Bert Jansch (1943-2011)

It's the first real rainy day of the fall season in Southern California, and the weather seems to be all too appropriate to learn of the passing of Bert Jansch. His music seemed perfect for rainy mornings, or perhaps for contemplative sunny late afternoons. In any case, Bert wrote and played music on the acoustic guitar that allowed him to give the ultimate gift with his music: to pass along evocative emotional content merely by strumming a chord or two.


There are plenty of places to read Bert's obituary (here's a good one), so I won't bother giving you the details of his life. There's also a pretty thorough biography on Wikipedia. What I can tell you about is that this man -- so quiet and unassuming that it's very likely you've never heard of him -- was possibly the most important influence on the musicians who I list as my most important influences. That's how I discovered Bert. In the beginning, it wasn't a direct exposure to his music, but instead through listening to the guitar playing of musicians like Neil Young, Jimmy Page, Nick Drake, Pete Townshend, Paul Simon, John Lennon, Johnny Marr, and many others. As I read up on how those guys honed their craft, I kept seeing one name popping up time and time again... one Bert Jansch.


Like any curious guitar player, I started listening to Bert once I found out that he was respected by so many of my favorite players, and was simply blown away. One thing that Bert did especially well was the rhythmic hammer-on. I'm pretty sure Bert didn't invent this technique -- it goes back to old blues players like Big Bill Broonzy and others -- but he did it so well that he was the one who introduced it to many other players. Take a regular chord, but instead of just playing it straightforward, hammer one of the notes from a full step down. It creates a lot of melodic interest within the chord. Some songs by Bert's devotees using this technique that you might recognize...

• "Ohio" (Neil Young -- Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
• "I'm One" (Pete Townshend -- The Who)
• "Things Behind the Sun (Nick Drake)
• "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" (John Lennon -- The Beatles)

And many more. But that's only one thing Bert brought to the party, musically speaking. There was a sound in his folksy playing that hearkened back to troubadours of ancient times. One could imagine Bert playing while hobbits walked through Rivendell, or playing before a medieval king's court. And yet, somehow, there was nothing contrived or hokey about his sound. He had an obvious mastery of fingerstyle guitar, but never really played very fast. It was his precise note selections that allowed each pluck to ring out as long as possible before switching to the next note that was impressive. And yet, it's not a style that needs to be analyzed and scrutinized. Just listening to a few songs tells you the whole story.


There won't be hundreds of comments on news sites today, mourning Bert's passing. That's okay; Bert never seemed to have the desire to stand in the spotlight. While I don't bemoan the general public's almost complete lack of awareness of the guy, it is a little disheartening to know that so many musicians out there will go the rest of their lives without any clue as to who Bert was and what he did during his time on the planet. Johnny Marr, the guitarist from the Smiths and a disciple of Bert's said it well...

"He completely reinvented guitar playing and set a standard that is still unequalled today. Without Bert Jansch, rock music as it developed in the '60s and '70s would have been very different. You hear him in Nick Drake, Pete Townshend, Donovan, The Beatles, Jimmy Page and Neil Young. There are people playing guitar who don't even realize they've been influenced by him one step removed."

Well said, Johnny. And rest in peace, Bert; thanks for everything.

The coolest thing ever

As I mentioned last weekend, I performed recently at a place in Second Life called Lavender Fields for the Feed-a-Smile charity of Live & Learn in Kenya. My fellow SL musician TerryLynn Melody played there on the same day.

Well, in the "a picture tells a thousand words" file, I'd like you to take a look at the photo below (click it if you need a closer look):

That is a real photo of the kids in Africa we helped feed through our efforts that day. The text of their handwritten blackboard reads:

Dear TerryLynn Melody and Zak Claxton,
Thank you so much for taking the time, energy and effort to perform in Second Life for our meals. We had a huge meal today and can't stop smiling! God bleds you and your generous fans always.
The LLK Int'l Kids in Nakuru, Kenya.

What could be better than that? Nothing I can think of. Thanks back at ya, kids.

Bloopers/Outtakes from "Falling Down"

VIDEO LINK

Almost a year ago to the day, on September 25, 2010, we filmed the video for "Falling Down". It was quite the adventure; my plan was to have the exterior scenes of the video set on a rocky shoreline during a gloomy Fall day, but mother nature did not cooperate at all. In fact, we got blasted by a crazy heat wave, and it was over 100 degrees when we went down to Abalone Cove in Rancho Palos Verdes to do our filming. We handled it fine for the most part, until it was time to go back to the car. In an attempt to take a short cut, we ended up hiking up dead-end trails and making ourselves generally miserable for awhile. Nevertheless, we survived, and then shot some green screen footage later that evening here at Claxton Studios. I also did some pick-up shots the following day.

So, for a full year, I've had all the raw footage from the shoot sitting here on my computer. Eventually I'm going to want to reclaim those dozens of gigabytes of space, but before I did, I put together a little sample of our silliness while creating the video. See the results above. Working with Kat and Bunny can make even the most miserable of tasks fun, and I spend the majority of my time laughing when both of them are around.

In case you somehow missed the finished product, feel free to give the full "Falling Down" video a look...

"Falling Down" (YouTube link)

Zak Claxton: Falling Down from Zak Claxton on Vimeo.

Crystal Gardens (09.27.11)

Yup, it's been a bit of a Zak Show marathon lately. While some folks are fine doing several Second Life shows every day, it's a rare week for me where I'm doing more than a couple shows over seven days. But recently, I played on Thursday 9/22, Saturday 9/24, Sunday 9/25, and then last night (9/27) I did my bi-weekly show at Crystal Gardens.

There was, in fact, something special happening at my show: the people from The Stream Scene, an online TV show that focuses on the SL music scene, had asked if they could come out and record me at a venue, and I was all too happy to oblige. I did an episode of The Stream Scene in 2010, and it's always nice to get the benefit of promoting your music to folks who might not have otherwise heard it (or heard of you at all, for that matter). So, for the first half of the show at Crystal Gardens, I played only my original songs so they'd have plenty to choose from when it came time to edit the footage.

Knowing I'd be on TV, I even put on a nicer shirt than usual. You don't want to watch the show a month later and grimace at your wardrobe choice. Photo by Kat.

Anyway, the show went fine, and it's a good thing it did; I realized soon after it ended that I was coming down with the cold my son's had for the last few days, and as of this morning, I couldn't sing anything other than a frog opera. Fortunately, I have no shows booked for about ten days, so I have plenty of time to get healthy. Back at Crystal Gardens, for the latter part of my show when I switched back to doing covers, I pulled out a few rarities, just for fun.

Crystal Gardens Set List...
This Afternoon (Zak Claxton)
Falling Down (Zak Claxton)
Thanks Anyway (Zak Claxton)
Perfect Girl (Zak Claxton)
Broken Day (Zak Claxton)
Change (Tears for Fears)
†Jack Straw (Grateful Dead)
††Love Ain't for Keeping (The Who)
Any Major Dude (Steely Dan)
Love Hurts (Everly Brothers)
Comes a Time (Neil Young)
Into the Mystic (Van Morrison)

†My last performance of "Jack Straw" was on Nov 30, 2009. Before that was Sep 29, 2008.
††I've only done "Love Ain't for Keeping" once before, on January 2 of this year.

Thanks to the people who helped support my show, especially Sandi and Mikal of Crystal Gardens and Twstd Ruggles of The Stream Scene!

Triana's Music Trivia (09.25.11)

ZAK & KAT PERFORMING R.E.M.'S "SHINY HAPPY PEOPLE (LISTEN NOW!)

In the going-on five years that I've been performing live music in Second Life, I thought I'd pretty much done it all. I've performed just about every genre of music at least once. I've done live jams with fellow musicians, both locally and remotely. I've played at every conceivable kind of SL venue, from beach bars to formal balls to strip clubs. But at last night's Triana's Music Trivia, I finally did something that I was pretty sure would never, ever happen: I performed a song along with my long-term ladyfriend, Kat Claxton!

Here's how it happened. As most of you know, Kat tries to be at every one of my shows, conflicts with work notwithstanding. When possible, she's actually right here in the room with me, and at other times is there "in the pixel", usually from her home-based office a few doors down from me. Having been together with Kat for over six years, I'd had plenty of opportunity to hear her pretty singing voice, most often while we listen to music at home or in the car, or occasionally while I casually play guitar when no one else is listening. But really, I'm the only one who's heard her; she, like most people, has a fear of performing in public. I certainly wasn't about to pressure her to cast off that fear, but I can say that if someone has stage fright, Second Life is a good place to shake it. The fact that your flesh-and-blood self isn't standing on a stage with people staring at and judging you makes it a lot easier to focus on the performance itself.

Anyway, if it had been any normal kind of SL show, I'd never have considered asking Kat if she wanted to do a song along with me, but this wasn't a normal show. Triana's Music Trivia, SL's longest-running trivia game, is an event where we spend each of our Sunday evenings among good friends. Every so often, maybe 2-3 times a year, Triana has me do a live music show in conjunction with the trivia game; we usually bump trivia up by an hour and then I do an hour of music in the 7PM slot that we usually use for the game. Last night, just for shits and giggles, we also moved the usual trivia location to Kat and my own parcel of land in SL, at our Club COYOTE.

The trivia portion of the event started off with some added excitement, courtesy of some griefers! Yes, they do still exist, though it had been a long, long time since I ran into any of them. Most people in SL, especially those who've been there as long as us and our trivia friends, know how to handle them, and sim owners like Kat and I have our places set up in ways that don't allow them to do anything that will be very destructive (i.e., running scripts, shoving, and so on). It didn't last long; we simply froze, ejected, and banned them as they acted out, and there was no more trouble after that.

Griefers don't bother oldbies like us. Besides, we had much more important things on our mind... like Kat's rocking debut! Photo by Kat.

After trivia wrapped up, I started the show. For my shows at TMT, I always play some special songs that I ordinarily wouldn't perform at usual gigs. Most of these are songs that have some special meaning to the Trivia regulars, or are tunes that I've written (or existing tunes I've modified) with personal references to our pals at Trivia, and over the last 4+ years, there have been a lot of them. Last night had a couple of good ones; I opened with a Dylanesque tune about Triana's infamous iPod, and (as I'll explain in a moment) the highlight of the night was an R.E.M. song I did along with Kat.

It's not like we planned this for a long time. In fact, it was just Saturday evening when I mentioned to Kat that she should consider doing a song with me at the TMT show the following night. I have no idea how we arrived at "Shiny Happy People". I do know that in May 2010, while we were doing a recording session at Sound Sanctuary, Kat and I (along with Phil) were messing around between takes, and sang the song's chorus a few times just for fun. But Saturday night after doing a show, I sat down with Kat and we listened to the tune to see exactly how Michael Stipe, Kate Pierson, and Mike Mills' voices meshed on that song. Sunday morning, we practiced it a couple of times. And then, when the time came, she stood next to me at my vocal mic, and she did just fine. If anything, her only fault was starting out a little tentative (as most new singers do) instead of belting it out from the beginning. Soon enough though, she was right there with me, sounding great. I'm sure this isn't the last you've heard of Ms. Kat.

Ladies and avatards... here's Kat! She was terrific in her live singing debut (though I don't think it's yet on her list of "Favorite Things To Do"). Photo by Triana.

Triana's Music Trivia Set List...
*Triana's iPod (Zak Claxton)
Come Around (Zak Claxton)
Learn to Fly (Foo Fighters)
*Welcome to the Machine (Pink Floyd)
Broken Day (Zak Claxton)
In My Life (Beatles)
Tribute (Tenacious D)
*Shiny Happy People (R.E.M.)
Shine (Zak Claxton)
Space Oddity (David Bowie)
Triana (Zak Claxton)

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

Huge thanks to all of our wonderful friends at Triana's Music Trivia! We appreciate every one of you... Alchemy Epstein, Samantha Poindexter, Jordan Hazlitt, Nakira Tennen, Diana Renoir, Rey Tardis, MrNoCal Honey, Xerxes Ninetails, wendela Beckenbauer, Charriol Ansar, Juliette Venom, and all the other Trivia Fanatics (you're awesome), and most of all, our friend Triana Caldera!

Lavender Fields: Feed-a-Smile (09.24.11)

About six months ago, someone sent me friend request on Facebook, and I noted that while she was living in Germany, she came from my own town of Redondo Beach, CA. She was also a fellow resident of Second Life, and I was happy to accept the request as such. Her name was Brique Zeiner, and went by Brique Topaz in SL. But, more importantly, she let me know about something I immediately thought was very cool: she ran a live music venue in SL that had a purpose for raising funds for African children in need.

Here's Brique, who is the real hero in helping kids get food and education in Africa. She personally goes to Kenya to teach and make sure the program is running well. Photo by Kat.

Well, we hear about charities all the time, but there was something different about Brique's cause: she was personally and directly involved. Brique helps run an organization based in Germany called Live and Learn in Kenya, and its goal is twofold: to sponsor education for kids in Africa who otherwise wouldn't have the opportunity to go to school, and to make sure those kids are fed well enough to be in a position to learn. Well, I can't say how strongly I support both of those ideas.

Rocking for a great cause. Photo by Kat.

My view. Photo by Kat.

Unfortunately, life being what it is, I got busy and wasn't able to schedule something right away, but I always kept Brique and her program in mind. I made a couple of visits to the venue in Second Life where the music events were held -- Lavender Fields -- and liked what I saw there. Perhaps the real thing that pulled me over the edge to participate was the photos of the kids in Kenya who had used chalk to draw pictures and thank-you notes by hand to some of the artists who had played there, like Tukso Okey and TwinGhost Ronas. It gave the whole program a very personal touch. Plus, the basic message of what Brique calls the "Feed-a-Smile" program is very, very simple: L$100 would buy a hot meal for a kid who needed it. That's about $0.40 USD, and it was an easy way to understand how simple and effective it was to lend a hand.

How cool is this? Unlike most other charitable causes, it's very satisfying that SL artists see very real reactions from the beneficiaries of Feed-a-Smile. Photo courtesy of Brique Zeiner/LLK.

One day, I let my manager Maali Beck know that I really wanted to schedule a show at Lavender Fields for Brique and Feed-a-Smie, and Maali set it up immediately. That's how I ended up there yesterday, and it was absolutely fantastic. TerriLynn Melody had the spot before me, so I had a nice crowd already in place when I started jamming (and we also had a few Zaksters arrive to help supplement the audience). I did what I consider to be a typical Zak Show, with the songs geared toward the theme of helping people in need (Kat actually put together the set list, and did a nice job of it).

Lavender Fields/Feed-a-Smile Set List...
I Am a Child (Neil Young)
This Afternoon (Zak Claxton)
Thank U (Alanis Morissette)
Just Like Starting Over (John Lennon)
The Sands of Redondo (Zak Claxton)
Carey (Joni Mitchell)
Hunger Strike (Temple of the Dog)
Shine (Zak Claxton)
Little Wing (Jimi Hendrix)
After the Goldrush (Neil Young)
You've Got a Friend (Carole King)

The end result of the day was that during my hour at Lavender Fields, we raised enough donations to serve 65 hot meals to hungry kids. Hey, all I did was strum some guitar and sing, and play a little harmonica. That's what I do for fun, and at the same time, managed to make a group of kids a little less hungry. I call that win-win, in a big way.

We fed some kids and had some fun. That's a great Saturday. Photo by Kat.

Big thanks to everyone who helped out some deserving kids in Kenya by donating to Feed-a-Smile! You are all heroes!

The Majestic (09.22.11)

Due to some recent remodeling work they were doing, it had been a little while since I'd last played The Majestic on August 25, so I was looking forward to getting back there. In case you're unfamiliar with the backstory, The Majestic is a venue that's been around in SL about as long as I have; going on five years. Under its previous owner, I performed there on a pretty regular basis (as well as other places around the San Diego City sim). When it was sold to Solace Beach Estates, a good year or so went by before one day, my manager Maali Beck asked if I'd be interested in doing a regular bi-weekly show there. I was, and started playing there every other Thursday evening in June.

Weeknights at 6PM is a tough time for a musician to play in SL; I have seen upwards of 50-60 live music events happening simultaneously at that time slot. Still, I can almost always count on my crowd of Zaksters to come out for shows, and despite the fact that my show was inadvertently left off the SL event schedule, we had a decent sized audience there (90% of which being my zany fans).

It's not often that I leave the stage to get in the face of one of my fans, but trust me, Triana deserved it! Photos by Kat.

I'd say it was a fairly typical show in terms of material, though I did bust out one surprise cover. I joke occasionally about performing songs that were "written" by Kermit the Frog, but Joe Raposo, the guy who did the music for Sesame Street, was a terrific songwriter, and it was cool doing one of his tunes last night. Also, to acknowledge the recent breakup of R.E.M., I did one of their classic tunes as well.

The Majestic Set List...
You're Like a Cloud (Zak Claxton)
Radio Free Europe (R.E.M.)
1979 (Smashing Pumpkins)
Broken Day (Zak Claxton)
Sour Girl (Stone Temple Pilots)
Summer Breeze (Seals & Crofts)
Wonderwall (Oasis)
*Bein' Green (Kermit the Frog)
Always Tomorrow (Zak Claxton)
Tea in the Sahara (Police)
Thanks Anyway (Zak Claxton)
Pulling Mussels from a Shell (Squeeze)

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

Big thanks to my fans, the Zaksters, and everyone else who helped support my show!
GMetal Svartur, Triana Caldera, Diana Renoir, TheaDee, sonzia Shim, Xerxes Ninetails, Alexis Fairlady, Kat Claxton, my manager Maali Beck, and Majestic hostess Tialicia Muircastle!