Friday, April 11, 2014

Was ist Ungewöhnlich in Cat's Art MusikCircus (English mit einige Deutsch)

Meine neueste Wort is ungewöhnlich.  Einzigartig is gut aber einzigartig und ungewöhnlich sind sehr gut.  Und so ist es in Cat's Art MusikCircus.

(My newest word is unusual.  Unique is good but unique and unusual are very good.  And so it is at Cat's Art MusikCircus)



Tonight was Siggi's debut in SL and this is a time of much rejoicing as the debut is a very special time.  No-one ever forgets the first show they played in Second Life and now Siggi has that one behind him.  On Cat's behalf, I'm ever so proud to say it was at the MusikCircus.

Siggi makes his music with a computer as this is another way of looping.  You can build songs out of anything you like ... and Siggi certainly does.  His music has a big beat on the bottom and some kind of industrial vibe floating over the top.  (I have no idea and don't care what 'industrial' means in the context of rock genres, I just know what machines sound like.)

One of his songs was "Don't Touch My Pot" so I guess if you go to visit Siggi then don't be cheap, bring some of your own.  Pot smokers are like wine tasters except, well, we don't spit it back out again because it's a much better buzz.  Hey, bro, try some of this stuff I brought.  Oh, yah, yah, it's got great ambience and super tripfulness.  But, wait, man.  Try some of this one as it's got great body glow and sometimes spectral agents from other dimensions.

(Ed:  get on with it)

Right.

So that's a big smile when somebody cuts loose for the first time and Siggi especially as he's a very good guy.  Er spricht Deutsch und einige Englisch and conversation switches back and forth from English zum Deutsch.  Diese ist sehr interessant and it gives me a good boost to keep learning.

I can tell you about whether Siggi's show was good but this will tell you better.  He had a request to play at another venue before his set was finished.  Yep, that will tell you.  Experimental is a limited taste in Second Life but it is definitely real.



Left to right:  Silas Scarborough, Cat Boucher, Sonya Jevette, Riana Magic


Sonya Jevette is special when she covers something by Adele but I don't miss Adele at all when Sonya sings her originals.  I believe it's inevitable that more passion and nuance will come to singing an original song even if you don't try to put it there.  With a cover song you feel the words to some extent but you didn't live those words.  Maybe you lived something similar but that's not the same.  For Sonya's originals, she has lived those words and you can feel every bit of that.

Something I noticed was a change to the tone of Sonya's guitar (Gibson ES-335 blues guitar) and I thought it was very good, very well-matched to what she was singing.  It makes me so sure she could benefit from a looper.  She said they're too complicated and some of them are but others have one button; kick it once to start recording and click it again to playback and loop.  Sonya loves to play lead so I figure a looper would turn her into a total riff monster.  I love what she does already, I just think she would have fun with one.

There are sets when you perform and there are sets when you are 'on' and Sonya was definitely 'on' last night.



Silas Scarborough was dressed in regal finery with a sweeping blue thing with silver-looking things and black pants, also with silver-looking things, and, well, biker boots and cheap sunglasses.  Fashion, as ever, is life.

Trying to be clever would be tiresome (for you) as something I have learned as I have crashed through this life is that more and more people are more clever than I.  Therefore, to the gist.  Yes, the gist, we must have the gist.

Cat said this was a big one for me and she isn't gushy like that so hearing this from her means a lot to me.  I've split out seven songs from the show but it's late and I'll work with them in the morning as I intend to upload all or most of them.  There were a couple more but I figured I would be damned to eternal hellfire if I ever bring them into the same world as a Tennessee bullfrog.

(Ed:  Tennessee bullfrogs are pretty cool.)

Right you are and a Tennessee bullfrog symphony in the summer evening is one rare pleasure.  That's a time for a sky full of stars, squeaking rocking chairs, not much need to say anything, and bullfrogs singing their bullfrog love to the heavens ... and female bullfrogs.  Laugh if you like but someday I hope you will hear for yourself.

I will do a low-level mastering of the tunes as that's when you get the audio levels in each one compatible with the others so the volume doesn't leap all over the place in playback.  After that I'm thinking it would be good to upload them to the Ride the Dragon podcast.

The main thing musically is that echo needs a much better reason for me than it has for many years.  I'm using it much less and, hopefully, you can hear something better than it was.  I want clarity and precision but there are still too many damn spurious string hits.  I'll hear that stuff and cringe, thinking, would it be too much to ask if just one time you could hit the string you wanted rather than all the ones you didn't.

Cat Boucher brings you three hours of continuous live music and every bit of it was original ... but ... this was not the first time.  I'll have another article on that later as that goes too far beyond this one.  Keep in mind that for the MusikCircus, every night is different but Cat works very hard to keep things musically-consistent within any night as the flow from one set to the next is important to her.

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