X-mas concert in Second Life

Even though I actually played World of Warcraft for a while, and have a lvl 60 gnome called Znorfia, I kind of feel like Penny in the Big Bang Theory when it comes to Second Life. But that makes it even funnier that I’m doing a live Christmas concert in Second Life.

I will be playing at “OneLove”, a wintry stage built especially for this event by Aallotar Takaaki. The Concert will take place this Thursday at 10pm Swedish time. The stage is at Iendi Laville (pronounce “jändi”) and Apollon Allen’s new sim Yadkin Valley, and is hosted by OneLove Events. OneLove Events is a new place in Second Life and is meant to be something for everyone.

One Love stage in Second Life, built for Sofia Talvik's X-mas concert
One Love stage in Second Life

I’m always intrigued by trying out new ways to spread my music so it’s exciting to do a show in Second Life.

I’m playing the same songs as I played at my Stockholm Christmas concert last week, so this is a way for all of you who missed that concert to see me (kind of) live no matter where you live. All proceeds from the concert will go directly to ECPAT for their campaign “Stop Sex Trafficking of Children and Young People”.

You will find the event through this link:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Yadkin%20Valley/185/192/1501

You can also read an interview with me about the concert here.

Merry Christmas and I’ll see you all in Second Life on Thursday!

Sofia Talvik as avatar in Second Life
My avatar in Second Life
Sofia Talvik stage in Second Life
Oh look! The party has already started!

The hard work of being an artist!

Sometimes everyones tired and grumpy...
Sometimes everyone's tired and grumpy...

Lots of people think it’s just glamour, travels and good times to be an artist. Even friends of mine tell me how great it must be for me to “get to” tour and travel so much. Even they don’t realize I pay for the tour myself most of the time and bringing a band is never cheap, you guys out there who have families know a couple of plane tickets tend to eat up your budget pretty fast.

I also get a lot of questions from up-and-coming artists wondering how to go about the business of starting a record label or how to promote their music. I always try to answer the best I can, but the short answer to all of this is “you have to work your ass off!”. Nothing comes for free in this business and no one will care about your music as much as you do, no matter what that manager/label/pr company is trying to tell you.

.. but most of the time it's great!
.. but most of the time it's great!

So I was very happy to stumble upon this great website where all of the stuff about being an artist and building your brand is collected in a fun and comprehensible way. This post today is mainly for all you artists and musicians out there, but you other guys can check out http://www.eventric.com/ as well (scroll down to featured articles), it’s a lot of fun reading and gives you an insight on all the things you need to know when you want to get out there with your music.Martin Atkins who is the guy sharing all these great tips really knows what he’s talking about!

One of the things that made me laugh was the post about why you need to learn screen printing as an artist. Why? So you can make your own merchandise of course. Just like I started doing a while back. All my tees are hand printed by me, check them out here: shop.sofiatalvik.com. So it’s just a lot of great advice there for all artists, no matter where you are in your career.

Here’s some fast links to my fave posts:

11 (of 27) Things Touring Bands Can Do NOW To Make a Difference

11 MORE (of 29) Tips Touring Bands Can Do Now To Make a Difference

10 Ideas For Making Your Show an Event

Just remember that it's a lot of hard work!
Just remember that it's a lot of hard work!

All tomorrow’s parties

I have an exciting fall ahead of me. My album Jonestown is being released in the US, Canada and Japan at the end of October and I have a lot of fun gigs coming up both in Sweden and in the US. The good thing is that a lot of these gigs are free and you should definitely swing by if you’re in the neighbourhood. Here’s what’s coming up:

musslan
Sofia Talvik live at Musslan, Stockholm, Sweden

Stockholm, Sweden:
September 22nd: Musslan, Dalagatan 46
No admission

September 29th: Berlin bar, Skånegatan 71
No admission
http://www.berlinsthlm.se/
Sign up to the event on Facebook here

New York, NY, USA
October 22nd: CMJ, The Swedish Showcase, hosted by Music export Sweden at Norwood, 241 W 14 Street
http://www.norwoodclub.com/

More gigs in the US will be announced shortly.

Sofia Talvik at SXSW 2009

I’m happy to announce that I’ve been invited to showcase my music at SXSW 2009 in Austin, Texas. South by Southwest is THE music industry event of the year. It’s here that you will find all the latest trends, new big acts and all the important people.
Sofia in Austin

I guess that my music really impressed the people at SXSW since they invited me. I’m thrilled, honored and excited. I will do my best to rock their socks of i March. And to all you guys that plan to attend, SEE YOU THERE! Keep an eye out for me and inform all your friends.