Four Years

Four years in Second Life has a way of seeming like a lot longer than four years of real time. Things change more quickly in our digital realm. People arrive, splash around in our lives, and vanish with a greater frequency than anywhere outside of live theater.

So for me, it means a lot to have been playing at Velvet for four years today. I took the gig without ever having been inside the place before, because Jasper mentioned in an IM that he was playing the dB's, and I was still trying to play hugely eclectic sets for apathetic crowds at mainstream venues. I had no idea there was a place like this in SL, where new releases might be celebrated, where weird bands from anyplace—who never managed to click into the mainstream—might have a home. And where I might as well.

I started out on Saturday nights, in roughly the same timeslot Mallory has now. I was still mainly a photographer in SL, and there was a bit of friction as to how much time I was suddenly siphoning into this new profession, but I knew from the moment I got Nicecast running on my machine, that this was what I wanted to do. It's what I had always done, from the days when I would stay up late at night making mix tapes for friends, or planning out a special playlist for a car trip to maximize the amount of songs I was eager to play for someone I could get into a limited time.

Within about a month, Jasper asked me if I would move to Sundays. I thought he was demoting me, so I said I would do it if I could take up four hours on the deadest day of the week, to stretch out, goof off and dig a little deeper into my collection. I've been there ever since. Three times now, I have hosted my 26.2-hour charity fundraiser at the club. It's where I log in nearly always.

My main goal as a dj is to play music I love for people who might love it, too. The highest order of compliment you can give me as a dj is telling me that you bought something you heard at one of my sets. Well, and huge sums of cash, of course, but mainly that you liked something I shared at a set enough to embrace it as a part of your own collection.

My relationship with Velvet is a long, complicated one. In that way, it is much like the relationship people might have with a hometown. There have been times when I wanted nothing more than to flee from it into the night, but by the time I ever felt like that, Velvet had become too much a part of my SL-DNA for me to ever truly cut the cord and remain in SL for long. This is the place where I met so many of my cherished friends, played so many sets (at least 400, and counting).

Now I also function as the club's manager, where my goal has expanded into finding djs who also get a rush from playing a song they genuinely love for someone else, who light up when that someone grows to love it, too.

Four years is a long time in SL. Here's to four more.

Lux Chiantelle: Song of the Week 3/13

King Tuff

Love Your Pet @ The Velvet! 
March 3, 9AM till 11PM



Bring your favorite SL pet to Velvet on Saturday, March 3rd for fourteen hours of some of SL's finest DJs putting their unique musical signatures on the theme of animals and pets. Prizes for best pet will be given out every two hours, so you and your pal will have multiple chances to earn some new leash money!








I know you're still curious, so here's a description about what Tad & I are going to be serving up Saturday!

Get ready to laissez les bons temps rouler!

2/21/12 • 5-10pm slt

Come to the Velvet on Tuesday for five hours of great New Orleans music, dancing, and bead flinging with Koi and myself.