more “Wank masters” then I care to mention in Second life. These are people that imagine themselves the next Joe Satirani, They dial up the “METAL SOLO INSANE” pre-set on their stompy pedal and Wank furiously. They record their own backing tracks… whoopee. The end result is an hour of blues scales playing as fast as possible and a bunch of musical challenged listeners emoting “YOU TOTALLY ROCK”.

Now I’m sure the Wank masters spend hours working on their back up tracks and invest hours in playing their licks super fast. They invest a lot of money in stompy pedals that sound “TOTALLY ROCK” and have tons of gizmos.

Good news/bad news, most listeners don’t know anything about music/ your music is a joke.

Conversely, I’ve seen a few brilliant musicians in Second life plying their trade with nothing more then and instrument and a voice. POL Arida ROCKS harder then any Wank Master. He pounds his gee-tar, stomps his foot on the floor and screams like his penis got slammed in the door.

Good music in my estimation is about musical ideas and emotional content. POL as both covered in spades.

As for my own music (yes I’m aware how self serving this may seem), I find it rife with musical ideas simply because there is not set Zorch sound. My music seems quite Genre free almost to the point of handicap. The unifying element is the emotional content. Simply put, my songs bleed. When I play live on Second Life I’ll be honest and tell you I’m emotionally spent at the end of the show.

I’m not anti technology. I don’t really have a particular bias against instrumentalist. I’m just a bit tired of… crap.

Saved

You may be wondering what happened in the little drama that unfolded in my previous entry.

Well I did have a chat with the operators of the venue in questions, and they seemed very willing to drop the training session with Moody.

Willing? Nay, eager.

The venue owner admitted to having a bad feeling about Moody, but was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Once I confirmed her intuition, she was quite relived to tell Moody, “no thank you”.

Mid conversation, the group notice went out, “Training session with Moody candled”, and the lady had to excuse herself because her staff was “Freaking out”. I wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad kind of freaking out.

Moments later, my IM board started lighting up with happy staff member saying, “You saved us, you saved our venue”. Seems a few of the more experienced residents knew Moody was trouble, but didn’t feel it was their place to say anything. I made a lot of new friends that day.

A short while after the chat, I went to a POL Arida show, and POL remarked, ”Oh Zorch is here. He is, with out a doubt Second life’s best Blog writer”. Once again people started sending me IMs. Kudos all around, and nobody seemed to feel I treated Moody unfairly.

Many had actual accolades to lay before me, admittedly undeserved. I was not trying to be courageous or heroic. I was trying to save a venue I love playing at from the greasy tendrils of Moody. All I really did is speak in my own best interest.

The bottom line here is a really good music oriented venue was spared the intrusion of a bad influence. Music wins, Musicians win, the staff wins, and the venue operator wins. Did Moody lose? Not really, she’ll just slither off to her next target. You can’t stop Moody you can only hope to contain her.

Writing the poison out

This entry is purely therapeutic. That being said you might not want to read it. I’m upset, and my feelings are keeping me awake. It’s 1:55 am and I don’t feel like dumping my purse on some well-meaning friend. So… I blog. Emotions running wild and probably saying more then I should, but I do that all the time anyway. The only difference being this time you are warned in advance.

There is this venue I’ve been playing lately and I really came to love it almost instantly. They said in their introduction literature they were an artist based venue, I didn’t have to beg my fans for venue tips, play covers or even play my flagship songs. Very cool indeed, and after playing there, they seem to be everything they said they were and more. I was hoping for a long and fruitful relationship with another good venue.

Today I received a notecard from my new favorite venue. It contained a schedule of the week’s events. Yes I was on it (good) but as I looked further down I saw a very disturbing entry. It seems Throughthesewalls Moody is doing… staff training for the venue. It’s on the schedule people… IT’S ON THE SCHEDULE!!!

Are my new friends in cahoots with the EVILLLL that is MNP (still not sure what MNP stands for, the only thing I know for sure is it doesn’t mean “Music Not Politics”. Moody is not cleaver enough to pull off that feat of irony)???? (Once again, the numbers of question marks indicate my shock)

I’m trying to think they probably don’t know what a useless sack of shit Moody is, and are blissfully unaware of the unrelenting iniquity she represents. In all honesty, Moody talks a good game, but her results are… well frankly, pathetic. Lots of people hate her. I of course don’t hate her; I just hate the EVILLLL she seems to embody.

I’m like Jesus that way.

Moody likes to pretend she is an expert. This is utter folly, and I’ve pointed that out before. Nobody has really achieved the kind of success in Second Life that would qualify them as experts. Of course being unqualified doesn’t even slow Moody down.

The Mood/MNP (Marsupials nagging Penguins…. Nah) paradigm is pretty simple. Make outlandish promises, fabricate numbers, imply some sort of corporate sponsorship and people start to take notice. But from my short-lived experience with Moody I found her to be all talk… then not so much talk… then a lame gig at a strip club… long story short, unimpressive.

If I had bought into her phantom record company, or real life management bullshit I would probably be bitterly disappointed. All I really wanted was some help building my group, and a few more gigs booked. When Moody and I started our relationship I had 137 members in my group. By the end, I had 180. Making a lump sum gain of 43 members. I feel I should mention 7 of those members where MNP (Monkey’s nilistic pantomime… nah) employees (Pod people) bringing the actual grand total to 36 new members.
Contrasting that, we went from 180 members, to 310 as of last check, post Moody. Totaling up a lump sum gain of 130 Members. I feel I should point out, the moment my relationship with the Dark Queen of the Pod people was terminated; the 7 Pod people left the group as an act of solidarity, so the post Moody membership wasn’t even 180.

The effectiveness of Moody’s group building paradigm was vastly less effective then what I like to refer to as the Nyx method.

As for Moody’s ability to find me work, I think she might have booked me about five paying gigs during the relationship. I book more then five paying gigs a month, and a lot more then that in tip gigs. I’m better at booking then the self-proclaimed expert.

By the time I was… fired from MNP (Manhandled nurf patriarchs… nah) I was honestly trying to figure out a polite way to say, “This isn’t working out… it’s not you, it’s me”. But frankly, it was them. I was not expecting much, and I guess in that aspect I was not disappointed. Moody managed to fail gloriously.

A part of me wants to leave all this unpleasantness behind me. But it seems I cannot. It seems Moody want to impress upon everyone what an expert she is, and she’ll continue misinforming and supporting the same lame ass bullshit that has been hamstringing Second life since… well… Moody became involved with the music scene.

Now if Moody and her MNP (Masturbate neatly please… nah) cronies were just delusional, I guess I could let it all slide and get on with my life. But since I’ve left the MNP ( Marry Nancy Pelosi…. Nah) fold, I’ve been threaten, harassed, and bullied. They aren’t the harmless nut jobs they may seem to be.

Wait, I’m making them out as dangerous and I’m sure they would really enjoy that. If they could do harm, I’m sure they would, but in actuality all they are is annoying, and extremely unpleasant.

One of Moody’s Pod people actually has the position MNP (May need psychiatric help…. Whoops that would be MNPH) Bulldog listed on her profile. At one point her profile even said “Mess with my friends and you’ll regret it”, or something to that effect.

If Moody’s gang is really “All about the music”, why do they need a Bulldog? Why does someone warn people not to mess with their friends? I don’t need a Zorch Bulldog and I’m an arrogant bastard. If anybody needed some intimidating canine help it would be me.

A lot of really disturbing accusations have been made about MNP (Mindless No Personality… ohhhh… getting closer I’m sure), but I won’t repeat them here. Suffice it to say, ask around I’m sure you’ll find plenty of people to fill you in on the gory details.

Moody prattles about claiming to be an expert, making outlandish claims, and if anybody even remotely affiliated with her at any time achieves some success, she’ll claim she gave them their start. If she were just a harmless delusional wretch it would all be fun and games right? But considering the thuggish nature of her little clique, the serious and possibly baseless accusations against her, it might seem her agenda is somewhat… wait for it… Political.

Think about it, this is all an attempt on Moody’s part to position herself as an authority. I’ve lost a gig because I was at odds with Moody. My music didn’t change, why did I lose the gig? Because a certain venue owner was more interested in maintaining the good will of a women that claims to be “All about the music and not politics”. What a load of crap.

I don’t know if Moody is Evil, crazy or stupid, but I do know she is full of shit. I’m giving my new friends the benefit of the doubt that they don’t know what a waste of time Moody really is, But I will be asking about their relationship with her tomorrow. If they are friends of the Dark Queen of the Pod People, I guess I’ll have a few Wednesday open. I’ll not be involved with any venue associated with Moody.

I wonder if I just pulled the trigger?

Thinking aloud, where do I go from here?

Okay, I’m looking at my situation and wondering what is next. Seems the beachhead each artist must establish is a fan base. I’ve seemed to have gotten that foothold firmly established. But I’ve been thinking… what it next?

As I ponder the Second Life music career paradigm, as it exists now, it seems to revolve around developing a following so you can pry a few Lindens out of a venue operator in fees. During my brief involvement with management, I was told to play less shows to maximize my draw at the shows I do play.

Allow me a moment to explain the logic behind that because I know at first glance it sounds a bit crazy. If you play a show at 1 PM and draw 20 avatars, and then play a show at 3 PM for 20 more avatars, in theory, if you only played one show at 2 PM, you would have played for 40 avatars. That would mean the venue would have been “Maxed Out” and the venue operator would have gotten their monies worth.

While this does work at a certain levels, it does ignore a whole fist full of “X factors”, like not all venue operators pay a fee for a draw, some pay because they feel it just compensation for the artist time. And “Real Fans” attend every show they can. And some people just come to a show because they are bored look at the live events listings and end up at a show. Frankly, the X factors are almost incalculable. The limited availability /maximized draw mindset works kind of like bees can fly but they aren’t aerodynamic.

Now I bring all this up to point out where I’m diverging from the norm. My goal is not to fill a venue up 5-8 times a week and wrestle a few Lindens from some well-meaning venue owner. My goal is to get my music in front of as many listeners as possible. As a matter of fact, stating my goals might be a good idea.

To provide the best music I can for my supporters, both listeners and venues. Job one.

To grow as an artist, maintain my dynamic. Keep looking toward the next transcendent step.

To develop a bigger group membership in the Zorch Nation, and maximize traffic at the web site and perhaps the blog.

To promote the distribution of recorded music.

While not in any particular order, those are my cardinal points. On a less direct and or personal level, I might add nurturing the budding original music scene in Second life. I feel I should mention I’m not talking about some abstract all encompassing, in quotation marks, “Original Music Scene”, but rather a loose knit, informal confederation of artist I respect.

So where do I go from here? I’m thinking about branching out time slot wise. I’m currently playing one morning show. The attendance is pretty good and I seem to e playing for new people. There is not much going on in the morning and it could be simply I’m one of the few events going on at that time. Regardless of the reason why, if it furthers my agenda I’m going to use it. I might look in to playing more morning shows.

Of course I could play more evening/night shows, but that might prove to be less fruitful. Lots of shows go on at night, and many of the BIG ACTS play exclusivity at night. I’m also aware that later show times mean a different audience. When I play mornings and afternoons, I’m playing for the Euro/UK people. I seem to do well with them because they seem more open to original music. While some Americans are very open to original music, it seems most want to hear passionless performances of songs they know. They seem very content to listen to the Karaoke types.

I guess I’m saying there is still ground to be broken. All it takes is lots of hard work. At this point I feel like I’m not taking the path less taken, but rather, walking off in the woods. Nobody is really trying to do what I’m trying to do. Make deep inroads into a larger audience simply to promote music, and not to improve my marketability in the eyes venue owners. While money does work into the equation at some point, it’s never the primary factor in what I do. It’s always first and foremost about the music.

January, now the tale can be told

I like to keep people informed as to how things are progressing as far as the numbers goes. While some find numbers kind of boring and bordering on anal retentive, I feel they are an empirical indicator of action. Stuff happens, the numbers goes up.

Unique visitors to the site for January hit 154, and that is a good step forward from the 138 we had in December.

Overall visits are 540. Meaning 386 former visitors to the site found a reason to come back.

If you are interested in hits, we’ve had 2149 hits in January.

Bandwidth usage for MP3 downloads shot up to 1.61 GB.

Breaking it down by collection

23 downloads: The sound of RED
17 downloads: Stoopid Rock Song
9 downloads : Hit List 2008
5 downloads: Love songs Hate songs in-between.
4 downloads: Songs in the key of Green
4 downloads: White and Black
3 downloads: Black and White

Total number of MP3 downloads 550 files.

Not bad at all. The last time I heard somebody in Second Life bragging on MP3 sales they mentioned the number 23. I’ve move a few more then that.

Well February lies before us now, let us not become complacent. Keep pressing on.