CNN catches up with Michael Penn on the occasion of his "best of" collection's release -- which is, in itself, a curious story of how corporate consolidation can actually benefit the kinds of "dropped" major label acts I wrote about in Grow Your Band's Audience.

Even more interesting, from a purely artistic standpoint, is Penn's desire to explore virtual touring in Second Life. Even though SL is still very much a subculture, it has the potential to do for artists even more than MySpace, since audience members in SL are actually eager to share communal experiences there.

If given a chance, would you mount a tour of Second Life? And how would you run your merch tables?

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