While my qualifications for bringing Texas to anyone are not very good, Sonya Jevette came back after a long absence from Cat's Art MusikCircus and it was a major delight to see and hear her playing a set again.
Greeks make very good honey but Sonya Jevette's voice can do it too and very well. The song that was most remarkable to me last night was "A Lovely Day" (I may not have the title right) and the song hooked me. There was something about the melody that was very much captivating and I'd love to hear that one again. I'm not sure if it was an original but I would be very surprised if it was not. It sounded very much Sonya which is an excellent thing as she's quite a prolific songwriter.
Update: Sonya has just told me that "A Lovely Day" is by Bill Withers. She mixes up her originals and covers and anything she covers she makes her own so it all flows. You can see above that I would have sworn Sonya had written the song, she brings it so much to her style.
I've said it before but it's still worth repeating that Sonya does a knockout job on "Hotel California." Ordinarily this is a song that has been so overplayed as to make you want to commit suicide if you hear it again but Sonya brings her own phrasing and that brings the song to life.
Something that worked quite nicely last night was running the audio from Second Life into the PA so Sonya was really kicking it up here. She uses a very beefy kick drum and it sounded very cool back here. Most of all, the sound was close to perfect so Sonya's voice was sounding wonderful.
And she did the "Big Girls" song!
From left to right: Cat Boucher, Kasandra Barony, Sonya Jevette, Silas Scarborough
I don't know if Sonya even wants to do the song as she must have done it a billion times already ... but you can't tell it from how she sings it. She sounds like she is having fun all through it. Medora Chevalier didn't quite get to the show in time as she missed the song and she very much likes to get up on-stage for it. The opportunity is not lost as I'm happy to tell you Sonya Jevette will be back next week on the 23rd and she will be coming back biweekly from then forward.
So then there was me.
One word of advice to anyone following Sonya: don't sing!
So I didn't and that wasn't a problem. I was feeling pretty good about playing but there are ongoing knob problems which are infuriating to listeners as twisting knobs in a set is not good at all. With all the odd devices I use, some knob twisting is necessary and the pursuit of finding better ways to do it continues.
Voodoo Shilton was there again and that was a massively cool thing. He said he was a bit envious of the feedback on the guitar and that was cool as he was probably the only one there who would know how hard it is to do that! The difficulty of it really doesn't matter as you only care about what you hear rather than whether a jammer walked twenty kilometers while being attacked by flying monkeys just to play for you. What does matter is wiggling the string under your finger as that will draw out the feedback and control it. This makes one of the most beautiful sounds I know and it's one of the biggest reasons I love to play electric.
Voodoo will be back to play tonight, as will Phoenix J and Joaquin Gustav. It's going to be a big night at the circus and hopefully we will see you there.
I will also be playing tonight at the Shan Chard celebration and that will be at 11pm SLT. That's 8am for Cat so she might even be able to be there too!
Greeks make very good honey but Sonya Jevette's voice can do it too and very well. The song that was most remarkable to me last night was "A Lovely Day" (I may not have the title right) and the song hooked me. There was something about the melody that was very much captivating and I'd love to hear that one again. I'm not sure if it was an original but I would be very surprised if it was not. It sounded very much Sonya which is an excellent thing as she's quite a prolific songwriter.
Update: Sonya has just told me that "A Lovely Day" is by Bill Withers. She mixes up her originals and covers and anything she covers she makes her own so it all flows. You can see above that I would have sworn Sonya had written the song, she brings it so much to her style.
I've said it before but it's still worth repeating that Sonya does a knockout job on "Hotel California." Ordinarily this is a song that has been so overplayed as to make you want to commit suicide if you hear it again but Sonya brings her own phrasing and that brings the song to life.
Something that worked quite nicely last night was running the audio from Second Life into the PA so Sonya was really kicking it up here. She uses a very beefy kick drum and it sounded very cool back here. Most of all, the sound was close to perfect so Sonya's voice was sounding wonderful.
And she did the "Big Girls" song!
From left to right: Cat Boucher, Kasandra Barony, Sonya Jevette, Silas Scarborough
I don't know if Sonya even wants to do the song as she must have done it a billion times already ... but you can't tell it from how she sings it. She sounds like she is having fun all through it. Medora Chevalier didn't quite get to the show in time as she missed the song and she very much likes to get up on-stage for it. The opportunity is not lost as I'm happy to tell you Sonya Jevette will be back next week on the 23rd and she will be coming back biweekly from then forward.
So then there was me.
One word of advice to anyone following Sonya: don't sing!
So I didn't and that wasn't a problem. I was feeling pretty good about playing but there are ongoing knob problems which are infuriating to listeners as twisting knobs in a set is not good at all. With all the odd devices I use, some knob twisting is necessary and the pursuit of finding better ways to do it continues.
Voodoo Shilton was there again and that was a massively cool thing. He said he was a bit envious of the feedback on the guitar and that was cool as he was probably the only one there who would know how hard it is to do that! The difficulty of it really doesn't matter as you only care about what you hear rather than whether a jammer walked twenty kilometers while being attacked by flying monkeys just to play for you. What does matter is wiggling the string under your finger as that will draw out the feedback and control it. This makes one of the most beautiful sounds I know and it's one of the biggest reasons I love to play electric.
Voodoo will be back to play tonight, as will Phoenix J and Joaquin Gustav. It's going to be a big night at the circus and hopefully we will see you there.
I will also be playing tonight at the Shan Chard celebration and that will be at 11pm SLT. That's 8am for Cat so she might even be able to be there too!
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