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Hi everyone, >From the bottom of my heart I want to thank everyone for making the Y2K7 Loopfest the best festival I've ever experienced. It was truly wonderful this year and I feel so deeply grateful to the following people for making it be so: Gretchen McPherson and Chris Cohn for helping me to write and secure the grant from the Arts Council of Santa Cruz and for doing the door for all 30 hours of the festival Megabyte Mike for doing the sound under frequently tough circumstances and for constantly striving for a better and more professional sound Rodent for being one of the most professional stage managers I've ever worked with (and I've worked with dozens in my career). I hardly noticed you at times which is the hugest of all compliments. Bill Walker for lending his soundsytem, setting it up, putting out at least a half a dozen fires even after you had committed to just be a performer this year. I couldn't have done it without you. For putting up artists and giving up your studio for a week. Mark Hamburg for expertly photo-documenting the whole festival..........you created several shots that artists should use for their main website photos. It was stunning that you delivered DVDs of artists photos AS THEY WALKED OFF STAGE. Krispen Hartung for recording the festival even after deciding not to do it officially this year. I can't wait to hear what you came up with. Ted Killian for making yet another beautiful and professional poster (with 10,000 revisions) Bob Beede for making donating the huge festival posters. Chris Wedertz and Nancy LeVan, Bill's and my beautiful talented wives who worked so hard to host our artists, make food, ferry them around, taking them to and from the airports, loading gear, cleaning up the venue when we were exhausted and generally keeping the vibe wonderful and upbeat during the whole week, and especially for keeping me sane and putting up with my neurotic, manic stressed out behaviour for weeks' before the festival. Mayor Emily Reilly, who was so gracious in presenting the keys to the city and who completely floored me when she presented me with a key to the city. Santa Cruz is so lucky to have the best mayor in it's history as long as I've lived in the town (36 years). Michael Horne For renting us the venue but going way out of his way to accomodate us...provide us with facilities that would normally cost far more that we could afford. For being so upbeat. Aaron Leese for his technology premiere of the new software looping app, FlyLoop. Brian Eder and Cherri Lakey for hosting us at the Anno Domini Gallery..........you guys are a godsend for the arts in the South Bay. Mickey T and the artists of the Drum Machine Museum for hosting us in Oakland To all the Artists who performed.............. .for your beautiful and creative presentations; for your extremely strong communal attitudes and generous spirit; for all the little errands and favors that you all did to make my job so much easier; for all the artistic inspiration that has me so turned on , creatively and desiring to learn even more about live looping. To Fabio Anile (Italy), Leander Reininghaus (Germany), Erdem Helvacioglu (Turkey), Arild Anderesen (Norway), Henry Kaiser (USA), Randolf Arriola (Singapore), Per Boysen (Sweden), Krispen Hartung (USA), Chinapainting (Daryl Shawn-Mexico/USA and Jim Goodin-USA) and Michael Klobuchar the strongest lineup of headliners, featured performers and special guests that we've ever had. To Matthias Grob (Brazil/Switzerland), the inventor of the Echoplex for his constant positive and creative energy..............for helping to birth this scene; for being a great and deep friend and a constant source of inspiration to both me and the whole International Live Looping Scene. What a blessing to have you come at the last minute. The whole vibe of the festival lifted because you came, Matthi! Lastly to all of our financial sponsors: Nabil Gachem and the Cultural Council of Santa Cruz County for underwriting a portion of the festival with your generous grant. Bob Amstadt, inventor of the Looperlative for his generous underwriting of Erdem Helvacioglu's visit Bill Putnam, president of Universal Audio for his generous underwriting of Fabio Anile's visit A generous annonymous donor for helping out the entire festival and underwriting Arild Andersen and Leander Reininghaus' visits Klo-boy for his generous underwriting of Per Boysen's visit. Arts Council of Singapore for their generous underwriting of Randolf Arriola's visit And to everyone who so generously and graciously added to the energy of this wonderful festival. THANK YOU EVERYONE from the bottom of my heart!!!!!!!!! I deeply love the international live looping community and feel so thankful that everyone tithed so much of their time, money and energy to make this wonderful festival a reality!!!!! It's a tremendous amount of energy and time to organize this festival. Every year I tell my wife that this is the last year; that I can't take the stress...............but at the end of it, I feel so greatful to have been allowed to do it and feel such an uplift, creatively as an artist.....................and to feel such an uplift by the true outpouring of love and support I experience from everyone. We are all blessed to know each other. love, Rick Walker ps I always have a fair amount of anxiety about forgetting someone's contribution in the haze of exhaustion that always descends when the festival is over each year. If anyone thinks that I missed ackowledging somebody, please let me know off list and I'll correct that oversight immediately with deep apologies. I assure you that if I missed anyone it is due only to sheer exhaustion and not to feeling ungrateful for someone's contribution.