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>At 09:02 PM 2/2/97 -0500, you wrote: >> >>In a message dated 2/2/97 8:24:51 PM, Kim wrote: >> >><<Joe Perry and Slash have never >>made any remarkably creative or innovative artistic statements,>> >> >>Woa! How do you know what they do in their off time when their not >playing >>the corporate/commercial anything for a buck game? --Paul >> > > >awww, c'mon now - let's not descend into a slagging war !! Like him or >not, >Joe Perry has put the hard time in - playing his brand of blues-soaked >riff >rock - there's a place for simple - straight into the amp stuff too !! > >Slash - well - he seems into his music enough to have quit G 'n R to due a >more blues-based thing with his "snake pit"... anyway - let's not fall >into >what the "other side" does - when they slag everything within a mile of a >rack of any sort. oops. More cyber juju. My quote there got slightly decontextualized, therby making me look like an ass. I probably didn't word it very well in the first place. I'll go out on a limb and admit that I've really enjoyed music made by both G'nR and Aerosmith. I've also met Slash and found him to be a really nice fellow. I honestly wish I could rock out with even a fraction of the attitude that comes from the fingers of these two. What I was trying to say was this: they make music that, while often times quite good, is also quite conventional. This combination of good and conventional has translated into enormous popularity for both. This popularity coupled with the use of Les Pauls translated into huge revenue for Gibson. The point of all this was that if you want to sell huge numbers of a product in the MI industry (like a lot more than 8000, I guess) it helps to have endorsers who reach a huge audience. Especially if your product is of the inexpensive variety where it is likely to appeal to younger musicians and impulse buyers. Now with a thing like looping, it is a new idea for much of the music world. That's where the musician's musician and experimental avant-garde types come in. They try new things and invent ways to use them creatively. Some of those ideas trickle into the mainstream, causing a resulting interest in that idea/product from more mainstream players. This takes time, because you are essentially creating a market. To profit from this, a manufacturer needs a clear vision of what the market is doing, and patience. One misperception that has come up in this thread several times is the idea that looping hasn't yet appeared in popular music. I totally disagree with that. Run-DMC's version of "Walk this Way" in the early eighties was a huge hit, and that was all about looping. Hiphop and rap has been looping away ever since, and I think both Lexicon and Oberheim/Gibson missed a giant opportunity there. One DJ Jazzy Jeff endorsement would easily eclipse all the guitarists that have endorsed either product. The problem was a failure to connect the products with the obvious market. I don't know what Lexicon's excuse is, but you can probably imagine how far my suggestions of using rap artists as endorsers went at a guitar company based in Tennessee. And then there are heavy bands like Ministry and White Zombie, using tons of loops and getting tons of airplay on MTV every day. And there's Beck's Odelay album, proving that even alternative rockers can figure this out. And there's Chet Atkins and Phil Keagey. And there's the huge techno scene which is only just starting to happen in the US but has been all over Europe for years. (How do you explain the Orb to people who have never even heard of Trent Reznor?) Another misperception I'd like to skewer is the idea that there are no other companies making loopers and that there is no money in it. Just about every dj mixer I saw at NAMM had a looper built in. They were primitive compared to jamman/echoplexes, but there they were. Akai had dedicated loopers that were really quite cool. So did Denon. They were making high profile showings with this stuff, and obviously see a big market in the techno/dance/hiphop arena. Some big name companies who weren't showing such products expressed a very great desire to get into it. So there will probably be more loopers in the future. You'll just have to go to the keyboard and dj sections of the music store to find them because they aren't being marketed to guitar players. The people at Denon didn't seem to even know who Robert Fripp was, nor did they really seem to care. The popularity of guitar music is currently dropping like a brick, and all the manufacturers are tripping over themselves to try and figure out how to make cheap products for all the kids making techno in their bedrooms. Anyhoo, enough spewing for this evening..... kim ______________________________________________________________________ Kim Flint | Looper's Delight kflint@annihilist.com | http://www.annihilist.com/loop/loop.html http://www.annihilist.com/ | Loopers-Delight-request@annihilist.com