Musical diversions

I've been doing a lot with music of late.

Last weekend was the RFL Grand Tour of which New Babbage hosted the Illusions White Themed Ball.


Christine and I enjoy a much anticipated dance together.


The collection of white in New Babbage was an unusual site to say the least.

Later that night (or the wee hours of the morning SLT) I came back for the JLU leg of the Tour in Steelhead and played a mix of superhero inspired songs

DJ Stark at the decks with Dickens out begging for shrimp again. Elda keeps the other speaker warm


Certainly the most colourful of the dances of the evening :-)


Then most recently Josh from the Vernian Process was lured inworld to discuss music of the steampunk nature and it's influences.


See it is possible to blink in your own photos.

This topic that Miss Emilly and I and various other have been discussing for some time, it was interesting to hear from someone actively involved in producing music of the "steampunk" nature. There were many groups I'd not even heard of before. Some I'm not overly into, other I really liked. Gogol Bordello have been on loop for many an evening since then :-)

I've reposted the playlist here partially as a record for myself but also of interest for others to discover new music.

Vernian Process - The Maple Leaf Rag (GAR)
The Widow's Bane - Wormwood Waltz in C Minor (GAR)
Devotchka - Charolette Mittnacht
Edwardia - En Pleurs
Vernian Process - The Queen of the Delta (GAR)
Synthonym - Laboratory (GAR)
Inertia - Le Cirque Noir
Beats Antique - Roustabouts
The James Gang - Shut it Down
Dr. Steel - Bogeyman Boogie
Crimson Muddle - Lamentations Psychotiques (GAR)
The Real Tuesday Weld - Bathtime in Clerkenwell
F.M. Einheit & Gry - Princess Crocodile
This Way to the Egress - Saint (GAR)
Man Man - Engrish Bwudd
Johnny Hollow - This Hollow World
Rasputina - Leechwife
Vernian Process - Behold the Machine (GAR)
Unextraordinary Gentlemen - Ants Under Glass
The Tenth Stage - Francois Martin (GAR)
Unwoman - Habit (GAR)
Darius Greene - My Personal Demons
Gogol Bordello - Wonderlust King
Diablo Swing Orchestra - Ballrog Boogie
The World/Inferno Friendship Society - All the World is a Stage (Dive)
Th' Legendary Shack Shakers - Nellie Bell (GAR)
HUMANWINE - Rivolta Silenziosa
Tom Waits - Singapore
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - The Ballad of Robert Moore and Betty Coltraine
Vagabond Opera - Cabarista Farewell
Paul Roland - Wyndham Hill
The Clockwork Dolls - The Ballad of Black Jack Jezebel (GAR)
Vernian Process - Her Clockwork Heart (GAR)

Doctor Whooooo, Oi, Doctor Who

Saturday afternoon saw me at the Katrina sim producing a variety of SF themed music for the gathered crowd at the Podshock Podcast party. Normally I wouldn't get up at stupid o'clock to play a gig but this one just tweaked all my nerdery buttons so I thought What The Hell.


Ever wondered what Freddy Mercury would have been like as a Doctor? I blame Oolon for saying "no ticking" and Alfonso for putting the idea of leopard print in my head.


The open space for the dance party


Miss Emilly as one of the Blink angels


Elilka Sieyes (better known as Dr. Watson in New Babbage)


Alfonso as an ickle wickle Dalek


A stormtrooper in Cardiff. Temporal rift perhaps.


Pixie as a victim of the Vashta Nerada from The Library


Dalek Slade shows that daleks can dance


Victor1st Mornington grooves


The crowd gets bigger. Thankfully I wasn't trying to move anywhere so the lag wasn't a factor.


Dalek's taking over the music for a bit

The party was received well great and I was even asked to play another hour. Thankfully Soliel and I were able to make accommodations with stream use.

Brilliant gig.

Third Annual Snowflake Ball

Saturday the 10th hosted Caledon's Third Annual Snowflake Ball. Traditionally it has been held in the Duchy of Loch Avie but with the new sim limits having come into effect this has proved impractical. Thankfully Caledon's Vicereign was able to clear a spot in Port Caledon for the evening and we spent it dancing on ice.

Playing the music at a formal ball, chatting, dancing and getting the timing right can be harder than it looks. Thankfully I only lost count of what dance number we were up to once. :-)


Group photo


Myself and Lady Amber


With my own darling Duchess


My Hostess for the evening, Miss Orr is Siamese if you please.


With Miss Lu

Anniversary Party

Last night was the 1 Year and 1 month anniversary of Christine's and my official handfasting. RL got in the way of our actual anniversary and did it's best to intervene this time as well.

She contacted me about half an hour before the party was due to start letting me know her typist's home had had a close brush with a Tornado and the town was without power and that she would be there in spirit if not actual presence.





The party itself went well with quite a gathering over the night. There have even been suggestions of a repeat performance but with the lady of honour in attendance.

We shall see.

As the evening wore on we were down to the Baron, Miss Emilly, and Miss Homewood who I took on an impromptu tour of the tunnels, after which I asked Emilly for a suggestion of a recent sim worth visiting. She took me to Loco Pocos island. Very interesting build and there's even a treasure hunt to help you explore the sim.





It was a good night. If only My Duchess had been there as well.

Raising funds in Steelhead

Saturday evening after finishing some RL commitments I was back in Steelhead to help raise some money for the upcoming Steelhead Harbourside



The sim is nearly completed in its prebooking and to help along the finances, the Men of Caledon were put on display as a fundraiser, with the announcement that they'd go topless if the donations reached the L$20,000 mark.


We were shirtless within 20 minutes.

No I'm not sure that it implies that the visiting women were a pack of perverts or that they were overly generous in their funding. Possibly both :-)


Hawc Decosta shows his sash.


Baron Wulfenbach displays some rather garish shorts


Myself and the non-furry Sheriff


My dear wife flashing a bit of thigh


Nice Chest


By the end of the night we had raised over L$75,000 and all sort of people were in all states of undress (including Tensai, who went topless once we reached L$60K, but I'll refrain from publishing the photos).

Great night and great fun and hopefully well on the way to launching the next stage of Steelhead.

The Caledon-Wintefell Ball

Saturday afternoon was the first joint ball between Caledon and the "Victorian Gothic" themed sims of Winterfell. Hosted by Her Grace of Carntaigh, Gabrielle Riel, and the Senechal of Winterfell, Serra Anansi.

I wasn't able to make it to the start of the ball, originally being held in Winterfell Keep. It seems the combination of high prim jewellery, high prim gowns, AOs, HUDs and a high number of AVs in the sim was too much for Winterfell to bear and it fell over.

The reassembled dancers opted for the recently formed sim that was the cause of the celebrations, Caledon Cape Wrath. And with a quick scattering of dance balls and the tuning of the parcels to the right music, the Ball was under way again.


The dancers reassemble on Cape Wrath


The Senechal of Winterfell, Miss Serra Anansi


Miss Cornelia and Mr. Hassanov


Possibly the largest Ballgown in SL


Myself and Miss Emilly

Sadly time zones and RL commitments prevented me from staying for much more than an hour, but it was nice to see the coming together of the two communities. I look forward to seeing what it brings.

Aaaaall my friends are getting ooooolder!

Friday afternoon SLT (or Friday evening GMT or Saturday morning AEDT) saw a combined Rez Day bash for many of Caledon's inhabitants. Oolon Sputnik, Terry Lightfoot, Alfonso Avalanche, Fuschia Begonia, Exrex Somme, Lapin Paris, Vi Paravane, Otenth Paderborn, Jess Patton, Kirawill Collingwood and probably others all have their anniversaries in November.

So, big party.

The theme for the party was Robotz and had some impressive outfits.


Inside the walls of Coughton Court, the walls had started closing in.


With Mechanicals, clockworks, automatons and their friends, all dancing to the funky tunes


Miss Emilly manages to catch my good side while DJing. Elrik Merlin and I covered the music with a little intercontinental handover.


Mechanical Alfonso.


Smilin' botz.

Double McBurger, large McChips, oh and a diet McDrink

Steelhead's dance this week was the nicely original Fast Food theme.

For some reason I got it into my head that Ronald McDonald was the way to go. This was partially inspired by one of the former denizens of Steelhead, Mr. Keenly Valiant, but also something that I thought would be fairly easy. In hind sight Colonel Sanders may have been the simpler option but there you go. I think I looked at every clown costume on the grid (not that there are many) from the cheap Rodeo Clowns to one that was L$2000, none of which were what I was looking for anyway. I ended up deciding to make my own. Texturing was easy enough and that was all accomplished fairly well, though the hair was proving a problem. Thinking I could simply retexture an afro hairdo I again launched across the grid looking for hair, and again met with dubious little results. Ended up wondering if SLX might have anything. Bought a L$99 afro there that was mod/copy which I thought would be perfect. However the 200 prims it's made of brought me up short when I started looking at retexturing.

I threw together a single prim hair piece and headed over to the dance (time flies when you're building!) It was sparsely attended to start with but then the people started to arrive.


Steelhead's very own musical Sheriff was Frylock, complete with goatee. (I wonder if this means there's a "nice" version of Fuzz in alternate universe?)


Gelatinous wobbly thing, Miss Orr appears to have eaten Carmen Miranda. I don't think we ever established what flavour jelly she was.


Lunar as Meatwad. I believe this is from a comic of some sort.


Tensai as Master Shake. With a memorial portrait to Keenly to the left.


My McClown. He needs work but not bad for a couple of hours work.


Exrex Somme as some sort of Chinese Takeaway I think.


Frequency Picnic as something that you see very occasionally in fast food.


Mr. O'Toole as Fastfood Nation

I dropped in to the Rock Factory, now in the brand new sim of jazzers Paradise, to see Dr. Figaro for about half an hour. She was grooving her way through her favourite Jpop stuff. Managed to scare a few people by still being McClowned. Headed back to Steelhead just before it coughed towards the end throwing everyone out. But there was plenty of party vibes going so that even after Fuzz finished for the night, Tensai found a station on Sky FM broadcasting 80s stuff and a few of us kept on dancing.

Brilliant night and loads of fun as usual.