Music Review: Mica Breen @ Poseidon's Treasure

Second Life Live Music Review
Written by Enniv Zarf
Metaverse Music
Mica Breen
Poseidon's Treasure

I don't think I have yet to review a 100% country singer here in Second Life. I know a few artists who does some country songs, but Mica is the first completely country singer I came across. And we are off to a descent start.

Mica definitely has a country voice, with that southern draw. I love a good old southern accent. Well I'm just a sucker for accents in general anyways, though I can do a couple, mostly Asian. But I am not a sucker for those accents, they are just fun for me. And alongside Mica is his partner Faith Bade. Though I'm not sure she's actually performing in real life with him, I think it's just the Second Life. It's always hard to tell in Second Life but I found out from what he was saying during the concert.

Nevertheless Mica has a good feel to his singing, but he admitted himself at the concert that he isn't too much of a professional in real life. His voice isn't perfect and is not fully polished with that top 40's sound, but it's a descent singer/songwriter type of a voice. It delivered his originals well enough for us to groove to and feel descent.

I think there is a pro sound somewhere in his voice though that is if he worked very hard at it, he could really fine tune that voice and get that pro sound. But it will take some serious work to hone in to that sound that is hidden in there. Most of the time he sounds like a descent karaoke singer, with minor intonation issues in both his covers and originals. But there are moments in his singing where he sounds pretty good.

At first when I first teleported into the show, I wasn't quite sure what to expect on a Thursday morning. The notice didn't really say much but that was the first IM I got so I went over to check it out. Since I found out Mica was doing country and I've never did a review, why not.

Mica Breen does both originals and cover songs and at the concert, though there are more covers then originals at the concert. On his profile, he does have supposedly a lot of originals in his arsenal of songs and I would love to hear more of those. His first two songs today were both covers and they were decently performed with backing tracks. But without his original, he's just your average karaoke singer who specializes in Country songs. But I totally buy into his cowboy sound though.

Heaven's radio was his first original and it's a pretty good song. Mica can actually crank out a nice country song. It's pleasant, it's well written and he produced them very well also. His singing was alright, but descent enough to enjoy the song. It is definitely much more written for his range where he could be more comfortable singing it.

I've also wondered what people feel and think about musicians who help advertise things and encourage people to tip the venue too and all that good stuff. I know some musicians are totally against that and wants to only perform while others are much more of a promoter. Mica does do a lot of promotion for the venue encouraging people to donate.

Mica also try to do the female vocals at some of his songs and he knows obviously that he can't reach those notes. It really then made the concert more of a karaoke session. But I think he knows that and he is ok with that. He just want to have some fun. I am not sure though I would consider this type of performances as a real live music concert. Would we really call a karaoke singer at a bar who's descent performing a live music concert whenever they sing at their bar? I don't know. It's one of those blurry lines. We do have various levels of performances in second life as with real life. But in Second Life the entire playing field is leveled for the most part because group notices are free. So with no money needed to be spent, both great and average artists get the same deal.

The problem I have isn't so much with everyone should be performing music and such, but that when people who are really just an amateur hobbist is seen in the same places as the real pros, and new people come into SL and end up at their concert first they end up thinking this is the quality of Second Life music and sometimes never to come back.

This is one of the biggest reason for me to do this site. I really hope that every new person who come into Second Life and check out the Second Life music scene knows that it's just like the Real Life music scene. There are both good and bad and everything in between here. Group notices are free and everyone posts there. So perhaps a resource such as Metaverse Music can help shed some light on the whole scene and help us all make some sense of it all.

I wouldn't mind hearing a few more originals by Mica to check out something different and new, but I wouldn't say he is something I would want to listen doing cover songs since I know there are so many other better musicians out there. But I do think he's an alright singer. So would I recommend him to people, probably not. I'm sure I can find a better country singer in Second Life then Mica. But would I say he should completely stop performing publicly, probably no eith. I think he should perform more often for a very small group of close friends who will be honest with him and tell him when he is good and when he's bad, hone up his performance technique and then come back out to the major venues with a new and improved Mica sound.