Re: LIVE LOOPING my own personal history

["L. Angulo" <labalou2000@yahoo.com>]

That right Rick, the term Live Looping is already
being used even by me;-)
Although i find myself using it more as a described
technique than as a style.When i am asked how is done
etc. then i go on saying "loops being created live"
which is essentialy livelooping.it is very exciting
being part of something evolving and maybe as people
start joining lists like this one the word will
eventually spread out and we will all probably look
back at our silly discussions;-)
I think the looping festivals Rick is promoting
(although ive never been to one) are a great way to
get in contact with other loopers and to draw
inspiration,ideas and see the posibilities
involved.Even if it is stressing having little time
for soundcheck etc.i would do it in a hard beat,i wish
something like this would be available here! they are
worth it and important and we should be glad that
somebody is going through the trouble of doing
something that a lot of us probably wouldn´t do since
it takes a lot of time and energy and hardly generates
any profits!
Cheers
Louie


--- "loop.pool" <looppool@cruzio.com> wrote:
> Since I have been one very strong advocate for the
> whole "Live Looping"
> concept ,  I wanted to weigh in on this fascinating
> discussion
> with an explanation of why I have personally fought
> for that particular
> semantic concept and tried, really hard to promote
> it.
> 
> In order to explain this I just wanted to go on
> record about how I got
> involved and why I started becoming enamored of this
> term, Live Looping
> to describe what I and a few others were doing, only
> in our home town  (not
> even knowing that there were others, like Miko B,
> just across our own  town
> who were doing similar things until much later).
> 
> In our  beginnings with using looping gear live in
> front of a paying
> audience, when my brother Bill, Gary Regina and I
> were first enamored of
> using our brand new, 1993 circa Lexicon Jammans,  I
> was fascinated by the
> concept of layering lots of (what were then very
> static) loops on top of
> each other.
> 
> As a percussionist drummer and fledgling
> bassist/keyboardist/found sound
> enthusiast)  I could make really interesting ambient
> or
> rhythmic loops and build a rather sophisticated
> piece of music that grew do
> to it's layered sophistication as opposed to the
> dominant
> paradigm of the day:   sophistication through
> technical brilliance, mastery
> of one's 'axe' or adherance to particular styles of
> music.  Personally, this
> allowed me to give myself permission to start
> learning very modest motifs
> and riffs on instruments that I had no business
> playing on stage in a
> older paradigm live performance.     Just needing to
> know enough to record a
> single loop, this radically widened my timbral and
> melodic and harmonic
> palette.  This was very, very exciting for me (and
> scary to, I might add,
> because I always ran the risk of the judgement of
> more accomplished
> musicians).   For me,  this began a whole new phase
> of thinking about music
> and was tremendously liberating for me.
> 
> It was all I wanted to do (much to the chagrin of a
> lot of more typical
> local musicians who thought it was a shame that I
> was eschewing
> my former great love of the drumset and ethnic
> multi-percussion) but I was
> faced with a dilemma in my desire to play more gigs:
> 
> How could I publicize them?
> 
> The people coming to see what we were doing didn't
> know what they were
> seeing or hearing.   They were enjoying the music a
> lot because we were able
> to create pretty cool psychedelic ambiances and
> layered
> percussion/bass/guitar/wind instrument loops to then
> play over the top of
> but  I would find myself constantly explaining to
> people who would come up
> and enquire about the gear we were using.
> 
> I've been a gear head all of my life and I have
> played hundreds of exotic
> percussion instruments and electronic drums, but I
> had never had the kind of
> response to my gear, specifically,  as I was having
> after these initial
> shows...........I had already played professional
> for over 20  years in
> public and I was bowled over by the audience
> response to what we were
> attempting.
> 
> I also discovered that when we approached venues
> about doing such shows that
> , despite the fact that we had been the leaders of
> some of the most
> successful bands in the past 15 years in Santa Cruz,
> that we still had to
> describe to bookers and publicistst and journalists
> and radio DJs what we
> were doing and justify it's difference from what we
> had played before.  If
> we didn't explain what we were doing and why it
> differentiated from what we
> had done before, they just weren't interested and
> wouldn't publicize our
> gigs.
> 
> I was faced with a dilemma, because I was completely
> enamored with the whole
> concept of minimalistic repitition and loops but I
> also realized that the
> rap and pop and film score world were full of
> "loop/sample" conciousness.
> 
> What distinquished what we were doing from other
> music in our area was that
> we were doing it live in a way that was much more
> maleable
> in real time that just triggering pre-sampled or
> recorded loops.
> 
> What we were doing was a bit more dangerous because
> we ran the danger of
> fucking up in front of an audience in a way that
> triggering pre sampled
> loops didn't represent.  Consequently I didn't want
> to call it LOOP MUSIC.
> I wanted to draw a distinction.
> 
> Anyway,  I also discovered, from having done a ton
> of music business
> publicity for all of my own bands I led over the
> years, that it would not
> work
> to have to use two or three sentences to describe
> what we were doing.   We
> had to come up with a publicity hook.
> 
> What I discovered (by trying different approaches
> that all failed miserably)
> was that I needed a two word description that would
> at least
> provoke another question or two from the audience
> member, journalist or DJ
> who was enquiring.
> 
> I'm not sure when Loopers Delight was started, but I
> was not a member at the
> time so I was considering these things in the vacuum
> of my own
> home town.    There were only three of us doing it
> (to my provincial and
> limited knowledge).
> 
> Anyway,  I started using the term Live Looping.   I
> don't claim to have
> invented it before anyone else (I'm sure I didn't,
> in fact) but I invented
> it for
> us in our insular musical situation.
> 
> When I first discovered the CT Collective and
> started coming to Loopers
> Delight I discovered this amazing  community of
> people who were just as
> turned on to this looping concept that I was.  I was
> in heaven and felt like
> a religious convert (obnoxious whenever it happens
> but highly effective for
> prosletyzing.........lol)    I actually subsribed 
> earlier to L.D. but was
> brand new to the internet and had no
> concept of setting up a daily digest or e-mail
> filters.    I think I got 40
> or 50 individual e-mails from the list the first day
> or two I was subscribed
> and I
> hastily unsubscribed and didn't come back for
> another couple of years.
> 
> Anyway,  Steve Lawson and I started corresponding
> because of the list and he
> said he was coming to the West Coast and could I get
> him a gig.
> Steve had absolutely no draw in this area at all and
> I knew that I had to
> come up with some good publicity hook  to interest
> people in his
> performance.
> We publicized the fact that he was doing bass
> looping to the press and to
> the list and got an incredible response, including a
> slew of bass players
> in the area who were intrigued about what we were
> doing and asked if they
> could participate.    I had booked a little venue
> that held 45 people and
> the response was so great that I quickly scratched
> that idea and went to the
> Rio Theatre to ask if they would host a
> festival............contacted a
> 
=== message truncated ===


=====
www.luis-angulo.com

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