At the Club Republik in Second Life tonight there is a special Bootie SL – Amanda Shinji is DJing from 3am UK / 7am SL then live link up with Bootie in San Francisco as usual with Keela Latte hosting and – with a special twist: the Second Life club is being shown live on the screens at Bootie SF!

I’m going along to wave some HELLO MUM! and TUNE! signs and have designed a tshirt specially…hope to see you there?

Apols for the late notice but was out on the razz with Lee Spoons, Robb, Ian Fondue and lady Naomi and Jez CMP…was planning to let you know before this. I iz slightly drunk…;-)

Here’s the second of the Parkade Flashback series – it’s a short, angry and rather rude mix from 2007 (you might have guessed from the title) and utterly exclusive. How do I know that? Well I recorded it when no-one was in the room at the Parkade, hence the ‘Empty’ bit – one of the down sides of DJing in Second Life and generally is when no-one turns up – I assure you this rarely ever happened, I always had at least a small attendance for my gigs in SL, but it does happen every once in a while.

So I vented my frustration via the medium of music

Half empty? Half full? Or just Halfway? (33Mb, 45 mins)

• Simian Mobile Disco – Tits & Acid
• Daft Punk – Around The World (Killdahype remix)
• Electrosound – Gossip around the World (The Gossip vs Dangerous Dan & Nicky Van She)
• Spoon – Don’t You Evah
• Instamatic – Dizzee Justice
• Smith n Hack – Space Warrior
• Hexstatic – Bass Invader
• Rum & Black – Fuck the Legal Stations
• Yo Majesty – Club Action (Chris Bagraiders Sailing to Baltimore Edit)
• Apeboy/Lenlow – Enya vs Prodigy
• Stakker/Humanoid – Humanoid
• Aggro1 – Pull Up The Poor Bitches
• Dillinja – Hard Noize
• Lemon D & Dillinja – Ghost
• Rx – Imagine / Walk on the Wild Side
• Los Hermanos Dalton – Pink Panther

After nearly 3 years the Parkade is no more – so come play with poledancing Daleks, pheonixes and falling giant wheels as Parkade goes out with a bang…literally.

Here’s my 2 hour (well 1:45 as I had technical difficulties at the start) mix for the last ever night of the Parkade.

Pretty proud of the last hour or so – I wanted to put as many Parkade classics but also banging tunes in one place as humanly possible…

Speed Limit: 69 in Camp Areas (88Mb, 1:47)

• Churchill – Hear Missy Work It (Chad Jackson vs Missy Elliott)
• cry.on.my.console – Command Your Rabbits (Chas n Dave)
• Dunproofin – Police Klaxons (Police vs The Klaxons)
• Bingo Starr – Harder, Better, Faster, Blonder (Blondie vs Daft Punk vs Britney Spears)
• DJ Zebra – C’mon Fuck Me (Princess Superstar / Simian vs. Von Bondies / Fatboy Slim)
• The Fall – F’Oldin Money
• Joan Jett – Don’t Give a Damn About My Bad Reputation
• Liberator – Does Your Mother Know?
• Elektric Cowboy – Paris Head (Mylo vs Was Not Was)
• Kid Carpet – Jump
• Instamatic – Ludakriss (Kriss Kross vs Ludacris)
• Rob Base & D.J. E-Z Rock – It Takes Two (Vocal Edit)
• Breakwater – Release the Beast
• Bomb the Bass – Megablast (Assault on Hip-Hop Precint 13)
• Instamatic – Stone Cold Roses (Stone Roses vs Outkast)
• Lobsterdust – Never Gonna Fool Your Gold (Rick Astley vs Stone Roses)
• Pop Will Eat Itself – Pop Will Eat Itself at Def Con One
• Rebel MC – Street Tuff (Tone 396 remix)
• Funkytown Kiss (Lipps Inc vs Tom Jones & Art of Noise)
• DJ Jay-R – Mia in Funktown (MIA vs Lipps Inc)
• Splittr – All Alone (Alex Metric Dub)
• Rex the Dog – Bubblicious
• DJ Earworm – Since you’ve been Gahan (Kelly Clarkson vs Rex the Dog)
• El Barto and Liam B – I Feel Out of Control (Chemical Brothers vs Donna Summer)
• Acen – Dirty Raver
• Rico Tubbs – Gangsters (Original mix)
• Dirty Sanchez – Lockdown Loneliness (Tomcraft vs. Kanye West)
• RAH Band – The Crunch
• Soundhog – Dire Bass (Dire Straits vs Azzido Da Bass)
• Dunproofin – Livin’ On Breaks (Bon Jovi vs Groove Armada)
• Axwell – I Found U (High Contrast Old Skool Remix)
• Goodbye Parkade!
• Thou Shalt Always Kill (feat. Pos Plug Won – De La Edit Clean Radio Mix)

The flyer for the Finale.

In the end all that was left was a floating sign, which Amanda gave me.

Yes this is definitely go and is on tonight from 9pm GMT / 2pm PST/Second Life time until 5am GMT / 10pm PST/SL.

Lineup is:

2-4pm PDT – Andy Asylum (original owner of the Aslyum)
4-6pm PDT – DJNoNo Ulysses (me!)
6-8pm PDT – DJ Foximus (Topher Delcon)
8-10pm PDT – Miss Cyberpink (Amanda Shinji)

The Parkade will be recreated for one night only in the NuRepublik sim – here’s the SLURL.

See you there!

(Topher Delcon, Amanda Shinji, DJNoNo Ulysses – Andy Asylum not shown)

Just heard from Amanda Shinji that the Parkade, one of the longest clubs in Second Life (nearly 3 years!!! That’s several lifetimes in SL) and the club I had a part in running and designing after Andy Asylum decided to stop running it is closing at the end of this month closed, gone, no more (see EDIT below for rant).

Here’s what she said:

As some of you know, I took over Parkade from Andy Asylum back in March 2007 and with the graphical assistance of the erstwhile DJNoNo Ulysses, we reopened the facelifted club in May 2007, on the now long gone Pontiac Motorati Island.

Pontiac left SL and the United Spinal Association took over the 7 sim complex, Parkade grew, with the slightly smaller replica of the Golden Gate Bridge out front and the small chill out area around the back… Same amazing crowd, same fun…

Last year, around June time, I moved Parkade to what was Kara Zor Isle and we had a giggle there, but the sim being sold forced me to move the club to it’s current location, Parkade Island. As you know, full sims aren’t cheap and I couldn’t afford to buy or rent one, so I rented a light use sim, which was adequate but then the delightful LL decided to stick their noses into what we did with these ‘buffer’ sims and called time on our antics, creating the Homestead sims, which then drastically limited the number of people who could use the places to 20. Not ideal for a club.

However, this wasn’t an issue, because with the decline in SL clubbing culture, only the diehard faithful hung around. We’d already lost a few DJs by then and what with the receeding crowds, we lost long time resident DJNoNo. However, we keep going and push on. Saturdays are still busy, with Walt’s Boot Camp nights and of course me n’ Diva taking it in turns before BootieSL, then there are Walt’s Sunday sessions and me on Thursdays… However, things aren’t picking up and it’s not just this club that is affected, others are too… Once great names like Republik are also suffering. Republik are in the same situation as Parkade too and thats a shame.

Anyway, enough about Republik. This is about Parkade here and this is where it gets tricky. I’ve taken the hard decision to close one of SL’s longest running clubs. What was started in 2006 is ending in 2009, by the end of this month. I’ve informed the company who I rent the sim from that I’ll not need it come the end of March and I’ll be removing the build permanently then. Parkade will cease to exist. It’s been one helluva rollercoaster ride, but the LL decision to limit numbers has been a huge factor in this, as well as cost too… I’m paying a lot for this sim and frankly, it’s not worth it any more.

So, this is it…

Well, so you’d think, no?

What if there was a “But…”?

But… this isn’t the end. Oh no. Parkade might be closing, but this isn’t the end.

I mentioned Republik earlier on. Republik on their class 5 sim, with a 100 person limit and the threat of closure due to financial issues and dwindling attendance… Well, guess what grrrls n’ bois? I’m moving to Republik!!

I’m going to be investing in keeping the sim afloat, along with the other owners, I too will be an owner of the club and between us and the management team, we’re going to relaunch the place, complete with a brand new club build that is almost finished and stunningly gorgeous. Even though I’m paying into the tier, I’m still saving money on what I pay now for this cut down excuse for a sim, so I win there, and I know that BootieSL and my sets will continue there and I’m hoping that Walt will come with me and bring his Saturday night and Sunday sets with him too, so if you lot come along, it’ll be like home, only darker and posher. Slightly

This isn’t the end, it’s the beginning. The beginning of something pretty damned cool. Myself, Sable, Lina and Jo are going to really push Republik in 2009 with some different strategies and ideas, plus I’m hoping to bring a live band from RL to perform in SL too and I’m not talking about some kids in a garage, this lot have supported Depeche Mode on tour

So, don’t be sad that Parkade is closing, be happy that the music, atmosphere and fun live on.

I am planning to sort out a farewell party soon, and I’ll post details of that when I’ve got it arranged.

Anyway, I’ve gone on long enough. I wanted to let you all know what is happening and I hope you realise this is for the best.

Thanks, and see you on the other side soon… Amanda xXx

I have to say I’m not surprised – as Amanda says the club culture and audience in SL has been tailing off for a while now – not to say there aren’t well attended clubs as I expect the new Republik will be, but certainly the tier-changes killed or consolidated a lot of smaller clubs and places in SL where I stayed (and meant a lot of my friends left), hence my decision earlier this year to stop DJing at the Parkade.

I wish Amanda all the best at the Republik, where Amanda’s night and BootieSL will continue, and a few more of the Parkade nights maybe, and I’ll definitely try to be at the last events at the Parkade for a tearful farewell. Thanks to Amanda and Andy for running a great club, it’ll definitely be missed.

EDIT: Due to the what I can only describe as what sounds like the SL version of a slum landlord (I can shorten it even further: C**ts) the Parkade is no more – Amanda thought she had until the end of the month and they foreclosed this morning…so I never got to say goodbye and the place is an empty island. This makes me very sad.

Really I have to say this is one of the major problems of SL – the fact that Linden Labs itself doesn’t really show a good example means that the place is full of shady and dodgy people – but it hurts Second Life as a whole – people don’t want to turn up to a club and find a stinking hole, or be messed around, or have the whole openspace debacle…they just leave annoyed and don’t come back. So what might be a quick buck for the landlords of SL and Linden Labs eventually damages the whole thing, and creative people leave, and it all just leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth.

This impermanence – the loss of popular areas like Fat Tiger for example, should be something Linden Labs is worried about – if you don’t have cool places for people to visit, then people will go away. And these places may be virtual but people do have real connection to them over years – so to just pull the plug immediAately with no warning is callous and just shows you what kind of people rent land in Second Life, somewhere below pond scum.