Une interview, en anglais, sur les activités musicales de Fabrice Collette sur le système 3D de second life.

C’est ici : http://blog.cruxy.com/blog/?p=169

Nat Mandelbrot with a special interview from the metaversal construct known as Second Life - if you are new to the topic of virtual worlds and how musicians can be involved in them, you might want to read this first: http://secondlife.com/community/music.php

Fabrice Collette (http://cruxy.com/fabrice) is a french singer / songwriter who plays in a “bluesy groovy style”. I recently had the chance to visit his virtual persona, Fabrice Crosby, at his home and performance space in Second Life located at Les nuits qui parlent - Ironforge (162, 221, 23). We were joined by his publicist, Petronilla Paperdoll.


Fabrice is our most active Cruxy user who performs, promotes, and sells his music inside of online virtual worlds. He uses our open-source player technology which you can learn more about at http://cruxy.com/sl

Before the interview began, we started up one of Fabrice’s albums on his customized Cruxy Player sitting on the beach at his home. More on his use of Cruxy technology later in the interview…first, I was curious to learn more about both his real and second lives as a musician.

Cruxy Player 2.0: resetting the player…
Cruxy Player 2.0: found playlist notecard…
Cruxy Player 2.0: loading playlist…
Cruxy Player 2.0: playlist title: Cruxy: Fabrice Collette r&b

Cruxy Player 2.0 whispers: 10 tracks found. now playing “Comme tu veux”

[6:22] Nat Mandelbrot (Cruxy): perhaps you can tell me about your career and musical life, and your transition from performing in real-life (RL) into Second Life (SL).

[6:22] Fabrice Crosby: ok. my musical life is specific … i used to be a pro musician when i was in my 20 …and then i went to the “real economy”, twas a choice and then i’ve came back to music on my 40…6 years ago. starting writing songs. before that i was more a composer, working for dance choreography and theater and playing kind of jazz music. so ive been back to the songs, writing my lyrics. finding new ways of inspirations and then playing here and there. having a first CD “Ballade de nulle part” , a live acoustic one and the new one “rouge et blues” that we are busy finishing now. Some of the best blues musicians here in France played in that album. im very proud of that, cause they really enjoy the songs and working for that album…

[6:26] Fabrice Crosby: i’m in an independent label and the CD will be distributed by V. Music another independent and were working on a tour right now to promote the CD

[6:25] Nat Mandelbrot (Cruxy): So you have come back to music after many years, and this is more than a hobby. You are taking this very seriously.

[6:27] Fabrice Crosby: well i live with that now ..thats my life for now
and a particular relationship with music. i never really decided if i was an artist or not ..for now i am one …i came here to promote my new album. as i’ve been to myspace too. cause i think that independent artists like me have to find a way to be with new medias

[6:29] Nat Mandelbrot (Cruxy): Do you perform more often in SL than RL? How does it compare?

[6:31] Fabrice Crosby: i have few gigs in RL for now, next one is in May
im concentrated oin the album and other compositions projects cause i write songs for some others and we are busy preparing a tour starting in September to promote the album. here in SL i play about twice a week.

Fabrice playing piano at the Silvertone Lounge

[6:32] Nat Mandelbrot (Cruxy): When i talk with musicians who are not in SL, or who are trying understand it. I try to share with them the idea that while its a virtual world, there are real fans and a real audience who are listening to your performance

[6:34] Fabrice Crosby: its was very amazing for me to have the feeling of an audience in a virtual set …you can really feel an audience and sometimes you feel it working and sometimes not …for the live feelings its amazing, and i better speak about friends than fans i like the myspace word cause people here in SL or in Myspace are very creatives themselves and i dont think that they come here to be a fan ..they want to have other kind of contact with musicians and i like it. you meet them, talk with them sometimes here which is my place, we stay a long time after a set, drinking virtual champagne or vodka. the other question is what are the RL impact, in selling CD or getting more “real” audience in RL gigs for now i dont know. i will see in september if all the work i did in myspace and Sl is bringing more ^people to me.

[6:41] Fabrice Crosby: maybe Sl and other 3d dimensions can have their own dynamics own artists etc …the question is what economy ? some are speaking about having fees for live music …

[6:43] Nat Mandelbrot (Cruxy): Commerce is very easy, which is the good news.

[6:43] Fabrice Crosby: 200 …2000….well i sold a few cd 800L (ed: about $3 USD). downloadables CD “ballades de nulle part”…but very few. not i didnt sell enough yet. you know in RL when you have a set, you can sell dozen of album at the end of the set. its not the case in SL. not for now. but even when you have 40 or 50 people attending your set, thats happens to me frequently. those people stay, chat with you, say your music is very good, etc… but do not buy it… as they would do in RL so we have to understand why …

[6:50] Nat Mandelbrot (Cruxy): In what tradition do you follow? Is there a unique french blues tradition? Or do you feel closer to traditional american blues artists?

[6:51] Fabrice Crosby: i really don’t know where it comes from …i do not listen very much to blues musicians even if i love it when i listen to one …I’ve been playing a lot af music… in my musical life from free jazz to folk songs (i used to play fiddle !) passing throw rock bands …and other stuffs. (by the way i will do a tribute to leanord cohen at the end of the month)…and i don’t know why blues came to me as an evidence as i was working on that new album. i’ve always played blues in my life.

[6:54] Petronilla Paperdoll: Fabrice has a very personal blues sound.

[6:55] Nat Mandelbrot (Cruxy): Yes, I agree. Blues is just then, perhaps, a feeling, as is often said. The musical form doesn’t need to be strict.

[6:55] Fabrice Crosby: and one point is that i needed to have a kind of thing that people should recognize. yes its a feeling. i love when music makes you feel like dancing

[6:56] Nat Mandelbrot (Cruxy): Back to technology…You tried the Second Life voice beta. Thoughts? What affect do you hope voice will have on the SL music scene? And are you worried about people talking too much at your performances?!

[6:57] Fabrice Crosby: i hope that we will be able to use voice chat features for music device. cruxy music player for example could be used by everyone. and get off the actual limitations of using the parcels data for live music i think using parcel stream is good as we use a sono in RL.

you know about bluesy groovy? our friend the blues frog ? at first i wanted her to sing a blues. one of my song, but we had ton cancel that project. cause the way SL manage sounds is not good for music. with the voice chat, bluesy groovy could be a very good blues singer !!! we try to make her sing a whole song but we had to much pb with lag and (de)synchronization

[7:00] Nat Mandelbrot (Cruxy): You can just relax and drink champagne at the beach while she works

[7:01] Fabrice Crosby: thats correct ! and even as a dumb frog she is a star so can you imagine if sh had been a real blues singer? so that kind of things could be possible i hope with the voice chat. and i hope Linden will allow us to implement that it would be good for music business in SL.

[7:04] Nat Mandelbrot (Cruxy): but back to the speaking….it could be fun. perhaps shouting out or singing along…though the lag might be too great

[7:04] Fabrice Crosby: lol. yes that should be great ! very great. i imagine people singing some of my songs with me ..should be great. and i dont think people will do some noisy conversation during a set. there is a kind of respect and autocontrol from the other attendants

[7:07] Nat Mandelbrot (Cruxy): do you any plans to distribute your cruxy player as a jukebox or for other venues to play your music “on demand”?

[7:08] Fabrice Crosby: yes - two examples : ill play at acropole at the end of the week and we have planned to send a player to all the parcells owners of the sims there to promote the concert and my album. in may ill play in a french sim and we will have some micro parcells with the players a few days before the show so pepole will be abble to listen to the album too. i’m waiting for the Euro and linden feature. and i will send it to all my friends , ie 300 right now

[7:10] Fabrice Crosby: you can already get it in the SL boutique. and about 30 peoçple have got it right now. from the Sl boutique…well i starting to discuss with some clubs.

[7:12] Nat Mandelbrot (Cruxy): sounds like you have a good network and opportunity to promote. i feel there are far too many sims without music on them, or at least good music

[7:15] Petronilla Paperdoll: your conversation was really interesting
[7:15] Fabrice Crosby: Thanks Petronilla
[7:15] Nat Mandelbrot (Cruxy): Thanks for joining us
[7:15] Fabrice Crosby: see you soon

Listen to and purchase Fabrice’s music on his Cruxy pages at http://cruxy.com/fabrice and http://http://cruxy.com/fabricerb or look him up in Second Life to find out when his next show is.