Boston.com has a good piece on Fritz recalling the Quest For Fame gameplay:

Players plug a "virtual guitar" into the computer to make music in the game. Fritz still owns a couple; they’re almost the same size as a real electric guitar and fairly heavy. Unlike the make-believe instrument in Guitar Hero, the Quest For Fame virtual guitar has strings, and there are no colorful push buttons on its neck.

Strings? Very cool. The whole five colored button guitar thing doesn’t appeal as much to me since I play a real guitar. And while I can play almost no songs on expert difficulty in these games I can play several songs on a real guitar. I guess this is one of those Virtual TO Reality moments where reality wins out.

I was intrigued by Quest For Fame and checked eBay to see if anybody had the game for sale. Indeed, there were two listings as of this writing with the cheapest buy it now price of $34.99, but CD only, no guitar. Apparently the guitar was sold separately with a serial port connection as gleaned from Wikipedia.

Another guitar-oriented videogame for the PC, one that allows you to be able to play using a real guitar, is planned to be released in 2009" called Guitar Rising.

Been keeping my eye on this one.

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Sort of like Pandora/iLike/last.fm only with points earned for completing different tasks like (via TheSixtyOne FAQ):

• Listening to music on The Rack (+1-40 points per song, reward based on dice roll)
• Logging in daily (+20 points)
• Inviting a friend (+20 points and +50 points for each level they achieve or +100 points per level if your friend is an artist). [note: I invited my son who shares with me an affection for music. He's digging the site already]

As you navigate around the site, the songs you listen to keep playing and you can easily find out more about the current song by hovering over the floating left menu. From this menu you can also pause, skip or go back to prior song, favorite and/or ‘bump’ the song.

Bumping, similar to a digg vote, you must spend some of your points, so use for music you like and/or think will reach the front page of the site. Via the FAQ:

The primary way to earn points is by bumping music. It’ll cost you points upfront, but as songs you bump become more popular you can earn more points! If you hover your mouse over a ‘bump’ button, you’ll notice that it will indicate how much it costs to bump that particular song.

To add to enticement factor in using your points, there are some unlockable achievements like:

- “sensei of soul” first bump a song to homepage
- “lewis & clark” bump songs in under-explored genres
- “groupie” show your love by max bumping songs
- “the romantic” spend more points than you earn on songs

Leveling up by listening to music adds a little fun, but you’re limited to how many points can be earned each day listening to music from ‘The Rack’ to 50 points per day once you’ve amassed 300 points. Since you get like 90 points simply for registering for the site and 1-40 by listening to each song, you’ll reach that 300 w/50 point daily limit quickly. During the writing of this post I went from 0 points to 250.

My first bump (cost of 13 points) went to a piano cover version of Through The Fire and Flames (embed below for those not reading via RSS):

Guitar Hero players know this song to be one of the most difficult tracks in the game. It doesn’t sound much easier to play on the piano.

I’m not sure I’d label TheSixtyOne very MMO and in fairness to them, they aren’t either. The social features are fairly limited and in what MMO are you limited to how much leveling you can do in a day? I’m sure the limits are there to prevent people from gaming the system by just leaving the music on streaming all day long and getting massive points and high levels but would rather see them add unlimited points earning for people who can prove they aren’t a bot (perhaps by checking with captcha or code to earn points for listened to songs). Might be a hassle music fans don’t want to go through, but wouldn’t cap the leveling and would be more MMO-ish. 

This limit cap is a bit deceptive as you can still earn points for a certain number of overall plays with the “listen up” achievement:

level 1 – 5 plays (you’ll get this one right away)
level 2 – 100 plays
level 3 – 1,000 plays
level 4 – 5,000 plays
level 5 – 25,000 plays

Also, you can do the standard social fare: add friends (you can add me here, if you like), share embedded songs as shown above or bother email your friends. You can also create your own playlists and earn points for people who listen to your ’station’ which I haven’t fully investigated how to do yet.

All in all, I like the creativity of TheSixtyOne but the subtitle of massively multiplayer (emphasis on ‘player’) is a bit deceptive. More like social music with a twist. Decent timing considering the music game rage, there I used the phrase. The music game rage is on.

Oh, and as for VTOR PAX 2008 coverage, expect to start reading more about what was seen there soon.

Wow, Gibson now has their own island in Second Life (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Gibson%20Island/71/39/51) shaped like a guitar! I had to stop reading, jump in and check it out. Good stuff!

And when they see free guitars, they mean at least a dozen different guitars, including the current 2008 Guitar of the Month, the Slash Les Paul and Angus Young (AC/DC) Les Paul. This is most exciting build I’ve seen in Second Life in awhile.

Definitely take a few minutes right now, fire up your SL client and TP over to Gibson Island.

My pictures don’t do the gorgeous build justice.

Oh, and of course there is a Gibson group to join (just load this in your SL chat window: secondlife:///app/group/6546f4d7-6ece-7186-de91-6d2704bc5976/about or do a search under groups)

Free Gibson t-shirts, tables and chairs too. And guitar amp and guitar bags aplenty!  They are also promising live entertainment from time to time. My only minor disappointment is that the newsletter arrived too late for me to be able to check out the live entertainment they had all day on Wednesday. Hey, maybe I’ll catch the next live line-up. Rock on!

I’ve always liked the live performances in Second Life ever since I first found them. Usually It’s one singer or a couple of people playing live from one place. I recently found a unique live event with a live band. They consist of 5 members from 3 countries and 5 different locations. One plays from Germany and another from UK with the rest playing from the U.S. They use a program to sync up called ninjam and then send the stream over to SL.

The majority of their songs are original but they do covers also. You can check out their website and find out more about them. Be sure to check out the days they will be playing so you can check them out!. Sign up for their group, “VLB group members”, in SL and find out instantly when they will be playing. You shouldn’t miss this band because they are good and really rock SL!

Appearing from 11:00 to 12:00 will be Thumper Boucher, who I have yet had the pleasure to hear, from 12:00 to 1:00 will be the magnificent voice of Kim Siefert performing her high energy country stylings, and from 1:00 to 2:00 SRV4U will perform his high energy blues style.

The Relay for Life events in Second Life last year raised around $41000.00 and had a goal of $75,000 for 2007. I say had because that goal has been reached, but that is not a good reason for anyone not to attend this event and donate to such a worthy cause.

According to the search page in events: (which wasn’t working last night)

Multi-platinum rock band Fuel will be playing live on Thursday evening and the event will be streamed into Second Life. Fuel will be premiering their new frontman, Toryn Green.HipHop band Novah will open the show at 5pm, followed by modern rock band Stereo Suite and then Fuel will take the stage.

The event will be live at 10 locations within Second Life: NBC 1 (Peacock Room),iVillage @ Sheep Island, Second City 3, Smokin Aces, Edelman, Midnight City,Sundance Channel, U Turn Cafe (Dirty), Muse Isle, House of Flames

I understand Fuel canceled due to a family emergency. This information was published on Fuel’s Blog

Second Life Performance Update
Due to a family emergency in the band, Fuel had to cancel their Second Life performance tonight. We apologize for any inconvenience and will get back to you once we have rescheduled.
- Carl
Posted by CarlBell Jun 7, 2007 6:30 pm

Maybe not the best way to start their new Series “Live From the Peacock Room”, but I am certain this little misstep which was beyond their control will not deter the new Series which will bring great entertainment to Second Life. Already we are looking forward to the upcoming show on June 28 with Drowning Pool and July 12 Les Claypool of Primus

Mankind claims he wants to form “Mankind Tracer New Artist Program (MTNAP)” to help keep Second Life Music Free.

I would like to take a couple of moments to examine just what he has in mind.

Mankind is attempting to plan a “big” two hour rock concert, broadcast over 20-30 sims, with the cost to the sim owner being a staggering $8000 lindens per venue…  but wait … half of that will go to start “Mankind Tracer New Artist Program”….  hmmm  30 X 8000 = $240,000.00 Lindens… half… $120,000 lindens is going to start the “Mankind Tracer New Artist Program” to “provide promising new SL musical artists, who have shown initiative and strong work ethics, the opportunity to play live in SL by way of a free stream, introductions to club/sim owners and help in developing their in world talent.”

I can’t help but ask isn’t the other $120,000 lindens a bit much to with hold from such a beneficial purpose?  These figures do not take into account that the “Home Base” for this “big” concert is being auctioned off.. and early on  stood at $20,000.00 lindens and supposable climbing.

Maybe it is just my thoughts, but it seems the true benefactor in all this is Mankind Tracer.

Link to this page

If you can’t read the text in the picture above, it states: (emphasis mine)

Special Offers for Second Life Residents
To support the availability of voice in Second Life, Linden Lab is proud to offer selected headsets at a DISCOUNT through GBH Communications, Inc.

These products were pre-qualified and selected by Linden Lab as ideal for use in Second Life, but purchase, shipping and support is provided by GBH, not by Linden Lab.

If you have questions regarding products, services or orders please contact Sandra Stapleton at sstapleton@gbh.com.

Notice: I emphasized the word discount… we will get to that a little later.

When I first saw this page I thought it was a Linden Lab Second Life Product Store page, sinceI didn’t see the standard disclaimer we all have to use; Second Life® and Linden Lab® are trademarks or registered trademarks of Linden Research, Inc. All rights reserved. No infringement is intended. This made me look closer at the url and saw that the page was on GBH’s domain, leaving me wondering how much Linden Lab actually has to do with this page or the discount it claimed to offer Second Life residents.

Lets get to the headset they were featuring so prominently on their product store page.

Plantronics Audio 550 Binaural USB Headset with DSP
The PLTX-AUDIO-550DSP is a Binaural USB headset using DSP technology.

Price: $80.37

I didn’t know what kind of discount this would be, so I decided to do a little search and see what price I might buy this headset for on other sites. I went to PriceGrabber.com, which allows you to do some comparison shopping all on a single page, and found the Plantronics Audio 550 Binaural USB headset with DSP in the price ranges: $51.91 – $87.76 from 29 Sellers. 27 out of the 29 websites would ship this headset to my home for less than $80.37. So that is a really nice screwing discount being offered by GBH.

Watching the pennies, the best price I could find shipped to my door was at Computers All Services who offers to ship to my zipcode for $58.76.

I have already used Google’s checkout gift of 10 dollars credit on a purchase for new people who use Google checkout to purchase something off the web, but if I hadn’t this headset could have been delivered to my door for $54.95 from Sector 29.com (then click the checkout options)

I am not familiar with either of those two sites and decided to check Amazon.com, and found this same headset for $60.79 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping.

Needless to say, I am not impressed with this discount being offered Second Life Residents by GBH, and am wondering if Linden Lab has anything to do with GBH. I will say that GBH does not have the standard disclaimer which is required for the rest of us to use the registered trademarks.

Thanks Cat Cotton for the post on Second Citizen which sent me to the site in the first place to check out the Linden Lab product store.

Do you think Linden Lab has arranged some deal with GBH? I would like to hear your thoughts.

Edited 27 may 2007 to add:
I do not spend a lot of time reading what I feel is an almost useless Official Second Life Blog, but this morning I decided to spend a few minutes there. I had my question answered about LL arranging some deal with GBH. Jeska Linden posted on 24 May 2007 “The Plan For Voice” in which she states:

Need a Headset?
Looking for an affordable headset so you can check out the new Voice feature? We know that headsets can be expensive, so we’ve made an effort to help you keep costs down by creating a special partnership offering new headsets at a deep discount. We’ve made arrangements with GBH, an audio/video product supplier, to supply a range of high-quality, pre-tested headset options that work well with Second Life Voice. Please visit our partner site for more information on these headphones.

This sure leave me with a bitter taste in my mouth over Linden Labs apparently rather seeing a profit by allowing residents to get screwed ripped off than getting a good deal. I want to know where is that discount supposed to be?

 Today at a 2:00 PST performance at Starr Productions Playhouse Ballroom  I had the chance to listen to acoustical guitar being chord strummed by Grateful Stryker.  Grateful has a pleasing voice with which he was singing folksy ballad style with enough style and class to draw 44 people to a two o’clock early afternoon performance.

I can’t say the performance was anything out of the ordinary, but by the same means I don’t regret the time I spent listening to his performance.

Just before the end of his performance he mentioned that he would be doing another performance where he will be doing more Grateful Dead and I believe I would like to hear him again doing more of their material.

Overall I will have to rate Grateful Stryker as a very slightly above average performer.

Read More… One Man’s Opinions

Please remember these reviews are just one man’s opinion. I welcome your agreement or your disagreement to be left in the comment section. Even if you only want to do so anonymously, but we would love to hear your opinion. It will help readers find what you think is good talent.

I am always looking for different kinds of music to listen to and report back to you the VTOR reader, and several months ago I just by accident showed up at a Live Music event where the saxophone was featured instrument. The event turned out to be a jazz music event with Flaming Moe playing the tenor saxophone along with some light backing tracks. Flaming Moe really does a tremendous job of entertaining with his works of jazz. Many people will try to tell you that a tenor sax is not made to be a featured instrument, but I will have to say to them that they have never heard Flaming Moe pushing air over a reed!

I so enjoyed Brian’s music I contacted him and asked if I could send him a questionnaire about himself and his music, he filled it out, I fell off the face of the earth a couple months… but the following is the result.

1. Is there a real life picture of you that I can publish (of course with the statement that the picture is your property used with permission? I took a couple of your Avatars during this performance. Would like to publish a side by side real with avatar

Sure! I’ll include the files when I send this out.

2. Would you mind giving me your real name and may I publish it?

Brian Tervo

3. would you care to share your musical background? ie… what age you got started, family involvement, maybe even a little family background?

Well my mom never played anything, but my dad played clarinet, drums, guitar, and a bit of piano. I started singing in choir when I was 6. I played the recorder in elementary school like all of the other kids, but I always thought the saxophone looked cool. I saw an episode of Mr. Rogers one day. He went on a tour of the Selmer factory, and I was hooked on the curves of the tenor saxophone. I insisted that was what I was going to play in band. I remember having my first lesson, too. My teacher, Jack Lis, called me and my friend Jake “banana brain” and “Jake and the fat man,” like the TV show, except I was a skinny little kid.
Even though my parents had to force me to practice when I was younger, I always made it into the honors bands, even in middle school. This was probably due to the amazing saxophone teacher I had, Dave Schiavone. In high school, I made it all the way to sit as the first chair tenor saxophone in the New York Conference All State Jazz Ensemble. At that point, I knew that was what I wanted to do.
I pursued a Bachelor’s degree from the Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory of Music and a Master’s Degree from The University of Miami in Coral Gables, FL. I studied with Greg Banaszak and Gary Keller, respectively.

4. Events which led to your musical interest.

I mentioned the whole Mr. Rogers thing. The event that made me decide to take it all the way to college was a featured solo Mr. Lis gave me in the jazz masterpiece, “Channel One Suite.”’ I played my heart out every time we played that piece, and that’s how I fell in love with music.

5. How about events you have played in Real life?

I have played with Roy Hargrove, the Mongo Santamaria Band, The New World Symphony, Al Tinney, Alex Norris, and many other great musicians. I played piano for Steve Reich in a group we formed to perform “Music for 18 Musicians” at Baldwin-Wallace.
Also, notably, I was the second musician to broadcast into Second Life, following Astrin Few. Astrin and I performed the first relay concert in SL and the first loop concert. A relay stream is when a user broadcasts to another user, and conceivably could be broadcasted to other different users before the last user broadcasts it to SL. In this case, Astrin played guitar and broadcasted to me, and I played saxophone to his stream and broadcasted the combined instrumentation to SL. A loop stream means the first user catches the last user’s stream and anyone in that loops can broadcast the combined signals to SL.

6. How would you personally describe your musical style (s)?

I play mostly jazz, but I like Latin, and I tend to stray into drums ‘n’ bass, experimental, classical, folk, and electronic music.

7. Influences (not bands but concepts) that have shaped your music. (Ok, maybe some groups or individuals are needed to understand the shaping.)

The concept of combining acoustic and electric timbres has always interested me, Saxophonist Joshua Redman does this extremely well on his albums Elastic and Momentum.

8. Places where fans can purchase your music? Any website exposure… your own or other?

Anyone can purchase MP3s using Paypal on my site, www.moetownproductions.com, but in SL it is now possible to buy my tracks with Lindens from www.SECONDtunes.com.

9. How do you earn a living in the real world?

I have worked on Holland America Cruise lines as a saxophonist and Celebrity Cruise lines as a bandmaster/saxophonist since the summer of 2006. I just finished school in May 2006, so right now my only source of income is from SL.

10. What brought you to Second Life, and how did you get into Second Life? (give you a chance to give credit to those who have helped you)

When I first moved to Miami to pursue my Master’s degree, I had no friends, no car, and I lived alone. I starting checking out social games on the internet and found There. I got bored with that game after about two weeks, but someone in the game mentioned SL. So in September of 2004, I checked it out and found myself working at the Flame Room (go figure) as an event manager. After getting bored with “best dressed” and “sexiest,,,” events, I searched for “jazz” and found an event hosted by Astrin Few. I went to this event, and he was streaming, something he had been doing for the previous five months. He told me how to get started and the rest is history. I started performing live music in Second Life in October 2004.

11. In what ways do you participate in Second Life?

I have a store in Bali Hai called MoeTown Productions. I have put up posters of SL musicians in MoeTown that directs anyone who clicks on it to the musicians’ websites. This is completely out of generosity and I don’t make any money from that. Other than that, I attend live music shows and I have been trying to get to know as many people as I can.

12. What are the benefits you personally receive out of performing live inside Second Life?

When the audience claps and I get an enthusiastic reaction after playing a song, it makes me feel good.

13. How important do you think interaction performer to fans is in Second Life?

Imperative! If a musician doesn’t communicate with his audience, then why even perform live? Why not just put on a recording of themselves and go out for a beer? The interaction is what makes people come back, and essentially, communication is what music is all about, whether it exists between performers or between the performers and the audience. That connection is what makes the difference of music that reaches people and music that just plainly exists.

14. Can you give me a fair way you think you should be tipped in Second Life?

Buy my MP3s! I don’t know how many tips I have received in performances which the person could have walked away from the concert with 3 or 4 MP3s. Seriously, if you like my music, and you like it enough to give me money for playing, then buy an MP3 from SECONDtunes or from my website, and take it with you so you can listen to my music even after the concert is over.

Flaming Moe, who’s real name is Brian Tervo, is a jazz entertainer that anyone who enjoys jazz doesn’t want to miss. I believe that to suck an extent that I would like to tell you where he will be playing in Second Life for the rest of this month. I suggest you find the time to go to one of his events and when you like his sound…. buy his songs!
Galveston
Monday, May 21 @ 12pm SLT

The Blarney Stone
Tuesday, May 22 @ 1pm SLT

Galveston
Friday, May 25 @ 5pm SLT

Blue Fusion Jazz Club
Saturday, May 26 @ 1pm SLT
Blue Fusion website

Ratepoint
Tuesday, May 29 @ 4pm SLT

Relay for Life
Tuesday, May 29 @ 6pm SLT
SL Relay for Life website

The Ruby Slipper
Saturday, June 9 @ 5pm SLT