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Y2K2 LOOPFEST Diary, Intallment 1
Hi, fellow loopers,
I'm so excited and nervous about this festival that I'm having
trouble sleeping so, after redoing the entrance posters and the
signs instructing stage two artists to use the board mutes so that
they can line check silently as the stage one artists perform at
3 a.m. I took a Melatonin and some stupid herbal 'sleep aid' and
went to bed. Like clockwork, I just woke up, completely wide awake
at 5:55 a.m.
I decided to burn off some excess energy and start a tour diary.
If this is the only installment, please forgive me, there is a lot of
work to do in the next 48 hours or so. So, if you are bored to tears,
sit back and let me ramble incoherently to you. If you are busy, I warn
you, this is a waste of time: just erase it along with your other
"Naked Furry Barnyard Animals" porn spam and be done with it.
5:55 a.m.:
That number keeps coming up in my life: so much so that I frequently
will look down at my watch in the middle of my 5 o'clock lessons
(3 of them a week) and see my digital watch click onto 5:55:55.
When this happens, I have taken to interupting the flow of the lesson
and insisting that my student and I play 5 bars of 5/8 exactly and then
continuing on. Long ago, my students have figured out
that I am quirky and insane,so they don't even balk at such a non-sequitor
and this has led many a student into a "what's this odd-time" thingee we
just played and we jump off into a 3 month odd-time tangent in our
lessons.
Wow, I am nervous and excited: that was quite a tangent! LOL.
The house is quiet and eery: strangely overclean and empty. My wife
and I have been frantically cleaning in preparation for the festival
and the onslaught of homeless loopers who may or may not need a place to
crash. I'm not used to it. Normally the house is a chaotic mess (where I
know where everything goes exactly). I've always jokingly described it
as being like a world class ethnic instrument museum where the curator is
some psychotic alchoholic in love with his job. I'm not an alcholholic by
the way, but I like the image and it fits the visuals.
Earlier, after burning the last of my new CD copies to have for sale at
the festival, I drove to the San Francisco Airport to pick up fellow looper
Michael Klobuchar who has the wonderful distinction of being the looper
who has come the farthest way to participate (he's from Pittsburgh, for
gosh
sake!!!) and we then continued on into the Sunsest District of San
Francisco
to pick up the Festival T-shirts from Jason Gellis, an immensely
talented young visual artist (and budding punk rock/celtic guitarist in his
own right). The tees look fabulous!!!! I'm nervous that I won't sell all
of them, but everyone has admonished me for not having more made up (I made
24). When the festival is over and if there are any left, I'll put them up
for sale here at the website if anyone is interested.
Michael and I have so many things to talk about, that the next couple
of
hours of driving go by quickly and we soon find ourselves at the Cayuga
Vault (midnight), where we find Pete Coates (co-owner and Sunday performer)
busy helping Alan Peevers of the FXTC crew hanging the video animation
projector for the visuals tonight.
Pete is amazing!!! He hand built a screen especially to accomodate
this performance and was busy rewiring electrical
sockets and installing an ingenious little projector 'hanger' that comes
down from the ceiling. He and fellow owner, Linda Kimball have worked so
hard to make this festival a smooth running operation!!!
Michael and I then busy ourselved erecting the mighty STAGE TWO (you'll
laugh when you see it...........mighty is not quite an adjective one would
use if one weren't nervous and hyperbolic at 5:55 a.m.). Everything
checks out and I rewire my setup for the gear demonstrations with Bill and
Andre.
David Fitzpatrick, my incredibly talented young student arrives
and begins to set up his Darwin harddrive to record all of the stage
two performances. Pete Coates (who is also a fine recording/live sound
engineer in his own right) will be recording the STAGE ONE performances
on his harddrive set up built into his massive mixing rack. Eilleen
Sundet,another computer music student of mine will be handling the
video documentation chores with her brand new and incredible digital
camcorder. She took hand held shots of my recent looping demo for the
PASIC
(percussion arts society) festival here in Santa Cruz and I was amazed at
the quality of the camera work and her intuitive grasp
of filming.
I mention all these people because we have 22 hours of
documentation ahead of us which, if you stop to think of it, is a hell of
a lot of work...............all for free...........all for the love of
this wonderful community...........my heart just swells with gratitude
when I think of what an incredible thing we are about to embark on.
Michael Klobuchar rocks!!! He is as insane as I am and we just talk and
talk (even after ordering obscenely large double bacon cheeseburgers at
the local diner...............ahhhhh, that's why I can't sleep, I just put
two and two together and got five fifty five!). I tell him about what a
wierd and wonderful place Santa Cruz is and he tells me what a wierd and
wonderful place Pittsburgh is. He has a hard time getting
over our $1.99/gallon gas prices (He filled up at $1.29 before he left and
I
laugh at this piece of news..........wow between the atrocious dot.com
greedy real estate rents and the gas gouging, I realize that we really get
screwed here in northern california!).
Then it's off home to check off the final checks on my big 'to do'
sheet
for the festival. I redo the signs on the computer, regretfully
inform Suano Inami that I probably won't be able to upload MP3s of the
festival in time for his Saturday world wide looping webcast. A shame and
I realize that next time maybe I'll see if I can enlist someone's aid to
simulcast the performances over the web..........anyone know how to do
this?
I'm a relative web newbies (I'm only 3 years old in that regard) and still
haven't learned how to put up my own website (although I did get ambitious
and purchase LooppooL.NFO).
I realize that with all of this technology (from the looping gear to
the computers and printers that have allowed me to make my own CD without
the aid of a single record company, lawyer, business manager, graphic
artist, distribution company or publicist) that we live in the most
exciting time in the history of music. Michael and I marvelled at how
any kid with a $1,000 computer can now make a record that would have
cost $500,000 to make 15 or 20 years ago. It's astonighing really.
I tell him, excitingly about the Repeater's ability to have it's loops
'played' by any midi instrument while the samples are time stretched in
real
time and the put the finishing touches on my battery powered portable
looping rig and give him a demo. I have to acknowledge here, the
inspiration from Papa Dave Potter and John Whooley who have both beaten me
to the punch by constructing mobile looping rigs: Jeez, Papa Dave drives
around in his car looping away and John has already been run off the mall
twice by the police for his excursions into portable overtone
singing/looping.
My rig has a purple plastic portable speaker system that I bought for
$10 at the local pubescent girls accesory shop in the mall. It is intended
for hooking up one's portable CD player, but I have it velcroed onto
a high school marching snare drum harness, replete with a little battery
powered mixer (kluged onto my belt with the plastic from to CD cases held
together by some plastic strap down locks), a battery powered BOSS "intelli
shifter", through a DL-4 battery powered looper. I then have an AKG
battery powered head set mic attached to this whole rig......The audible
results are decidedly lo-tech and I still have to figure out how to control
the feedback, but hey, what do you want for 2 a.m. in the morning.
Well, the sun is rising and I"m going to make another vain attempt at
sleep. Back to the venue at 12:30 and off we go.
Hope I make it back for installment number two...........and,
if anyone has actually read this far and wants to add another installment.
please do.
I have very fond memories of fighting Steve Lawson for computer time at 4
a.m. in the morning each night to add installments of our tour diary on
TALKBASS.com after our exciting Bass Looping shows with Michael Manring and
Max Valentino last year. I miss Steve and his
finger nail polish and wonderful wit. He should be here at this festival.
People should give him thousands of dollars to play his music all over the
world................I smile as I suddenly realize...............they
will......... in time.
later, Rick