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After much ado and even much
more delay, the long awaited “Von the Revelator” album from
Von
Johin is available.
 Back
in 2008, there was a great deal of fuss when Von Johin was
signed as a Second Life avatar to a real-life record label
ironically called Reality Entertainment. But after all the news
died down, Von Johin found himself facing some real life
distractions that caused a series of delays in completing the
album. Once finished, however, a lot of time passed without a
release date being set. Von’s increasingly busy real life and
Second Life activities made him wonder if he and Reality were
ever going to be able to get together to schedule the album for
release. Unsure what to do, Johin asked Reality’s CEO if the
company would just let him go another direction. Reality
graciously agreed to let Von move on with no fuss.
By sheer coincidence, that same
weekend, Von’s real life avatar was catching up with an old
friend,
Tim Whitsett. Tim told Von that he’d launched a
blues-centric label, called
LocoBop. Von had never seen
LocoBop’s site, but one look was all it took for him to realize
that this is where his new album belonged.
LocoBop is home to blues greats
like Rufus Thomas, Luther Ingram, Jerry Butler, Eddie Floyd, and
a host of other great blues acts. Von Johin’s album fit with
LocoBop like a foot in an old brown shoe. Von was now in the
company of some of his blues heroes, and having his music
accepted there was very validating.
It all happened pretty quickly
this time. Von Johin joined the label, sent the masters to
LocoBop, and Tim took care of the music publishing and album
artwork in one fell swoop.
In addition to joining
LocoBop’s
artist roster, Von Johin’s
real life avatar
Mike Lawson will also be a songwriter for
Whitsett Brothers Music BMI, thus completing the business
arrangements and leaving Von to do what he does best: sing his
blues to friends around the world who tune in almost nightly to
hear him live in Second Life.
In tribute to the era of
recordings when mono ruled and stereo was the new thing, both
mono and stereo versions of the album are available for
download. Von the Revelator will also be available soon in CD
through Amazon.com.
Von Johin extends his many
thanks to Warren and Phil at Reality for first signing him and
getting him to record his music to begin with, because none of
this would have likely started without them asking him to do
that. He never planned to come into Second Life and do anything
other than maybe one show a week for fun. But, it all kind of
exploded from there.
With his new home at LocoBop, Von hopes to
find subsequent recordings coming out quickly as he works to try
to rise to the level of the people with whom he now shares a
spot on the roster.
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