Making my debut at [The] DropZone, a relatively new venue in the virtual world of Second Life, Photo by Kat.
Hi there, readers. It is I, Zak Claxton, the virtual world rock star, here to talk about my debut show at a relatively new SL venue called
[The] DropZone. But first, we'll note some other things going on in life, because that's what we do here. It is a blog, you know.
Rest In Peace, Bob Weir
Most of you know I have a very diverse and wide-ranging musical taste, and that over the past 15+ years, my main musical focus has been in the realm of indie rock and pop, with its many subgenres from shoegaze to art rock to dream pop and the rest. What you might not know is that for a good period of time in the '80s and '90s, I was a pretty dedicated Deadhead. that may seem musically incongruous with the sounds I like now, but I assure you, it's not.
I went to dozens of shows at many different venues all over the West Coast. The Dead were both adventurous and traditional; they could be a super tight band in one moment and dissolve into utter slop the next. They were unpredictable, unique, and — as many people understand — the culture and community that went along with being a Deadhead was on par with being a fan of the music itself.
In any case, I was here at home on Saturday afternoon when a social post popped up that I was in no way prepared to see. It was from the official account of Grateful Dead co-founder Bobby Weir, announcing his sudden passing. Weir was 78... not an age that's completely shocking for a man to pass away, but the fact is that I always felt like Bob was the young guy in the band. And indeed he was; when he, Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, and Ron "Pigpen" McKernan started the Dead in 1965, Bob was only 16 years old.
Bob was a terrific musician and composer, and a criminally underrated rhythm guitarist whose unique, angular chord inversions and sense of timing blended perfectly with Garcia's spidery lead lines. I would say that both as a singer-songwriter and guitarist, Bob did have a big influence on me as a musician and songwriter, and his music made a huge mark on the world. Rest in peace, Bob. As the lyric from "Franklin's Tower" goes, "May the four winds blow you safely home."
Is The World Ending?
Probably not, but a lot of signs show that it's much closer than almost any previous period in my lifetime. The USA seems hellbent on a path toward complete fascism and authoritarianism. I am — bizarrely — hopefully that some of the more recent and egregious aspects will result in an inflection point where we can nip Trump's power grab in the bud and begin to turn things back in a positive direction.
It's easy to get scared and discouraged with events like
the murder of Renee Good by an ICE agent, among many other atrocities yet to be fully revealed. But if any one of these things — from the Epstein files to the horrible economy to unaffordable health care to the failure of many crucial government programs — turns the dial a little further away from the influence of Trump and the MAGA world, they won't have happened in vain.
Renee Good, moments before her murder by ICE agent Jonathan Ross.
On Saturday, Kat and I swung by one of the hundreds of "ICE Out for Good" protest events and vigils like the one above, ours being in Torrance, CA.
How About the Show?
Yes, let's talk about that. While I was performing a recent show at another venue, my manager Maali got contacted by DropZone CEO Chloe Smythe, who booked me at her place that I had previously not heard of. I later found out that [The] DropZone only opened up a few months ago, so it's no surprise I was unaware. I'm not the most dialed-in guy in SL these days,
The venue itself is cool. Very modern and contemporary, with a big city theme that's well designed. It's a very clean and sharp-looking build that feels very current. The stage lighting is dynamic and colorful, and the audience area has both a dance floor and seating zones. I was impressed.
Pretty cool. [The] DropZone has the feel of a public terrace park area in the midst of a big downtown city area. Photo by Kat.
Waiting my turn to go on while Anarae performs.
However, I have a story that has nothing at all to do with the venue. First, both in real life and the virtual world, it's every musician's worst nightmare to have a random gear failure within minutes of showtime. And let me tell you, I have never once met any experienced performer who hasn't had this happen in one form or another. Over the years, it's happened to me dozens upon dozens of times.
That being said, it still sucks. Less than ten minutes before my time to take the stage at DropZone, I was doing a quick check of my sound for my two audio sources — a microphone and a guitar. The mic sounded great. The guitar sounded... silent. Fuck. After a flurry of battery changes and mixer tweaks, with a minute to spare I decided to swap out the guitar cable.
And everything was fine, but left me as a sweaty stress-filled wreck just as I hit the button to broadcast my live show. The goods news? I quickly recovered and felt the entire rest of the show went really well. We had a reasonably good-sized crowd, most of them seemed to like what I was doing, and the songs themselves came out great. I had a couple of tunes in the set that were done with purpose... Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth," done as a nod to the protests across the USA, and "Cassidy," a Bob Weir-composed tune that I've only done extremely rarely and performed in homage to his passing.
Starting my set while catching my breath from my near show-ending disaster. Photo by Kat.
Onstage doing my thing. Photo by Kat.
[The] DropZone has the feel of an upscale outdoor club/music venue. I like it. Photo by Kat.
My view from the stage. Photo by Kat.
Getting off stage and doing the final tune of my set in the crowd to make room for the next performer to get set up. It's just a nice thing to do, and sorta fun too. Photo by Kat.
[The] DropZone set list...
Airport Bar (Martin Courtney)
Sex and Candy (Marcy Playground)
Things Behind the Sun (Nick Drake)
Cat's In The Cradle (Harry Chapin)
Landslide (Fleetwood Mac)
Cassidy (Grateful Dead)
For What Its Worth (Buffalo Springfield)
Pecan Pie (Golden Smog)
Swirl (Charlie Martin)
Afterlife (Alex G)
It's Easy Like Walking (The Sadies w/Kurt Vile)
Don’t Ask Me Why (Billy Joel)
*Rockin’ at the DropZone Improv (Zak Claxton)
*Indicates the first time I'ver performed this song in SL.
Big thanks to the folks who came out to my debut at DropZone, with special thanks to the following who helped support it!
Savannah Tomorrow, RockWell Nirvana, Kat Claxton, Mike Hamlin, my terrific manager Maali Beck, and [The]DropZone CEO Chloe Smythe!
