Exclusive to NWN, Willow Caldera covers SL's burgeoning live music scene
Any performer capable of bringing soulful melody to a song about an adult toy is one worth listening to, and Blindboy Gumbo's cheeky sense of humour defines his on-stage presence - along with his gruff and gravelled voice and the kick of his slide guitar. All just part of his irresistible Northern UK charm:
This video was shot by Sound'r at the Cup and Spittle and features the original song 'Sleeping in the Ground'
If you ask him, he'll tell you he was raised by wild Hunting Hedgehogs, who passed on the secrets of rock n' roll guitar and then left him to his own musical devices in the north of England. Where he developed, it seems, a love for the blues and indie, with a little alternative country thrown in for good measure. Add to that a portfolio of original songs that range from sing-along ballads and hum-along rock to the one about the aforementioned plaything and you have a live set that brings more than its share of pleasant surprises.
"I started playing when I was a kid, maybe 7 or so, but didn't really take it seriously until after I left school," says Blindboy. "Why? Cos music is the one thing that gets me lost, I can just drift away, best drug in the world."
"My shows [are] mainly original songs, with lots of guitar playing and usually a few choice swear words all mixed in from my potty mouth, which tends to say things that my brain wishes I hadn't. [I've] been inworld about a year and a half... a friend told me about it, so I gave it a go and found it's bloody addictive! And fun, too."
Blindboy performs in the real world at least once every two weeks, but finds Second Life to be the perfect place to test out his new material.
"One of the big assets about SL is that I can perform newly written songs in a live vibe and get them tight before I play them in RL... that's probably the big thing about SL for me," he says. "[I play] acoustic guitar fed through a mix of pedals, a Wah, a zoom A2 and a boss loop station, which is then fed into my mixer and then into my sound card... simple! Oh, and a condensor mic for my vocals."
"I play tip gigs and paid ones, athough SL ain't a place to make money. Well, I dont see it that way, that's why I don't even rez a tip jar. Athough I almost always rez a CD vendor - one song is $L100, I'm charging the lowest price I can just to cover the cost of server hosting for my MP3s. I would rather people owned a song or two of mine, so they're cheap - and hey, a lot of people tend to tip that amount or more, so why bother? Grab a song, that way you get summit for ya Lindens!"
More about Blindboy Gumbo:
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Willow is the creative director of Sound'r, a full-service machinima house - you can read her blog here or see more Sound'r videos here.
Her taste in music is somewhat eclectic, ranging from Three Days Grace to Rihanna and MGMT to System of a Down and the Smashing Pumpkins.
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