I host an oldies show that is broadcast from Second Life four times a week - see the schedule on the right.
Note that work, family, and church take priority. If I can't make it, I will try to turn on the music
stream but I may not be "live" to entertain you with my brilliant and witty commentary. Instead you'll
be subject to the whims of my capable assistant, Otto Pilot.
NEW SHOW!In response to overwhelming requests from both listeners,
I have added a Friday night show featuring vintage recordings
from the 1890s to the 1920s. These are all transcribed from original wax cylinders and 78rpm
records and might be a bit scratchy at time, but there's plenty of Jolson and Cantor and Kane
to keep you doin' the Charleston till the cows come home. It's the bees knees!
Request songs online during the show! Now
you can fill out this handy form with the artist and/or title you would like
to hear, and little elves will carry a copy of your message to me in Second
Life so I can decide whether I like you enough to fill your request.
I am extremely passionate about music, and I have very strong, and not
always popular, opinions on the subject. For starters, the vocals drive
me the most. I have always enjoyed singing,
so naturally I also enjoy listening to others sing. And because I grew
up in an era of close vocal harmony, the chords that appeal to my ears
the most are part of what the music scientists call
the circle of fifths. That's just a fancy way of describing why we
can intuitively tell that a pair (or triad) of notes belong together,
producing a pleasant chord. Something about wavelengths and such that's
way over my head. All I know is that I can recognize it when I hear it,
and it's the kind of music I like.
That may sound kind of limiting, but most popular music of the 20th
century made use of the circle of fifths — from hymns to waltzes to
barbershop quartets to blues to ragtime to big band to Spike Jones to
the roots of rock'n'roll. I love all that stuff!
It would be shorter for me to list what I *don't* like. I don't care for
improvisational jazz; when I listen to jazz, I like it to have a melodic
line (there's our circle of fifths again) that I can hum along with. I'm
also not fond of modern (post-1960s) country and western — not for the
reasons most people give (twangy voices and inane lyrics), but because it's
so darn over-orchestrated with booming drums and blaring guitars there's
hardly any melody left. So with my desire to have a strong melody, you
can guess where I stand on rap. Old-school rap at least told a story
and often had clever lyrics; so-called "gangsta" rap is just
an endless stream of hate. Likewise most modern rock in its various
incarnations. I have no idea what all the different terms mean... indie,
grunge, emo, whatever... it's just screeching off-key guitars and kids
screaming about how much they wish everyone would die. Give me a break.
And you kids get off my lawn.
There are also some preferences that I don't feel so strongly about. I
like lyrics that make sense (I've got your O-Bla-Di right here, Paul) and
convey positive values — a song about wanting to get married carries more
weight with me than a song about how he has a girl in every port.
The other thing I spend way too much time dwelling on is
cover versions,
in particular with regards to early rhythm and blues. In the 1940s through
the 1960s it was not at all uncommon for a black artist to come up with a
truly great song, only to see it taken over by a white group once it started
becoming popular. Consider, for example, the original version of "Sh-Boom"
by the Chords vs. the better known cover by the Crew Cuts, or Pat Boone versions of
superior originals from Fats Domino, or the pointlessly inane McGuire Sisters
versions of the Moonglows' "Sincerely" or the Spaniels' "Goodnite,
Sweetheart, Goodnite"
That's not to say I don't enjoy a creative new interpretation of an old
song. I don't think the Canadian group The Diamonds were deliberately
trying to undercut the success of the Gladiolas with their version of
"Little Darlin'", but rather they added to the brilliance of
the original with a higher tempo and that amazing high tenor. Likewise
I enjoy genre mashups. I'm a huge fan of a 1980s novelty act called Big
Daddy, who took songs popular in the 80s and 90s and performed them in
the doo-wop and rockabilly styles of the 1950s. But their talent went
beyond a generic style — they would merge a specific 1950s song
with the 1980s melody and lyrics. Consider, for example, Foreigner's
1984 ballad "I Want To Know What Love Is" as performed by
Ritchie Valens with his signature bass riff, complete with a chorus in
Spanish! Or Van Halen's annoyingly loud "Jump" reworked with
the vocal style, instrumentation, and rhythm of Eddie Cochran's
"Summertime Blues". I could go on and on. You'll probably hear
me sneak a few Big Daddy tracks into the mix whenever I think I can get
away with it. A friend in SL recently introduced me to the German group
The Baseballs, who do very much the same thing with 21st century hits.
In short (too late!) if you can sing along with it and get it stuck in
your head for days on end, I'll play it.
The current schedule (all times MOUNTAIN) is:
Listen from your PC! You don't need to play Second Life to tune in.
Just open up media player, then hold down the ALT key and press F at the same time to get the "File"
menu. Choose "Open URL" and give it this address:
http://66.71.249.243:8632
I got started on the DJ thing in an imaginary world. Second Life is a
game environment where players design their own characters (avatars) and
create the scenery. You can interact with this imaginary world by touring
simulations of real-world cities and landmarks, go to live concerts, act out
characters in historical or fantasy roleplaying settings, or just stand
around and chat. Any sensible person would find a thousand better things
to do with his or her time, but online socializing is how I met my wife
and it's a neat way to learn about other countries as millions of people
from all over the world play SL. It also gives me a way to give vent to
my inner actor -- I like going to the historical simulations and playing
someone from another time and place.
Anyhow, I was hanging out listening to early 20th century jazz and mentioned
that I have a lot of early rock'n'roll on my computer. One thing led to another
and suddenly I was playing my music in a 1950s juke joint; after a few months
other sim owners asked me to play for their clubs too and now I have four
two-hour shows a week. As often as not I only have one or two listeners
in the Second Life location plus one or two RL (real life) listeners tapping
directly into the stream, but it's fun meeting new people who share my love
for the good old tunes.
So what the heck kind of a name is SegmentationFault, anyway? If you
program in C, that's a hilarious name; it refers to one of the most common
error messages that come up when your program doesn't behave properly.
I see that error message a lot. Most programmers just say "segfault",
so I will answer to Segfault or Seg or "Did somebody drop this wallet stuffed
with cash?" The other reason I use a weird technical nickname in-world
is so I can switch roles as needed without the name associating me with a
specific person. If you visit me in Second Life, there's no telling what
I might look like!
There is so much more to SL
than just creating goofy avatars. There are simulations of famous
world landmarks, music of just about every kind, games and amusement park
rides, live performances, museums, and most of all people. See, I come
from the age of 300 baud dialup BBSes, and in those days small, local chat
boards were the cutting edge of computer communications. The idea of being
able to strike up a conversation with someone a mile or half a planet away
without using a phone was unbelievable! So mostly I see SL as a giant, 3D
chat room. We geezers were doing this 30 years ago, only without the dog
costumes and animated actions.
I have already written more than you would care to know about myself here, so I won't duplicate much of that. Long story short (too late!) I'm a computer programmer in Wyoming, originally from Toronto and then Houston; I work mostly in VB.NET and SQL; I have always wanted to be a DJ but I have never actually set foot in a radio station in my life (programming pays better). I'm married, straight, I have two grown children, I sing in a barbershop quartet, and yes, I'm not joking about being a Baptist. If that's not enough for you, check out the personal website linked above.
In case you're curious, I play SL and do my DJing from a homebuilt PC
that runs Arch Linux, a variant
of Linux that requires a lot more hand-tuning than, say, Ubuntu or Knoppix
but affords you much finer control over what gets installed. The DJ
software is idjc,
which is by far the best DJ software available but unfortunately for
most of you is only written for Linux. I can't help you Windows folks
find something to use.
Due to the technical limitations of my sound card and the way the audio
drivers control its use, I cannot stream music in idjc and listen to
sounds in SL at the same time. So I have no idea what you are hearing
while I work. I once went an hour completely unaware that I had forgotten
to switch the club's music source over to my broadcast, while the audience
happily danced to generic tunes coming from the radio station that plays
when a DJ is not on duty. So if there are any problems with the sound,
please IM me immediately!
OK, I'm finally ready to shut up. Why are you still here? Go listen to some rock'n'roll!
