Saturday, December 14, 2013

Voodoo Shilton ist der MusikCircus FeuerMensch (English text)

FeuerMensch isn't the actual word for Fireman in German but it still works and Voodoo Shilton does light some very good fires.  He's there almost every Friday night and you can read more about him in his Artist Profile on the MusikCircus Web site.


I've written many times about Voodoo Shilton in the past and I shouldn't blast past his superlative skills as a guitarist but what has been grabbing me lately is the way he has been playing a saxophone. You have probably all heard the sound of a bad sax on a synthesiser and this sound more than many is what makes people want to smash up synthesisers and use them for ballast on a highway project ... but ... Voodoo has got a sax voice that is too too cool.  He told me how he is doing it but that gets too technical for now.

Getting the sound is one thing but using it is quite another and this is where the genius part comes into it.  There is no huge secret that he uses a keyboard to play the sax sounds but the magic is how he does it as he is getting that sax to breathe and scream like you wouldn't believe.  It's immensely expressive and and has added enormously to his sound overall.

It doesn't do to focus too much on any one sound Voodoo employs as the hallmark of his show is that he uses a lot of them ... although we haven't heard the peanut butter jar in a while.  Voodoo had been very much a man of the acoustic guitar and that's what he did, played acoustic guitar but not so much else.  He's incredibly good at it so why not.  However, he has been pushing his music wider and wider with all these different sounds over the last year and that's what lifts him into a sound world he made himself.


There's no dance picture with Cat as dancing is a hard thing when you're on one of the rings hanging from the ceiling.  That's her over Voodoo's shoulder above the stage.  The concerts at Cat's Art MusikCircus are just a wee bit different from the ones you may attend anywhere else.

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