DJ Night Sunday - and The Wharf

Sunday – I had the honor and privilege of playing during DJ Night at the AquA Lounge. It was unbelievable! A packed house, over 50 avi’s were present at the start, rockin’ out during my hour set.

I was a little nervous at first- I wanted to make sure I put my best foot forward – there was a lot of lag – I had to reset my graphics preferences to a lower setting simply because it was such a packed room – I haven’t seen anything like that since the Mardi Gras party at Ironhorse. Another reason for a bit of nervousness – I have never played with that sort of expectation before. I mean, I play at the Wharf and Migs, and I have a lot of friends there, and its really more relaxed.. but this crowd was mostly all new people, and I guess it was more of a mental thing, wanting to do well. I think I did great, and I think I played a strong set. The crowd seemed to dig my stuff, and I know I had a freakin’ awesome time.

Thanks to my friend Kaj, and to InsyX, Sasch, and all the great staff at Aqua for their support. I had a fantastic time, and I hope I get the honor again.

Later at the Wharf, Fuzzy had his set at 4PM, with me hosting. The crowd was sparse at first, with all the other events going on such as DJ night - but in the end it was a good crowd, and it worked out great.

And then I played my 6PM set at The Wharf, too, right after Fuzzy. It was a little slow for part of it, but things picked up and it was good. Charley and Gage were once again among us after their RL adventures xD I could write a whole post about that, and how I feel so great for them.. But that's more of a private thing, and my oblique references will end here.

Its one of those things - you have good friends in a place that you love. Our friends we consider close like family, and I thank them all for their friendship and support.

Kewl Friday, Bizarre Saturday

It was quite the weekend, from Friday to Sunday night late (for me at least). I had my first Friday without playing at the Wharf in the last 3 months. This was an adjustment for me, as I always felt that I had a decent crowd draw, and did a good warmup for Kaj on Friday nights. Maybe that will change in the future – but for right now, its nice to know that I can sit back on a Friday evening and enjoy just hanging out.
We all speculated about 2 of our dearest friends, and whether they were having the time of their lives, or if they were hating every moment.. We thought it more likely that things were going well, but.. people speculate when there is a lack of current data – and even if there is, they can still view the data through a smoky lens – the opposite of rose colored glasses. I was wishing the best for them – I said I had everything crossed that could be crossed. and I was really hoping the best. Turns out that, yes, things were fantastic for them. I just grinned ear to ear when I heard about it. I’m still grinning about it.

Anyway, Kaj, displaying his usual awesome DJ might, played an awesome set. I was able to spend a lot of time chatting with friends and all the great people that come through the Wharf for the party. As with most parties, this too ended, and it was late, but me and my man went and spent some time, just the two of us. And life was good.

Saturday was strange. I hate it when people don’t get along – and I walked into one of those situations when 2 of my friends were on different wavelengths over a really stupid joke. I mean, Unicorns? Come on. Well, in the end, it did not turn out well. It might have been worse. I just wish there was some way to fix it. But I guess that’s not my place – I’m only elven in a very human sort of way, and when you have strong personalities involved, emotions running high, and personal codes of honor or whatever, then it gets even more complex. I really believe that even best friends can take a joke too far, but there is personal responsibility on both sides, and someone can cry “enough”, before we reach def-con 1. Stupid Unicorns.


Finn found an awesome skybox - its a rabbit warren, and its so awesome! I snapped a quick pic prior to beaming out to go to my set, and I'm glad I did. Kewl, ain't it?

I had good set @ SDC – The house was packed, and the Euro crowd was awesome. Towards the end of the set, the crowd thins out considerably – its 3am in the morning when I finish. Dodgey was there for my entire set – it was a wonderful surprise to see him there.
I hosted for DJ Blaise at the 6PM set at the Wharf. It was quiet at the start But things picked up within a half hour, and we had a good crowd. Blaise did a fantastic set – he’s become one of my favorite DJs, since he plays a lot of the stuff that I love to listen to. I wish I wasn’t playing at the same time he is, so I could go to listen him play at his other venue.

Finn, Sebastiian, and a few others like Dodgeguy, were in rare form, shifting into avis that were hilarious and cute, if not weird and insane. Dodgey make a big splash by becoming The Staypuft Marshmallow Man, from Ghostbuster - Finn mentioned this in his blog entry - and I laughed and had a ball watching the shifting game of avatars that Finn, Sebastiian and some others played. I just stayed my own little ol' elfie self - I might have taken off my glasses - and watched the parade of awesome.

Oh, Chester and MTD1952 Timeless decided to mudwrastle (yes I said wrastle instead of wrestle) with Chester using his super buttonpushing ability to dominate the circle of mud. I think Mikey let Chessy win, but I can't prove that. You can see the mudpit in the middle of the Wharf in one of the pictures.

Wild stuff. Fun stuff. Good memories xD

More Sunday than I knew what to do with

I thought Sunday was going to be a lazy day, with lots of time to do what I wanted to do. It seems that you should never assume SL, or RL for that matter, will allow your "plans" (very loosely defined, in this sense of the word) to remain in tact.

The day started off well - I started trying to take stock of how I wanted to furnish my house (previous post I showed some views from the observation deck). Then I try to do some shopping, and as I love my friends, I started getting with them in IMs and going to where they were at.

Later in the day, I had a great time with Pookie, Charley, and Gage looking at their fantastic rebuild of the sim they now have. A tropical island paradise, and that's no kidding. They are doing a fantastic job with it!!

And then, it was a last minute thing, I started DJing a set 2 hours before my normal time. Fuzzy had the weekend off, so Xavi was going to fill in.. but had something come up RL and was unable to make it. So I decided.. I can't let all those people go un-entertained.. so without having had time to work on my set for the 6pm slot yet either, I went by instinct and started DJing on the fly. Its an interesting experience, to be 2 steps ahead of silence on the Wharf.. you know you have to keep throwing songs into the cue, but they have to be the right songs. In the end, I DJed 3 hours.. and then like a knight on a white horse.. or in this case, a black on, Blaise returned to the Wharf and offered to take over - his set had been cancelled at the other place he DJs, so he stepped in and did a 2 hour set for the Wharfies.. It was awesome tunage.. I really like Blaise's style of music - its different from mine, but we share a love of some of the best goth and industrial tunes.. and his voice is really cute xD His boyfriend Coner and he make the most interesting and cute couple.. I hope they don't mind that description of it.

My newest friend Micah Moore was present for a good portion of the nights festivities.. I am so glad to have met him. I love chatting with him. He's such a fun guy to talk with. And he's now in the DJ Dehrynn group. Actually I should start developing that group more. Tommie Blaisedale dropped in a little late for but the tail end of my set. I really get a kick out of him.

And 2 other notes. Finnegan - he's such a great guy. I could talk with him for hours sometimes, and others he's just funny to watch work a room. I was so stoked Friday when he DJed - we all love his sets, and as much as he might want to say he needed to move away from it, he is a really good DJ and people really loved his sets.

Buster - he's awesome. He hosted for most of my 3 hours DJing then bowed out to head to bed. I don't know what I would do with out buster, and I hope to never find out - other than have to work twice as hard during my sets to host and DJ.. I still need a host for the 6pm stuff. I'm covered for when Kaj and I swap during the Friday sets, and any time I play before 6, Buster can usually step in.

Finally, I had a picture taken and photo-shopped by a friend, Slyvergay Ralu - I don't know - let me know what you think ? I don't know. Sly did my current profile and the DJ pic I use (the blue background one).. I am still wanting Esmi to do one for me, but our schedules are harder to match up. We'll see how he does.


Oh, anyone that sees Esmi casing my house, let me know.. I will have to check to see if he leaves any surprises for me. I mean, now that he knows where I live... like he never knew in the first place. He just wants to drag me to that pentagram in his haunted house and see what happens when he starts trying to sacrifice me to Chester.

TTFN

Home view

Just a quick post - I was looking at my beautiful treehouse, which I still have to furnish - time time time - when I was struck by the view from one of the platforms in the upper tier.
My home is in Serenus University, on the banks of the Serenus River, near the Castle. I personally love this spot, and I very much love the view. You may notice I have evidence of flying saucers and of the Aliens won't stop abducting cows.. and farmers. Fox Muldar, eat your heart out!
Chester's yard-sale seems to be an eyesore, but I'm not complaining. Actually, its not that bad..it breaks up the field a little, and I can perv on the hot guys that stroll through looking for more of Chester's used excite gear...

Anyway - I love this spot, I love the area, and my landlords are really cool.

Busy weekend, strange weekend

I read a blog entry from Finn yesterday - he was asking what can we do to make the Wharf a better place for everyone.

He said it right, the Wharf has had excellent success. We expanded because there seemed to be a demand for what we offer - and slowly became a place that had events going on 6 days a week, with multiple days having many events. Hell, I wound up as a manager (more like a cruise director) because things expanded to the point where this was needed.

However, there has been something of a steady decline in .. attendence, and I hope not interest...

Perhaps this has happened due to a number of issues, and not just one thing.

As I've taken on the Manager role, I am at most of the events. I've taken a hand to try and help troubleshoot problems, and keep the schedule on track.

The DJs and hosts themselves are excellent, and the content of sets has been great.

One of my friends observed that maybe we have too much of a good thing. Too many events running constantly, and the freshness has worn off. Our DJs and Hosts are consistently awesome. But people will seek out the new and different. We have fantastic folks - but we aren't the "new" thing every week.

Other factors that may have influence - "big sploders" or lack of them, like we did in December and January.

We don't do big contests, either - with the exception of the $L5000 Alien costume contest for Abduction.

These activities do draw people, and sometimes they stay.

We don't ask people to blindly TP their friends to the Wharf. Other clubs make it a policy to do so regularly. I personally ignore blind TPs and regularly send a TP request back to the requestor, telling them to come to MY event instead. Of course they don't respond. Many of my friends or aquaintences would be at the events if they weren't already engaged in other things.

I remember what it was like when I was trying to find a good place to hang out & fit in. I think the Wharf is welcoming or inviting - but maybe we need to do a better job at engaging new visitors? As a host or DJ, you just don't have time to pay attention to everyone - but maybe we can find a way to engage new people better?

Right now, Spring Break is rolling across the university/school-going segment of SL's population, and this probably has something to do with attendence. We have a lot of Teen and 20-something patrons that have been absent. It makes me wonder how much this influenced our current state.

So, what is the answer? Need for something different? Spring break? Big sploders vanishing? Not enough PR or personal contact with new visitors?
What is the reason?
I'd say a combo of several of these.

Like Finn, I'm looking for answers, and would appreciate opinions. We do have some actions and ideas to refresh the Wharf - and I'm sure Finn and Chester will roll out some amazing things as we cope, grow, and learn more about the nature of this beast.

Changes, they keep on a-comin'...

One of my favorite times of the week has been Wednesday evenings, hosting for Finn. Not only is he a really good DJ, but he’s a good friend. When you DJ, no matter how much fun you have entertaining people, you still have a pressure and time constraint. Finn has said a few times that its been a struggle for him to align what he wants and needs to do RL with the SL side of things. I know how rough things can get when you run into technical snags, or fall behind and have to rush into your set less prepared (or unprepared) than you would like.

Regardless - Finn did an excellent job with his sets, whether planned or on the fly. I enjoyed the music, and the experience of entertaining a room full of our friends (family) and patrons with him. Since he has now taken himself out of the DJ rotation for the time being, there is a change to my routine that I will adjust to… it seems that’s been the theme now for the last few weeks – Change.
Life is change, I believe the saying goes. I hope that the change for Finn relates to less stress and more fun. Because he’s crazy enough as it is. And if he REALLY goes off the deep end (in relative terms that is) he’ll take a lot of people with him. xD

I hope he’s just taking a break for the time being – and will DJ on occasion as his time and mood suits him.

I managed to get one of my closest and dearest friends to climb down a ladder and step into the footprint that Finn left behind on Wednesday night – Xavier. He’s a semi-reluctant DJ – only because he wasn’t sure if his musical bent was what the Wharfies would like. I told him it would be something different - he would be a success, and the crowd would love him. He has a more gothy/industrial-ly feel to his tunes, and a cool (if somewhat twisted) sense of humor, with a funny personality to match. Also, a heart of gold (figuratively speaking) underlying it all - though he would not admit it. His set went down as a smash hit I think. I stood post as his host (I’m a poet and didn’t know it? Ugh) – and it was different. It wasn’t Finn. But it was something good. I think Xavier had a fantastic (finntastic?) time, and succeeded very well. And I get enormous satisfaction from that. And like life, change happens. And it was good.

By the way, for some reason, the pictures I thought I took of last nights events did not save correctly. So no images for this post. Sowwy!

UPDATE>. DODGEY came through with a picture! So the blog has been updated.

Nitro burning funny cars have nothing to do with this SUNDAY!!

Well, its the end of the weekend, and I'm posting this as I contemplate bed. Its been a full day, no mistake. I actually managed to sleep in for a change. Usually, my eyelids fly open like window shades rolling up at the crack of dawn, but not this morning!

First things - I had a good conversation with my friend Charley - what great guy. Charley is so easily one of the best people to talk to. He's about as awesome as they come when it comes to friends.

I spent some time with Kaj for his usual DJ set at Centerfold - and had a good time listening to the tunes, chatting with Kaj & Malden. Another set of great guys.

Next, there was Love Shack - DJ Fuzzy was rocking it New Wave style, and the tunes were excellent.



I have to say, we have a great group of people that congregate around these events.. everyone from Charley and Gage, Malden and Kaj, MTD, Dodgeguy, Blaise and Coner, Xavier, Pookie, Easton, Chopper, and Fuzzy, Finnegan, Buster. A number of others. Yeah, some of us have the DJ and Hosting jobs, or owners of the sims, etc. But in the end, we all chose to congregate together, to share the experience.. I think its fantastic that we have the love of the entertainment, or in the case of the DJ, host, manager, and owners, to entertain and share. We all have a family feel for us, the regulars, and the semi regulars. Its a good feeling to have such people close to you. Fuzzy once again put in a great performance for us.




And to close out the evening, I DJed @ the Wharf from 6 til after 8PM SLT. For the most part, it was a great set, with the tunes flowing very well. A couple of stream hiccups were the only thing that marred it. There were a number of moments that were hilarious, and Pookie, Kaj, Mal, Charley, Mikey, Gage and Buster all provided lots of laughs. I think Pookie was at the heart of some of them. Buster was his usual awesome hosting self.

By the way - Pookie's rez day was today - Sunday 3/8/09! He's 1! Happy Rez Day hon *hugs*

This was the last Sunday set that buster will be hosting for me. Unfortunately, RL kicks his butt for sleep by staying up so late to host for me .. so I will only have Buster's excellent assistance on Friday's, it seems - my 4-6pm set.

Overall, a wonderful day. I had a lot of fun, and I think most everyone did.

I just need to find someone to host for me on Sunday evenings .. I need to find a host for Esmi on Friday 12 noons, and for Easton on Friday nights. I'm also going to need to find a DJ to play more noon type sets, and a host to pare with him, so we can have the European crowd covered during the middle of the day. But anyway, that's business stuff, and its time for bed.

Saturday - its an experience

Saturday was a pretty cool day, overall. Its good when you have fun, overcome an obstacle, and have a sense of accomplishment from that, and helping others succeed and do well.

I've been trying to figure out what to put in my new home.. the treehouse (pictured above)is truly a big place - it has adequate room that I can do a lot with. But, I haven't shopped for furniture just yet.
Pook says he will be happy to take me out shopping to find whatever I want, since he's been through moving and redecorating pains in the last month or so, and he has a lot of places still fresh in his mind.
I'll probably look at some of the elven-themed places, but not limiting myself to that.

As the day progressed, since I was just lazing around, planning my playlist for Migs - some of my friends started logging in(as they do). I had just found out how to plug my stream info into the sim I live in (its good to be the Man) - I was streaming my stuff, sort of working out what I wanted to play later at Migs. I noticed Xavier had logged in, so invited him over to see my bare house. Xavi asked if it was radio or me streaming, and I told him it was me. After a little while, i asked him if he would like to stream, since I know he has good music.

Xavi has some interest in DJing, but he doesn't do it much - so I gave him my stream info, and it was really cool. Dodge joined us shortly after that. I showed them around my empty house. Then Pookie joined us, and we made a little dance party in the tree house.
Finn stopped by, and hung out for a bit. He liked what Xavi was streaming, so he asked Xavi if he wanted to DJ for The Wharf (I told him I thought Xavi would make a great addition). Xavi was sort of hedging, but I thought he really liked it. The faun-boy can be shy at times.

Later in the day, it proved lucky that Xavier was interested, because Chester had net problems, and was not able to make his Abduction set. Even though we had not officially hired Xavier, I asked him to DJ for Chester.
It took a few minutes to get him set up, but with some ingenuity, some luck, and patience, we had Xavier streaming, and he rocked the cornfield.



This is Xavier DJing @ Abduction - It might be Dodgeguy doing the fanning with the peacock fan, but I can neither confirm or deny that - let's just say Xavi was hot, rocking the field and this guy (we'll call him Dodge just for the sake of arguement) didn't want the cornfield to catch fire.. yeah, you buy that, don't cha?

It felt really good, having faced this little challenge and brought forth a great sound like Xavier.

My gig at Migs went really well, too. I had a great crowd. Thanks to PJ and Mig for supporting me through the Night Train set. We had a fantastic time. I really appreciate PJ's help, considering how late it was for him.

A big thanks to buster - he really has been a strong support to me in these sorts of situations. I think the world of this guy.

And to Alvin - thank you for your suggestions and support when we were getting things set up. In the helter-skelter of trying to figure out options. I really appreciated the helping.. err.. paw?

Friday started out Esmiazing!

Well, I had to think up something that was corney, but cute and descriptive of the start to Finntastic Friday - see, I got off RL work early to come out and hear Esmi play - Its not something I can always do - but I wanted to hear Esmi on the mic.. and it was worth it! The tunes were fantastic, and his voice is so damned smexy I thought I might have to change my undies.
Good crowd too -
And then, there was Hoaghes - excellent set for Hoaghes.. I love his voice, too.. He seems to think he sounds bad, but wow. He's so wrongggggg.. I love the accent.

Anyway, gotta prep for my set.

Wednesday at the Wharf-Shack

Shortly into Finn's set at the Wharf, the region went down. Its been a while I think since this happened during a set, at least in my memory.. lucky thing Finn has a spare venue or two. We moved it over to The Love Shack.

Finn wasn't feeling well, poor guy. But he carried on DJing for about 2.5 hours, and we all had a great time. I really hope he's feeling better today.. he seemed to be, playing those damned Zyngo machines, trying to beat buster's score on it.

We had a good crowd.. and as always, the regulars were there having a blast.

I gotta say.. and I do say it in my notices.. we have a great group of folks, guys, gals, a few we aren't sure about (no Ches, no you! We know what you are.. and it scares us) that are just the best kind of people you could ask for in friends and .. dare I say.. family. Its really amazing the way people shine through.
Another thing - I can't say enough how much I appreciate all the support and well wishes for my manager position. I'm not sure why, but I love you all for the faith in me - though I still don't know how Kaj thinks I'm going to run for President in 2o12... but that's another story.
I'm very glad to have such fantastic DJs and Hosts, and awesome people that pitch in. Thank you all so much.

OK, its late, so that's all for now.

Anyway

March 1st SUNDAY! Bunnies and the Dancing Chester

Chester was dancing - he must be feeling good...how is that possible?


It was Sunday night.. and it was MY Sunday night.. Things clicked and we all had a blast @ the Wharf. I have to admit I did not prepare my set like I normally do - I did have strong ideas for some of my set, but when I added that up, it was only about an hour, so I dug deeper into my brain, and did some search-surfing in my music inventory, not to mention the regular stream of requests I played tonight - and what came out was one of my best sets yet!
I really appreciated the compliments from Kaj and Finn - and well.. everyone that mentioned they liked the music.

I think the only note that seemed to bother anyone was the final song - Love Shack - Finn and Ches both commented that they were tired of the song. So, I will likely not play that one again while they are around, or.. at all.. for a while.

One thing of note - Chester was seen DANCING on more than one occasion tonight, and I captured one of those times in a picture - Ches is dancing on top of his teleport kiosk.
The other picture I've included was of the gang listening to my set - and Finn was on Fire.. or a earth elemental.. or some damned avatar thingee he loves to swap into.

A special shout out to buster - my awesome host! He was fantastic as always - and I could not focus on requests and the music without his help. He really does a fantastic job - and I like the way he does it.

I did not copy my play list down yes - I will have to go into my SAM history to pull the list, and I'll update the posting later.

Finntastic Friday @ The Wharf

Friday night, the last Friday of a cold February - we came, we danced, and I nearly face planted at the end of the evening! XD
WOW - And I was only there for 8 of the 12 hours.. I still can't believe that the time flies so fast!
Basically, when Esmi's set starts at Noon on SL, I am still about 2 hours or so from getting finished at work - that is, if its a normal Friday. Instead, it was an abnormal Friday, and I was held for almost an extra hour - and then I had to finish my playlist and do the things you need to do when you get home from work.

So, despite wanting to be there, I was not at Esmi's set, and I sorely miss not getting to hear him play - but I did see he wisely put the stream info up on his blog this morning. I had the same thought, but I've been slow posting the last few days.

Here's the stream link:

http://81.169.178.84:10000


Anyway - I missed all but the last half hour of Hoaghes set, as well, but I did get to hear his tunes for a while, which was cool to lead in to mine.

I played a good 2 hour set. The crowd fluctuated in size, and was not as robust as I would have hoped for.
Kaj had a special anniversary set to play at a different venue before his set started at the Wharf, so I was prepared to play over to give him time to transport in. As it happened, Kaj jumped in just a little after, and I only had to play 1 song over into his block - the man is AWESOME !
And I want to thank Kaj for helping (and Mal) for helping cover for Chester's absense. Kaj played an extra half hour into Chester's set, which gave me time to put together a play list to cover the 1.5 hours for the rest of that block. Chester's internet had been squeezed by his provider due to, allegedly, all the bunny porn he was uploading to .. where ever you load bunny porn to. i wouldn't know anything about that XD

And then Easton had originally been involved in RL stuff, and I didn't think he'd make it back in time for his set. I considered shutting down early - but the man came through! He jumped in right at the start of his usual set time, and I turned the stream over to him. I covered the hosting for him for his whole set - though I don't know how I managed. I was ready to face plant! As much as I'm a "lend a hand" kind of elf, I had a full day, and those late nights kick my ass. So.. I need to find a host to pair up with him for what I lovingly call the "Graveyard shift"XD

Overall, it was a little slow this Friday, I have to say. But we had a good crowd and a lot of fun. : )
And Dodge doesn't want you to find his blog and read his poetic and random wisdom on life and blogging. He doesn't. So don't follow this link:
http://diss-guys-nuts.blogspot.com/


I've included a pic from Kaj's set. I didn't do a role call, but we have most of the regulars and a few new faces in the crowd.. Pookie and I are dancing back by the sploder, Kev looks like a GIANT! but he's just dancing on air, doing a Finn impersonation.