The first surprise a message from Voodoo Shilton to let me know he was ill and could not play at Cat's Art MusikCircus. It's nothing serious so I wished him well and he will be back next week. This led to the second surprise and that will come later in the article.
The show must go on and Joaquin Gustav played the first one. What's kind of a surprise but really shouldn't be after I've been listening to him for so many years is the freshness he always brings to his music.
What Joaquin Gustav brings to his shows is the authenticity of an Argentinian gentleman. You can feel it with every note he plays regardless of whether you have heard him play the song before. He's been playing for a long time and he's well past the point at which the best or the worst means anything and he plays for love. Of course he needs the money - every musician does - but before that is always the love.
Joaquin plays a number of covers in the first part of his set but they don't feel like covers as he plays them Latin style and he makes them all his own. Since I first picked up a guitar I've never understood why anyone would want to play a song the way it was originally done as why not just play the CD! It's not that way at all with Joaquin as he plays songs like "Samba Pa Ti," "Summertime," and others with a Latin delicacy that is quite extraordinary.
Anyone who has heard his set before knows that Tango Time will come and that's where he took it at the end. It's really tough to tell what Joaquin likes to play the most as he brings the same feeling to everything, that he simply loves doing it and he's happy and grateful to be able to share it.
One of the people with whom Joaquin was sharing his music was Roo and she said the perch was quite a comfortable vantage point:
No, that's not two avatars up there and I don't really know how that works. Ask her!
And, oh yes, Cat and I danced. Only a fish or a dead man wouldn't feel like shaking a leg during a Joaquin Gustav performance!
If you're thinking, man that sure looks like a snake she's got around her, you would be quite right. She asked if I worried about the snake but of course I didn't as when you're smitten you don't care about being bitten! (laughs)
(Ed: So, what about the surprise?)
Right!
The second surprise is that I played the show after Joaquin. Silas Scarborough returns to live performance and yahoo about that! I talked to Cat in the late evening as she wasn't aware Voodoo had canceled and I suggested filling in for him. I wasn't even ready to play a jingle for an Oscar Mayer hot dog commercial but if she wanted to do it then I was sure willing to try. She said go for it about an hour before we started setting up for Joaquin's show and at that point I knew ... man, you better learn some songs real quick!
Ready or not, show time came and here's what it looked like:
(I staged the picture and shot it this morning as it was impossible to do it during the set)
The guitar animation is by Ortho Vargas who has been running his guitar shop in Second Life for quite a long time. The animation is not inexpensive but it's the coolest one I ever saw in Second Life and it has all kinds of different moves it will perform. It even has the capability for remote control so Cat could change the animations while I play. We didn't try that but maybe next time.
There was no time to set up much of anything so I figured I'd been working on "Down for the Count" so I would use it to open. That busted right out of the gate as there were technical problems with it and the vocal was altogether lost. I dedicated it to Boston as everyone gets knocked down but the heart is in getting back up again. Unfortunately, the vocal didn't work worth a damn.
So I bagged any thought of using back tracks and decided, ok, we're just making it all up from here on out. That was when I explained my absence by saying I had been going downstream on a houseboat. That isn't even close to true but Cat knew what it meant and it resulted in a looper bit that went for some while.
The trouble was that I had no idea what it sounded like on the Second Life side. I just knew it sounded pretty bad on my side and I could only run on feel of the guitar and the instrument lights which is kind of like IFR for a pilot when the weather is so bad he can't see out the windows (laughs). I tried not to be too neurotic about it but I asked people quite a bit about how it was working for them and they said each time it was clear and working. By all rights, it should not have worked but Cat said there was only one brief time when the signal cut out for her so I'm loving it!
They were expecting hard-core Silas but I really haven't been doing that so much lately. There had to be at least one song with things falling off shelves and bottles breaking so the closer was "I Love Rats" and that was a lot of fun.
Many thanks to Cat for staging me as I've been dying to play for her and finally it happened. There was great happiness for both of us in it but I did try to keep the gushing over the microphone to a minimum! Cat is very much an inspiration in some ways which are public such as our talks about kraut rock and similar but also in private talks in which we get into all manner of things. She is also very much a motivation as she is the reigning Queen of Shut Up and Play! Don't just talk about it, DO IT!
Many thanks also to my Sis, Julie the Poet (Julie Juliesse), who was doing everything she could to promote the show. There was no notice anywhere that this would happen so Cat scrambled to notify people and Julie started doing it as well. I'm sorry I muffed the dedication but this set was running absolutely on vapor and love with a whole lot more of the love than the vapor!
Special thanks also to Crap Mariner who has been my friend for quite a few years and it was very good to get a chance to play for him again. Very few have given as much support to Second Life music or Second Life in general.
This set does not mean I have any interest in playing for anyone else but friends. That has always been my approach to Second Life music and, broke or not, I won't change it. There's one who previously asked me to play but has been acting like a flaming jerk lately. Even with money in her hand, she's still a flaming jerk and I won't play for her. If it's not about love, why even pick up the guitar!
I will likely be doing some impromptu gigs at Cat's Art MusikCircus during off-hours to shake out the set-up for live. While I do get a kick out of the challenge when things aren't working and you have to think every millisecond to keep it happening, I would much rather improve the set-up and take it just a wee bit easier. With the technical aspects out of the way, we can get to the real reason for rock'n'roll: explosions! (laughs)
Oh yes, do look forward to particle shows. This party is only just getting started! I have no idea when I'll next play a scheduled gig at the Circus as Cat already has a full ticket but we will work out something. It's absolutely not my purpose to displace anyone so we will see how it goes.
On a somewhat-related note: I talked with Sonya Jevette and we will get together, most likely on Tuesday, for a sound check to get her kit working right. I know it's agony when your system is letting you down in a show so we will do it without an audience and it's much more relaxed so she has the freedom to push buttons and see what happens. I'm sure we will get things sorted out so her show goes off on Thursday as it always has: psychedelic Soul straight from her heart.
The show must go on and Joaquin Gustav played the first one. What's kind of a surprise but really shouldn't be after I've been listening to him for so many years is the freshness he always brings to his music.
What Joaquin Gustav brings to his shows is the authenticity of an Argentinian gentleman. You can feel it with every note he plays regardless of whether you have heard him play the song before. He's been playing for a long time and he's well past the point at which the best or the worst means anything and he plays for love. Of course he needs the money - every musician does - but before that is always the love.
Joaquin plays a number of covers in the first part of his set but they don't feel like covers as he plays them Latin style and he makes them all his own. Since I first picked up a guitar I've never understood why anyone would want to play a song the way it was originally done as why not just play the CD! It's not that way at all with Joaquin as he plays songs like "Samba Pa Ti," "Summertime," and others with a Latin delicacy that is quite extraordinary.
Anyone who has heard his set before knows that Tango Time will come and that's where he took it at the end. It's really tough to tell what Joaquin likes to play the most as he brings the same feeling to everything, that he simply loves doing it and he's happy and grateful to be able to share it.
One of the people with whom Joaquin was sharing his music was Roo and she said the perch was quite a comfortable vantage point:
No, that's not two avatars up there and I don't really know how that works. Ask her!
And, oh yes, Cat and I danced. Only a fish or a dead man wouldn't feel like shaking a leg during a Joaquin Gustav performance!
If you're thinking, man that sure looks like a snake she's got around her, you would be quite right. She asked if I worried about the snake but of course I didn't as when you're smitten you don't care about being bitten! (laughs)
(Ed: So, what about the surprise?)
Right!
The second surprise is that I played the show after Joaquin. Silas Scarborough returns to live performance and yahoo about that! I talked to Cat in the late evening as she wasn't aware Voodoo had canceled and I suggested filling in for him. I wasn't even ready to play a jingle for an Oscar Mayer hot dog commercial but if she wanted to do it then I was sure willing to try. She said go for it about an hour before we started setting up for Joaquin's show and at that point I knew ... man, you better learn some songs real quick!
Ready or not, show time came and here's what it looked like:
(I staged the picture and shot it this morning as it was impossible to do it during the set)
The guitar animation is by Ortho Vargas who has been running his guitar shop in Second Life for quite a long time. The animation is not inexpensive but it's the coolest one I ever saw in Second Life and it has all kinds of different moves it will perform. It even has the capability for remote control so Cat could change the animations while I play. We didn't try that but maybe next time.
There was no time to set up much of anything so I figured I'd been working on "Down for the Count" so I would use it to open. That busted right out of the gate as there were technical problems with it and the vocal was altogether lost. I dedicated it to Boston as everyone gets knocked down but the heart is in getting back up again. Unfortunately, the vocal didn't work worth a damn.
So I bagged any thought of using back tracks and decided, ok, we're just making it all up from here on out. That was when I explained my absence by saying I had been going downstream on a houseboat. That isn't even close to true but Cat knew what it meant and it resulted in a looper bit that went for some while.
The trouble was that I had no idea what it sounded like on the Second Life side. I just knew it sounded pretty bad on my side and I could only run on feel of the guitar and the instrument lights which is kind of like IFR for a pilot when the weather is so bad he can't see out the windows (laughs). I tried not to be too neurotic about it but I asked people quite a bit about how it was working for them and they said each time it was clear and working. By all rights, it should not have worked but Cat said there was only one brief time when the signal cut out for her so I'm loving it!
They were expecting hard-core Silas but I really haven't been doing that so much lately. There had to be at least one song with things falling off shelves and bottles breaking so the closer was "I Love Rats" and that was a lot of fun.
Many thanks to Cat for staging me as I've been dying to play for her and finally it happened. There was great happiness for both of us in it but I did try to keep the gushing over the microphone to a minimum! Cat is very much an inspiration in some ways which are public such as our talks about kraut rock and similar but also in private talks in which we get into all manner of things. She is also very much a motivation as she is the reigning Queen of Shut Up and Play! Don't just talk about it, DO IT!
Many thanks also to my Sis, Julie the Poet (Julie Juliesse), who was doing everything she could to promote the show. There was no notice anywhere that this would happen so Cat scrambled to notify people and Julie started doing it as well. I'm sorry I muffed the dedication but this set was running absolutely on vapor and love with a whole lot more of the love than the vapor!
Special thanks also to Crap Mariner who has been my friend for quite a few years and it was very good to get a chance to play for him again. Very few have given as much support to Second Life music or Second Life in general.
This set does not mean I have any interest in playing for anyone else but friends. That has always been my approach to Second Life music and, broke or not, I won't change it. There's one who previously asked me to play but has been acting like a flaming jerk lately. Even with money in her hand, she's still a flaming jerk and I won't play for her. If it's not about love, why even pick up the guitar!
I will likely be doing some impromptu gigs at Cat's Art MusikCircus during off-hours to shake out the set-up for live. While I do get a kick out of the challenge when things aren't working and you have to think every millisecond to keep it happening, I would much rather improve the set-up and take it just a wee bit easier. With the technical aspects out of the way, we can get to the real reason for rock'n'roll: explosions! (laughs)
Oh yes, do look forward to particle shows. This party is only just getting started! I have no idea when I'll next play a scheduled gig at the Circus as Cat already has a full ticket but we will work out something. It's absolutely not my purpose to displace anyone so we will see how it goes.
On a somewhat-related note: I talked with Sonya Jevette and we will get together, most likely on Tuesday, for a sound check to get her kit working right. I know it's agony when your system is letting you down in a show so we will do it without an audience and it's much more relaxed so she has the freedom to push buttons and see what happens. I'm sure we will get things sorted out so her show goes off on Thursday as it always has: psychedelic Soul straight from her heart.
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