Albion's gone AWOL

 A month on and the blog is even quieter, anyway basically my mum is ill and that's consumed a lot of time, she's been transferred from home to the hospital down here as its the place where they do this kind of treatment. Shit hit the fan and things went from bad to worse, after a lot of heavy stuff things seem to be back on an even keel, bizarre considering the seriousness of her illness because of what had occurred we are all quite upbeat. Anyway, visiting has consumed most of my evenings or I'm just not in the mood to laugh so I've been absent from my local and favourite virtual club. Indeed I have only done this update to let the sods know I've not abandoned my virtual life, I look way too good for that, and am sad to be missing the fun and madness but hopefully should be able to gate crash the club soon. Its unlikely I'll be updating much but do hope to be inworld soon, need my fill of scouser madness, spanish sophistication, cockney bovver, etc etc.

ciao

But thats not Mod...

....I know, but a lot of the virtual Soul Mods sods are big Beatles fans, and I have a soft spot for the mop tops myself so. Anyway I read Jellie's Warhol post over at Moonletters, which took me on a visit to a virtual NYC to have a wander around the Chelsea Hotel, this lead me to explore a little further and I discovered there was an Imagine garden just outside the hotel near the performance stage. Knowing there are a lot of Beatle fans in the virtual world I thought I would stick up a very brief post with a SURL for those interested in such things. It looks cool and there is a nice wooden box with suitable animations for you to sit on and strum your guitar whilsts absorbing the mood. A nice chill spot for you to explore your inner hippy.

the Imagine Garden

Bits of this and Bits of that......

Despite my miserable posting performance and the fact I have missed a lot of Soul Mods nights out whilst sat in my chair; there have been a few cool things occuring in my somewhat limited Second Life.

First off, Shauna gave me a really groovy cap that matched my Hoorenbeek suit and Muism sweater perfectly, put a twenties spin on my modernist look but I thought it looked great and wore it whilst I grooved at Soul Mods a while back. Shauna is producing a lot of sharp designs at her store so I suggest you retro girls head over to Moonletters and check out all the stores as its a great place for retro clothing stores. For girls obviously, us blokes are as a rule too tight to splash our lindens on clothes,,,surely not! Looking at the sharp dressers at Soul Mods you think not but sadly they are generally the exception.

I bought myself another military mod outfit in my pursuit of the 1967 look, not sure if its quite right but I'll probably blog more on it at some point. Anyway, it looks kinda cool just need to find some trousers to set it in its sixties retro context. Also bought a wildly pink suit from Shiki, to show its not just Graz who does pink y'know. I'll blog more on this later too just thought I would mention it as an excuse for fiddling with throwing up a couple of snapshots.

Other madcap adventures followed reading Jellie's post over at the Moonletters blog which I saw as a challenge, okay I admit I cheated, whilst I went for a cuppa and watched TV I weighed down the page up key to gain height whilst I chilled, I felt it was only fair after Albion crunched his head on a floating platform, I realised how dull climbing to over 100,000m on your own can be and thirdly my finger dtarted to forget what its role in life was beyond depressing that key. And to be fair, there is really nothing up there, try it yourself, go on go on....

Albion chasing the moon, but eventually you leave all this behind and the sky is just full of stars, the guy who hit over a million meters must have gone crazy. Orbitting myself might get me to that hieght but as for flying there, werr I leave that to jellie, 103,000m give or take is probably my limit. If however you fancy it yoursef, feel free to fly high and send me a TP when you get there. Chilled in space, starring Albion Spitteler. Not much to do with virtual modernism, altho Mods in Space has a kind of freaky B Film ring to it, flying scooter anyone. Besides it gives me an excuse to post two awesome tracks, one is from the mid sixties pop art mod genre the other is mod suspect but a fantastic tune so what the feck. Have you guessed them yet, no? I cant hide my disappointment.

ciao

Real Talent...

Quick reprise of the talents available amidst our wonderful little mob of sods. Unlike me many of the people who are regular attendees at Soul Mods are actually quite talented and able to do all kinds of things. What kind of things? Well, lets rifle through them..there's Kim and Eden who make wonderful clothes; joined now by Shauna with her Subculture range. You can find their store over at the Moonletters sim. Not only are they great sixties designers able to craft cool looking items all three of them can also DJ, no mean feat and way beyond my abilities. Then of course there's the mad hatter Mr Slate McLead - builder, clothes creator, DJ and I think he even understand scripts too. Yeah, Slate's a  veteran of Second Life [2006 I think, OAP in virtual terms] and there are few skills in the virtual world he has not mastered, his greatest creation the much beloved Twisted Wheel is what brought most people together in the first place and inspired others to do likewise. And lets not forget Dugi much mocked for his love of denim and cheapness, its true he gets his clothes from virtual Oxfam, yet its he who built Soul Mods and created a small oasis of modness for us all to inhabit. So, despite all the mockery we are grateful to him and Aston, Aston's talent,,,putting up with Dugi, meet him and you'll soon understand why. D'oh more Dugi mockery its just a habit I cant break. I'm sure there are others, indeed I know there are all the varied DJs that have played at Soul Mods have exhibited talents and technical skills that bamboozle me. And last but not least lets not forget our favourite real life pop star our old mate Lupo the mod from Madrid. Not only is Lupo a great virtual DJ but in real life he can put his own tunes together. This is glorious its mellow its serene I just want to wrap myself in it...a great tune. Doesn't need lyrics its captivating...take it away Lupo.

Find more Tarik y la Fábrica de Colores songs at Myspace Music 

Careful, its so chilled it might just bring a tear to your eye

Its Thursday and I made it!

I  attended Soul Mods on Thursday for the first time in a couple of weeks, wouldn't say I was the most active member there but I strung together the odd line of chat. It was a treat just to be there and hear a great set delivered by the coolest of the cool virtual mods, Lupo the mod from Madrid. A very healthy turn out of sods heard some great music and delivered some great chat, topics this week were:smoking, Canon versus Nikon; oh and whether Stevie Nicks had coke blown up her @rse, yes we are eclectic in our conversations at Soul Mods. I was mostly a silent participant but as ever the chat was busy and funny and everyone was having a laugh. Shauna paraded another of her wonderful subculture outfits, those damn girls [Eden, Shauna, Kim as so clever being able to produce cool sixties outfits] and master fixer Slate was modelling a nice jacket based on a real life Weller jacket, surrounded by so many talented people - arrrgh makes me want to boil my head hahaha. Anyway head boiling apart I had a good time, forgive my silence folks I am honestly having fun I just find it easier to listen in these days, keep the tunes going.

ciao.

Albion Spitteler's Newsround

The sun is shining at last and yes I have taken this sunshine opportunity to sit on my @rse and type inane comments into a blog that has a readership of about half a dozen weary souls. But its a laugh! Anyway as I have nothing really specific that I could drag out for more than a ten word paragraph I have opted to lump all the little pieces together in this seventies style update, borrowing from my childhood this is my first ...and last, virtual mod newsround.

First up I was pleased to read Shauna' piece of on Moonletters concerning New Brighton, one of the coolest sims on the grid. All virtual mods should visit this place at least once for that essential mod snapshot with the pier. C'mon we've all done it, some of us more than once, don't blush. Its a fantastic build and the pier looks great complete with a promenade to parade along. I am still waiting that group call for a mod scooter rally along the prom, who knows maybe this week is the week. Shauna's piece however illustrates the difficulties of hosting a sim and the gargantuan costs involved, thought provoking as ever and perhaps the sim is still insecure. A great place to visit one that should definite be on your list. Blogged before but as I mistakenly mentioned that it has vanished this seems an opportune moment to recant such a statement and remind everyone that its still out there. There are more details at the New Brighton website, check it out.

Other stuff I have been up to, I went along to the Hangout club again on Monday which was cool; although Janis is unavailable for these sets due to real life commitments we had a great substitute who played a great blend of soul and sixties standards although how or why the Boyzone track got in there eludes me. I enjoy the tunes at the Hangout and was able to join everyone else on the dance floor this time as the dazzling particle lights were turned off, one [of several] drawbacks of the keratoconus is that my eyes struggle in bright light and so I have been hiding myself away up in the gloomy lounge, its also why I don't participate much in chat as its easier just to listen and keep my eyes averted from the screen. This means I miss out on a lot of laughs and get lost as I often have no idea how conversations have developed and they can be confusing as you read them never mind dropping in and out. But the music is great and at this stage I can read enough to have a laugh and join in occasionally.

Talking of laughs, blogged earlier Graz our favourite mocker held a rock 'n' roll night at the Killing Moon at the weekend and as he is such a good bloke several sods turned up dressed as rockers in our best fifties freebies, err well mine were. Keep it to yourself but I quite enjoy the odd classic fifties tune, unlike in my youth where my tastes were rigidly mod I now accept my rather catholic tastes and just enjoy tunes regardless of their origin. It was a fun night and everyone got involved and dressed for the theme, so many quiffs in one room however cannot be healthy, at one point I thought there was going to be an environmental disaster there was so much oil floating about. Albion succumbed and put on his best Elvis wig, said ahuh a lot, and donned some very cheap threads and free shoes and become a closet ted for the evening. As expected with Graz at the helm it was funny with great music and even the ignominy of dressing like a rocker wasn't to bad, surrounded by friends. Look forward to the next one.

Whilst I am discussing themed nights out in the virtual world I'll throw in a little fashion information. Recently I attended a Blues Brothers tribute and to blend in mix and matched various items to give me that Blues Brothers look. And yet whilst I was snapping the trainers at Hoorenbeek I idly wandered around the store and saw they had a complete outfit that is ideal Blues Brothers material. I believe its labelled Angus but surely Jake would be better. As its Hoorenbeek its unlikely to be cheap but if you're unafraid of splashing the lindens I think you'd struggle to find a better outfit. Even competing against specific Blues Brothers outfits I think this one is a tricky one to surpass. It has all the elements of a great costume, the shades, the hat, the suit and even the loose tie and shirt.  Definitely worth a punt if you like costume parties or just like being a Blues Brother, go on treat yourself.


Well I think that waffle should suffice you can all go back to CBBs now.

What have I been up to....

An odd week in Second Life shuffling along trying to find things to do. Logged on and visited Moonletters and had a wander around. Evelyn was there in her sharp looking E-Type she gave me a rather slow ride around the Moonletters streets. Then I rezzed my Porsche and we had possibly the slowest sports car race known to the virtual world. After a couple of laps and the rezzing of a few more cars Shauna arrived and rezzed her London Taxi cab and we took another trip around the wider Penny Lane sim. Not your typical taxi journey as we ended up in a pond, stuck down a ditch, and lost in a marshy jungle type prim mess; luckily for us Shauna was able to pluck us from our midden and plonk us nicely on a better piece of land until we finally found tarmac and completed our journey. A very interesting car journey, then Shauna informed me that there was a soul night at the Hangout with Janis Short as DJ.

So, I said my goodbyes and hopped on a teleport to the Hangout to listen in to some great tunes, there were a few sods present and Janis' usual crowd all enjoying some fantastic tunes. A great night and everyone had fun, some great chat in the chat line as people had a few laughs and jokes. A great night in; however, I retreated upstairs to the lounge bar to escape the particle lights which were a tad too bright for me now. Rather strange conducting a conversation from upstairs with those downstairs.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself at the Hangout listening to some marvelous tunes. Janis will be DJing less regularly in the virtual world as she has aquired a real life job, that damn real life interfering with our entertainment, how bloomin' dreadful. I dressed in my best Oirish paisley green mod outfit, and grooved away alone upstairs like a sad Billy no-mates. After a while all got a little tiring and I took my leave and logged out after having a great time. Having so many good nights in Second Life of late its almost a crime to get so much great entertainment for so little effort, log on and have a raft of great DJs play me great tunes. However being a greedy geezers and still like to call out for more, lots more soul lots more mod and more mod fashion but I'm a difficult geezer to please! Check out the flyers and attend the events as the DJs relish the support and everyone appreciates being appreciated! Sermon over....

I also jogged over to Soulsville to listen to a few soul tunes at the club on Tuesday. As ever I tended to stay quiet in the corner and just listen in to the great music. Marvelous music in the virtual world, just wish their was a lot more of it, oops I'm off on my rant again.

These virtual days lets hope they never end,,,,,

Not very Mod

But Graz is barmy so its likely to be a great night out, take a punt and have a laugh, Friday mad house with Slate followed by the loon fest with chief mocker Graz on Saturday, I canna tak' it cap'n.

Killing Moon Pub @ Moonletters

So....

whats been happening.

Well I missed Thursday at Soul Mods, had a lot of real life stuff buzzing around in my head. But, I believe Kim was on the decks so no doubt everyone got to hear some great tunes and had a lot of fun. I did make it to Slate's Friday madhouse and had a lot of fun. Some great laughs and great tunes, the usual sods were in attendance and the quotes flowed, that Seren is like a wikepesdia of Slatisms. Aye the poor lad was at it again, dafter than the Krankeys he types and Seren quotes, memorable. However, I did notice its mostly blokes who get quoted. Conclusion we are just more verbally stupid than our lady brethren. Anyway, next time you attend Soul Mods don't be phased by the amount of Slate chat, after all most of it is not him....

What else have I been up up too, rooting through old inventory items, obviously. Wandering around Moonletters and getting lost. Oh and grabbing thirty minutes at an impromptu party over at Soul Mods on Sunday. I had hoped to spend longer at the club but the missus demanded I spend time with her watching Mad Jack Sparrow on TV. I suggested I spend ages with her asleep in bed but she wasn't wearing it so I left the sods to enjoy the grooves and watched TV, which was nice.

Finally, anyone who reads all the drivel I put up on here will note I'm quite adept at the odd typo, as I am in world. Well I feel legitimised in my typos now as I've been diagnosed with keratoconus so its likely I will start to write less both here and inworld as things deteriate,just have to see how things turn out I'll still be a dedicated sod even if its all a blur.

ciao.

My Tuesday Evening...

... fingers crossed.

Frantic real life day abso-feckin-lutely knackered, looking for some virtual light relief so was delighted to read Shauna's piece over on Moonletters that there is a Blues Brothers Tribute taking place this evening at the Wu Wu Bar so I logged in earlier to discard my pirate clobber from Slate's great pirate themed night at Soul Mods; and, donned a cool black suit and hat, all I need now are shades and I'm your man! So if your thinking what can I do this evening grab a virtual taxi and get yourself over, I am hoping for a strong Chicago bluesy nights entertainment listening to some sharp R&B, so shake a tail feather and get on down.

See, I told you I was bloomin' knackered, I don't even know what day it is. Mentally frazzled I thought it was Tuesday today, feck me its Monday!

No virtual night out yesterday, I spent the  evening ...asleep now tonight, Tuesday as Shauna has said, I'm putting my shades on and getting virtual, see you all there!

Well it was a truly spectacular show full of glitz and excitement, however on my arrival I was unable to hear the stream and so whilst it was a marvelous spectacular and yet without the tunes it was turning out to be a damp squib. Then triumph I got the stream the tunes roared through and the whole experience lifted off; Dugi and Shauna were present but both left early - other commitments, as I had myself and after just under an hour it was time for me to go too. But, it was a fantastic night, brief but great! Such is the virtual world a brief but bright shining star, top entertainment all over the grid just check it out.

Virtual Cavern moves into AAi

Top mocker Graz has constructed a great new club, the Cavern. not strictly mod [he is a mocker after all] but it is very sixties and our mod brief is wide and encompasses many things loosely sixties inspired. Graz has been helped in his creating by Clare Eglund and you can read about his trials and tribulations in debut club building over at the Moonletters blog. On Tuesday Graz and Clare through cool sixties party to celebrate the clubs opening. After two days ill in bed I didnt make it to the event, however I'm pretty certain everyone had a laugh and a great time listening to some fabulous tunes. I look forward to attending an event next time, once I'm back in the virtual world. I had a sneaky look around and its small and atmospheric a great sixties vibe in the club. Its well worth checking out so jump on the lm and have a laugh.

The Cavern

A Quick Plug

Failed to make it at the Killing Moon on Saturday, but you can catch up with events there here: http://slfix.com/?p=14242 . Have fun y'all.

Great Nights, Great DJs

A couple of good nights at Soul Mods last week. Huge blow that Kim had some techy issues, as I love her heavy ska laden sets; but, lucky for us Eden stepped in and delivered a great impromptu set. The usual reprobates were there and a good time was had by all. Friday was the usual wacky weekender from Slate, with much craziness, great tunes and bizarre happenings as always.  A Northern Soul heavy set this time out Slate delivered some really fine tunes that kwept us all bouncing in virtuality and in reality, at least I was bouncing, no mean feat at my age, I'm 87 y'know [applause...haha, wonder who really believes that]. Lots of Gene Hunt activity near the end of the set as Slate handed out masks and we dipped our toes in seventies Glam. I had to leave before the end [up at 7am for real life dad stuff Saturday morning] but am certain the madness and laughs continued for a while longer.

Its marvelous that the virtual sixties influenced entertainment carries on into Saturday at the Killing Moon, and Shauna's efforts to set up the event is much appreciated. Indeed Shauna debuted as DJ there this weekend and did a great job. Strong words of encouragement from old hands like Slate and Eden helped I think, and at least there was no swearing, kicking of computers or toilets interludes like one great DJ I could mention......

A great night with some great tunes, generic sixties rather than pure mod but no less entertaining with some fine tunes thrown into the mix. I really enjoyed myself and judging by the comments flowing through chat so did everyone else. Hats off to Shauna for providing a fresh venue and getting on decks herself,,,err Dugi, hahaha. I admire anyone who does this techy DJ malarkey as its so beyond my meagre techy talents they are like ancient metal smiths of the dark ages. Weird clever geezers and geezerettes capable of strange wonderfully magical feats. Good on you all, and thanks for the tunes. Time to rest my weary eyes, ciao.

Virtual goings on....

I headed to the second sixties event at the Killing Moon on Saturday to spend some time chilling out to some tunes. The DJ for this event was Magdalena Bing and she played some great tunes, mostly generic sixties rather than mod, with the odd seventies and fifties tunes hurled into the mix. A lot of Beatles and Kinks were played along with a few other standard sixties tunes and everyone seemed to be having fun. It was the usual Moonletters suspects in attendance at the pub, which is encouraging and hopefully means that the Saturday session will continue.

Other goings on over the virtual weekend were limited, grabbing a couple of freebies and getting some clothing from the Marketplace which undoubtedly I'll waffle on about at some point. Need to speed up though I think as some stuff I buy at the Marketplace seems to vanish soon after; a few items I had locked into my favourites section have vanished so apologies if I blog something and you follow a link to a vacant page. My procrastination begs your forgiveness, right time for some breakfast. I may log on this evening I wonder if there's anything worth attending, AAi maybe?

It was a quiet night gridwise and I ended up at the Soulsville club, there were not many there but I enjoyed a nice set of sixties soul tunes from PT whilst I attended to some real life issues. So I was pretty much a non-presence at least Albion bulked out the dance floor. A shame it was not better attended as there were some cool tunes. Later I did head off to the AAi, it was also very quiet here with one of the smallest crowds I've seen there fdor quite some time. Claire was playing some fine tunes and I was settling down for the duration when I was reminded of an early morning start and therefore had to cut my visit short, pity! Anyway, that was the virtual going ons in my Second Life over the last couple of days.

Friday night Fun Factory

Friday night, nothing on the telly, no babysitters so how do I fill my evening: only one course of action...Soul Mods! Friday is a fun night Slate plays great tunes, some old some more recent and his set list is lively and very entertaining; however, its the huge sense of fun he imbues into his sets that make it such a please to attend. He takes time out to create daft links, voice overs and other stuff merely to give us a laugh or put a smile on our faces. Absolutely fantastic, marry that with his excellent tune selection and it creates a marvelous atmosphere that all who attend enjoy. I left before the end but it was gone 11pm when I left, Slate is fairly flexible on that score and his gigs don't so much over run as flow on past the 11pm slot.

So, it was another great night although the new fad for gesture quotes leaves me a little confused, especially when there are dozens being fired off simultaneously I lose track of who is saying what. Ah I guess I'm just too slow to keep up. One quick reminder that Saturday now has a viable sixties/mod venue at the Killing Moon, its well worth supporting this event as there are too few venues playing what I like to call our kind of music*. To read more on tonight's event read this

*Bollox, I have morphed into David Jascobs

Modernist Fashion in SL

Mix and Match

I like multi-layered clothing so much as it provides an opportunity to combine various fashion items from different designs to create a look of your own. Single layer full outfit textured item, ie, a sweater textured with both a shirt and tie, leave me cold as there is no scope for such an item; it is what it is and the opportunity to vary it isd non-existent. So I had a play around with some multi-layered shirts from Meriken whilst in the Moonletters photo studio*  the other day. Using the undershirt/underpants layer for the Meriken shirt allowed me the freedom to use other items from different ranges to achieve the desired look. Mix and Match is the way forward, as Ib often see a shirt that I think would look great with a suit only to didcover it only comes in a jacket layer rendering it impossible to wear with a suit. I'm no designer its another technical task way beyond my talents but I imagine its not too odious a task to create items on jacket/shirt/undershirt and underpants layers to give the item full versatilty and a use beyond its basic fashion function. So get with the programme and open yoyur designs to real life, I mean its not like real life items are restricted to a single use so why should virtual ones suffer such a fate. Get with it.

Here I used a range of Meriken shirts, on the underwear layer, in tandem with ties from the Hasendow suits on the shirt layer and matched to a range of trousers from Armidi, the shoes are almost free a 20L$ splash over at DUH! I colour co-ordinated the clothes but mixing the colours would work well, I also opted not to wear a jacket as this showed the shirt/tie combination more clearly but after I had finished snapping I threw a black Meriken jacket on over the shirt/tie to complete my mix and match. The addition of a shirt on the underpants layer also means it can be worn with the low slung trousers, that dominate Second Life design, without having to resort to a jacket to cover up the exposed underbelly [the one failing of the fabulous Unknown Boutique shirts, which I think are fantastic and look sublime but do possess this irritaing weak link].

I also swapped shoes to cill outside Kim and Edens store, wearing my Jeepers Creepers Strike bowling shoes, classic mod footwear.

Meriken
Armidi
Hasendow

Whats on at Moonletters

Saturday was the debut night of the mod sixties nights that are planned for the Killing Moon pub over at the Moonletters sim. Eden opened up this new venue with a sharp mod based set with a good sprinkling of sixties classics, the Doors to keep the girls lusty haha. There was an excellent turn out for the opening night and I'm sure Shauna can see it was worthwhile opening up the pub to DJ nights. Weekends can be somewhat barren for the virtual mod in Second Life; so, the opening was much appreciated by those virtual groovers seeking to escape the morass of disco, eighties and thrash metal rock sets that seem to dominate the search engine inworld.

Albion had a great time, and was out modded in the fashion stakes by the utlra groovy NeoMod style of Icabod Gealach. He was wearing some sharp NeoMod threads and had a very cool Akeyo dance animation, I forgot to tap him up for a landmark for the sharp jacket so if anyone can get it pass it on, cheers. Luckily I copped the landmark for his grooving moves and immediately set off for the store the following day to grab a few silky moves of my own. So if you want a few smooth of your own get yourself over to the Akeyo Animations store.

Relogging in a few days after the Killing Moon gig I decided to take a tour of the sim so I jumped on one of the sims rotating cars and was given a little tour of the sim whilst idly chatting to Dugi in IMs. Its amazing what follies you can uncover whilst killing a few minutes.

Akeyo Animations Store

Further details on the Killing Moon opening night can be found here