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Thanks for those inspiring words Rick. I hope to someday have a Loopfest in Charleston, WV. If you or any other loopers are this way and want to improv or just need a place to stay please email me! West Virginia is Wild and Wonderful! Weg From: "Rick Walker/Loop.pooL" <GLOBAL@cruzio.com> Reply-To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com To: "Loopers Delight" <Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com> Subject: Why I produce LOOPING FESTIVALS: is looping a valid musical artform? Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 23:22:54 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: from [207.228.238.9] by hotmail.com (3.2) with ESMTP id MHotMailBEC6F94400754136E852CFE4EE090A050; Tue, 04 Jun 2002 23:23:20 -0700 Received: (from looper@localhost)by hemlock.violacea.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) id CAA23924;Wed, 5 Jun 2002 02:22:46 -0400 >From Loopers-Delight-request@loopers-delight.com Tue, 04 Jun 2002 >23:24:19 -0700 Resent-Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 02:22:46 -0400 Old-Return-Path: <GLOBAL@cruzio.com> Message-ID: <013201c20c59$6db200c0$cb61f93f@global> X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4807.1700 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4807.1700 Resent-Message-ID: <5Q4IDD.A.v1F.24a_8@hemlock.violacea.com> Resent-From: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com X-Mailing-List: <Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com> archive/latest/20187 X-Loop: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com Precedence: list Resent-Sender: Loopers-Delight-request@loopers-delight.com Dear Fellow Loopers (and fellow artists who don't consider themselves loopers but use looping tools in their music). I've been reading with increasing interest about potential Looping Festivals in places as far flung as Emeryville, California, Seattle Washington and somewhere, mysteriously, in Germany. I've also noticed that the debate keeps coming up about whether LOOPING should be considered a separate musical artform or whether such festivals are "legitimate" or not. Indeed, in the past, I have spiritedly debated this with our list coordinator (but NOT leader) the esteemed and talented, Kim Flint. I can't answer that question for anybody. Each person needs to have their own take on it and figure out where they stand, but I have produced 14 Looping specific Festivals in Northern California in the last three years (with several festivals in the works for later this summer and next year) and I thought it might be good to let everybody know why I am working as hard as I am to promote the cause of LOOPING. I am making NO MONEY doing any of it directly (although more on that subject later ;-). With regards to the debate about Looping as an artform or Looping as merely a tool that individual artists use in their works: Music is music and obviously with the diversity of styles and types of musics on this looping site alone (from Tom Heasley's gorgeous Tuba mantras to Richard Zvonar's sample manipulations to Andre LaFosse's brilliant abstract guitar excursions to my wacky 'found sound' aesthetic to Stan Card's surf rock grooves to Steve Lawson's wonderfully melodic and crazy electric bass mantras, we can't consider Looping to be a 'form' of music. Why then, for god's sake, do I produce Looping Festivals? Here's the answer: 1) I want to foster community.................something sadly lacking in our culture............... Calling ourselves loopers creates a sense of family and belonging. This feeling was very palpable, as I'm sure anyone who was there would agree, at Hans LIndauers' LOOPSTOCK in San Luis Obispo.................enough so that Larry O graciously wrote us up in Electronic Musician last month. 2) Journalists and Radio DJs are sick of the status quo................we have not been in such a horrible static slump in mainstream pop music in almost 30 years. Calling attention to the new technology, Looping, both educates and gives journalists and radio/televison dj/vjs a handle................it makes them feel like they are part of the cutting edge.............it gets great publicity: I'm performed on air to a million people for a total of about 3 1/2 hours in the last three years because of my efforts to promote 'looping'................... You just can't get that kind of exposure any other way as someone who is 'out of the box' (the dominant, major label paradigm that has strangled creativity for so long). 3) I'm so invested, personally (and I think we should all be as independent artists) in exiting that box (lawyers, contracts, distributors, labels and usury in general). Being part of a new 'movement', such as it is, is just a way of identifying with something that doesn't have a strong precedent..........It's a way of getting people's attention that something 'new' is coming. People are starved for new creativity. Mark my words, the next 3-5 years will see a new musical explosion even in major label pop because people are so starved for something outside of the Major Label paradigm. 4) Just having something tangible (the label LOOPING) to identify with has gotten me offers to do musuem gigs, festivals, tours, soundtracks, modern dance commissions and resulted in several artistic successes. Two cases in point: A) The World's First Bass Looping Tour featuring bassists Michael Manring, Steve Lawson, Max Valentino and myself (as the only bass playing non-bass player on the tour enabled us to play a 30 minute set on KPIG, the worlds' largest internet radio station.......2 weeks later, the head of TALKBASS.com e-mailed me and told me that mentioning his website and the tour diary that we posted every night after each cities' performance had caused 20% raise in the hits to his site and that his website traffic had stayed up consitently for at least the next two weeks. He was very appreciative and I felt very proud of all the artists who participate in that. B) The success of this tour's performance so excited the director of the San Jose Museum of Art that they have subsequently hired me to curate a whole series of shows that showcase emerging trends and technologies in both Music and Live Video Animation. This has already resulted in the planning of the 1ST WOMAN's LOOPING FESTIVAL on Friday, October 4th, the FESTIVAL of LIVE COMPUTER ANIMATION, where top artists in this field will be 'jamming' visually with the loop based music of WALKERS (my duet project with my brother, Bill Walker) and subsequent BASS LOOPING festivals and festivals of Experimental Guitar. 5) This new technology is allowing certain kinds of music to be made that has never been possible before and , certainly, never by one human being.................I can do really 'outside' timbral things and suddenly incorporate them into a pop song in real time, if I want.................Some of the work being done with Repeaters, EDPs, MAX/Dsp and !LIVE computer looping software is unlike any other music that I have heard from one or two performers. For the first time ever, I can sample or loop a found object right in front of an audiences face and then 'play' that sample like a melodic instrument with my wind synthesizer (or any other midi controller: guitarists, synthesists, drummer/percussionists take note). Heretofore, audiences have not been able to connect strongly with how much the sampling world has effected modern music. 6) I learn like a m*therf*cker every time I do a festival with other loopers. I get my creative juices stimulated incredibly. I produce better 'art' when I perform at a festival. That's why I produce Looping Festivals..................in what other way would I successfully be able to promote a concert with myself and , say, a genius like Tom Heasley..........what do we have in common: LOOPING!!! We are in the baby stages of learning this technology (or at least, I am) and in learning how to 'put it out' to the world in a viable way. Vis a viz, making money with Looping, as far as I can see, it cannot be done much yet, but it is only a matter of time. So what I shoot for is: 1) not losing too much money with a tour (I have a 12 country solo looping tour scheduled for Europe and the British Isles for next summer (2003). I 2) making as big a splash as possible by aggresively connecting to indedpendent, pirate and college radio DJs and journalists 3) Always roping in one to several other artists (usually loopers in my particular case) to a) double or quadruple our draw and b) create a sense of community c) save expense money by scoring 'floors' to sleep on :-) d) meet and collaborate with new artists (I'm an improviser, so I love to do two solo sets and then a set of imrpov at nights' end) Those are my thoughts on the subject. To anyone who is remotely considering putting on a looping festival in their locale, please consider me a source for moral support and/or advice/information about what I"ve learned to make these events have maximum impact. To those of you who grumble and say "I don't care what he says, Looping is not a musical form" I say, so be it................no need to compromise your values and aesthetics..............but it is o.k. to let us naive ones' have our fun, right? Also, I would invite you to come to the after performance dinner (or breakfast as in the case of Loopstock) and soak up a little of the wonderful and exciting artistic giddiness and vibes that happen there. After Loopstock, I was brimming with so many ideas for new things to do that I'm afraid I wore my poor brothers ear off on the 3 hour trip home...........I was high for weeks.........I'll bet others were as well (thanks so much Hans). Do I reveal myself for the idealistic, communalist, aging hippy that I am? DAMN STRAIGHT!!!!! Loop on my friends and go get 'em Emeryville, Seattle, Chicago, New York, Germany, Wales, London, Paris and anyother place that is considering having a looping festival. yours, Rick Walker (loop.pool) _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.