The Islands of New England (09.04.14)

With things being crazy busy around here, I haven't done many live shows in Second life (or anywhere else for that matter) recently. My workload skyrocketed (not complaining, but it adds time and stress to my life), and my son started high school, and I've been very focused on working on and recording music with my band They Stole My Crayon. You may have noticed that we rather unexpectedly unveiled our first full song last week, and then put out an accompanying lyric video over the weekend. So, there's plenty of stuff going on, including music; just not as many live shows as I used to do. I've purposefully kept my live performance schedule pretty light, and my wonderful manager Maali Beck never, ever pushes me to book more shows. She understands that like many people, I wear a lot of hats in life, and can't always devote as much time as we'd both like to doing everything I'd like to do.

However, around the start of last week, Maali pinged me to see if I'd be up for a Thursday night show. My first thought was, "No way, too busy," until I saw that it was at The Islands of New England. At that point, I immediately said yes. As I've mentioned many times, the IONE is managed by my friend Christine Haiku, and we always seem to have a great time when I play there. At certain places in SL, I feel like it's important that I focus on being as good a serious musician and singer as possible, putting on a show that highlights my skills as a performer. At the IONE, though, it's much more like gathering in a place with friends and just having a great time. Perhaps the best parts of my shows there are the moments in between tunes when my randomly insane brain takes over my mouth, and even I am occasionally shocked by what comes out of it. The end result is that we spend a lot of time laughing, both me and the audience, and that's a great way to spend an hour on a Thursday night, I believe.

All photos by Kat.

One more thing: as I've noted before, it's always a pleasure when some of my personal favorite performers in SL happen to be onstage before me. It inspires me and puts me in the mood to do a great show. This time, it was none other than Bat Masters who left me with a silly grin on my face as I took the stage.

Islands of New England set list...
Shame Chamber (Kurt Vile)
Falling Down (Zak Claxton)
Things Under Trees (they Stole My Crayon)
Nearly Lost You (Screaming Trees)
This Afternoon )Zak Claxton)
Ziggy Stardust (David Bowie)
Leggy Blonde (Flight of the Conchords)
Waking Light (Beck)
Things Behind the Sun (Nick Drake)
Longing On (They Stole My Crayon)
Wakin On A Pretty Day (Kurt Vile)
*Improvised New England song (Zak Claxton)

Many thanks to all who came out to my show, especially the following who helped support it!
Bigfoot Hendrassen, Diana Renoir, TheaDee Resident, Triana Caldera, Sesh Kamachi, Leira Vaughan, BAT8997 Resident, Aurelie Chenaux, Kat Claxton, the lovely Maali Beck, and IONE manager and great friend Christine Haiku!