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| DJ Baxter Aubin and a drum kit |
Here is what Baxter shared:
Are you DJing currently and where? Right now I play once a week, Wednesdays, at
the Velvet. I also play irregular sets at Café Wellstone, although I may be
moving to a regular Friday spot there soon. I had been doing Mondays there, but
one RL work night per week is plenty for me. I also enjoy doing guests spots at
various venues when the opportunity arises.
When did you start DJing? I
started DJing as an alt in 2009. When I first came to SL, I made friends with some
people that ran a sleazy sex club, and the DJ was just awful. Mediocre metal,
Top-40, crap like that. I thought, “Hey, even I can do better than this.” First
I started hanging out at blues clubs like Toby’s, but pretty soon I found
places like Alt-7, the Looney Bin, and the Social Scene, and I knew there was
hope for music in virtual life.
First
Club? My first regular gig in SL was at
a club called Digital Decay. A live band, Engrama, was also playing there at
the time, but one of the members was banned for life for calling all the women
in the club the “C” word. The owner of the place was a zombie, blood dripping
from open sores on his face and a spike through his head. Really nice guy,
though. Those were, umm, interesting times. I played the old Crow’s Nest a few
times, but Woody, the owner, was about the only person who came to my sets. I
think he showed up because he was afraid I was going to steal the art off his
walls. Most unusual thing you saw while
DJing? Probably the time I was playing
at a place called the Workhouse, and one of the patrons spent the entire
evening, through multiple DJ sets, engaging in simulated (I think or hope) sex
with a plastic goat. Fortunately he took the goat with him when he left. Then there was the time I was playing a
sort of festival gig. One of the other performers was an Elvis imitator, Bubba
Something, I think. Bubba was actually pretty decent for that kind of act. But
he made this totally ostentatious entrance. He landed this little private jet
right on the stage and got out with his entourage of about a dozen Elvis
groupies. As soon as his set was over, they all piled back into the jet and
zoomed off. I have no idea how they all fit inside that tiny plane with their
giant hair and tons of blingy jewelry and huge sunglasses, but Bubba sure
seemed to be having a good time.
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| Baxter Aubin in Pose |
Influences? Growing up I listened to a lot of underground and college radio
stations, which may explain why I tend to be fairly eclectic. They sort of had
genre shows, but the DJs would play pretty much anything they felt like. In a
couple of hours you could hear everything from prog to garage to world to dance
to psychedelic to folk, etc. I still listen to stations kind of like that--KEXP
out of the University of Washington, and a local station, WMSE is similar. I’ve learned my craft from a lot of really
incredible DJs here in SL. A few that I should mention are Maht Wuyts, Paradox
Messmer, Enigma Bombay, and Dano Bookmite, but there are many, many others who
have also influenced me. A big THANK YOU to you all. Like myself, most of those DJs don’t do voice
very often in SL. Without trying to sound phony, I think it really helps if a
DJ can keep the chat going in local. When I’m messing around with my queue, I
really appreciate a crowd that keeps the conversation moving. Some of the best
DJs don’t necessarily play the best music, but they know how to connect with
the audience. That can be a very difficult thing to do. On the other hand, you
learn a lot from a good crowd. People often talk about movies or books or web
sites I’m not familiar with, so I discover some cool things by hanging out in
clubs and being a DJ. I think there’s a
big difference from being a DJ iRL. RL DJs can break their sets up into
coherent three or four song slices. Here you have to somehow make it all flow
and hold it together, no matter how diverse the music is, in these massive two
hour blocks. It can be kind of challenging, but then we also don’t have to do
PSAs and self-promos and boring things like that.
What do you listen to at home? I love late Classical and early Romantic
music. The Mozart clarinet concerto and Schubert’s Trout quintet would be on my
desert island list. The flow of the movements, from fast to slow to fast is a
little bit like the way a long DJ set works, if that makes sense. Late modern,
or post-modern is also interesting because some composers mix a lot of
different styles into a single work, kind of like a DJ might mix different
genres into a single set. Mahler’s third symphony technically has 6 largish
movements, but it’s really made up of about 25 or 30 smaller, discreet units,
almost like songs. Do you have a regular
set you play, a “go to” set? Not really,
but I save some favorite sets so it’s easy to pull songs at the spur of the
moment if I need to. Sometimes when I’m not playing the wrong stuff at the
wrong time, I’m trying to get a feel for what the audience is into and sort of
compromising my own tastes, without abandoning them altogether, to fit their
expectations. As a DJ I like to turn people on to new stuff, but you need to
balance that with what they already like.
When can we hear you DJ usually?
Wednesdays, 5-7 SLT, at the Velvet.
Cream and sugar or black? Plenty
of both please. Organic Highland Sumatra when available. And please be sure to
serve my cappuccino in porcelain.
Cat or
Dog? Meow!
If you could take one thing from your
inventory for real-life use, what would it be, and why pick it? I teach English iRL, and even though I’m not
an ESL teacher, that old Google translator that doesn’t work anymore would sure
come in handy with some of the kids. Or does my shoe collection count as a
single item? I can never find boots I like quite as much as the ones I have in
SL.
Best SL Memory? I enjoy playing charity events. I tend to
pull out all the stops and just rock really hard in whatever way is appropriate
for those kinds of sets. A couple years ago I was fortunate enough to play an
Occupy SL benefit, which was an offshoot of the RL Occupy Wall Street movement. The money we raised went to support the
people camping in the streets and parks in NYC and Oakland and many other
places; to buy them food and show our solidarity. The crowd was just so
generous and enthusiastic, and the other performers were so amazing. It was a
total, all-day blast. It was a completely fantastic experience and to me
epitomizes the very best of Second Life. Maht does a similar thing every year
at the Velvet, when he plays for like a day and a half straight, to raise money
for farmers in developing countries. Those are always incredible shows.
Wow! Great Interview Baxter and I hope to keep the date open for you at the Velvet on Wednesdays!
Photography by Piedmont Cartauld
Wow! Great Interview Baxter and I hope to keep the date open for you at the Velvet on Wednesdays!
Photography by Piedmont Cartauld
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