Original Music Review: Blindboy Gumbo

Second Life Live Music Review
Written by Enniv Zarf (RL: Paul Kwo)
Metaverse Music
Blindboy Gumbo's Original Music

I picked Blindboy Gumbo to be the first to review because he invited me to a second look at his concert after reading my first review about his music. He was also one of my very first review so my perspective have definitely shifted as I grew here. Come on, you can't expect me to come out right off the bat and know exactly where I stand on everything. Every critic has to start somewhere and every critic grows as they gain more experience.

I can also tell you that this is going to be a rather long post because I am going to dissect things more in depth since I am not on the run trying to figure out what's going on in a live setting.

Blindboy also invited me back to hear another one of his concert live where he performed the entire set of his original music. It's awesome that he did this concert and I think it's actually a pretty solid set. He has his own sound in his music that does carry over from song to song. A lot of that has to do with the way he plays the guitar to create a sort of pedal point trance like feel to his music. It does feel like he finds a sound he likes and then go with it.

There are some songs that I liked and were rather catchy and got to my head and some songs that were just alright. But hey that's pretty true for most artists’ albums anyways. There's the hit singles and then there are the others. You just need that one song to catch everyone's attention.

His songs have a folksy quality to it...

...which I will attribute it in great part to his voices and the way he sings many of the songs he did. But he does have songs that stretch out to more bluish or other areas as well by borrowing elements from those genres. But they still retain the pedal point like feel to them that still makes it rather distinctively Blindboy.

I want to thank Blindboy though for inviting me to the concert where he decided to only perform his original tunes. It is very hard to do that in Second Life and draw an audience. The truth is many of us say we support live music, but in truth we are just out there partying. We are not really supporting these live musicians. If we are truly are supporting musicians in Second Life, we should be requesting them to perform their original music and not covers. When you ask an original artist to perform covers after cover, you are saying to them their music is not good enough for you. You are telling them that I don’t want to hear your tunes, but the tunes of some other artists. That is not support. When you show up to their concert when they perform mostly covers but fail to appear when they perform their original music, that is not what I call support! That is being selfish. So thank you everyone who actually showed up to Blindboy’s all original live concert. Those are the ones who are truly supportive of Blindboy.

This type of behavior goes all across the board in all genres of live music in Second Life and it has got to stop! That is how music dies when we don’t support new music. I know because that’s what I see in the world of Classical Music. It’s having serious problems because music stopped for many Classical Music lovers at 1950 when Bartok died. Don’t tell me you support Second Life music if you don’t ever show up to all original all new concerts. No one should ever request an original artist to do a cover period. That is an affront to their original music. An original artist should do a cover when they feel that this song is so special to them that they want to pay their respect and share it with their audience. I learned that listening to Canton Pop concerts as a kid. These artist (even though they don’t actually write their songs but are usually given songs to sing) usually only cover songs that they love so much that they decided they wanted to share it with their fans.

Don’t get me wrong, if you don’t want to listen to their original music that’s absolutely acceptable. There are people whom I do not want to listen to too. But I don’t pretend to support that musician because I go to only their cover events. I don’t call myself a supporter of those musicians if I don’t support their original shows. However I am guessing that a lot of you do actually love the artists you go even if it’s usually only for their cover music.

Back to Blindboy’s original music. Most of my review will be based on the stuff he uploaded at his thesixtyone.com account since it’s not really fair to talk about a piece of music with just one listen at his concert.

Blindboy does have some memorable tracks and some that could really get in your head if you heard it a few times. Particularly memorable for me was his song Monday Morning. The song really works well between the instruments and his voice. The hook really is very catchy and he’s got a very good bluegrass feel fused with a contemporary rock feeling that gives it a rather electric feel. The harmonies in this song are very simple blues type progression but the production of the music adds a lot to the song and boost up the worth of the song. His electric guitar solo is actually very refreshing to hear in the middle of the song as he doesn’t try to do a huge show and flash pass. Rather he takes the opposite route and gives you this really laid back blurb of a solo that is true to the song and distinctive enough to keep me interested.

The biggest problem Blindboy has to face with his music especially in this recording is to create that top 40 quality recording. Without that kind of sound, it’s extremely difficult to get the attention he needs to bring light on his music. Monday morning is really catchy, by far the catchiest of them all in terms of a hook. But the vocals are not rock solid. There are just little flaws throughout that just say he’s not there yet and still needs work. I have absolute respect for a work in progress, but this is a tough world of music we live in. The overall audience in the general public does not care for imperfection when they are used to perfected studio sounds. By no means am I suggesting to cheat and manipulate the vocal tracks as so many artists do. I think Blindboy can solidify his voice and should. I am certain he’s working on that too. I’m merely pointing out what I heard.

The other song that has a lot of attention by Blindboy is “sleeping in the ground,” which has a fantastic feel to the singing. He’s got a nice sound going on with the well worked instrumentals and a highly reverbed voice. Normally I don’t like all the crazy reverb voice but sometimes it works and here I think it gives it something interesting to listen to. But I also don’t think it’s the best sounding reverb and precisely what he’s going for. I think it’s close but something about it isn’t quite absolutely right. There’s still a bit of mismatch between that and the instrument. I do however enjoy this song. I like the way he sings it, but again similar little minor vocal flaws keeps the song from being a bigger hit then it probably can be. I think I would also like to hear an unplugged version of this song as I think it would be very fun.

“Hold me down” demo version has a very wonderful guitar opening that I thought sets up the song very well. It made me want to hear more. The song is a pretty song and has a wonderful haunting quality to it. But I am not sure the way he’s singing it is the best way to get the feeling of it. His accent got a little in the way of this song even though I like his accent in his other songs. But for this song I feel like it would be better if it were sang more simply, you know with that all too overused airy voice. Well I think it’s actually needed here in this song. Other then that the song is a really good song, so good actually I actually sort of want to sing it for fun myself. If I had the music I’d probably take it over to my piano and then sing it right now.

With “broken bones” he again has a very good guitar lick going for him that sets up a fantastic groove. He actually has really nice catchy guitar licks going for most of the songs he does. “P.L.C.” has a very memorable opening that got me interested. But with all his songs though they are good, the problems in his vocal techniques is getting in the way. I think it is something that can be fixed though with a vocal coach to sit down with him to clean them up to get a great recording.

I think Blindboy has very nice originals going for him and I hope you all check out this mix of country and rock that really has something to offer. They do need to be polished vocally but as they are right now are still pretty good songs to listen to. I would support Blindboy as he continues to work out the vocal issues and finally produce that’s a perfect recording of these great songs of his.