RE: musicianship for solo loopers? (was OT NINE INCH NAILS)

["Dave Gallaher" <micdave@hiwaay.net>]

I've had a couple great experiences playing Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras) gigs
with percussionists.  One in particular is giftedly intuitive; he does a
good bit of Nashville session work and has toured with name artists.  I 
just
told him to bring whatever he wanted and play whatever he enjoyed, and I
mentioned that my looping will make my part of the music much less
consumptive of energy than his constant live playing.  He said it was no
problem, and it wasn't.  We had a ton of attention, more than I get on my
long-running weekly loop gigs, and he just fell right in on my groove and
made it all better.  We played two ninety-minute sets, and I played many
things that were well out of my norm.

dave 
 

The NIN thread got me thinking about one of the drawbacks of solo
performance, which is that the visual effect tends to lack a strong impact.
As a guitarist, it's pretty easy to just sit on the stool and work the
guitar and pedals. And that's not too interesting to watch, even when it's
Fripp. It's tempting to invite other musicans, especialy percussionists who
could hang with anything I might be doing without a lot of rehearsal, to 
sit
in if only for the added visual impact. 

So what are your thoughts regarding how you approach making your solo
looping gig more visually engaging?