Michi Renoir is an Austrian keyboard artist and he played on Tuesday night at Cat Boucher's Art MusikCircus.
It was quite the dark and stormy night and it took a great deal of determination to get this show to happen at all. It seems that the Second Life maintenance people do some sort of support work on Tuesdays and there's only one problem with that: they suck at it. This is the second Tuesday in a row in which it was a disaster trying to login to Second Life.
The maintenance problems wrecked the show altogether last Tuesday but this time Cat and I kept fighting to get in there and, between the two of us, we made sure the show did go on. Cat gets frustrated with situations like that as there is so much she has to do before a show so it makes me feel like the total manly man to be able to help her.
All of this was happening in the hour before the show was scheduled and we couldn't do anything until just about show time when suddenly we could get to the MusikCircus. We then moved very quickly and the show wasn't even very late in starting!
In the picture you will see that Michi is wearing a clown outfit and this is something quite charming about many of the performers at the MusikCircus as they will go all out to dress the part. Way down in your heart wouldn't you secretly like to be a clown as well!
Michi Renoir is a brilliant keyboard artist. He doesn't sing and, as I've been told personally multiple times, sometimes it's best if an artist does not sing. He plays with a highly rich and varied sound palette in his music, sometimes with a relatively simple piano and at other times with the fattest, deepest synthesizer sounds you could possibly want.
Michi plays what is called a 'keytar' and that's a quite ugly name for a very beautiful instrument that was first made famous by Edgar Winter in "Frankenstein." The most famous are the Yamaha KX5, as shown in Michi's picture, and also the Yamaha SHS-10.
There were frequent references to krautrock during Michi's performance as his music reminds very much of the inventiveness and the electronica they pioneered. The best way to understand this is to come to one of his shows at the MusikCircus and there will be another one next Tuesday. My friend, Anima XA, came last night and he was quite pleasantly surprised. I mention that as this was his first time and it was very good to see him there. We talk quite a bit on Facebook and our conversations challenge me to learn more German which I enjoy very much.
After the show there's usually some good conversation with the artist and the audience until things slow down and we call it an evening. Of course this happened with Michi but, after a time, there was a surprise and Cat announced that Deceptions Digital would be playing a set.
Digital, or DD as most call her, plays a quite rich electronic sound complete with drums, guitars, synthesizers and pianos. She creates elaborate arrangements and the result is very good. There is very little vocal in her work and I really wasn't quite sure if what I did hear was a human voice or if it was synthesized. There's nothing negative in that as we make music however we will and she has extraordinary skill at it.
While DD shows great compositional talent, her music is recorded so this will limit her performances because an audience will not keep returning if the music does not change. However, Cat and I very much support non-mainstream music which Deceptions does very well so it will be interesting to see how Digital evolves in the future. She will certainly be invited to play again at the MusikCircus.
This was an extraordinary night for dancing with Cat as we had tried some clown outfits earlier in the day. She's a very generous lady and she gave me some outfits to try. I loved them and told her I couldn't wait to see what they would look like when we danced together. I was a clown already in being part of the MusikCircus but that was in name only. As you will see below, now I can dress the part and Cat looked fabulous in her outfit.
Such an utter riot of color! Cat's inventive style in her dress and in the MusikCircus as a whole is one of many things I find so compelling about her and is one of many reasons I fell so madly in love with her.
You can't see me so well in the picture but I'm there, it's just my skin is quite dark and I'm a bit difficult to see. I didn't want to go with another picture as I really enjoy Cat's colors and wanted to bring that to you. If you look closely then you will see my eyes over her right shoulder and, of course, I'm looking at her.
It was quite the dark and stormy night and it took a great deal of determination to get this show to happen at all. It seems that the Second Life maintenance people do some sort of support work on Tuesdays and there's only one problem with that: they suck at it. This is the second Tuesday in a row in which it was a disaster trying to login to Second Life.
The maintenance problems wrecked the show altogether last Tuesday but this time Cat and I kept fighting to get in there and, between the two of us, we made sure the show did go on. Cat gets frustrated with situations like that as there is so much she has to do before a show so it makes me feel like the total manly man to be able to help her.
All of this was happening in the hour before the show was scheduled and we couldn't do anything until just about show time when suddenly we could get to the MusikCircus. We then moved very quickly and the show wasn't even very late in starting!
In the picture you will see that Michi is wearing a clown outfit and this is something quite charming about many of the performers at the MusikCircus as they will go all out to dress the part. Way down in your heart wouldn't you secretly like to be a clown as well!
Michi Renoir is a brilliant keyboard artist. He doesn't sing and, as I've been told personally multiple times, sometimes it's best if an artist does not sing. He plays with a highly rich and varied sound palette in his music, sometimes with a relatively simple piano and at other times with the fattest, deepest synthesizer sounds you could possibly want.
Michi plays what is called a 'keytar' and that's a quite ugly name for a very beautiful instrument that was first made famous by Edgar Winter in "Frankenstein." The most famous are the Yamaha KX5, as shown in Michi's picture, and also the Yamaha SHS-10.
There were frequent references to krautrock during Michi's performance as his music reminds very much of the inventiveness and the electronica they pioneered. The best way to understand this is to come to one of his shows at the MusikCircus and there will be another one next Tuesday. My friend, Anima XA, came last night and he was quite pleasantly surprised. I mention that as this was his first time and it was very good to see him there. We talk quite a bit on Facebook and our conversations challenge me to learn more German which I enjoy very much.
After the show there's usually some good conversation with the artist and the audience until things slow down and we call it an evening. Of course this happened with Michi but, after a time, there was a surprise and Cat announced that Deceptions Digital would be playing a set.
Digital, or DD as most call her, plays a quite rich electronic sound complete with drums, guitars, synthesizers and pianos. She creates elaborate arrangements and the result is very good. There is very little vocal in her work and I really wasn't quite sure if what I did hear was a human voice or if it was synthesized. There's nothing negative in that as we make music however we will and she has extraordinary skill at it.
While DD shows great compositional talent, her music is recorded so this will limit her performances because an audience will not keep returning if the music does not change. However, Cat and I very much support non-mainstream music which Deceptions does very well so it will be interesting to see how Digital evolves in the future. She will certainly be invited to play again at the MusikCircus.
This was an extraordinary night for dancing with Cat as we had tried some clown outfits earlier in the day. She's a very generous lady and she gave me some outfits to try. I loved them and told her I couldn't wait to see what they would look like when we danced together. I was a clown already in being part of the MusikCircus but that was in name only. As you will see below, now I can dress the part and Cat looked fabulous in her outfit.
Such an utter riot of color! Cat's inventive style in her dress and in the MusikCircus as a whole is one of many things I find so compelling about her and is one of many reasons I fell so madly in love with her.
You can't see me so well in the picture but I'm there, it's just my skin is quite dark and I'm a bit difficult to see. I didn't want to go with another picture as I really enjoy Cat's colors and wanted to bring that to you. If you look closely then you will see my eyes over her right shoulder and, of course, I'm looking at her.
3 comments:
Have to correct you on michi's appearance. The look is more GlamRock/AdamAnt (remember him?) than clown, it's what he normally wears for gigs. Great blog anyway.
Thanks for the great comments on his music. Interesting remarks re DD recording her music, as someone at a previous gig told michi his music was crap because he uses backing tracks (even though he composes and makes them himself and plays a lot of live improv), rather than playing live like DD. I know michi felt pretty insulted by that and who can blame him. (Janeel).
Thank you! I had no idea you read this! Cat and I were talking about this and how people get judgmental about back tracks without really understanding them. I did the same thing in recording keyboard and bass, etc so I could play guitar on top of the tracks and I was insulted when people would criticise the practice. Usually those who do it are just speaking arbitrarily and haven't much knowledge of the subject.
Yes, I assumed that, though apparently that person had told Michi he was also a keyboard player, though that could mean a lot of things. I mean, I could call myself a guitar player though really I can only strum a few chords!
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