A few days ago James Corachea gave his good-bye show at Key West in Second Life. During the course of it he said over a live mike that the attendance for the show was larger than anything he had ever seen before in Second Life. Predictably, some said they will miss him when he's gone.
Some may think that's cool but I think it sucks. Where were these people for all his other shows. I'm not angry for something I wasn't willing to do myself as I had been to many of James' performances and know he has a unique and extraordinary style. I also know that the attendance at James' shows was often not very good and this despite unique and extraordinary efforts Cat made to publicise them. I often wrote reviews of his performances as well ... but people still went to the Second Life karaoke shows which have no more relation to music than a dogfight has to a ballet.
The phenomenon above is symptomatic of a much larger problem in music and is exemplified by musical horrorshows like "America's Got Talent" or Britain's "The X Factor" which exist only to feature singers and the band doesn't matter anymore. This has been more destructive of music than a fire at the music store that burns all the instruments. While many of these singers have great talent, it's wasted on the Diva Phenomenon which almost invariably produces musical crap with the result that real musicians starve while Taylor Swift becomes a world-wide success.
The time to tell musicians you will miss them if they leave Second Life is before they have made a decision to leave, not when they have already committed to depart. The same is true for venues that feature music that goes beyond the ordinary. Cat has for years been bringing you musicians with exceptional skills and she works exceptionally hard to do it. She too can get to feeling down about attendance as she truly loves her musicians and wants very much for them to succeed. She's not in it for the money or she would have given up years ago.
For my part, I'm going to find Sonya Jevette when I get to Texas. She played regularly at Cat's Art MusikCircus but stopped when problems with technology got her down. Problems with technology can be fixed but really at the bottom of it was that she is a musician who sings, plays the guitar herself, and writes most of the songs she performs. She saw the same phenomenon with the karaoke singers and eventually she gave up. So I will find her and bring her to you in video. Perhaps that will encourage her to return but even if it doesn't you'll be able to hear "Big Girls" one more time.
No comments:
Post a Comment