Hola Pixelpeeps!

I have not updated the website this year at all, as I've been running a little experiment just using the inworld SL group tools and twitter to communicate directly to my main online audience.

Suffice to say, I'll be returning to producing regular website updates from now on. Stay tuned also for some new song downloads from SL Live performances.

Good News: Beato-san & Basso-san have been through major upgrades over the last few months, and new tunes are in the works. My audio system is now fully migrated over to Win 7 x64 and I finally nailed that annoying BSOD (Bad ZoneALarm!). I also have some Ninjam's planned with Noma & Hathead (soon as I get the system setup again) and I'm developing a new version of my  Bluestronica Immersive Audiovisual experience "SynaesthAsia".

Bad News: May was a bad month in terms of health and I got hit by a couple of things out of the blue. The latest was a bad flu bug picked up from Baby Komuso, which hit me as I was just recovering from something else. I woke up this morning (ooo...song!) and it feels like I have broken the back of the flu (that was the worst week+ in a long time, though I still played 2 gigs) but now I have to deal with the eardrum I think I blew due to clearing my head. So for the moment all gig are on hold till I am back in playing condition...so stay tuned!

See you in the Bitstream, kt

Thu 17th 6pm slt Triumph Cove http://slurl.com/secondlife/Triumph/167/128/22

Thu 17th 9pm slt Musicians Lair http://slurl.com/secondlife/Supremacy/188/160/22

Fri 18th 7pm slt Giverny http://slurl.com/secondlife/Giverny/181/154/27

Fri 18th 9pm slt DrJohns http://slurl.com/secondlife/Isere/194/147/351

Sat 20th 6pm slt Miles Island Slurl tba

Sat 20th 8pm slt Up The Creek http://slurl.com/secondlife/Houses/87/160/22

Thu 19th 6pm slt Triumph Cove SLURL

Thu 19th 9pm slt Musicians Lair SLURL

Fri 20th 7pm slt Giverny SLURL

Fri 20th 9pm slt DrJohns SLURL

Sat 21st 8pm slt Up The Creek SLURL

I was hoping it would last me to the end of the 2009, but today my 3.5 year old Laptop finally died, the gpu fried again.

I'm down to my main work desktop machine only, and will have to radically scale back what I can do with the VW music for a while.

Budget juggling income adjustment estimation time = replacement... or not.

I may be able to play some acoustic sets, but due to the fact my electric act relies on a cpu heavy load to drive beato-san and basso-sans brains I'll have to bench them for a while.

Running intensive real time high quality audio applications, streaming audio applications, audio recording applications, and an SL client on the same machine is not recommended.

I blew my laptop up the first time doing this, and that was 3 years ago when I was not running much in the way of AI assisted music at all.

Onwards...upwards...and sideways!

Live Bitstream Boogie Blues in Metaplace

Anytime...anywhere...anyplace!

Catch the hottest live blues trio in the Metaverse for a real time musical collaboration across the internet from three countries in full 2.5D isometric glory!

Komuso Tokugawa on vocals, harmonica and guitar live from Tokyo
Hathead Rickenbacker on piano live from Toronto
Noma Falta live from Atlanta on Bass/Vocals

05/22/09 17:00 pst/pdt at Alphaville Metaplace

The First Tokyo barcamp was on last weekend.

I'd never been to a barcamp, so it was interesting to see the self organising presentation system at work.

After lunch I decided to do a little presentation on "The Future of Music". Check the video out for my take on where I see some of this going, as a result of my prototyping of the Future of Music in Virtual Worlds such as SecondLife and Metaplace.

Where Music World And Virtual World Collide

Start Time: Friday, April 10, 2009 at 11:00am End Time: Sunday, April 12, 2009 at 7:00pm Location: Harajuku Design Fiesta Gallery (2nd Floor) City/Town: Tokyo, Japan

Post event report on the Metaverse Music Blog here.

Check out the new Bitstream Boogie Ustream channel for some live action Alternative Bitstream Boogie.

Sign up on Ustream to get your own id and subscribe to the weekly scheduled event.

For the moment I'll just do one a week, and maybe expand the schedule if it gets some followers.

See you in the bitstream, kt

Great News! Today's benefit gig for Heifer.org at AM Radio's "The Refuge and The Expansion"  dual sim art installation in SL (tm) raised a grand total of L$143,000 or ~US$546 in the 1.5 hour gig.
Enough to buy a cow! The power of MOOOOOOOsic eh!
Check out AM Radio's Team Heifer page directly here.
Congratulations and thanks to everyone who made it possible.
A great start to 2009 - the international year of the neighbour;-)

tc, cu in the Bitstream, kt

BRINGING THE BOOGIE TO THE BITSTREAM

Thank you for your generous support of my SL Live music experiments.

Please enjoy this 50 minute sonic snak pak of 2008 live music cuts from both SecondLife (tm) and Real Life (tm*2).

It's a 93mb download so please be patient.

Currently you will need to be a free membership signup on the site to download - go here to signup for free.

The SL tracks are all genuine SL Live gig recordings. I record all my gigs at 24bit 44khz before it goes out on the stream to SL so I always have a high quality master recording in case I actually play some blues instead of mistak...er, jazz!

SL Toons @ 256kbps mp3
1. St James Blues 5'18". Recorded at Second Arts Photo Exhibition opening 08 Dec 2008. Thanks to Morris Vig for the gig!
2. Dia De Los Muertos 4'29" (tip o' the hat to George Thorogood's Delaware Slide). Recorded at Pat O'Briens 14 Dec 2008. Thanks to Votslav Hax, Bobbyjo and the crew for the gig!
3. The Desert Blues 9'19" (Apologies to Percy Bysshe Shelley) Recorded at Twilight Jazz Club 17 Dec 2008. Thanks to Colleen, Lazlo, Quote for the gig!
4. Poor Boy 10'58" (Trad and Howlin' Wolf/Chester Burnett) Recording at Triumph Cove 19 Dec 2008. Thanks to Ursula Cinquetti, Cher, and Blaze Columbia for the gig!

Thanks to all the other venues, hosts and musicians as well.

RL Toons 21'18" track @ 256kbps
Live recording from Amnesty International Xmas party at "What The Dickens", Ebisu,Tokyo 14 Dec 2008. Straight into a Peavey Classic 30 amp with my trusty Hohner G3T guitar. Not a great harp sound and dodgy vocals, but hey, there you go!
Rough and Dirty Blues - mind the Jazz!. A quick throw together band and our first live gig after only a quick rehearsal beforehand.
Ken Hayashi (Spitfire Hulcranz in SL ) on drums, and Forrest Nelson (Duzzy Ryder in SL) on Bass.
Toons:
1. Help Me (after a rather strange start!) Little Walter Jacobs
2. Give Me Back My Wig. Hound Dog Taylor
3. King Bee. Slim Harpo/James Moore
4. Delaware Slide/Dia De Los Muertos - ode to George Thorogood and more...

Y'all take care.
2009 is going to be tough year all round, so stay safe, be nice but keep your wits about you, and don't forget your weekly random act of kindness.

>>>Download Here (Free membership signup to download - go here)

Komuso's SonicSnakPak is "Pay what you feel like"-ware, so if you like it and have some spare change feel free to drop whatever you want on me in L$ in SL or US$ via paypal at komuso@sonicviz.com
I'd also mucho appreciate it if you could pass it on to your music loving friends who you think might like it! Your enemies even!!;-))

See YOU in the bitstream,kt
http://music.sonicviz.com

Hola! Get it here!

http://music.sonicviz.com/rss_event.php

Hola pixelpeeps!

Bitstream Boogie trio with Hathead Rickenbacker (Piano - Toronto) and Noma Falta (Bass/Vocals - Atlanta) will be joining me for a little jam friday night in sl to see how it all hangs together. Please see the events page for details.

Just when you thought it was safe to get back into the water...SL decided to throttle the logins so I can't get in for my regular Mongo Madness on Monday gig.

grrrrrrrrrr

Hola pixelpeeps!

I will soon be releasing some new SL Live recordings available exclusively only to members of Komuso's personal music site here at  http://music.sonicviz.com

If you are not already a member please signup at  http://www.sonicviz.com/music/signup.php  to receive email notification of when I release them!

This website will be my central point of contact for metaverse performances as new virtual worlds start to come online. Please signup to keep informed and join me as we Bring the Boogie to the Bitstream across the Metaverse;-)

New gigs coming this week - please see http://www.sonicviz.com/music/members/6/event.php for latest postings.
See you in the bitstream, kt

I've been aiming to write a review of the Harp Commander III Ron Holmes sent me some time back. I've been giving it a run through its paces as I play around with it in various performance contexts.

You can hear it in use on some live cuts I've just uploaded on the song page.

I use the HC III, fed by a shaker mic in a custom mount on my harp rack, into  Reaper running ReValver Mark II as a vst software amp simulator.

I use the two in combination. The HC III fattens and liquify's my input signal considerably, and Revalver gives me a full effects rack/tube amp sim so as to get a wider range of effected tones. I can change patches on Revalver and/or adjust settings on the HC III as needed. For example, if I want a clean harp sound I can pull up a clean patch on Revalver with a little reverb and cabinet simulation, roll back some of the HCIII gain and compression, maybe tweak the bass and treble!

Want dirt? Same procedure, adjust to taste.

I'll try and do some A/B sound clips at some stage so it is easier to hear the signal change through the chain. I would love to mount my CAD VC-50 mic on the rack instead of the shaker - for a much fatter sound due to the big diaphragm, but it's just too heavy

Yours in sonic goodness, KT.

Read more about it on the main blog here! 

The latest issue of SLang Life, a polish print sl® magazine, has a wide ranging interview with me.

Check it out here on my main blog 

Hathead Rickenbacker and I have been running a few ninjams recently and maestro d'guerrilla machinima-making Osprey Therian came down to the Juke Joint and made a film of our last Juke Joint Boogie.

HatHead Rickenbacker is an award-winning musician who performs jazz, blues, funk, soul and electronica - often all at the same time. HatHead's performances on piano at overly expensive restaurants earned him Best Music from Toronto Magazine several years in a row. HatHead believes that music is a power to be used for peace and his mother expects him to spontaneously combust.

Today was Beta test #3 of the new ninjam based blues collaboration with Hathead Rickenbacker.

With me in Tokyo and Hathead on piano from snowed in Toronto we played to a jammed packed crowd in my custom built SL recreation of a 1930's era Juke Joint.

Accompanied by my Artificial Intelligence based rhythm section, beato-san and basso-san. No railroad track mp3 backing tracks or lame midi in this juke joint!

Smokinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn! Stay tuned for more....

MoShang Zhao and I ran Beta test #5 of MoKo LoCo yesterday. I had a few glitches and issues but it went very well in the end.

Check out the films/images/blogs below:

Thanks to everyone for the documenting it for us and the comments, including Jurin Juran for tp'ing the audience.

Cu in the bitstream, kt

In response to a very nice blog post from one of my fans yesterday that lifted my spirits when I had the blues, I thought I'd post a few links of what some of my regular fans have been writing about me:

"Do Itashimashite" means "You're Welcome" in japanese, usually in reply to someone saying "Thank you".

soooo....Do Itashimashite!

Let's keep that Positive Quantum Energy flowing through the bitstream!

Drop me a line if you have written a review about me and I'll add it to the list. You can also leave comments on the site if you are a member.

Your constructive feedback on my live events is always welcome too, so feel free to IM anytime if you have some input.

Cu in the bitstream ,kt

PS: Please also check out the this sites members SL Live gig photo galleries as well!

MoShang Zhao and I have been stealth beta testing our MoKo LoCo Ambient Blues Trance project, called "SynaesthAsia" over the last couple of weeks.

It's a real time jam over the internet using Ninjam , delivered in a custom setting I designed along with my prototype Generative Visuals System I developed up from my bio/neuro feedback project.

Today's gig attracted some guerrilla machinima makers and photographers.

Check out the films/images below:

Now that's what I call real time collaboration!

cu in the bitstream, kt

2007 was a great year for "Bringing the Boogie to the Bitstream"

Ending it with a killer "Blue Snow" gig for Linden Lab at their official winterfest was a great way to end a great year in the nascent meteverse. 

300+ live gigs in SL spread across SL clubs, private parties, Corporate sim openings and events, and two house rent boogie grid tours, and getting down at my own venue in Artropolis "Komuso's Joint".

2008 will bring more sonic goodness to the bitstream. In addition to expanding my ever evolving setlist of gutbucket boogie blues, I have been working on two new interactive music projects which will be launched very shortly. Stay tuned!

Have a good one in 2008. Cu in the bitstream, kt

MagSL, one of the major japanese sim communities [over 50], had a very impressive 1st year anniversary party last night in Tokyo. Simultaneously streamed to the web via Stickam and with a co-party in SL as well. It was an outstanding event, very well organised, with over 200 people attending in RL.

Japanese SL Live musicians who played live in RL included Solary Clary and Gold Seventeen. Famed Japanese producer/guitarist Hatake-san of Sharam-Q finished off the proceedings with his production of "Low Spec Woman" followed by a blues jam congratulating MagSL - which I was kindly invited to blow some harp on!

Japanese Story here
Google Translated version here

I did a gig last night at Eolus Lounge. I've been working on some real time distributed jam collaborations using Ninjam, and for the last 20 minutes introduced a new genre of Ambient Trance Blues with MoShang Zhao live from Taiwan on windcontroller. I played Shakuhachi [it has a natural blues scale!], harmonica and eBow slide guitar.

Catch it on the song page here as track "Ambient Trance Blues Jam" [down the bottom or select on the radio].

Enjoy!

UPDATE: Nice review by Japanese Writer/Blogger Yabush Yamdev [in sl]
[Use google translate to get the english gist]

Check it out on VJ's new blog here

Hola! Check the songs page to download some live cuts from recent gigs.

Rattlesnake Moan, SL Boogie, and St James Infirmary in all their sonic harmonic noisy jamminess
 

cu in the bitstream soon, kt 

----------------------------------------------
The winner of the walkabout tour venue award shall be decided on a weighted combined score of location design, crowd vibe, and tipjar take.

House Rent Tour #1's prize winners from Feb 2007! : $L5000 for Best Poster to promote their party went to Azheni Something & THE TOP PRIZE for Best party/location went to Govindira Galatea's D3volution [Tour #2 also starts there at a date tbd]

On Sept 14th Filthy Fluno (aka Jeffrey Lipsky) and I did a very innovative SecondLife to RealLife dual gig at his exhibition opening party in Lowell, Ma.

Filthy installed a kick **** sound system in the gallery, we ended up with ~50 people in RL and 60+ at the Artropolis stage in SL, kindly built out by Esch Snoats in record time the day before!

More details on Filthys blog post!

Even Cyborgs get the Blues!

Check out the first installment on the video page.

The ever amusing SL Herald has some nice comments in their recent article on me. Looks like I'll have to boost my security to handle the griefer infux though.

What with viewer crashes + sim crashes + stream crashes ++ all the other regular tech hassles of doing an SL live music performance I thought my plate was full already. Ah well...onwards, upwards, sideways!

by peppermint fizz, seriously cool stuff that's going on desk

In a historic, groundbreaking, academically rigorous, yet fun new feature that someone might conceivably think is serious metaverse journalism - or at least virtual tabloid journalism - here is the seriously cool stuff that's going on desk suggestion for what to do between spamming the Herald comments, crashing sims, and annoying Prokofy. If you like being told of meaningful, fun, or interesting things to do once in a while, leave a comment to that effect, and we'll get a sharper reporter on it at some point. Maybe. Worst case, we'll send Jimbo out to cover the story if the office cat is too busy cleaning herself to be bothered. In the meantime, here's a humble suggestion:

Check out SL electric blues player Komuso Tokugawa. He plays all over the place on the grid several nights a week, so make the effort because his show is a dance party on your computer. Get there early, his blues and boogie pushes sims to the limit and you may have to try a few times to get in. His website has a list of upcoming shows.

Tokugawa is a charismatic performer and a talented musician. His avatar is usually some sort of guitar slinging robot. He plays a grungy electric guitar and harmonica over a digital drum and bass background and jams on classic American Blues songs.

Tokugawa is an Australian who lives in Tokyo, Japan, making his deep knowledge of American Blues especially interesting in a Second Life as a Global Village kind of way. Tokugawa-san rocks.

Posted by Pixeleen Mistral on July 17, 2007 at 10:55 PM in News from Second Life | Permalink

[reprinted here due to the fact my fine rude word filter keeps changing the title] 

Be there or be Square!

Read all about it on the event page or

check out the Oyster Bay blog.

A little storm in SL atm on Live musicians who use backing verus those who don't [ie: the pureist music snobs] 

I use a combination of sequenced backing using high end vsti, interactive responsive virtual instruments as backing, and no backing. I don't really care if people use backing [there I said it!] but what I do hate is BAD KARAOKE TYPE backing with cheesy synths and other bad timbre instruments and bad rhythmic timing...if you think mine sounds like that...well, so be it.

Onwards!
 

Ron Holmes has sent me a new Harp Commander III, so I'm giving it a run through its paces as I play around with it in various performance contexts.

Some friends of mine here in Tokyo have the HCI and HCII, though I've only ever played the HCII live once at a jam...and it blew me away.

 I did my first SL live gig with it today and it was great!

Stay tuned for more info as I put together a full review of it.

If anyone in Tokyo is reading this I'll be giving it a live run this sunday night when I jam a few with Steve Gardner [delta bluesman from mississippi] and Hisa Nakase [bass] at What the Dickens in Ebisu.

I posted a list of my sl performance history since I started playing in sl. I started recording all these some time ago as well, so will be trawling through them looking for any that really stand out. Stay tuned! http://www.sonicviz.com/blogs/index.php?catid=10

Gig list of my secondlife music experience so far [and rl in Tokyo]<br />rnThat's a lot of sweat been pumped through the bitstream the last 6 months or so!<br />rn<br />rnOct 31, 2006 7:00 PM The Blues Lagoon, Enceladus SecondLife<br />rnOct 27, 2006 7:00 PM Towers Music and Arts SecondLife<br />rnOct 25, 2006 7:00 PM Myth Poker House SecondLife<br />rnOct 23, 2006 11:30 PM Free Music Venue SecondLife<br />rnOct 22, 2006 7:00 PM Luxor Stage SecondLife<br />rnOct 20, 2006 7:00 PM Djork sim SecondLife<br />rnOct 18, 2006 7:00 PM Myth Poker House and Casino SecondLife<br />rnOct 17, 2006 9:30 PM The Living Room SecondLife<br />rnOct 16, 2006 6:00 PM Dreamland Opening SecondLife<br />rnOct 14, 2006 6:00 PM New Towers Gallery SecondLife<br />rnOct 13, 2006 7:00 PM Sublime SecondLife<br />rnOct 13, 2006 4:00 AM Support for Healing Island SecondLife<br />rnOct 12, 2006 9:00 PM The Fiddler, Takadanobaba Tokyo, Japan<br />rnOct 11, 2006 7:00 PM Myth Poker House SecondLife<br />rnOct 9, 2006 11:30 PM Free Music Venue SecondLife<br />rnOct 7, 2006 5:00 PM Menorca Sim SecondLife<br />rnOct 6, 2006 7:00 PM Myth Poker House SecondLife, Japan<br />rnOct 5, 2006 9:00 PM Rock Factory, Roppongi Tokyo, Japan<br />rnOct 5, 2006 11:30 AM Free Music Venue SecondLife, Other<br />rnOct 3, 2006 7:00 PM The Gin Rummy SecondLife<br />rnSep 30, 2006 5:30 PM Filthy Flunos old skool art opening SecondLife<br />rnSep 29, 2006 7:00 PM Djork Sim SecondLife<br />rnSep 26, 2006 11:30 PM Free Music Venue SecondLife<br />rnSep 22, 2006 8:00 PM House of Tunes opening night SecondLife<br />rnSep 22, 2006 7:00 PM New Towers Gallery SecondLife<br />rnSep 17, 2006 7:00 PM Old Salt Pub SecondLife<br />rnSep 16, 2006 7:00 PM Event Opening, Iridium sim SecondLife<br />rnSep 15, 2006 7:00 PM Big Horn Lodge, Selby SecondLife<br />rnSep 10, 2006 7:00 PM Old Salt Pub SecondLife<br />rnSep 10, 2006 4:30 AM Support for Healing SecondLife<br />rnSep 6, 2006 8:00 PM Luxor SecondLife<br />rnSep 1, 2006 7:00 PM Big Horn Lodge, Selby SecondLife<br />rnAug 30, 2006 8:00 PM Luxor SecondLife<br />rnAug 26, 2006 7:00 PM The Secret Garden SecondLife<br />rnAug 25, 2006 9:00 PM The Fiddler, Takadanobaba Tokyo, Japan<br />rnAug 23, 2006 8:00 PM Luxor SecondLife<br />rnAug 20, 2006 8:30 PM Menorca Sim SecondLife<br />rnAug 20, 2006 7:00 PM Sunset Arts II SecondLife<br />rnAug 18, 2006 7:00 PM Big Horn Lodge, Selby SecondLife<br />rnAug 16, 2006 8:00 PM Luxor SecondLife<br />rnAug 11, 2006 7:00 PM Menorca Sim SecondLife<br />rnAug 10, 2006 6:00 PM Towers Art Gallery SecondLife<br />rnAug 9, 2006 8:00 PM Luxor SecondLife<br />rnAug 4, 2006 7:00 PM Big Horn Lodge, Selby SecondLife<br />rnAug 2, 2006 8:00 PM Luxor SecondLife<br />rnJul 28, 2006 9:00 AM The Fiddler, Takadanobaba Tokyo, Japan<br />rnJul 27, 2006 9:00 PM ZenDen SecondLife<br />rnJul 23, 2006 2:00 AM Blarney Stone, Tianci sim SecondLife<br />rnJul 21, 2006 7:00 PM Rock Factory, Roppongi Tokyo, Japan<br />rnJul 10, 2006 5:30 PM Woodstock SL SecondLife<br />rnJul 6, 2006 9:00 PM The Fiddler, Takadanobaba Tokyo, Japan<br />rnJul 3, 2006 8:00 PM Menorca Sim SecondLife<br />rnJul 1, 2006 8:00 AM The Baron, Nishi Azabu Tokyo, Japan<br />rnJun 15, 2006 8:00 PM Rock Factory, Roppongi Tokyo, Japan<br />rnJun 2, 2006 8:00 PM Oceanside bar in Torch, SecondLife SecondLife<br />rnJun 1, 2006 8:30 PM Rock Factory, Roppongi Tokyo, Japan<br />rnMay 27, 2006 6:00 PM Deadly Nightshade Studios SecondLife<br />rnMay 24, 2006 9:00 PM Rock Factory, Roppongi Tokyo, Japan<br />rnMay 21, 2006 8:00 PM ArtTour2006 + Tavarua SecondLife<br />rnMay 20, 2006 8:00 PM ArtTour2006 + Tavarua SecondLife<br />rnMay 13, 2006 7:00 PM Benavente Estates, SecondLife SecondLife<br />rnMay 10, 2006 7:00 PM Isis Club , SecondLife SecondLife<br />rnApr 20, 2006 9:00 PM Rock Factory, Roppongi Tokyo, Japan<br />rnApr 5, 2006 9:00 PM Rock Factory, Roppongi Tokyo, Japan'