Re: --scratch perry--

[Benjamin Furstenberg <benway@cea.edu>]

> Now, he musta been doing some tape-looping
> back then....and maybe more sophisticated
> looping since then.  Does anyone know more
> about him, and whether or not he's a looper?
> (He is still around, right?)
Yeah, he is still around.  I saw him perform with Mad Professor at the
board.  Both such sonic innovators, aside from all the Jamaican Concrete
tricks, they pushed so many boundaries, experimenting with radically
creative use of effects, eq, tempo-related echo, etc. as musical
instruments,, the idea that any song can be renewed in endless "versions"
(this is one of the most radical ideas in modern culture, the erasure of 
the
original), that there need be no beginning nor end to consider as absolute,
that the recording studio is *the* instrument, that popular music can be
expanded in any dimension desired, such as time: it need not be 2:50, and 
so
on.  On top of this is that here were guys working with extremely limited
means (even more than people like Wilson or George Martin, to say the
least), which always makes me wonder if my gear lust isn't anathema to raw
creation.
>Does anyone know more
>about him, and whether or not he's a looper?
   As you define it, creative tape echo effects are not looping?
    Does this list have, like the IDM list, a doctrinaire idea of its
organizing principal?  Its not a bad thing nec., but I suppose I should
refer to the charter carefully.  I've always loved loopiness, as I define
it, but I've come to feel ambivalent about it given the emergence of the
aforementioned "Puff Daddy" approach and all of the non hip-hop parallels 
of
it.  At worst, looping is the musical analog to cultural and personal
tendencies like regression, nostalgia, conservatism, stagnancy.
    I've come to feel that loops are a powerful tool that should be used
judiciously, in tandem with a larger set of tools, techniques and ideas.  I
like evolving loops that are in a contextual network and that don't
necessarily sound like loops, by this I don't nec. mean 10 minute drones
that are arhythmic.  I'm sure I'm not the first to make these
pronouncements.  Sorry for the desultory, long post.  Ben
PS is there a Loopers' Manifesto?