Hotel Chelsea (04.04.23)

I'm back! Hotel Chelsea photo by Kat.

It's been a long-ass time since you saw anything on this blog except for my daily "Random News" bullet lists. There are reasons for that, as well as reasons why I went for my longest stretch in decades without doing a live music show. I do want to tell you about last night's fun show at Hotel Chelsea in Second Life, but I also want to tell you why there was a three month gap since my previous show.

RIP To My Mom, Vanessa Watson

I will, at some point, write a thorough memorial piece about my mother, who passed away after a short battle with cancer on February 7. It's a strange thing and a blessing in a sense that with both of my parents, there was an extraordinarily short time between discovering they were ill and their dying. With my dad, that time was not at all; he was seemingly, by all accounts, perfectly fine, and then went to sleep one night in 2017 and never woke up again. It's a good way to go.

Slightly different with my mom, who didn't get officially diagnosed with cancer until a few weeks before her death. There was some time for hospital visits and all that, but her cancer was so widespread by the time it was confirmed that there was nothing to be done. She died on February 7, which happened to be the date I had a show scheduled. That show was obviously canceled; my shows are generally all about fun and positivity, and since neither emotion was present or appropriate, I didn't do it.

I'll always miss my mom. Those of us with good relationships with our parents are extremely lucky.

Hello COVID

I would have loved to do the subsequent show, scheduled for March 7, but at that point, I had just gotten over my one and (hopefully) only bout with COVID-19. While I was physically well by then, the disease wreaked havoc on my vocal cords. My vocal range was severely limited for weeks after the illness, and I was raspy and not at all ready to publicly perform music. I may not be the greatest singer in the world, but I do have standards for music performances, and I simply wasn't going to have people spend time listening to my show when my ability to sing was so compromised. It would be like selling tickets to a sporting event where the players have broken legs.

This right here fucked things up for a good while.

Other Chances, Other Distractions

I did have the possibility of doing some SL shows at other venues, including some charitable fundraisers I'd really have liked to have done, and also considered doing one of my live video "Zak Claxton Happy Fun Show" events, but the shows kinda fell through, and the bigger issue, once I'd fully recovered from COVID and my voice was back in form, was that life happened. My annual massively busy time, preparing my business clients for an industry trade show, popped up, and I found myself with exactly zero time to even pick up a guitar for weeks.

That show -- the NAMM Show, which is coming up next week -- is still taking up most of my time and attention. The workload is just now starting to become more manageable, but for almost all of March, I was working 10-12 hour days every damn day. It wasn't conducive toward shifting my focus back to making music, so I didn't. Instead, I stayed in a grumbly mood. I probably would have been better off taking more breaks and actually playing music, but responsible people often have to make compromises in what they'd like to be doing versus what they have to be doing. It's just life. It happens to everyone in various ways.

That's me (right, duh) at work. I know my work may seem like fun to a lot of people, but I promise you... any job in the entertainment business has its own share of major challenges, and there is always a long line of people behind you willing to take over if you're not up to the task.

So How About That Show?

Ah yes. So, last night, my monthly show at Hotel Chelsea in SL finally rolled around again, and nothing was going to stand in my way of finally getting back on stage. Over the previous weekend, I finally had some time and the mental energy to pick up the guitar, get my fingers and voice re-familiarized with doing what they do, and plan out a set list for my comeback to live performance.

Three months is a long time, at least for me, to go without playing music in front of people. My last show before this was on January 3; over 90 days had passed since then, and it's difficult to know whether people would want to come out and spend some time with me after that long of a hiatus. But it turns out I needn't have been concerned; despite not having any act performing before me, we had a really good-sized crowd there at Chelsea which continued to grow throughout my show.

Me onstage at Hotel Chelsea. Even my avatar seems to be smiling a little, happy to be back onstage. Photo by Kat.

I wasn't at all sure how well I'd be able to play, or if my voice would hold up for 60 minutes of singing, but that was fine too. I felt a little tentative for the first couple of songs, but then I got right back in the flow. I never felt like I was straining to hit notes, and my fingers (though needing some better callus rebuilding after not playing for that long) ended up doing everything I required of them.

Just to add to the challenging fun, I also pulled out a song I'd never done before, as well as putting down the pick to perform "Blackbird", a song I last did live in 2012 (and only once before in SL). I'm a reasonably good fingerstyle guitarist, but that's extremely rare in my SL shows, so that was cool too. I might have to do more of that.

We had a decent-sized crowd there, and it's rather nice to know that even after a few months off, people were still enthusiastic to see the Zak Show. Felt great. Photo by Kat.

Hotel Chelsea set list...

Crime (Real Estate)

America (Simon & Garfunkel)

Sundown (Gordon Lightfoot)

Save It for Later (English Beat)

Long Time Gone (Crosby, Stills & Nash)

Blackbird (Beatles)

Polly (Nirvana)

Abrasion (They Stole My Crayon)

Perfectly Calm (They Stole My Crayon)

*Go With The Flow (Queens of the Stone Age)

You're So Vain (Carly Simon)

Big Empty (Stone Temple Pilots)

*April 4 at Hotel Chelsea (Zak Claxton)

*Indicates the first time I"ve performed this song in SL.

Gigantic thanks to every single person who came out to my show at Hotel Chelsea, with extra supreme thanks to the following who helped support it!

cristoofarr Resident, KarlPeterKP Resident, Maurice Mistwallow, Basil Brooks, SunrisaSmiles, AutumnFoxx Sutherland, Trouble Streeter, Kat Claxton, my terrific manager Maali Beck, Hotel Chelsea manager Shyla the Super Gecko, and Chelsea's great staff!