
Time To Get Amped Up
Tomorrow, Saturday 28th June, Spiral will be performing live for an hour at 10am SLT – that’s 10am PDT, 11am Mountain, 1pm Eastern, 6pm UK etc. You will be able to join him at Second Life’s Eleventh Birthday party stage in the Astonish SIM and listen to his set whilst enjoying the view. And what a view that is! The stage itself is a work of art, any avatar that hasn’t seen it should go along just to see how mind-blowing a bunch of pixels can be. Then there’s the music. Second

Eleven Good Reasons
It’s Second Life’s eleventh birthday on June 23rd 2014 and that means an excuse for one of the biggest celebrations on the Second Life grid, and one that will involve Spiral himself! For those of you who aren’t on Second Life, the scale of this event will be hard to comprehend – and the fascination with it possibly harder. Let me attempt to give you my perspective and show you a few teasers along the way… It opens at midday Second Life time (Midday PDT, 1pm Mountain Time, 3pm

Multi-World Music
Yesterday was Atomic City HQ’s opening, coinciding with a real life performance by Mr Spiral at the Otterbox Ditigal Dome Theater in Fort Collins, Colorado. It’s an exciting concept, being able to listen to live music while interacting with people all over the real world in a virtual world. I think that those people who’ve never experienced something like Second Life might find it hard to see what the attraction is, but it really is like attending a concert and having the fun

Atomic City HQ Official Opening!
It’s here – an excuse to officially open Atomic City HQ! Spiral will be playing a real life concert in the Otterbox Digital Dome Theater in Fort Collins, Colorado at 6pm Second Life Time (SLT). That’s 6pm PDT, 7pm Mountain, 9pm Eastern etc. To celebrate, I shall be hosting a get-together inworld at our new headquarters. I would love it if you could dust down your old avatars (or join Second Life free and get one) and join me for cupcakes and champagne while we listen as Spira


Pink Pearl Portable!
As some of you know, my old studio was a horridly ugly and bad-sounding room with no space for collaborators to join me. It was a tiny, enclosed womb, if a womb was dirty and dark and uninspiring. I called it Subterranean Scumbarge Studios for obvious reasons. Late last year, I cleaned up the room, changed the monitoring system, got rid of a LOT of equipment and stripped it down to the bare essentials, and renamed it Pink Pearl. One of the biggest challenges, though, was buil


Jürg X Saladin, Ph.d. - R.I.P
How strange to learn that one of the most important men in your intellectual life has vanished from this world without you ever knowing it. I just got a letter informing me that nearly 3 weeks ago, Dr. Jürg Saladin of the University of Pittsburgh, Professor Emeritus of physics and my graduate thesis advisor in the 1980s, had died after a long illness. Jürg and I had a very conflicted relationship. I wasn’t the best student he ever had, but he acknowledged that I was a hard wo

A Day In The Life
I would imagine that people must wonder why a virtual musician would need a PA*, and what “life” must be like in a virtual world. I thought I’d try to explain, primarily for those visitors to this blog that have no experience with Second Life. I also thought I’d make it fun – hopefully you’ll think so as you see the pictures. Firstly, people do have whole “lives” in Second Life. So yes, I have a home. I also have a bed and I have jammies – and I can simulate sleep if Spiral i

The Axman Returns to Second Life!
Yes, I am truly a nag of epic ability! I managed to get our very own Allen Goodman – the Axeman himself – back ontoSecond Life to visit. Is it worth a post? Are you kidding me? This guy can shred* like you wouldn’t believe and he’s here right now, as I write this, chilling on the chairs in Atomic City HQ and shooting the breeze with me while we listen toStillstream. He currently goes by the name of Locksmith Antonelli, so drop him an IM if you want to chat. Having him back in

Atomic City Reborn
Well, that was way more painful than it needed to be, but it’s done: the Atomic City website, which has been dormant and dusty for over 10 years (!), is now live. You’ll find a current events calendar to supplement this blog, links to my music catalog, and other cool stuff there. Gypsy was big on trying to do everything in WordPress as it’s so easy to work with, but my hosting provider has a lot of musician-friendly features in its toolchest, so we’ve worked out a nicely symb