Alex Whitmore: News

Ok, things have been busy. If you have kept up with my calendar you know I have been doing my Second Life shows regularly. This time of year we begin spending a lot of time at our place in Terlingua Texas. Last month was the Al Barlow Music Campout. We had friends from Florida and friends from California come and spend a week with us here. We also spent a long weekend at home in Denton attending a Second Life jam in Addison Texas.

I'm working on a gig just before Christmas with both of my girls and of course mom and son in law. It promises to be a good one.

We will be back in Terlingua after Christmas and I will be playing my annual gig at La Kiva on January 1st.

If you haven't heard one of my live shows on Second Life I would like to invite you to tune in any night you see posted on my calendar. Just click on the venue and you should get a shoutcast page where you can listen in.

I just returned from a long weekend in San Francisco at the Second Life Convention. It was a blast and a chance to see my SL friends and network. I came back with new knowledge of how I can improve my promotion and the attendees got to see me perform live and in person on the music showcase stage.

Soon I will begin doing live video broadcasts frequently with video feeds to Second Life and also available to view on the net through a web site called ustream.com To watch you have to have a login so if you are inclined, go to http://ustream.com and pick a login so you will be ready.

We just returned from a vacation road trip. Below are links to read my weekly blogs and view video


http://2aw.com/roadtrip1.pdf http://2aw.com/roadtrip2.pdf http://2aw.com/roadtrip3.pdf http://2aw.com/roadtrip4.pdf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3Z16vwVsL4 youtube yellowstone video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORL_x0qnFSA youtube road trip 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNJuU0jzuhw youtube road trip 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_J8g7im7NM youtube road trip 4

Wow how time flys. I can't believe that I haven't updated this page since last April. When my 31 year old daughter writes a song about how time gets away from you, it is time to reflect.
2008 was a pretty good year for me. I had a couple of high profile gigs and a ton of live shows on Second Life. Second Life continues to provide me with a loyal audience and an avenue to get my music out in cd sales and music downloads.
I look forward to and expect to book more regional shows in the DFW, Houston, and hill country areas. I try to keep my calendar up to date so check it often. Even if you are not a Second Life participant, you can still listen in on the music stream at the appointed time.

When I was in New Zealand both times I played at the local theater in Marton. Marton is a small town of about 3 thousand and they have their own radio station that plays my music. My daughter Bonnie accompanied me on the first tour. Our opener was a group of local kids coached by my friend and producer of the show Anne George. Well they have come a long way and now have been invited to the USA to perform in a festival. I've pledged a large sum to help them. Please watch this video and see if you might want to help. http://2aw.com/rrk.htm

I neglected to mention the performance of a lifetime in my last blog. I got a chance to play with my girls, Bonnie, Eleanor and a cameo from mother Marti at the most coveted hill country venue in Texas Gruene Hall. We opened for Bruce Robison and Kelly Willis for their Christmas show back in December. Check out the photo on the photo page.
Second Life continues to provide the networking I need to book shows around the country. I'm traveling to Key West Fla at the end of April to participate in a songwriter festival there courtisy of a second life friend.

Well it has been a while since my last update. Things keep progressing with my music. I have written some new songs and am still very much involved with performances in the virtual world of Second Life.
I'm still looking for home concerts around the country. If you could provide a livingroom and a few guests, let me know, I might just be able to work it in to my schedule.
I bought a digital looper that allows me to record during my songs and playback at the rhythm track to my leads. It has taken a lot of practice but I'm starting to master it. Try tuning in to one of my Second Life shows sometime soon. They are posted on the calendar page of the web site.

I just posted a live video of the Cadillac song on youtube. You can find it here http://youtube.com/watch?v=ihw0uzDhBiY&mode=user&search= Don't forget to check out the breastman video too and please rate and comment on them
http://youtube.com/watch?v=oqK3CSErsn8&mode=user&search=

I've just finished putting together a 2 cd set of a concert I performed on June 29th of last month. I dediced to leave it as was recorded...warts and all. It is the complete performance with no edits or breaks except of course between Set 1 and Set 2. I'm pretty proud of it. It was a great audience and a good performance from me for the most part. It is available now directly from me and will be next month on CD Baby.

If you have had a look at my performing calendar lately you will realize that a high percentage of my performances are on the internet these days....particularly on Second Life. When I start talking about it to my friends, my daughters get this smirk on their face and their eyes roll back in their heads. I guess until you experience it first hand, it is hard to grasp the scale and the entertainment value of it. Most of my musician friends don't get it either. "How much money can you make there?" is kind of the standard question. Well I do make Linden dollas (their currency) and it is convertable to real dollars, but by normal standards of pay for music it is pretty minimal. So what is Second Life anyway? It is a 3D virtual world where you can exist in your second life as a life like figure called an "Avitar." I won't go into the extensiveness of the place, but just say it is unimagined by most people. Quite simply, I'm just there to play music for the aviatars (and their owners) and every time I play I am playing to much larger crowds of listeners than I do at my "real life" gigs. Hey, I haven't quit booking those at all, but I quit booking the bar gigs where most of the time no one ever listens to my songs. In Second Life I am performing to a "listening" audience. I know, because I'm selling and delivering my mp3 tracks on the spot at my shows. And my cd sales are better than when I was doing bar gigs in the past. It is getting my music out there a lot faster. You do not have to be in Second Life to listen to the shows. They are streamed in high quality sound to a shoutcast site first and then beamed into the club in Second Life where I play. When you go to my calendar, if you click on the club link, it will take you to that Shoutcast page. From there if the stream is online, you just click on "listen" and it should launch your music player and off you go. Remember when ebay first came on the scene? It just seemed like a novelty....well look at it now. Second Life is well on it's way to becoming that kind of scale. I plan to be there as an established performer....well I already am, but you can be a mover and a shaker quicker when you are on the ground floor of an emerging new world. Check out http://secondlife.com and read some of the news articles that have been written about it. Stop in at one of my live shows sometime either on the net or in Second Life....

Well my internet activity is going strong with a new weekly gig on Second Life at 9 pm Central time on Tuesday each week. These podcasts are piped into the program on Second Life, but anyone with sound on their computer should be able to tune in and listen. Just go to my calendar page at the appointed venue time and click on the venue name. This will take you usually to a "shoutcast" page. If the music stream is up and going it should indicate that on the page. Just click on "listen" and it should launch your music player and start playing. If the stream is down, check back in a few mins. Sometimes it takes a while to get things going. These podcasts have resulted in lots more exposure around the world. It appears that my music downloads have increased and my cd sales also. If you are having trouble or would like more information on "Second Life", email me and I will help you solve the problem. I have become quite and expert on it. Tune in sometime.

What an awesome finish to a pefect tour. I played totally acoustic to the Blenheim folk club on Friday night. It was very intimate and fun. I think that was the largest audience I've played to without a PA. None was really needed. The people were attentive and they even laughed at my jokes.
Christchurch was a fitting finish for the tour. My hosts Vicky and John were wonderful and put on a listing venue to die for. I will be back here and I'll start planning it as soon as I get home. I just have a few tasks to tidy up before I return to Texas tomorrow. See ya back in Texas

Monday I left the North Island on the ferry. The South island is just a visual overload. There are so many beautiful coastlines, mountains and rivers I can't begin to describe it. I will set up a web page for photos when I get home and post lots of photos. After driving around for 3 days I played my first gig on the South Island at the Mussel Inn http://www.musselinn.co.nz/ What a great place. As restaurant/bars go I've been in many, but this one is unique in the world. If you are ever on the South Island this place is a must.

We spent last night with our musician friends Tom and Chris. They took us to their gig at a local hall which was a Scotish Ceilidh (pronounced Kay-Lee) It was really fun. Tom and Chris are brilliant and put on a great show. Every dance was a different dance simular to square dancing in the US. They forced us to participate and look goofy on the dance floor, but I must admit...we weren't the only ones. It was great fun and I look forward to doing it again sometime. I put Marti on a plane back home today and I will be on the ferry to the South Island tomorrow.....

It has been another exceptional week. We left Auckland monday and drove down to Rotarua in the central part of the island. There are several large lakes there and quite a bit of tourist interest. We stayed at a lovely bed and breakfast there and continued to Taupo and Napier the next day. Napier is on the East coast and is the center of the wine country. We did a show at the local RSA and it was great. After Napier we drove to Woodville to the South and stayed with my musician friends Dianna and Doug Watson. Friday we continued on to Marton where we played back in April. A wonderful lady by the name of Anne George put another theater show on for us there (see photos) It was another awesome show. The people here are the greatest. Last night was our last duo show. Wife Marti leaves Sunday to return to Texas. My next show is in Takaka on the Northwest side of the South Island next Wednesday. I plan to do some driving around and see the country. I have 10 more days to enjoy it.

I have been hearing about the Devonport Folk Club since before we left on our New Zealand tour last spring. I suppose it would be considered by most here as the ulimate folk venue. Well I must agree. I would consider it one of the best anywhere in the world. We had an incredible time there last night. It was a great audience, with great atmosphere. It is located in a bunker used in WWII to protect the Auckland harbor. The view from there either day or night is the best in the city. I hope to post some photos as soon as I get to a computer where I can upload them. We leave Auckland today for points South. The next gig will be at the RSA in Napier on Wednesday....

After our wonderful time in Wellsford we headed North to the North East coast of New Zealand. We followed our friends Walley and Kathy to Walley's brother's place right on the coast. It is simply beautiful. Walley's brother has a wooden sailboat that is over 100 years old. We went for a sail yesterday and it was awesome. The scenery here is wonderful. It was a good day and a good time was had by all. Tomorrow we continue another 50 miles to Kaitaia to visit some friends and have a jam session with musicians we met last tour. Check out the photo of "Queenie" the 100 year old wood sailboat.

It feels really good to be performing in New Zealand again. We played a dinner show last night to a sold out hall (about 50). We were paired with a local dance band which took a lot of pressure off of us to have to play cover tunes. It was wonderful. I sold a few cds and met some awesome people. This was in a local meeting hall and up againt two very popular events the same night in town. It really made me feel good that in spite of that, the show sold out. It looks like next time we will be looking for a bigger venue....wooohooo.
The rest of this week we will be tourists and drive around the North part of the North Island. We will sail on a friends sailboat for a couple of days and basicly just goof off. The next gig is coming up next weekend with two shows on Saturday the 19th. Check out the new photo on the photo page.....

Please check out the following link http://www.thetexasmusicstore.com My song chiggers is featured and the CD BarFarcist is also.

Well our first two full days in New Zealand were pretty wet. A major storm moved across the area leaving downed trees and lots of wind. Things have cleared up today and the weekend promises better weather. We leave today for our first gig in Wellsford, about 2 hours North of Auckland. We will be driving our newly purchased Honda Shuttle...a real bargain at 1000 NZ (about $700.00 US) If you want to see it take a look in the photo section. The car is in excellent condition and will be good cheap transportation while we are here....stay tuned

Well we arrived in style with guitars in one piece. Air New Zealand is a great airline to fly on. Even in coach they treat you quite well. We have a couple of days to chill out and purchase our car then we are off to our first gig on Saturday the 11th. The weather is clearing and we are looking forward to seeing friends and catching up.

Well these posts are arranged from newest to oldest, but you really should read the next post to get the background for this one. The latest thing amongst the independent artists is a virtual world called "Second Life" It is a place on the net that you interact as you would with your game figure in real time with others. Unlike some other chat services, there is a visual world you can interact with. The really cool thing is that artists can come in the different "sims" simulated rooms complete with stages and lighting and perform live with a high quality stream of music into the room from their own home. It may sound bizarre but once you have experienced it, it is really fun. The audiences are made up of just about every kind of listener.
I've been playing there about once a week for a couple of months and have developed a good following. The software is available no charge from www.secondlife.com but it is not for the computer faint of heart. It requires a Pentium 4 or better processor, lots of ram and a high speed connection. Finally the internet is living up to its promise of interacting directly with the fans and performing live with high quality sound. Look for a photo of my Second Life "avitar" Capos Calderwood coming soon.

With upcoming and continuing shows scheduled on the net I thought I would give a little info to make sure you can listen. When you click on the link on the calendar page it will take you to a "shoutcast" page for that internet station. If the page loads and says that the "server" is up, then click on "listen" at the top on the menu. At this point if you have a player with "shoutcast" enabled on the preferences it will launch the player and begin to play. If you get your standard box that asks do you want to "open" or "download" click "open" if you have a player capable of playing the show it will launch. If you get an error or can't launch a player then you need to download one. Players I recommend are available free from musicmatch.com, winamp.com, itunes.com and many others. Go there and download a player...if not for me you will need it eventually. When the player installs it may give you a chance to enable "shoutcast" if so check it. If you have any problems getting a player or knowing what to do with it I will be glad to help. Please email me through the contact page on this web site. Thanks, Alex

I'm pretty sure that I have a lot of traffic here on this site but not many people feel comfortable about leaving comments in the guest book. Please note that when you put your email into the field, it is only visible to me when I log on to edit. I hope that makes you feel more comfortable about it.

For those of you outside of Texas it has been a tough summer here. Lakes are down 20 feet. We finally got enough rain this weekend to make the grass turn green but still a long way from filling the reservoirs. You may note on my calendar I have published shows I'm doing on the internet. The internet is finally living up to its potential. The show from "the Songster" on the 17th is a live show with an audience that will be broadcast live on the internet and also into a program called Second Life. In all I may have about 70 listeners. The following two nights 18 and 19 are also scheduled for live performances. The internet seems to offer me and my music a lot more exposure than I am getting playing in local clubs. You can listen with your Windows media player, but most people use a dedicated mp3 player such as "Music Match" from musicmatch.com. Many other players will work, but music match seems to always work. Another thing that has made the idea of listening live on the internet a reality is the proliferation of broadband connections. This and improved speakers for computers has made the quality of the sound worth listening to. You will have three nights this month to check it out. I hope to see you on the counter.