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JJ’s Coffee Bar – Music Streaming Evolution

Remember Happy Days, the iconic American program of last millennium?

It started off with a shot of a jukebox playing a record of the program’s signature tune. Throughout the past 100 years or so the idea of people listening to, talking about and enjoying music has been a mainstay of modern culture.

One of the issues confronting SL is the provision of content and it may be through the medium of music that the content void may be filled in these early innovative and developmental days.

Take, for instance, JJ’s Coffee Bar.

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JJ’s currently streams music from the UK, The USA and Australia.

The owner, Jeremy Jorda, has chosen to use Triple J as his Australian choice of provider. And, whilst there may be some question of copyright issues there can be little doubt that music, and radio programs in general, are an easily executed content source for areas in SL.

The question may not be whether the radio stations listed at JJ’s Coffee bar have an issue with such online provision of content, but whether they can afford not to be part of the developing medium. After all, many radio stations already embrace apps like MP3 streaming through iTunes radio or Real Player, and Windows Media Player. Venues such as JJ’s Coffee Bar are the obvious next step in that evolution.

Making real music in real time

I was pointed to a fascinating blog post – a Tokyo-based artist, Lance Shields is the real-life alter ego of both Andres Watanabe and Juria Yoshikawa. He’s developed Sound Station 1.0 – there’s a streaming video on his site.

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If you watch the video, the Sound Station has obvious uses for musicians or other performance artists in-world. We’ve dropped Andres a line to find out more, watch this space. Anything that takes virtual music performance beyond streaming is a big step forward.

Guitar Lessons Anyone?

Nickeax runs a small Australian music enterprise in SL called Guitars Australia.

A visit to the SL store will enable any young or young at heart rocker to outfit themselves with a variety of Marshall amps and Gibson Explorer Mark II style guitars. The Marshall pack includes a Marshall JCM800 100w head and 2 Marshall JCM 1960 cabinets.

Once kitted out you can wander over to the Guitar Australia website to start your education in the world of guitar playing. And, of course no guitar player can go without the obligatory Stairway to Heaven treatment, which is found in the “classic solos explored” section of the website.

Another plus is it should enable a less ear assaulting barrage compared to a real life garage session. If only Nickeax sold drum kits for those of us that can’t read music!

Australia’s first major SL music event on the horizon

The Austrade Music Office in conjunction with Cattle Puppy Productions are holding Australia’s first large-scale music event in SL. It’s called the “The Hoe-Down Under – Texas’ Aussie Music Party” and is coinciding with the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference 2007

The online event will occur on the 15th of March 2007 at 1:00pm to 4:00pm Australian Eastern Time on March 15. Bands scheduled to appear include The Beasts Of Bourbon, You Am I, Youth Group, Airbourne, Dallas Crane and more. Sydney-based vocal group Kaya will also perform (pictured below)

The “The Hoe-Down Under” will digitally recreate an island beach atmosphere with two stages, a dance area, swimming, jet ski rides, hot air balloons and more.

Check out the venue here