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!

My 1,000th Tweet

This is ridiculous. I'm writing a blog post on Blogger about my 1,000th Tweet which will then appear on Facebook. I'm actually writing this specifically to link from that 1,000th Tweet. My metareality just imploded. And in any case, I'm starving and I have scrumptious Pad Thai being made and delivered to me, so I might as well write this instead of looking out the door every two minutes to see if my lunch has arrived.

Anyway, you'll hear people -- mostly Caucasian people with way too much time on their hands and not enough desire to think about important stuff -- talk about why Twitter is better than this, or Facebook is better than that, or why it's all terrible but they continue to use it anyway, and so on. I really don't care about any of those things. As a social person and especially as a performing musician and recording singer-songwriter, all social network services are important to me.

A lot of people won't be very impressed with 1,000 entries on Twitter, especially considering that they span the last three years. It's not that I'm incapable of prolific Tweeting. There are simple reason why I don't Tweet every few seconds.

1. My job has me running the social networks of several large companies, and making entries in their Twitter and Facebook accounts is one of the things I do for work. Hence, I'm not always in the mood to do my own social networking after taking care of all of their needs.

2. I prefer to write things that actually matter to me in some way. It's not that "my Tweets are important, dammit!". It's that unless I'm feeling it, I ain't Tweeting it. That may mean I Tweet about what I had for lunch, but it may also mean that I don't Tweet my reaction to every news story.

3. While I'm a low-key public figure in my small-time rock star way, I'm more of a private person than you may realize. That's why you don't see many Tweets about my child, or about my love life, or about my finances, and so on.

So while I may only post an average of one Tweet per day, I do enjoy the aspect of connecting to the people who choose to follow me, and not filling their timeline with notices of every time I use the bathroom, stub my toe, or put on my sneakers (though I reserve the right to do so whenever I feel like it). However, I tend to enjoy other people who Tweet a lot. There is a short list of people on my timeline who are incredibly funny with an ability to deliver undeniably hilarious messages in under 140 characters. Brevity was never my strong suit.

I've also learned a lot about people on Twitter. There's something about the format that encourages folks to get to the point in a way that they can't do in longer form writing. A lot of what I've learned is about the misconceptions of what each gender thinks about the other... I can't tell you how many "this is what men like" Tweets that can't be further from the truth. I've also seen the phenomenon where all people want is good news, and the moment that you bring up something contrary to their message... well, it's sure easy to just block out that dark and rainy cloud and keep pretending that everything in the world is going your way and everyone you know agrees with everything you say, right?

Despite those things, I find that I now turn to Twitter whenever I get the inkling of an important event happening in the world. By the time the first news media services start covering it, I already know many details, and often those details are from people actually experiencing the event (and not some reporter's interpretation of it). So, hats off to Twitter, and those who make it an enjoyable experience for me.

Now to finish my Pad Thai (which is freaking delicious, in case you didn't know). And thanks for the follows, my Tweeple.

10 Random Notes

Note: When I'm not writing reports about my performances in SL, or my music escapades in other realities, I often still enjoy writing about various things. But even when I don't have any specific topic in mind to write about, I still tend to write. Here are some random topics and fun facts.

1. Kat and I really do share the same birthday and Second Life rezday. Respectively, they are June 6 and October 12. We found out about the birthday thing before we were dating (we started as friends, as many good relationships do). The SL date is easier to understand, since we enrolled in SL at the same time, together on the phone (back then, in 2006, she was living in Seattle).

2. I wake up every weekday at 6AM, which I don't like at all, and drive my son to his middle school. It's not very far away and he can walk if necessary, but I enjoy being able to see him off. I also pick him up on most afternoons.

Good morning? If I didn't have coffee when I got up on weekdays, I'd probably just... not.

3. I usually eat a banana every morning. Bananas are really good for you nutritionally, and on mornings when I get up early, I don't like diving into some huge breakfast right away.

4. I'm a fan of the Oakland Raiders NFL team, and have been since the '80s. I'm not, like, some completely insane football fan. It doesn't take over my life, as I've seen in some people. But I do look forward to football season each year, and stand by my Raiders even when they suck (which they have for most of the last nine years). I participate in football pools just for fun, and I also write a weekly football column for an online forum of musicians who also like the NFL.

5. I work for myself and my business is based in my home, so my daily apparel here in the casual beach city where I live consists of shorts and a t-shirt and sandals, or, when it starts to get cooler, jeans and a t-shirt and sneakers. I work hard and am relatively successful, but I allow myself the luxury of never dressing up unless absolutely necessary.

6. I'm a good cook. When I was growing up, both of my parents worked, and I usually had to fend for myself for dinner and such. So, I learned from an early age how to be comfortable in the kitchen, and can actually handle some relatively gourmet-level dishes. I usually reserve my good cooking for the weekends, when I can take more time preparing food than I have during the week.

I cook a lot of things, but some of my more delectable delights are (left to right) steak au poivre, dill shrimp salad, and eggs benedict.

7. Only a few of my fans know that I'm a semi-capable piano player in addition to being a guitarist and singer and harmonica guy. I actually started my musical life on piano, but shifted to guitar before my 7th birthday. Still, I enjoy tickling the ivories from time to time.

8. Like many musicians, I used to have long hair, halfway down my back. I just got tired of the look eventually, and also tired of having to do anything to maintain my hair. I keep it pretty short these days.

9. I exercise every morning. I didn't until the start of 2011, but as I get older, I find it's really a problem if I don't keep physically active on a daily basis. While some of my more macho friends laugh at my use of the Wii Fit Plus, I can tell you that like most exercise programs, as long as you stick with it and take it seriously, it produces results.

Despite my evangelism of the Wii Fit Plus, I still supplement my exercise with some free weights. While I have no goals of being some big buff guy, having nice muscle tone in your arms is generally a good thing.

10. I think shaving is overrated. Sliding a sharpened piece of metal over my face every morning has never been my idea of fun. That's why I'm one of those guys that tends to walk around looking as if he just awoke under a bus stop bench.

I do shave, of course, usually every few days. Today is not going to be one of those days.