Hotel Chelsea (09.06.22)

Good times at Hotel Chelsea in SL. Photo by Kat.

I'll tell you about last night's show at Hotel Chelsea in Second Life, but first, I think I've made a decision in regard to this blog.

Obviously, I've fallen into a pattern for a good four months now of daily "Random News" bullet-point updates that I post here and elsewhere. People tell me they enjoy it. Like, a surprising number of people. I wasn't doing it to get a bunch of views or impressions or whatever the fuck you call a popularity contest via Internet content. It's never been monetized. I just do it because I feel like a surprising number of people don't know where to go to get news that matters to them, or don't have time to weed through everything to get to the stuff they want and need to see.

At the same time, I'm doing fewer live music shows than any time in the past 15 years or so. And, while I hate to say it, I also haven't been inspired to create any new music other than a random riff or partial idea here and there. The intention of this blog was to document my music creation and performance experiences, which for a good while were nearly constant, and more than enough to fill this blog with content.

Breaking Away

So, here's my current thought. I believe I will take "Zak's Random News" and turn it into a new blog of its own. That way, there won't be this bizarre mix of daily news bullets interrupted by a sporadic music post. Obviously, I'll continue doing music, and coming into the fall season, I might even ramp it up a bit (hard to tell; I never know until I find myself writing and recording... it's not something I plan ahead of time).

What I'll do is just take the past four months of news posts and go through the somewhat tedious process of copy/pasting them into new posts, leaving this blog to remain a place for music and general life content. It's a bit of a project but better to do it now than to make this decision a few years later. It's still a manageable task at the moment, so perhaps on an upcoming weekend -- or set of weekends -- I'll make that switch.

I actually write "Zak's Random News" every morning into a huge-ass Word doc. Compiling this to transfer to a new blog won't be very difficult. Tedious and time-consuming, yes, but not difficult.

How About That Show?

Okay, so... it's been hot here. That's probably an understatement. The Western USA has been stuck in a record-breaking heat wave for the past few days. Monday, which was Labor Day, was the worst at least locally. Not only have the temperatures been higher than our already-high September average, but the humidity has also been well above the norm for here.

The good news, as it relates to my show, is that by Tuesday evening, it had tapered off some here in Redondo Beach, at least. But it still meant that I'd be playing guitar and singing in a non-air conditioned room in the second story of a home. And that, combined with my propensity to get sweaty while performing even in comfortable conditions, left me a complete mess. By the time I played maybe my third or fourth song, like 15 minutes into the gig, I was soaked head to toe.

I used to play organized team sports, and I'm not sure I ever sweat as much in a full-court basketball game as I did during last night's show. Here's me five minutes after wrapping up.

Things I Do When I Can Be Weird

Even with my pal Max Kleene playing before me, it wasn't a big crowd when I arrived to check out his show. And frankly, I'm just done giving a fuck about crowd sizes in SL. It's never been a matter of extreme importance to me; it's even less so now. I'm just over it. It takes a lot of work to get people to even be aware of a live music show in SL, and some of my fellow performing artists there have entire management and promotional teams to help them. I have a lovely lady named Maali who helps me, but in any case, as sporadically as I do shows there, no amount of promo is going to grab as many people as I feel my music deserves.

Small crowd, fun times. Photo by Kat.

But I will say this... as the show went on and my crowd dwindled, it caused me to delve into the less expected songs in my repertoire. At one particularly hilarious point, I'd already started a song when it occurred to me that I should have put a capo on the guitar. A capo, for you non-guitarists, is a device that allows you to transpose the lowest notes higher. Could I have played it without a capo? Sure, but the original version of the song was done using a capo, and it just doesn't sound right without it.

Since I'd already started the song, but since I also was past giving a shit, but also because I refuse to stop a song once it starts -- a phenomenon called a "trainwreck" in the world of live performance -- I asked Kat to try and put the capo on while I was still playing. This would be a difficult maneuver even for an experience musician, but Kat, who does not play guitar, started to attach the capo in reverse. After I told her it went the other way, she flipped it... now being reversed and also upside down. It was really pretty hilarious. Eventually, the capo ended up in the right spot, and the show went on.

I've occasionally thought about hiring a really good Second Life code master to see if my avatar could gradually become more soaked in sweat as the show went on. I do tend to like it when my art imitates my life. Photo by Kat.

Hotel Chelsea set list...

Swirl (Charlie Martin)

Saved by Zero (The Fixx) 

Allentown (Billy Joel) 

Lost Cause (Beck)

America (Simon and Garfunkel)

Crime (Real Estate)

Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd)

The Last Time I Saw Richard (Joni Mitchell)

Never Run Away (Kurt Vile)

Jesus Ranch (Tenacious D)

Leggy Blonde (Flight of the Conchords)

Pink Moon (Nick Drake) 

Mrs. Robinson (Simon and Garfunkel)

(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace Love & Understanding (Elvis Costello)

Huge thanks to everyone who was present for my Hotel Chelsea show last night, with special super thanks to the following who helped support it!

Alexis Fairlady, Maximillion Kleene, AutumnFoxx Sutherland, Wyldmann Resident, Kat Claxton, my manager Maali Beck, and the terrific staff at Hotel Chelsea!