Crowbar Blues

By Bixyl Shuftan

Clubs in Second Life often concentrate on today's pop tunes. But what if you're a fan of blues music? Fortunately for people who prefer this genre, there are clubs that have it for their playlists. One such place I stopped at recently is "Crowbar Blues," located in Business District Kilo. Just outside the brick building, there's a crow glancing at the entrance, next to a neon sign of a crow perching on a crowbar. Going inside, there's a small bar just past the entrance, which had a bartender. And in the back is the dance area with a small stage where a band plays, "The Old F*rts Blues Band," along with the DJs and performers. They were obviously bots looking at their names and observing them for a while. On the wall are pictures of several blues musicians.

JB Raccoon, whose outfit while DJing resembles the "Blues Brothers," was the one who told me about the club. He was impressed by the people who ran the place, and praised it for it's willingness to be open to all who weren't causing trouble. He also plays at the club on a twice a week basis, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 10AM to Noon SL time. The club plays some rock music, but is best known for the blues.

I didn't see the owner, Danno (Affa Crazyboi). But I had a chance to talk to one of the staff, Suzi Skute. She told me the Crowbar had been open for about six months, "the owner, Danno had a club by the same name a few years ago and we talked him into reopening. Danno is my Uncle in the real world. He is a blues DJ in the real world as well." When I asked how long he has been playing, "as far as i know since he was in his 20's so late 1980's. Before that, he was in a band with my Dad. But that was before i was born (laughter)."

Since reopening, "It's been a slow build up as we have had a few DJ's come and go. But I think things take time. ... we are a friendly little club open to all. We have DJ's each day from 4pm  and we have been doing open mic live stuff at the weekends. We have had people like MadMaxx Huet here. But the open mic we have had all sorts of people come to that." Asking her what the best event was, "Well for me, I like the Tuesday nights and any day that DJ Gypsy plays. She rocks (laughter). We get good crowds in most nights, and I know Danno is planning more live shows. ... I think Danno is looking to find a Manager to help with the later sets and open later into the night as we are both in London, so (we) are eight hours in front of SL."

Of the thirteen sim area the club was in, Suzi admitted she didn't know much about the rest of the area other than, "I know there are some cool stores here." I brought up the band, and Suzi laughed, "all bots with a built in AI so you can talk to them." I talked to one of them, adressing her by name. She did respond, though it seemed random at times.

So if you're in the mood for the blues, head on over to Crowbar Blues, "We are a friendly little club open to all."

Business District Kilo (51/120/24)

Bixyl Shuftan

Zeta Valley Beach Wharf Club

By Bixyl Shuftan

Recently, I was shown an open-air club in the Zeta Valley sim: The Zeta Valley Beach Wharf." Located in the south-center part of the sim, the club is on an island area right next to a "L" shaped barn, and partially hangs over the water. The black dance floor has a rotating pattern of red lights, and a dragon statue sits overlooking one corner. The club is owned by Geerkil Ziskey of the "Dragon Crew," whom the Newser wrote about in December. Usually, they perform at the Happy Vixen and Club Zero Gravity. But recently they've been making plans to get the Beach Warf to be more active.

"This is where I started my DJ career, eleven years ago," Geerkil told me, "This was the first sim where I was accepted for who and what I am." He went on to say it was his experience early on that most people preferred to keep their distance from those who were different, "When I first came on Second Life, furry was not well accepted. I found a few places I could go but I did not seem to fit in."

Geerkil asked for our talk to be moved to Teamspeak, and I did my best to take notes. "I refer to this place as my home," the dragon told me, "The owners never charged me." When he first started here, his first attempt ad DJing did not go well, "Murphy was working overtime. ... The sim manager allowed me to try again next week. ... My second time was just a little less worse. ... It was another epic failure." But the owner saw promise in Geerkil and kept him on, "They allowed me to try again." The club was also open-air in the early days, and they soon added some lighting, and a suspension over the center of the dance floor so Geerkil or any other DJ could do their music from. The first place Geerkil ran was called "Scales and Tails." It's also the name of the group people can join to get updates about the Warf.

Zeta Valley is not a new sim. Geerkil says it was around when he appeared in Second Life over 11 years ago. It is part of a small group of sims some distance west of the southern mainland continent of Jeogeot. As some other nearby sims in both it's group and to the south have "Valley" as part of their name, they may be part of the late Foxkin Impfondo's holdings when he had Foxkin Rentals.

"This is an old sim, grandfathered in," Geerkil stated, "I'm trying to do everything I can to help the owner. If there's not enough renters, it's gone. ... It's a great place," Geerkil spoke about it, "except for the forbidden zone." There is an adult activities area in the sim that some people may want to avoid. Geerkil mentioned another group of people that were there in his early days, "They moved out. I miss them as they had a cool setup." JB added, "They were Johnny-on-the-spot, willing to help him."

Geerkil called JB Raccoon important to his act. Part of it is that he needs him to figure out some things, "I can't do the job of a DJ and a manager at the same time." But the dragon also called him his eyes and ears, as since he's busy with the music, he can't keep an eye on the chatter in public chat like JB can. JB however says Geerkil is the important one, "It's your show that I joined, or rather that I was dragged out of my dumpster kicking and screaming."

Geerkil went on to say that people often didn't appreciate how challenging it can be for a DJ to run a set, or that clubs are basically money sinks, "The people that run these clubs, you don't make money. Way back when they had gambling, money was flowing, you could make money, sometimes a lot. When they cut the gambling, a lot of clubs folded. Clubs stopped making money." Geerkil felt the primary motivation for setting up a club was to make a hangout for they and their friends, and maybe the friends of their friends.

Besides the "Co-DJ Geerkil and JB, and their often-hostess LS Raccoon, there's been an addition of sorts to the Dragon Crew: Tech Adams (TechGamer93 Resident).  Tech and LS became close friends and partnered. How Geerkil and Tech interact has been described as something of a love/hate relationship. "We love to b*ch at each other," Geerkil stated, "Some people new to it have occasionally gotten the wrong impression." He did wonder if they may have lost a few listeners because of the ranting, "It's usually f-you back and forth." Tech is a Mexican, one whom is trying to come into the country by means within the law. But with the banter, the jokes sometimes get a little on the political side with "sanctuary city" remarks.

Geerkil then talked about some recent changes they had made at the club. They had added a pier area so they could extend the dance floor over the water. There were two games, a "Cards Against Humanity" table and a bowling alley that were set up. The alley had a top-ten players list of which JB himself had scored 162 in his best game. They also installed some lights that made patterns on the walls, which were low lag and low impact. They required one's viewer to be set to Advanced Lighting, but the patterns on the walls were pretty. Although best viewed at Midnight, that wasn't necessary to see them.

The Dragon Crew also has their own Discord Channel now, where people can check on conversations between they and some of their fans.

Welcome one and all to the all new "Dragon and Raccoon Epic Failure Show". This is our new Discord channel. We are still under construction but please feel free to look around. We have hired the expert consultant, Murphy, for his expert advice on what to do and how we should do it. A consultant of this quality made us an offer we could not refuse. He is doing it for free. As a struggling DJ show, we just could not pass that deal up. You may recognize his name from his world famous consulting/legal firm "Murphy's Law". We do not expect any problems with an expert of this high caliber managing the site and handling all our legal needs.

Of their further plans, they may put in a fog machine sometime in the near future, "If we get enough interest, we may add a VIP group."

Before leaving the sim, I had a few words with someone else in the sim, Horse Pony. He was in a feral horse avatar, and had a small ranch with a barn named "Horse Pony's Hideaway" and the Australian flag flying over it. Talking to me in Voice, Horse Pony told me he had known Geerkil ever since his early days here, and found him to be a good neighbor with no problems.

So for some good music and a few games to play in a sim that's stood the test of time, drop by The Zeta Valley Beach Warf.


Zeta Valley (131/58/24)

Bixyl Shuftan