If, like us, you frequently wonder what happened to Døvydas Maščinskas, who reached the final of Lithuania's Got Talent in 2009 but finished last following a disagreement with the show's producers over what he should wear for his performance, wonder no more.
These days, Maščinskas is in the US, a successful busker with a sizeable social media following. And when we say sizeable, we mean it: he's got 1.84 million followers on YouTube alone. He's so successful, in fact, that he's discarded his surname altogether, and is known simply as Døvydas. You know, like Prince, Madonna or Ozzy.
In 2017, footage of Døvydasa playing an ad-hoc take on Steve Vai's Tender Surrender during a sparsely-attended four-hour show at Motorworks Brewing in Bradenton, FL, went viral.
"The first hour was empty," said Døvydasa. "I played for myself, took some video, made up music. [The] second hour was when a party of three people showed up and that was my first audience of that slow Tuesday night. I've greeted them and began interacting in between songs. And after building up a rapport one lady felt comfortable enough to shout out a request. The rest you can see in the video."
A live audience of three. 11 million subsequent views and counting. A lightbulb moment.
"If a tree falls in the woods and there is no one around to hear it does it still make a noise?" he asked. "Well, it does if you put it on video."
Døvydas is now in California and pumps out videos most days. Many are watched by millions. Typical clips feature the musician playing guitar and percussion, building songs using a Boss RC505 Tabletop Loop Station, allowing him to compile complete performances on the fly.
The videos come with enticing titles like Jimmy Page Comes to Listen When Someone Requests Led Zeppelin at The Crossroads Guitar Festival (Spoiler: Jimmy Page doesn't appear in the clip), this week's I Ask if She Knows Pink Floyd and This Violinist Stuns The Crowd (Spoiler: The crowd isn't actually stunned) or When You Play Johnny Cash in a Waffle House (OK, we're sold).
The same violinist who stunned the crowd in the Pink Floyd video also showed up in I Ask if She Knows Led Zeppelin and This Violinist Steals The Show just before Christmas. The mystery violinist, otherwise known as fellow YouTuber Karolina Protsenko (following: 8.6 million), accompanies Døvydas on an apparently unrehearsed version of Whole Lotta Love, and while it's entirely possible that the pair did, in fact, prepare the performance earlier, we'll give them the benefit of the doubt because they're both so prodigiously talented.
Meanwhile, across the internet, Katerina's YouTube channel hosts a video filmed at the same time entitled I Ask a Rockstar if He Knows Kashmir by Led Zeppelin and Steal His Show, which features Døvydas looking as innocent and unprepared to play Led Zeppelin as she did in his clips. You get the idea. They're in cahoots, but it doesn't matter because it works.
Check them out.
