It is not a surprise that some RL DJs and Producers use Second Life to promote part of their work due to how difficult it is to get in the mainstream and sign with the RL labels. In other musical fields we witnessed not long ago the phenomena of “Arctic Monkeys”, artists who started independently via the World Wide Web. The fact is that the same strategy has being applied by many others, especially in electronic/dance music and using Second Life’s grid as the platform.
Vitor Urqhart (aka The Vandalsoob) is one of them, a talented RL DJ and producer from Lisbon, Portugal. Even though we are both original from the same city, I met The Vandalsoob in Second Life. Being in the same mainstream it is obvious that the theme for conversation would be essentially music.It was during one of those conversations in between gigs that I acknowledged Vitor’s production work.
After a quick browse though his MySpace profile there were some things that immediately caught my attention. He stated that since a very young age he used to wait for long hours with a cassette recorder to record some special track he liked from the radio. It reminded me of my childhood years as well as I used to do the same thing. It might be something that dictated my posterior passion for the radio and made me feature a short spell in a real station. I guess that Vitor also used to become very annoyed whenever the radio DJ would talk during the tracks. That used to force us to wait all night to try and get the same tune again with no cuts. But the thing that impressed me more was in fact two tracks of his own production, one of them, “In You” has already been featured in the Portuguese national radio stations.
As Vitor’s influences come more from Techno and House Music, with also a lot of Electro effects, “In You” putted his work under the spotlight. His technical knowledge, talent and inspiration make him one of the most respected DJs in Second Life but also an excellent prospect for the future in RL. His passion and commitment to the cause also helped him developing such qualities.However there seems to be a battle that Vitor, (as well as most of the new wave of producers not signed by big RL labels), will have to face. It is the technical and logistic (i.e. masterization) support that big names have. It is a lot easier when one have a professional studio and sound engineers at his own service. Vitor as an independent producer has either to attract that background support or pay it from his own pocket.
Even though is difficult to strive out there in the big world nowadays, that isn’t what makes The Valdalsoob stop. Rather recently I was invited by him to the first public audition of a new track of his own production. As the first beats start kicking in we can feel immediately the influences of House and Jungle, even before we fully inhale those scents we can start feeling the electro and “liquid” effects on it. The track promises to be an anthem to a new era of this fusion with House/Tribal/Electro, it has also the characteristics of a “floor filer” and is highly “spinnable” and “remixable”. As it is also very versatile can be played either on an Electro or a House set.
The track is about to be mastered and edited in RL, however it hasn’t got a name yet. After a talk with Victor, he founded it funny to challenge the readers to after listening to it in his sets in world to dare to name it.
Feel free to propose a name and good luck!
The club scene in-world seems to be, at a first impression, dominated by the House clubs. It is part of general knowledge that House still being the choice of some sort of elite in Second Life. Clubs like Scoutlounge, Sleek, and Woods, dominating the traffic rates, Dogglounge, Ethos, and Cabaret Belvedere also enjoy huge popularity. Other clubs are more eclectic and also very popular, like Toontopia, or the Dance Island. In other specific styles Bassline is a reference amongst the Dn’B and Dub Step communities.
There are other more alternative circuits in Dance/Electronic Music in Second Life that despite not being a reference, enjoy some good popularity and traffic levels with their own communities (i.e. Regional, Gay and Lesbian, or BDSM clubs). It also seems a rule that every new development in SL has to have a club, however, and even though some of them are well built, most of them haven’t had a live DJ in months. There are no illusions; a club in Second Life is not only plenty of prims or a fancy name. It requires time and dedication as well as some capital.
Clubs do not make money in SL; the only way they can survive is if they are linked to some other investments (i.e. Real Estate, Fashion, RL investment). A curious fact to observe is that normally the most successful venues in SL are those with a minimalist decor, not too heavy on flashy club lightening or unrealistic features. So if you want to open a new club, or give your existing one that boost, here are some key points not to be forgotten;
1) Hire a good manager (a good manager costs good money, but they are around and up for grabs, be careful, pick a professional and stable manager and not a club bully, some people jump from club to club at the speed of light).
2) Invite at least a couple of famous DJ’s and issue some freelance slots to some others (you might want your club to work as many hours as possible to appeal to muliple time zones).
3) Do not hire newbies as hosts (newbies tend to be abusive with gestures and other things that annoy older residents, they also are not settled in SL yet and therefore they can go without an explanation, settle a minimum age to be able to apply).
4) KISS ( keep it simple, stupid.) - you don’t want your customers to avoid going there cause of”impossible to move” levels of lag. Also refrain from the excessive use of megaprims or scripts, and you don’t need a too big dance floor, you might prefer your club to look neat even with 10 people only, than to look empty with 25 avatars).
5) Avoid excessive Teleport requests or spamming (there are groups for advertisement and some people rather being invited personally, a friends conference with an invitation and the URL looks more elegant and is better than those 10000 teleports).
6) Avoid Drama (keep grieffers and haters away and always remember the special deference to your regulars).
7) Always say hello (don’t ignore your customers, most of the people go to clubs when they are alone).
8) Be there often (people who work with you might need to feel your support; customers also like to know who’s the face behind the project).
9) Don’t go over budget (be moneywise and agree reasonable payments to DJ’s, Managers and Hosts, you don’t want to close the club after a couple of weeks and if you promise to much you might not be able to keep it).
10) Define your target (you’d better not try to please anyone, as Greeks and Trojans cannot be pleased at the same time, find a niche and communicate to it).
The cruel reality is that clubs rarely survive the first couple of weeks, they are not cheap to maintain or sometimes they are merely decorative but have no use. If you want to open a club just for the fun it is, then I would suggest you to propose the owner of an already existing but not in use space, to let you explore it. It might be a solution that suits both sides. There are far too many clubs in SL, and you will need that WOW factor to survive.
That's it for this week, until next time be nice to each other and remember, SIZE MATTERS.
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