Y2K-X Day Two: SANTA CRUZ

[Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com>]

  Well,  was the heaviest day of the festival for me because there
were performances in 3 different cities.

I was planning to deliver the sound system to the young woman
who had agreed to produce the gig at the Namaste Tea House
and then continue to organize the myriad list of I have to accomplish
for the opening of the main venue later tonight (It's 3:43 as I write).

I could get no answers to my phone calls and got to the venue to
find that the woman was a complete no-show......

...........suddenly ,  I had to load in the system, be the sound guy, the
MC (and even play a little as one of the artists just didn't show).

The show went great:   Soren Wagner did a beautiful newbie set;
David Berkmann did a fascinating set with a Gravichord (an elecronic
Kora, or 21 String African harp---also a first for the festival),  Chris 
Cohn
did a relaxing ambient set,  Ambassador of Trouts did a really interesting
set using (amongst other instruments) a bass clarinet............one of 
my favorite
instruments in the world and then Laurie Amat, the wonderful experimental
vocalist did a 'newbie' set that was really fascinating.    Because of 
last minute
cancellations in the festival,  I set up some of my gear and joined Laurie
for a trio improvisationally with Adrian Gormley (Ambassador of Trouts).
I've never played with these two musicians before but it was really magical
and a nice way to end a very stressful situation for me.

Then everyone in the audience pitched in and loaded out the PA so that I 
could
get over to the main venue in time to help load in the sophisticated sound
and lighting system that we'll use for the next three days.

The board is a digital board and fellow looper Daniel Thomas' son Trevor 
(who played percussion with him in last years festival) brought in the 
system and set it up.

Daniel came down (amazing because he leave tomorrow at 6:00 a.m. for 
Ireland where he will
do a tour with traditional Irish musicians and Bob Brozman (who we've 
both played with in the past)
and taught Maha (my trusty and amazing assistant for the festival) and I 
how to use the digital
board.

Tim Thompson and David Tristram came in with us and set up the 
sophisticated interactive
lighting/video system that they'll be using to improvise with the 
musicians on stage.
David even brought an enoromous latter; crawled to the top of the venue 
and put
tarps over the skylights so we can have amazing visuals in the middle of 
the day tomorrow.

I finished and got home by 2:45.  I started working at 2:00 this 
afternoon so it was a long,
long, long, long day.  I"m so thankful tthat I can sleep in today and be 
back
to start it all off at 6:00 tonight.

Oh...................and we got the cover to the 
Goodtimes...............fantastic!!!!!!!
Linda Koffman wrote a really long article on the history of the festival 
and said
some very nice things about it (and about me).

Awesome............................onto day 3.

Rick Walker

ps   Any one want to write in about yesterdays gigs in San Jose and San 
Francisco.
I was sad to have to miss them.