fran6 Parkin at Bonaire - Thursday 3 March 2011

France has a great tradition and wealth of classical, folk and popular music. It continues to produce excellent music sometimes now based on styles played by immigrants from Africa, Latin America and Asia.  I have often wanted to find french live music in SL and last night I received a notice from the NAG Group which led me to their stage at Bonaire.

There fran6 Parkin entertained us with what he calls his jazzy french touch. Fran is a french songwriter and composer, performing in both SL and real life.

He plays live all original music on guitar, keyboard and loop station.  He sings mostly in french with a few words of english.

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I was very pleased to find that Thursday has been designated French Day at Bonaire.  Although Fran is the only french performer there so far, the aim is to encourage and invite others in the near future.

Further there is a whole timetable of themed days at Bonaire with

Latin on Monday, Lyric Day for original songs on Saturday and Fingerpicking Day on Sunday.

Fran speaks good english with a strong french accent.  He is young with a confident and conversational singing style and a very pleasant manner.  

Now my french is rather basic and while I love the sound of the french language and pick up some of the meaning I may have misunderstood some of the words of his songs.  So bearing that in mind, here is my summary :))

He began with - Marcher dans la nuit pour t'oublier - Walking in the night to forget you - a "sad" love song.  Beautiful jazz with a lovely swing great for dancing, an insistant groove on percussion and a light melody on piano and keyboard.

His next song was about words ... Car Les Mots C'est Fragil  be careful sometimes they can hurt.   Again he creates a beautiful groove with a swing which makes me want to dance and sway with my eyes shut.  Here as in many of his songs he makes good use of beatbox - a form of vocal percussion using mouth, lips, tongue and voice to produce drum beats, rhythm, and musical sounds.

His next song  Don't Worry  was much more funky and he followed this with Caméra Cachée ... Hidden Camera.

Then came an amusing song with some english words and he invited us to sing along in local chat :))  

Baby you're so sexy .. in the middle of the night and all around the fridge !!

Do you feel the heat !! ... let's go to the kitchen and have a drink of cola :))

.-'`'-. APPLAUSE APPLAUSE .-'`'-.

.-'`'-. APPLAUSE APPLAUSE .-'`'-.

 BRAVO!!!!!!

The next two pieces had lovely african rhythms and feeling about them and this was one of the features of his music which I enjoyed the most.

First came a "sad" love song  Moi et Moi ... he's laughing at himself.  Has he fallen out of love with himself ?   I think so.

wazza bazza oo oooo wazza bazza ooo eeeé ..............

Then came a cool, light, groovy african melody and a song about the environment and war  la guerre,  l'atmosphère,  la terre (the earth)

A quoi en scène .... what's in view .... ?

I loved this one !!  It was multi-layered with beatbox, keyboard, light percussion, bass, and his singing.

He followed this with another "sad" love song  Restons En Là ...repetitive and insistent, beatbox loops, groovy, again great rhythm to dance to :))

When asked " What are you doing in your life ?"  he replies " In my life I do my best " and this was the basis of his next song.

Another singalong :))

na na na nan nana ... na na na nan nana ...

Finally a song about all the girls he couldn't get it together with ...

S'appellait Therèse  ....J'ai balancé mon coeur comme sur un trapèze 
She was called Therese ... I balanced my heart as on a trapeze ...
A tango feel to this one !


Altogether he sang 10 songs in the hour.

Fran had a maximum of only 15 people in the audience.  His music is light and very enjoyable, well put together, and the sound is new, fresh and interesting.  He has a charming, easy-going personality full of fun and laughter.  He deserves more support !

Even his sad love songs feel good :))

Read more and sample his music on Myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/fran6andco


and on Reverbnation:
http://www.reverbnation.com/fran6nco

The NAG live music group has a list of some 200 artists who have played on their stages.  Next to the stage at Bonaire is the impressive pyramidal structure of the NAG SL Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum where information on and gifts from some of the artists can be found.


Here's the SLURL to get to Bonaire:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Bonaire67/82/35/23/
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