Great Tunes, in my Real and Virtual Life

This popped through the letterbox today, best four quid I've spent in a long time. Almost sixty tracks, some familiar [have to expect that with compilations] but most are new and join my I-Tunes canon. So as my fingers nimbly dance, I wish, OK lets be more honest: as my digit clods over the the keys I'm listening to some damn fine soul. And, talking damn fine soul that leads me nicely into Thursday at Soul Mods where Lupo was making a welcome return to the DJ booth, he has so much going on musically in real life that his visits are less frequent but no less warmly appreciated.

Lupo themed his set so the Hammond organ featured prominently in the tracks he played which kept the crowd very happy, Sadly, for me, I had to exit an hour in so I missed an hour of great tunes but such is life.

However, the hour I did spend at the club was great. There were some great tunes getting an airing, some classic originals others European covers of standards. There was a great cover of "Dancing in the Street" by a Spanish band whose name I've forgotten [blame early onset....] which reminded Slate of a travesty...the dreadful cover of this track by Bowie and Jagger. Now just because it was all for charideee let us not be fooled into thinking it was anything other than abysmal! Those long flapping coats, ugly dancing and the butchering of an upbeat soul classic...terrible. The consensus in Soul Mods was that each and every copy of this '45 should be demolished. Other interesting topics were the new wibbly wobbly boobs function in Phoenix, I saw no bouncing and believe me I looked,,,forensically. Great night shared with the lovely Stella, and her sister Stella, lovely Belgium emigre family but very unimaginative with the names, I was going to introduce a third daughter,,,but time eluded me and she remained in the fridge. So another night cut short I'm convinced that tonight Slate will entertain us royally, who knows what madness he has planned.

Modernist Fashion in Sl

I often wake up early and bored, put the kettle on and click on my I-Tunes to idle away an hour or so listening to some cool Mod tunes, presently this is playing off a neat sixties compilation:

Tunes established I then have to decide how I'll fill in a bit of time sat at the computer screen; sometimes, I head off to the Second Life Marketplace as I've done this morning. Often during these trawls through the fashion morass I see items that I would not buy but perhaps have a degree of mod fashion potential, but I never list them as I dont purchase them. Therefore, this morning I figured I'd kill several birds with a single stone: I'd put up a lengthy post without actually having to type much at all. Also, I will highlight a few mod items that normally would not get blogged and also I'm not required to spend any lindens. So I have basically grabbed the snapshot of the item from its page at the marketplace and then added the link to the item below it. I neither recommend nor do I advise against purchase so the choice is yours I'm merely acting as a conduit into your lindens wallet, and all for free....are you listening designers, hahaha.

Last Eden Parka

One item thats very popular amongst mods, and especially Mod revivalists of the eighties is the leatrher trench coat, inspired by the Ace Face Sting [c'mon don't laugh] in the iconic film Quadrophenia. Anyway here is a selection of trench coats of variable merit and price. Seek and ye shall find.

B11 Men's long coat

Black Leather Trench Coat

MarcoD'AvanteTrenchcoat

As well as a coat every virtual mod is going to need a jacket or two maybe these appeal and can fill that hole in your mod wardrobe.

(NO) Brown Blazer

:: SD :: Old Army Jacket Green / khaki

*MZ* Grey and Dark Elegant jackets

*Zanzo* Cambridge blazer

And as the tunes wind down I think I'll leave this post and leave you to decide if there is anything here worth purchasing, I just dont have the funds to buy everything, despite all evidence to the contrary. Enjoy your linden splashing...I need a coffee refill.

ciao

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

Royalty.....

Well officially Soul Mods Friday session has ended, but as its Slate on decks time is flexible and he plays until he's had enough and that takes some time! So far its been a great night with some fantastic tunes getting played, few techy issues, wouldn't be a Slate set without those, plus the truly inspired and brilliant jingles/ composition that have become Slate's trademark: Gene Hunt/Bowie mix this time. Quiet night, a lively crowd but not so many tonight and I never did get my post 10 surge, only ridicule...they're a cruel lot at Soul Mods y'know.

Friday also solved one burning question. Who is king of the virtual mods? Is it uber cool Lupo, who dresses to impress and has the tunes to go with it? Or is it my very own Albion sharp as a tack and ego driven. Perhaps its Dugi club lord and all around soul blaster. Nope none of these three its DJ and scooter lord Slate, after all he has his own mod throne!!! Yep its difficult to defeat someone who can build a mod throne and so its now official Slate is the rightful heir to the Mighty Boosh and the lawful king of the mods. Its inevitable really, who could compete with that!

So, once again its been another barmy night at Soul Mods, so much fun its worth coming just for the craic even if your a metal head. But if you like the finer tunes in life, they tumble off the deck as quick as the DJs can load them, and that's pretty damn fast so get your dancing feet over here sharpish.

Thursday was also another great night, less daft than the manic Fridays but no less quality. Eden played a host of storming tracks that kept the room buzzing for a couple of hours where does she pluck these gems from. Definitely a DJ to catch, which is lucky for you all as she is playing an impromptu gig at the Killing Moon pub over at Moonletters,* starting around 1pm SLT so get yourself there and hear some of the best sixties music anywhere on the grid! Once Slate's finished playing I'll be tping to the pub to set up a SURL to make it easy to find, feck me I'm a generous old soul. I have already got my spot booked, after Slate and Maddie nicked my corner on Thursday, scoundrels.

* jobs a good un, nighty nite amigos.

The Killing Moon Pub

Quiet

Apologies for my lack of posting, lack of inworld presence just been lots of real life stuff happening that's kept me away from virtual life and firmly planted in the real world. That seems to be happening more often, I need to return to idleness to fully engage with my virtual self.

So, as the Welsh allegedly say "whats occurring?"

After much thought the inevitable happened and I bought a Hasendow suit, in fact I bought two as I couldn't choose between them. Its a horrendous price to pay for some virtual stuff, 1400$L for fecks sake for the two; but, they look so sharp and ooze sixties styling that in the end I couldn't resist them. Besides they also encouraged Albion to grow his hair back so perhaps that's not such a bad thing. I opted for the blue and mercury [silver grey] suits and despite the fierce price tag can admit to being very happy with the purchase and just wish I could justify buying more. I added a prim handkerchief in the breast pocket and failed miserably to retexturing the colour, I'm just out of my depth which is a polite way of saying I'm bloody useless. My one tiny criticism is I was surprised to find the trousers had no prim cuffs, as they seem to be standard with most hi-end Second Life fashion items nowadays. The prim jacket cuffs add depth to the sleeves and prim additions to the trousers would perform a similar service; however, despite this small complaint I am happy with both suits and believe they are fine examples of sharp sixties styling in the virtual world. If you can justify the cost...buy one!

After splashing so much cash on a couple of suits I decided I'd hunt through the freebie blogs to see if I could pick up something for nothing, a favourite pursuit in Second Life. As the suit had encouraged hair growth I opted to grab some free hair styles. Checking out Yves Firlan's Fashion+Freebies for Men blog I discovered there were some cool giveaways at Savoir Hair I had a good look around and managed to find four hair styles that seemed to have a degree of NeoMod potential and besides they were free so even if they were not totally correct it would be no loss. My favourite was the very Beatleseque style which could even persuade Albion to forsake his blonde locks for a while. But I doubt it. Anyway if your looking for free hair check it out, there's plenty of styles for girls and geezers and they're all free so waste yourself and overindulge on prim hair! The snap also beautifully illustrates my inability to manipulate my virtual environment, although on reflection maybe its not too bad the hankie matches the blue tie I just couldn't get it to go gold but that's another tale.

As for life in Second Life, lets see I crashed out of Soul Mods on Friday which delighted me so much I hurt my toe kicking the desks. Intended to log in on Tuesday to see what was happening but fell asleep on the sofa, middle aged dog walking syndrome, have wandered around the web listening to cool tunes imagining my virtual DJ set list, nope that's not going to happen its a fantasy within a fantasy and gets way too complex,,,see I conceived Inception before they conceived it wonder if I can get a few bob out of it. Planning ahead I hope to be bouncing in Second Life on Thursday and Friday for the gigs at Soul Mods. I'm still trudging through the fashion quagmire trying to find gems of virtual sixties fashion but having to stretch the boundaries drastically just to get something that I can waffle on about. I ended up looking more like Adam Ant as I strove for  a mid sixties pop art fashion look, need to remain vigilant on the fashion score. So I'm expecting a slow down on the fashion blog for a while which mean more modette stuff will get shoved up as I get bored and feel the need to post something. Besides it'll keep Graz happy that I'm a girly girl, hahahaha. And that my lads is about it, oops lasses too,  time to make an early lunch and then shift some rubbish in the garden,,,what a glamour life I lead,,so lets keep it virtual, talking to myself again I'll get locked up one day!

Oh I forgot: Pop Art or Adam Ant? Answers on a postcard or that comment thing if you can be bothered I'm undecided but anyway its an indication of how desperate I have become in my search for new mod items to write about, bloody designers.......

Something to subscribe too

Almost everyone in the virtual world drops into YouTube, I have even seen YouTube videos on peoples virtual TVs; so, bearing that in mind this looks like a great channel for virtual mods to subscribe too:

http://www.youtube.com/user/s2trash#p/a/u/1/jKZBPFb8zZQ

Check it out, full of great tunes and aging real life mods, just like me, chatting the breeze away. Just a tune taster, enjoy:

Been a little virtual lite of late, hopefully I will reverse that and start waffling again soon.