by Traci Nubalo
Metaverse Tribune - April 24, 2012
So there I was minding my own business at Stella Silvansky’s set at Merry Prankster’s when I was IMed by the ever-popular and mega-talented Second Life musician Mamaa Saiz, who was standing near me at the show. “If I had her intonation I would be as dangerous as a gay guy with a chipped tooth”, he jokes. {rimshot} I had written a piece on Mamaa for this paper, and the musician/musician trust level has grown between us. We quite often engage in “shop talk” at various inworld gigs.
Traci Nubalo: She has a very expressive voice.
Mamaa Saiz: Yes, and great pitch. She is a natural. I got to meet her in Dallas and she’s a very sweet lady. And her voice is a perfect extension of her personality.
TN: Yes, she’s a very honest performer.
MS: I think the 'voice as another instrument' thing is fairly new for her. She‘s coming along nicely as a guitarist. She is learning and she isn't afraid to try things; but it takes time to get seasoned. Stella rocks.
TN: Agreed.
At that moment, Stella is treating her audience to a right-on version of Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” in which they are “singing” along: “p-p-p-poker face p-p-p-poker faaaace”. There’s never a shortage of good times at a Stella Silvansky show.
She reminds us that she’s streaming “live from western Maine” and playfully interjects that tonight she’s in her pajamas while playing, which of course brings a variety of hilarious responses from the crowd. Many of those present are members of Stella’s fan group and join her at multiple shows every week.
She very artfully transitions from Gaga to “I Think We’re Alone Now” - the Richie Cordell hit which was first piloted to #1 back in the day by Tommy James and the Shondells and later by Tiffany. Cordell wrote during that wonderfully-classic period in singer/songwriter rock history where a lean, hook-laden style of composition was all the rage. He also penned another chartbuster for James: “Mony Mony.” Then, before the audience can catch its breath Silvansky launches into a gorgeous “Poison and Wine” from the excellent Nashville duo The Civil Wars in which she backs her crystal-clear voice with some sweet guitar work.
** ** **
NOTICE: TECH TALK ahead!
Stella came to SL with an act which involved her singing to track, since at the time she didn’t play an instrument. It was just last April when she picked up a guitar for the first time and started to teach herself. As I mentioned, Mamaa and I both commented that we are blown away at the speed and quality of the learning curve she’s achieving on her Taylor 614-CE. She runs it through the built-in Taylor Expression system directly to an Alesis mixer where she adds “just a little reverb.”
For the vocals she uses, “a Shure SM58 Beta microphone, along with two pencil condenser mics, one aimed at the sound hole of the guitar and the other aimed at the 12th fret.”
END OF TECH TALK
** ** **
Back at Merry Prankster’s Stella glides effortlessly into Rihanna/Eminem’s ode to masochism “Love The Way You Lie”. She demonstrates excellent vocal control on this one, delivering at a steady, unhurried pace that’s perfect for the song. Another thing that I really like about her singing voice is that she’s able to vocalize with full tonal coloration even at slower tempos and when she’s using the soft, sweet, quieter side of her voice. The singers out there will attest to how challenging this can be.
Stella makes use of her excellent upper-register voice in covering Josh Ritter’s “Change of Time”. Once again, vocal sound quality and versatility rule. She reminds her fans, “If you haven’t checked out Josh Ritter you should.” Good call.
Silvansky, 39, found SL almost five years ago when she saw it featured on a TV episode of “The Office”. After being encouraged by stellar (no pun!) SL performer Maximillion Kleene, she was on her way. She and Kleene still team up to dual-stream inworld, much to the delight of both sets of fans.
She mentions Max during her set, when she performs a reprise of “Poker Face”. “Max Kleene sometimes repeats songs he likes in his set. And if he can do it so can I.”
After another audience participation segment (“p-p-p-poker faaaace”) she pulls a veteran stage move by downshifting into “Blue Jeans” by Lana Delray. It’s a delightfully passionate reading, highlighted by a gorgeous chorus of “I will love you till the end of time”, once again with the help of her ever-loyal audience singing along. I asked her about her fan group:
SS: Oh, there's no way I could do what I do without them. I’m still sort of awed that they come listen to show after show, some of them for as long as I've been playing in SL. I know most of them by name when they come to even just a few shows, and I'm so thankful that they do keep coming. Playing for an empty venue is no fun. And beyond that, my group is so warm and funny and supportive, it makes the shows more enjoyable for me.
TN: Excellent. What’s next for Stella Silvansky?
SS: Well, I look forward to continuing to learn more and more techniques on guitar, of course, but something I've just recently started to really embrace is dual-streaming with people like Voodoo Shilton and EricSteffensen Mistwalker, where they stream leads over me. It's helped me to think about what I'm doing as I'm giving them room to do what they do so well. They've been so much fun to dual with.
I found Stella to be a bright and fascinating person to interact with. She’s immensely talented as both her vocals and her recent rapid development on guitar shows. She’s also just a sweet, fun person to talk to.
I highly recommend that you add Stella Silvansky to your list of “must see” SL acts. Invest an hour on her - I promise that you won’t be disappointed.
You can reach Stella her on her website: www.reverbnation.com/stellasilvansky.
(c) Copyright Traci Nubalo 2012. All rights reserved.
by Traci Nubalo
"Greed" and "Heartbreak" images from Lexxi Lefavre
"Greed" and "Heartbreak" images from Lexxi Lefavre
Metaverse Tribune - April 3, 2012
(Our apologies - you may have to cut and paste the url addresses to get to the accompanying articles, until i can figure out why they are not linking correctly. Sorry!)
No matter what world we are in, if there’s something of value changing hands, you will find a dishonest person trying to scam a piece of the trade. Admittedly, they represent a very small percentage of us, but there are unscrupulous, scandalous people in both Second Life and in real life. Just knowing this should help eradicate any naive notions about being able to socialize on the grid totally without risk.
This being the case, I set about to explore fraud of varying types in Second Life, and to take a look at the effect that such behavior can have on the lives of residents here.
One piece of information I learned early in this investigation made me wonder about the true value of my avatar and her SL possessions. Terms of Service (TOS) says that lindens “are not real currency or any type of financial instrument and are not redeemable for any sum of money from Linden Lab at any time”. LL also protects itself by writing into that same TOS document language that says that it is not liable for losses incurred during a dispute among residents.
http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php#tos5
These factors have come into play in some cases where SL residents have sought the protection of RL authorities after being scammed in SL. When creating our avatars we “signed” TOS, agreeing that lindens have no true value. It’s then more difficult to prove damages once a fraud has been enacted.
Caveat emptor: “let the buyer beware”.
In 2007 some SL residents chose to interact with an inworld entity calling itself the Ginko Financial bank, attracted by the extravagant interest rates offered to depositors. After some months, however, Ginko suddenly announced restrictions on withdrawal amounts. Soon patrons began to receive only worthless “Ginko Perpetual Bonds” instead of lindens. By October the bank had closed its digital doors leaving as much as $750,000 USD lost in the virtual ether to the classic Ponzi scheme.Here's a great piece that Wired.com did on the event: http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/news/2007/08/virtual_bank
In another simple and effective hustle, an entity called Zen Cart sells lindens via attractive advertisements offering “deals” in lots of anywhere from 1,000 lindens to 100,000. But it’s the exchange rates that are at issue.
1,000 lindens = $8.50
25,000 lindens = $112
100,000 lindens = $400
Even if your avatar is enslaved on Gor and hasn’t been allowed out of the dungeon for years, you’d still know that about 270 lindens equal $1 USD.
Buying 1,000 lindens from Zen Cart offers the purchaser a mere 118 lindens /$1; a 25,000 linden purchase returns only 224 lindens/$1. And if I break my piggy bank to spring for the “best bargain” 100,000 linden package I am still not able to reach the everyday return offered at LindenX, the official SL exchange service. http://www.thelindenstore.com/store/
http://sites.google.com/site/slfreelindens/sllindenexchange
Other virtual platforms have fraud issues, as well, it seems. On February 14th this paper published an account of a recent credit card swindle at Inworldz. This scam involved the use of stolen credit cards to purchase massive amounts of I’z - the Inworldz version of SL’s linden dollars - which were then quickly converted to cash. When the Inwordz resident claimed fraud to the credit card company, the transactions were usually reversed, leaving Inworldz holding the bag.http://metaversetribune.com/2012/02/14/fraudulent-purchases-of-iz/
Other forms of fraud readily found in my exploration included intellectual-rights infringement, land grab schemes, linden laundering operations, product counterfeiting cases, and many others.
Some of those getting scammed are themselves part of the problem. The residents who yielded to the "hustle" of profiting from the exorbitant interest at Ginkos were partially trapped by their own greed. The Ginkos of the virtual world would never survive without residents who act on a desire to get something for nothing. The Zen Cart scam points out that residents can also be victimized by their own unwillingness to engage in the same levels of reasonably-cautious behavior here in SL as they would or should in RL.
On the MIT Technology Review website Linden Labs CFO Zee Linden offers this advice: “We caution our residents to be wary of anyone offering extremely high interest rates at no risk, either in the real world or in Second Life. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
http://metasecurity.net/2008/01/04/fraud-in-second-life-from-mit-technology-reviewSo what steps can a resident take to protect themselves and their virtual belongings in SL?
Do not open attachments in a suspicious email, even if they appear to be innocent (like a .txt file).
Check your account status regularly by visiting secondlife.com.
Keep your antivirus software up-to-date and scan for viruses regularly.
Change your account password frequently to keep your account secure.
If you have multiple accounts, use a different password for each account.
And be extremely careful if you decide to date or partner in SL.
** ** **
So we have looked at a few examples of fraudulent financial activities in Second Life and offered some basic suggestions on virtual security. Now we’re going to enter the ugly world of “dating fraud” in SL. This story has a little something for everyone: greed, deceit, infidelity, stalking, and blackmail. There's even a Second Life “fake death” thrown in for good measure. No kidding.
We will never know the entire truth of what happened. We do know this: a lot of good people were hurt by this. We hope that by telling what we learned the damage can at least be minimized, and the victims given a small measure of understanding. We use this tale as a great example of how careful we need to be in these crazy worlds we live in.
For obvious reasons, none of the names used in this section are the real names (in either RL or SL) of anyone involved.
** ** **
Once the people began to arrive it must have seemed that they would never stop. Most reports mention at least thirty attendees, though some say that as many as fifty or more cycled through during the two-hour event. People spoke, shared stories about their friend, read poetry, played music. Many, many tears were shed. This was just like any other memorial service held here in Second Life except for one huge difference: no one had died.
The Wife aka Wanda
We’ll call them Wanda and Paco. Wanda told me that they met when he performed in a club where they both worked. They “hooked up” and within a few months they married in SL. They were happy, as most newlyweds in any world tend to be. So happy, in fact that they had a SL baby.
“In those early days things between me and Paco were wonderful,” Wanda told me, “He was loving, kind and generous. On quite a few occasions we discussed becoming a RL couple. He even got on my Facebook page and said he was my husband in RL. I really thought that we would be together forever in SL and in RL,” she gushed.
But along the way a darkness of some kind seemed to creep in; things began to go very, very wrong.“Right after the SL wedding he got very possessive of me. He started to accuse me of cheating on him. He started to chase my friends away by IMing them and telling them to leave me alone.” In response to my direct question Wanda said, “I was 100% faithful to him. But the accusations just got worse and worse.”
I asked Wanda why they had never hooked up in RL, as they had talked about together a number of times. “No way I was going to meet him in person. By this time I feared for my life.”
The Deceased aka Paco
“It all started back in April when I partnered with Wanda here in SL. I’m divorced in RL and she told me she was, too. So we got together and yes, you can find love on here. We would Skype when I wasn’t singing and I did a few things on Skype with her that I shouldn’t have,” he confessed. “I didn’t know she was taking screen shots of me.”
“I found out that she was cheating on me in SL, so I broke it off with her, and she begged me to come back. Like a fool I took her back because I had feelings for her. We was (sic) supposed to take it RL until one night on Skype I heard a man’s voice in the background asking her if she was coming to bed any time soon. She then said she had to go. We got into a fight and I found out she was still married in RL.”
At this point, he seemed to break down a little bit emotionally, asking to be excused for a moment. He said that he had gotten so upset discussing this that he had trouble typing.
“Eventually I ejected her and banned her from my land and group and unpartnered her in SL. She began to send the Skype photos of me to various people, and then she and her friend Rob started coming to my shows harassing me. A lot of venues banned them from my shows. That’s when they brought in the alts to stalk me. Yes, I messed up in faking my death, but I did it to escape her blackmail attempts.”
The Friend
I first took an interest in Francine when I recognized her as the manager for a SL singer (not Paco). She told me she had known Paco since he first logged onto SL. At first he performed at her venue, and later they became personal friends. I asked her about him.
“Paco just seemed to be a good old boy. But he was dating several women in SL, and I know that one of them began sending out X-rated photos of him to RL and SL contacts. I’m certain they were blackmailing him with them. I do know that some were sent to the owners of SL music venues. He was very upset over this.” At that point she claimed to not know the name of the woman she says sent out these photos.
“But I know that Paco told her that he was having some serious surgery and that he might not be back to SL for a while. Apparently, for some reason, he did not have the surgery, but he did not immediately return to SL, either. That’s when this woman started telling my SL friends that Paco had died.” I asked Francine directly if she felt that Paco had tried to hoax anyone in all of this. “No I don’t. If you ask me where this all started I would say it was that woman.”
I mentioned Wanda’s name, and sent Francine a copy of the note that circulated announcing Paco's death. She jumped right on it. “That’s her! She was the one who was sending out the pictures. What you just sent me is the note that she was sending out to people in SL about his death.”
I asked Francine if she attended the service that was held in SL. “Yes. But all along I did not think he had died. I know his RL name and was unable to find any obituaries for him. I do think that those two - Wanda and Rob - had caused serious issues for him.” When asked why they would harass him, Francine said, “He dated and married her - and it seemed like there was a lot of dishonesty going on between them.”
The Matriarch
I met with Vanessa and her SL partner Oliver in their spacious and well-appointed SL home. I asked them how they knew Paco. “The first thing I recall about him was that he was professing undying love for my SL little sister Kimberly. I’m very protective of her, due to her having some RL health challenges. She has not a mean bone in her body. I was very hesitant to allow him to get too close to her.”
“At the memorial that we attended, they were collecting lindens to help care for Paco’s RL son, and to help with RL funeral expenses,” Vanessa said. Oliver added, “If they knew he wasn't dead, this was a fraud.”
No one really knows how much money changed hands at the memorial service. Despite having uncovered a copy of the actual chat log for the entire event, I could do no better than to ascertain that many people seemed to be giving - generously. I later talked to one SL couple who said that they had donated L$20,000 and that they were not alone in this generosity. Despite her “challenges” and living on a fixed income Kimberly scraped together her last L$5,000 and put it in the collection box.
So, some weeks later, acting on information provided by a SL resident, I paid a visit to a SL music venue; there he was! Onstage and singing his “not-so-dead” heart out. Same avatar, same name. When we chatted he was friendly and direct: “I didn’t intend for anyone to get hurt. But I was essentially being blackmailed.”
He confessed that he did, in fact, attend the memorial service in the guise of an alt. “But I didn’t take the money. I have no idea where that went.”
** ** **
No one I spoke with seemed to be willing to go on record with an honest recounting of what happened from A - Z. The lindens that were fraudulently collected turned up in SL a week later in the form of several donations to the inworld center for a legitimate cancer research organization.
Some said, “At least the money ended up being donated to a charity.” This is true. However, the person who did end up with the money from the memorial service can unfairly claim the donation to charity as a tax deduction. Second, the many people who “donated” were not given the truth about the situation. Certainly, a number of them may have chosen to not donate if they knew what was really going on.
Besides, I’d like to point out that the linden ripoff represents only a small part of the damage done by this episode. The greater tragedy lies in the broken trust that everyone involved was forced to suffer. When a SL friend “dies” it hits us very deeply. And when we learn that our grief was a result of deceit, fraud and theft, some get hurt so badly that they can never again feel safe and trusting in Second Life.
For the rest of us - Caveat emptor: "Let the buyer beware"
(c) Copyright 2012 Traci Nubalo. All rights reserved.
by Traci Nubalophotos by Jami Mills
rez Magazine - April, 2012
Chemistry.
Wikipedia: “chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms”. But the science of chemistry also tells us that when certain substances come together under certain circumstances the result can be explosive - literally. It’s a fitting description for the fireworks that take place in the Second Life live music laboratory when Mulder Watts and Voodoo Shilton take the stage together.
Each is a definitive solo artist in his own right. Seeing either name in Search sends me to the teleport button post haste. And on the rare occasion when they are going to dual-stream onstage - fuggeddaboudit - I’m there! When Watts and Shilton are playing together the musical chemistry can be both volatile and magical. The packed houses in music venues everywhere across the grid will attest to that.
My friend GarGraVarr Rau, owner of The Source (one of SL’s premiere music venues) approached me with a suggestion that I consider doing a story on Mulder and Shilton. Gar (as his many, many friends call him) has been presenting both performers in his club regularly since late 2011. He helped put these guys on the map and seems to get into continuing to help them as they move up the success ladder of the SL music scene. Thanks, Gar!
Mulder She Wrote
He tells me that he’s 38 years old and makes his home in the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis. I’m thinking that maybe he just stops there to pay the rent once a month - it looks to me like he might actually live on YouTube. Mulder Watts has one of the best collections of performance videos that I have encountered among inworld performers, if one factors in both quality and quantity. There are a bunch of them - some with Mulder playing live on-camera - and some with his beautifully-recorded songs gracing either still photo slideshows or static visuals. And there are several with one Voodoo Shilton, who himself has a major collection of videos online. This treasure-trove of visuals was my starting point.
In some ways Mulder is the quintessential singer/songwriter if you’re interested in straight-ahead excellence in craft. The songwriting and performance quality is first-rate across the board, with a growing catalog of superb videos being viewed and listened to globally.
On “Fool’s Gold” we are treated to that powerful Mulder voice in a closely-mic’ed recording situation. He sings each line with emotion and clarity, the voice laid on top of a chugging tremolo guitar.Another great exposition of Watts’ singing acumen is displayed on “Just Get By” which features a great raw-and-nasty guitar part behind those powerful pipes.
After watching videos until my eyes looked like a chihuahua’s I decided to interview both Mulder and Shilton. I found each to be in his own way fascinating and very interesting to talk to. For this reason I have decided to let them do most of the talking in this piece. Mulder and I sat down together and I asked him about his musical background.
Mulder Watts: I started out as a drummer and then took up piano. Eventually friends would leave guitars at my place and I picked that up. I started writing at an early age, but most of my RL live playing has been as a sideman playing keyboards. But I've always done a lot of demos at home and eventually started putting more of my own stuff out there. SL has been good for stepping out and doing more of that.
Traci Nubalo: Was your guitar welcome at home growing up?
MW: Oh yeah, my folks were and still are as supportive as one can ask. They put up with loud drums at any given point in the day. The guitar was probably a nice relief to that thunder.
TN: *smile* What kinds of bands were you in?
MW: My first band was in high school, mainly a good friend and I from then. We wrote a lot and had a few gigs and I learned a lot from that. In my early 20's I played keyboards in a very theatrical band, kind of a Peter Gabriel meets Nine Inch Nails meets Pink Floyd thing. It was an interesting time and I learned the importance of atmosphere from that group. As an adult I've done stuff for more the singer/songwriter types.
TN: Awesome. When and how did you find SL?MW: Around 2006 Duran Duran were talking in interviews about how they were going to do shows in this virtual world called Second Life. So I checked it out. I always liked video games so it sounded like a fun thing. I don't think they ever did a show in SL but I believe they have a sim inworld here. It took me a bit to decide to do shows myself in here but I'm glad that it got rolling.
TN: What kind of act did you bring to SL back then?
MW: I think I started to play here in about 2008. I played at Voodoo Shilton’s "Catcher In The Pie" which was a fun place and in looking back the timeline leads to meeting Lingual Markus and Gar and some others I'm still in touch with. The show was kind of the same format as now: singing, and playing guitar or piano. I keep trying out new songs but there are still a few pieces from back then I'll bring out.
TN: Excellent. You seem to have led us right into Voodoo Shilton. It must be fun to jam with him. He’s a guitarist just as good as you but in a totally different style.
MW: He was a big part of getting me going on SL musically and still is. He's a true guitar player; I couldn't imagine playing as well as he does. When we do the dual shows he brings a higher level of credibility to the musicianship for the tunes. I grow a lot musically by listening to him and it pushes me to learn more chords.
TN: Mulder, I’ve been on your YouTube channel recently. There’s one I really like; it has a superb guitar solo - “Dime A Dozen”. What’s behind that song?
MW: Thanks! It took a few takes to get that solo going. I finally turned the wahwah pedal on and it seemed to do something. As far as the song, I was thinking of images I'd been seeing at that time in the news. The tsunami had just happened in Japan, which lead to the line about an “old man holding his head at the floodline”. I started thinking of other events like that that can change a person's life instantly, during the life of a soldier, etc. So in looking at images I wondered what their stories would be. I saw a common thread among all these folks: I imagined they would all be wanting to get home. Or to find a home.
TN: Wow. Great imagery in that one. You also have several excellent YouTube clips with Voo. “Calamanda’s Broken Watch” is one of my faves.
MW: Thanks. It's one of my oldest songs and it keeps hanging around the songbook. That one fits Voo's style so well.
TN: By the way, I love how Voo begins “Calamanda” in an interesting related mode with an F# note on the guitar. I plan to ask him about that.
MW: Totally. That's what Voo does; he finds interesting scales and theories behind the song. He'll explain what key and scale type the songs are in and I'll have had no idea.
TN: So what's next for you? You already play the best rooms in SL; you're taping great pieces for YouTube...
MW: I do feel pretty lucky knowing Gar at The Source, Gmetal and Thea at Ground Zero and of course Lingual at The Roof. They give a great home for folks who wanna play a few tunes to whoever wants to listen. I think that's what is next for me, the next song, or the next recording. Trying to bring something new to the writing process. Trying to get better at playing and singing and hoping those who lend an ear go away feeling entertained. It's a simple approach but one that keeps getting me up in the morning.
That Voodoo That You Do
It’s the laugh that really tickles me. Well, that and the fact that I’m talking to one of those rare musicians who seems to understand, and can intelligently discuss, the arcane wheels-within-wheels machinations of musical theory. Voodoo Shilton is also one of those extraordinary modern players who prefers to exclusively play nylon strings. This gives his sound a significant first layer of authenticity. This is an important thing for Voo because his solo set focuses on pieces that represent a number of authentic genres: gypsy jazz, finger style, flamenco and several others. And he approaches each of them with an impeccable loyalty to the original forms and with maximum charm and flair.
An example of this authentic styling: at one of Voo’s live sets he announced a Paco De Lucia number called “Between Two Waters”. He proceeded to tear the house up with a massively passionate and complex solo in which his plucked attack was so fierce that I was forced to turn down the volume on my Bose noise-reduction headphones. He chuckled again in a voice both soft and expressive; a friendly, welcoming sound. And then proceeded to destroy the room musically.One of his stronger suits is his ability to play gypsy jazz. On this night he was so spot on that it dawned on me that if Django Reinhardt had possessed all ten fingers, he might have sounded something like Voodoo Shilton at his peak.
Seeing Voodoo live and on the solo stage is like taking a tour through a historical exhibition of jazz/swing acoustic guitar styles. That same evening he graced his audience with an original flamenco composition called “Stately Dance” which could easily pass for the backing tracks on one of Springsteen’s southwest USA yarns.
One endearing thing about Shilton’s live persona is that he truly has a good time doing his job. In the middle of a solo he’s known to shout “Here we go” and kick the action up another few notches. And his version of “Voodoo Child” would be something to write home about - if anybody wrote to anybody anymore.
Shilton then devoted the final minutes of his set to an inventive and accurate reading of Chick Corea’s syncopation-dusted composition “Spain”. The piece was packed with gorgeous fast-yet-precise solo moves and brought the house down. After his set I was able to ask Voodoo a few questions similar to those I’d asked Mulder a night earlier.
** ** **
Traci Nubalo: May I ask your age?
Voodoo Shilton: I'm 36.
TN: Where do you stream from?
VS: I'm from New Jersey, not far from NYC. Well, I haven't lived in Jersey that long. I've lived all over. My mother is from Chile in South America (my name is Juan in RL). That’s where the latin influence comes from.
TN: How was it for you growing up? Was your music accepted by the family at home?
VS: Oh sure. Before I discovered guitar my instruments consisted of a Casio keyboard. It was my mother's idea that I take a guitar class though. And my father was always a classical guitar aficionado as well. I think he was less supportive when I grew my hair long and started playing electric guitar. But he came around.
TN: Your latin heritage, is this where you got the nylon stringed guitar influence?
VS: Right, my first guitar was nylon. But then I did a full spectrum of instruments and styles: electric, acoustic, and others and then came home to nylon. Even on nylon strings I can't seem to stick to one style.
TN: I really enjoy your work on YouTube. “Calamanda’s Broken Watch” - quite an impressive performance on that one.
VS: Thanks. That's a great tune of Mulder’s. We've really found an intuitive mesh on that tune. And also on “Broken Carousel”; we usually play them back to back.
TN: Ahhhh.
VS: I’m such a big fan of his songwriting. That’s part of why we work so well. I know his songs well; not just as a performer but as a fan too.
TN: I think that the tightness between you guys shows very well in your performances together.
VS: He is really the best songwriter in SL in my opinion; and he’s very much out of the public's view. Has been for a while. He's not a big self promoter. He wins you over by just doing his thing. I’m constantly getting the word out about Mulder because I think his shows should be packed wall to wall.
TN: Were you raised on the radio as many were?
VS: You know, oddly I discovered music a little later. I just had ambient latin music around. My mother listened to a lot of South American folk music when I was young. She plays guitar herself and can still do some fancy strumming things that I don't quite know how to duplicate. My father admired and studied classical guitar as well. It was sort of just magic that I ended up with similar tastes since we didn't talk about it much when I was young. But yes, I inherited the old classical guitar that was under the bed as my first guitar.TN: Lucky you. Nylon strings. I had to shred my hands on metal strings to get my calluses.
VS: I did awful things to my hands, too. At one point I restrung my guitar with steel strings and even an electric bass string. Then that guitar was lost when I was robbed. I was sixteen and my stuff was robbed from the minivan.
TN: Oh no.
VS: It was an educational experience in not being attached to material things. Music is very meditative for me, too. Absolutely
TN: How zen of you, Voo. So - musically - how did you get started with bands, performing, etc.?
VS: Well, of course I did the obligatory high school rock jam thing. Then in college I really discovered the styles that would make the foundation of what I do today. And that is jazz, bossa nova, and interestingly, Indian music. I played in a few different groups in college but always some kind of jazz or world music.
TN: Interesting.
VS: Yes. I was also in a duo for years with my best friend on tabla - north Indian drums. We performed a great deal of original Indian fusion music.
TN: So at last night’s solo gig I caught something...
VS: Oh yeah? What's that?
TN: I noticed that you not only played a lot of different styles (as you had told me that you would). But each approach was precise and true to that form; accurate and authentic, in other words. wtf? LOL
VS: Hahahha! There are definitely different tones of voice to each style, but also some commonalities too. Take for example two things that seem different on the surface, like funk and gypsy jazz. Both styles employ "off" notes to grab the ear; they both use syncopation and chromaticism to play. Both are really playful styles.
TN: Excellent observation. I also noticed something on YouTube; on "Calamanda’s Broken Watch".
VS: Yes, with Mulder.
TN: Right. The song seems to be in B minor.
VS: Correct.
TN: Your guitar enters on an F# note, through the back door, as it were. I loved that.
VS: Hehe. Well, the song has a overtone of F# phrygian dominant which comes in all the way in the second part, "Broken Carousel". That's where it has an almost “flamenco” feel.
TN: Yes, it seems to cross over some musical turf.
VS: Yes. That sound is fun to work with. I think in “Calamanda” I go between bluesy, jazzy melodies to that sort of phrygian dominant Spanish feel.
TN: Jerry Garcia was very adept at slipping in and out of the various modalities. But it's a technique that many players only find accidentally while soloing. I love that you have such a grasp of the mechanics of the chordings and the related modalities.
VS: Oh, I totally geek out on music theory.
TN: Yes, Mulder told me that about you.
VS: If I let myself I could ramble about all the modes and things.
TN: Let’s go in this direction: how did you find SL, YouTube and Mulder?
VS: Well I started SL ages ago, six years now. Originally my main motivation in SL was as a builder. I've been a builder and designer in SL for years. Mulder and I met before he was even a performer. I hate to take credit for it but I actually persuaded him to start performing in SL. I had heard his music on recordings and was really impressed. A few years ago I had a small cafe venue in SL, an arts café “Catcher in the Pie” and I invited Mulder to play there several times.
Another big breakthrough for me was when I discovered websites where you can perform via webcam, particularly TheStage.tv. I ended up playing there for months and really increasing my exposure dramatically, because many SL artists play there.
TN: What's it like to play with Mulder? I see you each as profoundly talented, only in different
modes.
VS: Mulder is a very intuitive musician. He understands song creation and structure in a fundamental way that few do. His songs have a huge spectrum of styles too. What he does as a bandmate is he intuitively knows how to share the musical space. It's hard to overestimate the challenge of playing a duet with someone you can't hear. I've only just started to learn this as a result of a new collaboration I’m working on where I am the first member of a duo, so I can't hear the other person.
TN: Can we go there a minute? Could you explain the dual stream predicament to the readers please? Many do not know how this works.
VS: Sure. There is a fundamental limitation to how quickly information can be transmitted across a distance. The higher the quality of sound, the harder it is to transmit it accurately and quickly. The way streaming works in general is with a "buffer"; you're always behind time-wise, which allows the computer to "save up" "packets" of sound to dispense to the listener. Imagine a stream of little packets. Now in real life when you jam with a friend you hear each other instantly, but online, if you want sound with any degree of quality you gotta wait for it. But this creates a fundamental problem; the way you get around it is you declare one person to be "primary" and one to be "secondary". The primary person starts the stream and sends their packets to the second person. The second person listens to the primary and adds his music into the mix. The mix is then streamed to the audience.
TN: So, the "primary" cannot hear his musical partner?
VS: Not until after the concert. The painful irony is that the primary is the last person to know how the show sounded. The entire audience is saying, "Wow what a great show!"
You Can’t Tune A Fish
They were stacked up inside The Source, and I could feel the expectant buzz as we waited for show time. Gar and his team at the venue (including his ever-present and always-friendly partner Dark Rau and his SL bro and host Grunt Popstar) know how to take care of both their performers and the audiences who follow them. As a result The Source has become a room of choice for discerning music lovers across the grid. This success has led to the recent opening of a gorgeous adjoining performance space. It’s called The Source Damari, a sort of cream-of-the-crop venue featuring the very best in SL artists, including classical piano or guitar performances.
Mulder and Voodoo appear onstage and within minutes prove that they are, indeed, explosive and capable of knocking listeners on their dancing asses. At The Source they feel at home and it shows on this particular night.They simply tear up on one of Mulder’s songs called “Cracks”. He introduces it as a song which he wrote in his 20’s about his childhood. It’s a John Mayerish free-wheeling romp with an ecstatic latin guitar-tinged opening. He’s such a clear-voiced singer (especially live), that each vocal melody line can be heard - in key and lovingly placed precisely where it should for maximum effect.
I fall down every day as I walk out the door
I bang my head on the wall every night
I wonder when I’ll remember to miss those cracks in the ground.
I bang my head on the wall every night
I wonder when I’ll remember to miss those cracks in the ground.
After a wide-open hellacious Spanish solo (in which Shilton uses every linear inch of his fretboard, including the harmonics that float lightly and mysteriously along the tops of the strings), Mulder sings the kicker line “Me and Chewbacca were howling at the wind”, Chewbacca being a boyhood dog.
As “Cracks” closed down it dawned on me that this was not ONLY an explosion. That might imply simple random destruction. This is much, much more. Watts and Shilton together are musically akin to a detonation in which a pair of extremely strong talents smash into one another in a way that sees everything thrown together in exactly the right way.
Toward the close they killed the house again with yet another crowd pleaser, “Higher Ground”. Their amazing vocals power this tour de force composition through several adroit musical changes, a journey in rhythm and song.
One thing I love about this duo is their extreme commitment to excellence. They don’t step on one another musically despite working with the technical limitations of the streaming process that Voo described. They listen to one another.And I love it when one or both guitars goes out of tune. They look at one another and one will say, “Tuning is respect”. The other might answer “Tuning is love.”
Then Voodoo laughs and warms my old school musical heart.
Tuning is respect.
(c) Copyright 2012
Traci Nubalo.
All rights reserved.
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