Live Music Review: Satin Galli @ Golden Horn

Second Life Live Music Review
Written by Enniv Zarf (RL: Paul Kwo)
Metaverse Music
Satin Galli
Golden Horn

Time for another review.

Satin Galli was advertised as (and I quote):

• "Satin Galli's name says it all! His voice is smooth as satin! If you're looking for great vocals and style, you've found the right guy! Satin has sung must of his life, and grew up in a very musical family. 'Everything involved music growing up' Satin says. Talent comes from deep within him"

I know puffery is a big part of marketing and used to hype up a lot of people. But with puffery comes judgment. My take is the more you puff up something, the higher you increase someone's expectation. When my expectations are up, I become more critical about the person and the music. If you tell me it's just a fun party with no standards, well I come in expecting that. If it's more then that then I'm even more delighted. But if you tell me someone has a voice as smooth as satin, yes I know it's a play on his name, I am literally expecting that.

So was Satin's voice as smooth as satin? No. Usually I put this criticism on the venue for hyping up someone to get attention. But not this one, this was in Satin's profile. On top of that, he writes:

• "If you're looking for great vocals and style, you've found the right guy! Satins name says it all."

There are minor issues in his singing throughout the concert. There are the occasional pitch intonation problems. There are passages that sound like a bland karaoke singing at a local pub. But, there is some nice stuff here and there and his voice does have a good quality to it. It's just not fully polished.

His voice isn't bad, but it is not what I would consider smooth as satin, great vocals and style. A much more accurate description would be Satin’s is a good singer who enjoys sharing his oldies and some contemporaries with his audience. Once in a while he may even be as smooth as Satin, if that’s possible.

Satin sings a lot of oldies...

...which were nice to enjoy. He does do some contemporary rocks too but they are not as good as his oldies. I can tell he does enjoy all these songs and love singing them. And before you all think I hate Satin, I don't. I just don't think he's correct in his advertisement of his own abilities. He is really on par with a good local bar singer outside of a major US metropolitan area.

It is very obvious that his voice definitely needs some polishing to create a real sound that would be record worthy. To me that is what the words great vocals and style means. If you are great, then you are record worthy. You may not have any intention to record anything and you don't have to. But that's what great is, at least to me. Satin is not record worthy, at least not what I heard live at Golden Horn live. Even his Myspace stuff isn't what I would consider great vocals and full of style, though there are some good moments in some of the recordings like "Landing in London."

I have been a bit harsher on Satin because of his description of himself. I do think if he didn't advertise himself as that I would be much less judgmental about his music. He is a good singer. He has a good voice. He is pretty on pitch most of the time. He struggles at the higher register. He’s really a Baritone. He does have a descent quality in his voice that those couple of moments of goodness sounds pretty nice and enjoyable. I would encourage Satin to record every live session of his and then listen to them all from top to bottom. That's the best way to learn and since he has a musical family, maybe have them sit down and give them an honest weigh in. But I know how often that doesn't work since family tends to want to support you then to be honest.

As for style, I think Satin is trying to nail down his style and his voice. I don't think he has it yet. It's one thing to sing your favorite songs really well. That's the beginning. But until you can turn even song that aren't your favorites and make them your own like you own them, and until we can say that is definitely a Satin Galli performance because of how you sing it, you don't have style yet. Style is very hard to develop, especially for singers. We have a huge tendency to imitate when we sing but that will only get you maybe to a hotel lounge singer level. There are a couple of people I have heard in Second Life so far that actually have a style of their own. They turn all the songs (covers and originals) they sing into their own versions. We may not always agree or like them, but that is real style.

I did get a chance to chat with Jeanaette Janus who is in charge of the venue at Golden Horn. I think she's an absolutely wonderful person to talk to and very intelligent. Given the fact that I had been rather critical about some of the performers at her venue that she is still talking to me, I have to give her major credit. The conversations are probably something for a From the Editor's Desk column, but the conclusion I got is that we are all playing a part here in Second Life live music. She is supporting it in her own way while I see it my way and does it my own. To me it's always a pull between all the different sides that makes a scene. If it's all one sided, all happy and bubbly, it doesn't work. If it's all critical and judgmental, it doesn't work. We need both and everything in between.

There have been some real streaming issues lately in Second Life. I few people I know have been struggling with things like that. But they are out of the control of the artist so it's just something we all have to put up with. I am still having issues with my own stream on my Mac and have to use my PC to log on today to play the streams to review. That's Second Life.

I would say if you like to hear some oldies in a decently performed manner, Satin is the right guy for you. But don't go in expecting awesomeness and something that's just great. The vocals are good but not flawless. The style is correct but not unique. But you may occasionally hear something that may be close to being as smooth as silk. But the over all quality of the entire concert is not smooth as silk.

Music Review: Gina Stella @ Golden Horn

Second Life Live Music Review
Written by Enniv Zarf
Metaverse Music
Gina Stella
Golden Horn SLURL

I was thinking about staying at concerts longer when I review them, like the whole hour instead. But my mind just can't handle these unless if they are an amazing singer. I mean I had to give a spontaneous concert on Tuesday night to get everything out of my system after hearing like twenty something people over the weekend and such.

Well I am planning a full day of reviews, probably do 2 to 4 more reviews this afternoon. There are just so many people to do and I want to get to every single last person! I mean it, I want to be the first to really fully review everyone in Second Life so you can't say I don't know what's really out there. So far I have 32 down and Gina is my 33rd music review for Second Life.

Gina has a cute voice, very girly and cute. And it just splits my heart cause she's also got some intonation problems here and there. But she is much better then another singer (who's name I won't mention, but here's the link). And I do enjoy her light airiness and the simple quality of her sound.

I found out that she is new to the whole SL Live Music scene and only recently played an open mic event. Well she really does have a good quality to her sound, and has a good feel to what she's doing, but she's got a long way to go to be up in par with the really great singer/songwriters of Second Life. She has though potential if she really worked at it, and she's only just started.

Her set was much more heavy on the cover song side, but maybe she sang more of her originals during the first half which I missed....

...But I did hear her original song that she composed and someone else wrote the lyrics.

"You're the one" is the original (as I was told) by Gina and the tune is a descent one, though the way the lyrics and the music came off was totally whiny and gotten very annoying at the end. It also was plagued with a bit of intonation issues and there were just some not so flattering moments. At first I wasn't sure where the problem was until I heard more of Gina's singing of cover songs. She hasn't found her original voice yet.

Gina's cover songs are so much stronger then her original singing and I can tell which ones she has worked on more then others. When Gina's good, she's very good. When she's not, she's really not.

Later on in her set, she sang a blues song and it was excellent. She had none of the intonation issues she had in some of her other stuff. She was much more in tune with this style then most of everything else. It shows that she really dig the blues and the groove of it. Though she did sing another rock cover earlier pretty well too.

One of her final song, an original "Never get over you" was a great song, both well written and nicely delivered. Though she sounds better on her myspace then live here. Even so her in world live performance of this song was significantly better then her "You're the one." I can see with more production efforts this could be a pretty good song.

I think Gina is still discovering her voice and what she's all about and that's actually exciting. I know Gina will find out more and more overtime what works for her and what does and I hope she continues to be critical of her own works and performance. I think she's got some great stuff in her set, even in the 1/2 hour. But she does have some issues to address. I would say if you are in the mood of supporting a budding young artist with potential, Gina would be a good musician to give your love to. She's got a sweet and cute voice but she can dig a pretty mean blues when she wanna. Just needs a bit polishing.

And kudos to the Golden Horn for finding a new artist and supporting her growth. Hopefully she'll make you all proud, which I am sure she will.

Music Review: Mimi Carpenter @ Golden Horn

Second Life Live Music Review
Written by Enniv Zarf
Metaverse Music
Mimi Carpenter
Golden Horn

I thought I'd get a headstart this morning and catch some of the European musicians whom I would probably never get a chance to hear if I didn't check them out at this time. So I took a concert TP this morning.

Well actually I was going to go to another concert and I was already there but then they just took forever to start, so I decided to go elsewhere first before I go back later to review that one.

So here I am back at Golden Horn listening to another artists and I'm beginning to wonder if the venue here is just tone deaf to singers or they are just being super nice. I'll have to definitely check out more of their artists to see if this is a consistent thing or am I just being lucky and hitting all the bad singers. Ok, I think it's her huge group following why the venue booked her. She for some miraculous reason has a huge following. It's probably her French accent why everyone loves her. I just don't see how she can draw a 40 people crowd, but I can't blame Golden Horn for booking this kind of crowd, I would if I'm a venue owner! [Update: I just want to say here that I don't know why exactly they booked Mimi when I wrote this. it was just a thought.]

Mimi does covers as far as I know, according to the host there. [CORRECTION: Mimi told me that she has 2 original songs. I haven't heard them so I can't say anything about them] And my thing is if you don't have any originals, you better be an awesome singers. Cause otherwise why in the world am I listening to you! Ok...after hearing a little more, her French songs are pretty good, though not perfect but much better then her English stuff. [UPDATE: Well 2 songs is a good start Mimi and I hope to hear your songs in the future and review those sometimes. But I still stand by the fact that there are some serious intonation problems that needs to be addressed.]

Mimi's voice is hard to hear when she talks. She's French living in Germany right now and speaks English and sings in both French and English. She is extra soft spoken when she talks and I could hardly make out what she's saying and have to turn up the volume to hear her.

Her guitar playing is descent, though not impressive enough for me like Thumper yesterday where I would brush off some of the bad singing and still enjoy the playing.

Now when Mimi sings her French songs it is a lot better then her English songs, and I do have to give her a little credit. I think there is a definitely a language barrier. It is definitely very difficult to sing in a different language, but it's not impossible to do so and it's definitely something to work on. I would know, I do sing in English and Chinese, and both Mandarin and Cantonese. I know what I can sing well and I know what I can't sing well. I know what songs are good for me and what songs are not. And I definitely try not to sing anything that I am not absolutely certain has something special to it, whether it's that I can sing it well or that it's an original song that's good. But if occasionally I do sing just for the sake of singing and it's just for fun. I don't claim to be great or anything on those concerts.

When Mimi started singing German, the intonation issues also came out. But not as severe as her English singing. She also was messing up all over the place in the. I just think that Mimi has talent, but she definitely is not well rehearsed and is trying to fake her way through some stuff and that to me is not cool. And it's especially not cool if you are doing cover songs.

I may not understand what she's singing about in French and German, though I do speak a little bit of French, a couple years of High School French and I have family in France too. But probably not enough to understand half of what she's singing. In the end music is music and intonation is still intonation no matter the language. I think Mimi sings her French songs wonderfully, but the rest really needs some serious work.

I would not recommend her to anyone unless all you care is a cute French accent. Her fans will probably kill me for saying this, but that's my job now. She's out of tune half the time and there's no hiding from that.