LANDMARKS

Since the very first Pickle Party joyously welcomed the opening of the Squishy Pickle houseboats to sunny Bellisseria, Doc Rast's portable DJ deck has inspired the music lovers in the area to plot ways they can keep the casual "just come together" spirit of dance and chill going strong anytime, anywhere. So *Pirate Djs of Bellisseria* came from that mother of invention: the desire to never let the party end. Ever.

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I sat down with Doc and DJ Baphy to find out how the Pirate DJs intend to bring all of us aboard their ship of get down.

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Doc, your portable DJ deck opens so many possibilities. What gave you the idea, and what were your early trials with it like? Did it work out of box or take a lot of refinement?

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"The Portable DJ decks are the last in a long line of booths and decks I have experimented with. A lifetime of electronics hardware build, test, and repair (both audio and radio frequencies) made its way into SL. Trials have included an Openstage version, where the DJ sits on a poseball, then clicks and pastes their URL stream into the textbox. Upon standing again, the land stream reverts to a pre-decided default radio stream. I should sell it, because it worked well in trials."

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Did the idea for pop up events evolve from the mobile deck, or did you and other DJs you know start talking about pop up events earlier?

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"We, that is my host Bjoyful and me, just happened to be there watching as the Moles and Lindens completed preparation of the new lands at Pickle Beach. Patch Linden opened the beach with a sudden invite to 'Fly in'. Lots of happy residents arrived. It was a golden opportunity to test the wearable booth with its website linker function, which was fresh out of beta. Before we knew what was happening there were just six listener slots left on my DJ stream, and 4 slots for avatars on the Pickle Beach, before the sim was maxed! SUCCESS all round! The Lindens partied. The Moles partied. The Residents partied. It was peace love dove outta sight. Grins."

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So, how do you think pop up events differ, in spirit, from a club experience?
 
"There is an impromptu nature to Bellisserian pop up events, and spontaneity is a beautiful thing to witness. It's done for pleasure, not for tip hunting. I think residents feel happier to visit pop up events knowing its NOT a money-making excercise."

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In light of that, what do you think makes Bellisseria so good for pop up events?

"Beautiful scenery, beautiful people. Simples :D"

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And do you think all this makes it easier for DJs to support each other and work together in Bellisseria?

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"It makes finding new friends with similar interests much easier :)"

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And one of those new friends is music producer and Second Life DJ "Baphy" Baphometrix, who is new to Bellisseria but a long time resident of Second Life.

You mentioned at last weekends beach party that the spontaneous community of DJs in Bellisseria reminded you of the producers collective you work with in first life. Could you elaborate?

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"Sure. The music business has been rapidly changing in recent years, and a lot of artists in the EDM and Hip Hop scene have been banding together into collectives instead of competing with each other. In first life, I'm part of such a collective and it's frankly amazing how much we all support and mentor each other, and how we work to do shows together or get one or two members of your crew added to the roster of some event you're playing at.

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I see the same energy and attitude has spontaneously cropped up among the DJs that live in Bellisseria. None of us care about tips or getting people to come see us at our clubs. We just party with each other and hang together and scheme fun ideas for making community and spontaneous parties happen around Belli. It's really great to see that same collective spirit here in SL too!"

Baphy tell me about your "high seas highjinks" parties you are planning.

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"Since Doc's DJ technology allows us to DJ from anywhere at all (not just on a plot for which we control the audio stream), I thought it would be a fun idea to throw the occasional "popup rave" party out in a stationary flotilla of boats somewhere around Bellisseria. Imagine a message out of the blue in the Belli community groups that there was a secret flotilla rave party going on, and the challenge is to find the rave and party with us! We'd encourage people to bring their boat, or to fly and cozy up on someone else's boat. It would be like old school warehouse raves where you have only vague clues like "we're somewhere off the northeast coast of Belli", and part of the fun is trying to find the rave and be part of it. When people arrive, they join the floating landscape of yachts and sailboats and dance and swim while the DJs spin. A really nice advantage of this idea is that there are several totally empty full-ocean sims around Belli, such as between the northeast coast and the squishy pickle marina. Hosting huge parties out in an empty water sim doesn't cause temporary lag for anyone's parcel in Belli."

Good parties and good neighbors don't have to be incompatible, then? Fantastic.  And you had some ideas for for charity DJ events, too, right?

"Well, none of the pirate DJs ask for tips, because we do this for fun in a non-commercial, community fun spirit. But I think it could be worthwhile to occasionally throw a big themed event (scheduled ahead of time and planned for a specific location around Belli) that is some huge pirate DJ party specfically for a worthwhile charity cause. Ideally we'd have some donation tech where the party attendees could donate directly to the charity itself and there'd be some type of visible counter in world showing how much was collected so far during the event. We could even tie in this idea with the 'popup rave flotilla' idea too, making it part game and part charity event."

I love the idea that DJs can take the stream whenever and wherever with both planned events and "the mood strikes".

And the best way for people to know about what the Pirate DJs are up to?

"Bellisserian Events Group. Free to join, this group is where pop up events appear, and the Pirate DJ's of Bellisseria channel on the Bellisserians Discord channel  https://discord.gg/gKCKAdQ "