Slamming the current generation of pop musicians for their utterly banal music is not my first choice in a music review but the ubiquity of this insufferable rubbish in England made such reviews inevitable. For me to respect a musician, he or she has to be taking chances, call it going out on the edge, if you like. Cat looks for the same thing and that's why you see the types of performers who appear at her MusikCircus.
There were problems with audio last night in Firestorm so I couldn't hear anything of the set by Joachin Gustav. Things were a little testy with Cat as this was our Big First Date after being so long away from Second Life and it would have been much better to have been talking about music than some rubbish about button-pushing to find out what was wrong with my audio feed.
But then Voodoo Shilton arrived and he suggested listening to his show through iTunes. Every online music stream is effectively a radio station so the CMD-U command in iTunes can be used to open the URL for the stream and listen with that software rather than the Firestorm browser. This worked perfectly so then Cat and I could get down to dancing while Voodoo played and it was wonderful.
Something I remarked several times during the show was that I didn't think I was fooling myself from being away so long that Voodoo was really outdoing himself in his show. I've been watching his show over the last year and it seems not quite a year ago he decided his set had gone flat and he started trying new things. He has been roaring ever since and he gets better and better with every show. Last night it sounded like he was truly inspired as it's obvious he can play very quickly but less obvious is the eloquence of his play at low speed and he was doing both beautifully. In my view, it's harder to play slowly as there is a very special touch you need and it's not just physical.
Voodoo Shilton exemplifies what I am looking to see and hear in musicians in that he is constantly taking chances and his music gets constantly better from it. There is more than a mechanical or intellectual change as the feeling emanates from his as well. The trouble with playing a lot of shows is that they can become routine, even if the performer is playing really brilliant things. The mere act of repetition can make something go stale. However the feeling Voodoo brings is so obviously genuine that it helps enormously in keeping the liveness of the music.
Something that adds more to a show than Cat will willingly acknowledge is the way Cat sets up the stage. Usually she will decorate it with some type of image appropriate to whichever performer and I've run lots of pictures of those. Last night she used an image that was moving and it was an abstraction that added to the jazz of the whole show. Cat and I talk quite a bit about whether a big stage show adds or detracts from the purity of the musical expression of a show but going deep into that subject goes beyond this article. Last night the visuals were perfect for the music Voodoo was playing so that gives me all the more fuel in saying more lights, more lights, more lights.
For the second to last song, Voodoo dedicated it to Cat and I and this made for a very beautiful moment. We dance through the shows but we usually don't talk a lot as she is busy running the show and it's a lot more work than you may think. This song came when most of her work was finished and we could simply dance and enjoy it. This is the kind of intimacy that makes a Second Life performance unique as the performer can see and talk with anyone in the audience and the relationship is quite different from a real-life show. With each song he played there was a wonderful feeling of It Is Damn Good to Be Back and this one capped it all beautifully.
Last night was magical and thank you specially to Voodoo for playing it and Cat for making it happen. In case you have never heard Voodoo and are put off by the idea of an hour of jazz, go anyway. His shows are exciting while many jazz shows are not. When he says 'here we go' during a song, hang onto your armrests as something spectacular is about to come.
Sorry I have no pictures for this review but things were a bit buggy in the software last night. I'm not sure that I will write reviews every week as I have in the past. I don't think this serves a performer well in that it will seem I'm doing a job rather than writing out of enthusiasm. I suspect nevertheless that I'll write quite a few over the next week as I'll finally hear all of the shows again at Cat's Art MusikCircus.
There were problems with audio last night in Firestorm so I couldn't hear anything of the set by Joachin Gustav. Things were a little testy with Cat as this was our Big First Date after being so long away from Second Life and it would have been much better to have been talking about music than some rubbish about button-pushing to find out what was wrong with my audio feed.
But then Voodoo Shilton arrived and he suggested listening to his show through iTunes. Every online music stream is effectively a radio station so the CMD-U command in iTunes can be used to open the URL for the stream and listen with that software rather than the Firestorm browser. This worked perfectly so then Cat and I could get down to dancing while Voodoo played and it was wonderful.
Something I remarked several times during the show was that I didn't think I was fooling myself from being away so long that Voodoo was really outdoing himself in his show. I've been watching his show over the last year and it seems not quite a year ago he decided his set had gone flat and he started trying new things. He has been roaring ever since and he gets better and better with every show. Last night it sounded like he was truly inspired as it's obvious he can play very quickly but less obvious is the eloquence of his play at low speed and he was doing both beautifully. In my view, it's harder to play slowly as there is a very special touch you need and it's not just physical.
Voodoo Shilton exemplifies what I am looking to see and hear in musicians in that he is constantly taking chances and his music gets constantly better from it. There is more than a mechanical or intellectual change as the feeling emanates from his as well. The trouble with playing a lot of shows is that they can become routine, even if the performer is playing really brilliant things. The mere act of repetition can make something go stale. However the feeling Voodoo brings is so obviously genuine that it helps enormously in keeping the liveness of the music.
Something that adds more to a show than Cat will willingly acknowledge is the way Cat sets up the stage. Usually she will decorate it with some type of image appropriate to whichever performer and I've run lots of pictures of those. Last night she used an image that was moving and it was an abstraction that added to the jazz of the whole show. Cat and I talk quite a bit about whether a big stage show adds or detracts from the purity of the musical expression of a show but going deep into that subject goes beyond this article. Last night the visuals were perfect for the music Voodoo was playing so that gives me all the more fuel in saying more lights, more lights, more lights.
For the second to last song, Voodoo dedicated it to Cat and I and this made for a very beautiful moment. We dance through the shows but we usually don't talk a lot as she is busy running the show and it's a lot more work than you may think. This song came when most of her work was finished and we could simply dance and enjoy it. This is the kind of intimacy that makes a Second Life performance unique as the performer can see and talk with anyone in the audience and the relationship is quite different from a real-life show. With each song he played there was a wonderful feeling of It Is Damn Good to Be Back and this one capped it all beautifully.
Last night was magical and thank you specially to Voodoo for playing it and Cat for making it happen. In case you have never heard Voodoo and are put off by the idea of an hour of jazz, go anyway. His shows are exciting while many jazz shows are not. When he says 'here we go' during a song, hang onto your armrests as something spectacular is about to come.
Sorry I have no pictures for this review but things were a bit buggy in the software last night. I'm not sure that I will write reviews every week as I have in the past. I don't think this serves a performer well in that it will seem I'm doing a job rather than writing out of enthusiasm. I suspect nevertheless that I'll write quite a few over the next week as I'll finally hear all of the shows again at Cat's Art MusikCircus.
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