livelooping articles for a guitar magazine

["Michael Peters" <mp@mpeters.de>]

hi all,

The largest German guitar magazine (Gitarre und Bass) has expressed 
interest
that I write something for them about livelooping. They have never written
anything about it so far and they realize that the topic has become
interesting enough for many guitarists to be presented in the magazine. 

I won't be able to start writing until mid-July because I'm busy with other
things now. Because it is such a complex subject, it looks like it might
turn into a series of articles rather than just one. I haven't really
started to think about the specifics but they want me to send them a rough
outline. 

I think it would make sense to write about 

1) what livelooping is - a general introduction and overview, including a
paragraph about the difference between livelooping and using prerecorded
loops; this introduction would already contain some of what the later
articles would look at in more detail, such as a bit of history, guitarists
and other musicians who use livelooping, different styles and approaches,
and a look at the technology;

2) the history of livelooping in some detail (something I already wrote
about 15 years ago - the article is still online at Looper's Delight);

3) livelooping styles, approaches and strategies and musical possibilities,
with examples of livelooping musicians, ideally guitarists, ideally world
famous guitarists, including a discography + list of online resources; 

4) something about the technology, hardware/software (enough material for 
at
least two articles), maybe including a comparison chart of the tools that
are currently available;

5) I could also imagine articles about how to play rock tunes with
livelooping (something that has recently been discussed here), complete 
with
scores, step-by-step-how-tos, and all. That would be something I would
possibly leave to one of you (with credits etc. of course) because some of
you are real specialists on this, and I am not. Please contact me offline 
if
you feel you could do that well.  Too bad that the magazine doesn't allow
for included videos, but I could at least point to them - such as the truly
glorious cover versions that Randolf Arriola did recently. Randolf do you
feel you could analyze them and write about them?

So again, I'd be grateful for any suggestions (structure/topics). 

There are a gazillion livelooping guitarists but at the moment I really
wonder which of them are famous enough to be known to the majority of
magazine readers (apart from Robert Fripp of course, who would certainly be
the #1 example, if you like him or not). Of course there is a lot that I
could write about us, the crowd of incredibly talented Looper's Delight
guitarists, and I hope there will be room for that ... but I feel it would
be good to introduce the topic in a way that would make it seem not too
esoteric and more mainstream (as the magazine is a mainstream guitar
magazine), like the next big thing, or at least like something that many
guitarists do already, guitarists that the readers can easily identify 
with.
I don't know any world famous guitarists, other than Fripp, employing
livelooping in an extensive way (please correct me), but many of them might
employ livelooping techniques here and there - I'd be grateful for concrete
examples, such as the Jaco Pastorius solo with Weatherreport, or was it 
Joni
Mitchell, where he used a delay pedal to create a rhythmical backdrop.

-Michael Peters