Random serendipity seems to be my rule for finding things to do on Second Life, and I happened upon a listing for music in the Search window that looked interesting. Here’s the Community Events listing:

Second Life | Community: Events

Erika is an Austin, Texas based singer/songwriter, with a diverse range of influences from Patty Griffin (another Austinite!) to Nirvana to Etta James to… Come out an join us at Crystal Gardens and hear some amazing new talent to SL music scene

Yeah, astonishing is the word I’d use for Erika’s voice and playlist. And she plays a uke on some tunes, which seems to be her musical attachment of choice for her avatar. Her singing and playing is assured, powerful. Her stage presence needs a little polish – still a bit tentative and cutesy-poo about acknowledging tips and shout-outs in open chat. That’ll probably be overcome fairly quickly as she gets used to SL performance. She’s already awesome as a performer, so I expect she’ll become one of those “name” performers on SL, but she really has chops. It would be interesting to follow her musical career via in RL, too.

I had one of those “ohhhhhhh… I love this song” moments when she played “Mad World” from the Donny Darko soundtrack. I’ll have to keep an ear open for more from the extraordinary Erika Ordinary.

PS… I wish people with hotcha-cha attachments and “naughty” chat sounds and gestures would turn them the frack off in performance venues. Also, the guy that recorded and distributed the annoying “HOOOOOO!” sound effect/chat gesture deserves to be dressed up in badly fitting