For what it's worth...

[Andre LaFosse <altruist@earthlink.net>]

Earlier this evening, a friend of mine who I've known for several years,
and who joined this list several weeks ago, called me up with a question:

"What's the story behind these people criticizing you on Looper's Delight?"

I hadn't read any of the posts since my departure - largely because
unsubscribing from a list has a few side-effects, one of which is not
receiving any more posts to that list.  And (perhaps tellingly), I
hadn't received a single private email from anyone on the list, pro or
con, since leaving.

So I had no idea what he was referring to, until (against my initial
impulse) I had a look at the archives tonight.  I'm posting this now -
and re-subscribing for only as long as it takes to send this - in an
attempt to tie up whatever may need tying up, for whomever may be
interested.  

If that isn't you, hit the delete key.  If it is you, grab a coffee.

First and foremost: no, I'm not an ageist, and no, I didn't make a
reference to "middle-aged men" in an attempt to be insulting or
demeaning.  I made it for the following reason:

For me, becoming an adult involves forming a way of dealing with the
world that is clearly-defined enough to articulate in a meaningful way,
strong enough to invite and withstand questions or criticism from other
people, and potentially flexible enough to accommodate growing or
changing if that belief system is found wanting.

Maybe this is an overly personal generalization, and maybe it represents
an unfair projection of my own philosophies about life onto those of
other people.  Or maybe I simply should have taken the time to explain
myself more fully.  If I'm going to adhere to the model of maturity I've
just described, then I'll have to acknowledge these possibilities.

So: sincere apologies for any inadvertent offense which was caused by my
choice of words, and the possible lack of a sufficient context for them.
 Maybe it was a Freudian insult, stemming from frustration at being born
with half the hairline I should have gotten.

Secondly: Why leave?

Because I don't understand the value of a discussion list where honest,
open, meaningful, critical discussion seems to be as difficult to come
by as it does here.  Because I've tried every conceivable way I can to
develop a genuine UNDERSTANDING of some of the people and beliefs in
this forum, and find myself repeatedly unable to do so.  Because in
spite of the immense amount of time and effort and thought I have put
into my contributions here, it seems that misunderstanding and
miscommunication inevitably results.

That's a very frustrating position to be in - especially when it
concerns a subject that I take as seriously as this one, and in a forum
that I've been part of for seven and a half years.

Thirdly: the "live looping" thing.

Over the last three years, I have heard the "live looping"
movement/community/genre described as:

- A collective of avant-garde musicians banding together for mutual
support unavailable in the outside world
- A movement which has single-handedly eliminated the apparently
lingering stigma of avant-gardism from the use of looping
- A specific set of aesthetic principles of repetition, structure,
and/or style
- A term for anyone at all who wants to be part of it, regardless of
what their music sounds like
- A convenient and effective marketing handle, and nothing more
- A type of music
- A set of tools for making all kinds of music
- A "new" movement
- A movement which is not necessarily "new," but which can justifiably
be described as such for the sake of inviting attention to itself
- A movement which I am a part of
- A movement which I could be part of, if I wish
- A movement which I would likely not be a part of, due to my solo
Echoplex music failing to adhere to the accepted and established
parameters of "live looping music"

I make this list not to be antagonistic, not to try and cut down other
people's work, and not to be anti-community, but to try and demonstrate
the reason I keep coming back to "the same old question":

Because I simply don't understand what people are going on about, and
because I'd really like to understand, and because it's immensely
frustrating to me for this lack of understanding to interfere with my
enjoyment of a forum dealing with a subject that's been a strong focus
of mine, for nearly a third of my entire life.

If people want to band together and call themselves "live loopers," and
derive satisfaction from that, I think that's great.  If they would like
people other than themselves to understand what they're doing, and why
they're doing it, then I think a coherent and concise description of
those things would be a wonderful.  If my asking some of those people
for a meaningful explanation of their beliefs and aesthetics is an
unwelcome gesture, then it sounds to me like a fairly flimsy foundation
on which to mount a multi-national promotional campaign.

There are a few comments that I think are worth trying to address,
though I have no idea how successful I'll be at it.

Doug Cox has described my contributions over the three years of his time
here as rhetoric, advertising, arguing, whining, cynicism, and a lack of
helpful discussion.

First of all, Doug: sorry to have been such a drag.  

Secondly, I'm a man with some strong beliefs, and I sometimes need a
certain amount of words to try and articulate those.  That might come
across as rhetoric.  Guilty as charged, I guess.  (This email certainly
won't offer much in the way of a defense.)

I'm also a man who has put a tremendous amount of his professional
efforts into an intense and prolonged investigation of the very thing
this list supposedly exists to discuss in the first place.  Put another
way: 

Advertising?  Well, yeah, I have CDs for sale.  They have a ton of
looping on them.  I post notices about this to a list dedicated to
looping.  I post reviews, wherein people talk about my looping, to a
list dedicated to people talking about looping.  

A cynical observer might see posting CD reviews as advertising copy.  A
less cynical observer might see posting reviews as documents of the way
the very subject of this list is dealt with and discussed by people
(i.e. the media) who don't obsess over it on a regular basis.  

So, again, sorry if it comes across as crass.  One source of consolation
might be the hours and hours' worth of downloads which I've offered
completely free of charge, often exclusively to this list, out of an
intense interest in fostering discussion about the very subject here.

Arguing?  Sometimes I don't agree with people, and sometimes I ask
people to explain their beliefs in order that I might develop a better
understanding of where they're coming from.  But for a very long time,
I've frequently pulled what little hair I was born with in the first
place out, in my efforts to be polite and respectful, even when I
haven't been faced with the same treatment.  Evidently I haven't always
succeeded, so again, sorry to have been a drag.

Whining?  Could be.  I specifically remember one post of mine, lamenting
a lack of sales in relation to the number of downloads I was
experiencing at that point, which probably came across as whining.

This particular post was in a thread from about a year ago, which dealt
with the merits of my giving away the dozens of tracks which were on my
site at the time.  My "whining" post was intended largely as a response
to a gentleman who was advocating the ongoing presence of my free music,
due to the widespread impact this fellow claimed it was having on other
guitarists.  His particular post was waiting for me one evening when I
came home after working at the telephone survey job I was forced to take
for a few weeks last year, which no doubt put his words in a certain 
perspective.

So I admit it: giving away two years' worth of free music lessons, and
nealy 20,000 free copies of my music, to thousands of strangers across
the world, at the same time that I found myself working in a telephone
call center, certainly has done some funny things to my head from time
to time.  If that was whining, then again, I apologize.  If you need
some consolation, look at it as a low-rent version of experimental music
reality TV, and gorge yourself on bemusement at the crazy hijinks of my
own self-pitying existence.

Cynicism?  Guilty as charged. 

A lack of helpful discussion?  I beg to differ.

I've done my absolute hardest to detail innumerable technical aspects of
several loopers, and have gone into even more innumerable details about
the conceptual reasons for why people might do what they do, based upon
the different tools they use.  I've offered up collections of specific
musical works, in their entirety, completely for free, and then spent
countless hours answering the questions that were raised by people who
asked about what I was doing in those performances.  I've posted
recommendations of other people's music to the list when I felt it was
deserved and/or conspicuously absent.  (I still can't believe no one had
mentioned Matthias' fantastic CD on this list before I did.)

If what I've attempted to contribute to the list hasn't been helpful in
the last three years, Doug, then I shudder to think what sort of
contribution I would need to make in order to satisfy you.  

But, once again: Sorry to have been a drag.

Finally, Rick Walker has a number of things to say, and unfortunately it
seems he and I are as prone to misunderstanding each other as we always
are.  In retrospect, our penchant for seeing things in completely
incompatible terms is amusing, but it's still very frustrating for me to
constantly be locking horns with such a talented and charismatic fellow.

Rick claims that I "have consistently refused to participate because [I]
have been uncomfortable with the category or the attempt at community
building in the so called Live Looping Community."

In truth, this is not the case.  I don't know if I'll have any more
success at articulating myself now than in any of my previous attempts
over the last two years, but this will very likely be the last time I
get to try, so here goes:

I'll admit that I've had reservations about the merits of playing a gig
billed as a "live looping music" performance.  As I've already
mentioned, I still don't understand what that means, and I admit it's
sometimes difficult for me to put a lot of enthusiasm behind something I
don't understand.  

However, there are a few things that are in need of clarification.

I have by no means "consistently refused to participate" in "looping
gigs."  I played "the first LA looping festival," staged at Rick's
encouragement, in July of 2001.  I attended Loopstock as an enthusiastic
audience member in 2002.  I played three seperate gigs in San Luis
Obispo within a month after that, each one of which was explicitly
billed as a "looping gig."  I delivered a clinic and an abbreviated
performance at Rick's own Y2K2 "looping festival" later that summer.  I
played five gigs with Rick, explicitly billed as "looping gigs," as a
member of an ensemble with Rick, which was called "The Loop Trio," at
the beginning of 2003.  I was slated to perform at Loopstock 2003 until
I was forced to pull out, due largely to illness and stress related to
my father's impending demise.  I played a gig with Jon Wagner in
November of 2003, which he explicitly billed as a "looping music" show. 
I played a coffeeshop gig in New Jersey in January of this year where
the theme was different artists who use loopers.

That's over a dozen self-consciously-defined "looping music gigs" I've
been a part of in the last two and a half years.  So no, I don't
necessarily object to playing a gig that's billed in such a way.

What I do object to is going into a situation where I've learned, from
experience, that I'm not going to be happy as a player.  Having done the
marathon festival/short solo set length/no soundcheck/no mid-performance
break shows, I know from that experience that I don't enjoy these gigs,
and I don't play to my satisfaction at them.  

You've admitted to feeling hurt by my inability to continue accepting
gigs from you, Rick, so I'm sincerely sorry.  If you could have offered
me a single gig with a soundcheck, a full-length performance slot for
the solo work of mine that you speak so highly of, a line-up that
doesn't tax the endurance of both performers and listeners, and maybe
even a shot at some percentage of the door, then maybe you would have
been pleasantly surprised at my answer.  Two or three of the gigs I
listed above met these conditions, and they were by far the most
enjoyable of the gigs for me as a player - the difference was truly
night and day for me (and for the audiences as well.)

In many ways, it's unfortunate (and, I'll admit, quite depressing) that
you were never able or willing to offer that kind of gig to me.  Then
again, I can't really expect you to make it a high priority to give a
"serious" gig to someone who's apparently been as big of a pain in the
ass to you as I seem to have been.  A wise man once said: musicians who
antagonize promoters don't get good gigs from those promoters.  (Alas,
as I've said before, I'm not a very wise man.)

So: thank you, Rick, sincerely, for extending the gig opportunities to
me that you did, and for providing the catalyst that led to all of this
unbelievable craziness in my life over the last three years.  I know it
was the result of serious work and intense enthusiasm on your part, and
I'm grateful for that.  I hope the numerous professional opportunities I
have personally created for you, frequently at your request, have
brought you some happiness and fulfillment as well.

Finally, you say: "I'm so sorry that your personal feelings of not
belonging and being 
excluded and not being recognized and not be supported financially by
this community
have led you to this."

I appreciate your sympathy, but, once again, I think some clarification
is in order.  

Do I feel that I don't belong?  No - on the contrary, I think I've
earned as much of a place on this list as anyone else.  Not any MORE so
than anyone else, certainly, but not any less.  (Apologies to Doug Cox
if this comes across as more prima donna attitude.)

Do I feel unrecognized?  Not at all.  It seems, from recent posts, that
my infamy truly preceeds me.

Do I feel unsupported financially by this community?  Well, I've made
more money from CD sales in the last seven months than I did in the
previous four years combined, so I think I'm doing something right.  I'm
intensely grateful to the people who think that my music is worth their
dollar, and I know a significant number of them are on this list.  I
don't take that for granted at all - on the contrary, I feel fortunate. 
Would it be nice to see even more sales?  Sure, but I don't expect
everyone to enjoy my music, and I don't expect everyone who does enjoy
it to pick up a CD.  

Some people I've talked to have expressed their belief that looping
artists' commercial releases are not sufficiently supported by the
looping community.  But for my part (and without wanting to be a
knee-jerk anti-community drag), I certainly don't expect anyone to buy a
CD simply to "support live looping."  To me, the only reason I would ask
anybody to spend some bread is if they like the music on the CD itself.  

I have a belief: musicians who loop should try to build an audience for
their music in the same way that every single musician who doesn't loop
has had to build an audience for themselves, at every point throughout
history: by winning over listeners on the strength of their music and
their performance.  Or, failing that, their marketing campaign.

(Let this email be both an example and a warning to all who follow: if
you make a point of escaping Robert Fripp's looping influence, you will
inexorably be possesed by his penchant for endless internet posts and
dissections of interpersonal conflict.)

Why leave?

Because I can't bear to keep spending hours trying to explain myself to
people, and to keep failing at it in the ways that I apparently do. 
Because repeatedly debating with people who I seem utterly incapable of
being understood by, or who seem utterly disinterested in even the
possibility of modifying their own points of view, on the same issues
year-in and year-out, is a surefire recipie for futility and
frustration.  Because having my attempts at intelligent, passionate, and
respectful discourse seemingly fail on all counts, to the extent that it
has, is quite a drag.

And maybe simply because seven and a half years on a mailing list is a
hell of a long time...  and because I'm at a point where my music speaks
infinitely more eloquently for what I think about looping than any words
I could possibly come up with.

To those I've offended: my sincere apologies.  To those I've helped:
glad to be of service.  To those who've listened to the music: very
sincere gratitude for offering a chunk of your life and attention to a
chunk of mine.  To those who fall into all three categories: sorry for
being such a nut.

And to those who think I'm taking this all too seriously: I'm inclined
to agree - which is as good a reason as any to leave the list.

I'll be unsubbing again right after sending this, so anyone who wants me
to read their thoughts should mail me privately.

As Larry The O once said about this very scene: "Savor the moment and
cherish the memory."  

I did the first one, and now I'm gonna try the second one.

C ya.

--Andre LaFosse
http://www.altruistmusic.com