Kim

[Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com>]

I  woke up this morning and my brother told me that tragic news of Kim's 
death.

I,  like everyone,  am just stunned.

I woke up to begin working in a very, very long day so this is the first 
time I've had to post.

I'm in the middle of a day of full teaching and a very important dress 
rehearsal for a show
and have been working without respite since I had breakfast so I haven't 
had time to fully
process (outside of bursting into tears when the Bagelry girl was really 
uncommonly nice to me).

My rehearsal begins in 5 minutes and I hate to rush this post but I just 
wanted to say this quickly:

On some levels all of this wouldn't be the way it is today with Kim.

It was the creation of Loopers Delight which led me to this community 
and I was ecstatic when I discovered
it thanks to his work.   Blown away to discover other fellow sonic 
adventurers who had a love for this approach
to creativity.   I felt like I found a family I never had known existed 
and I felt almost instantly that I had
come 'home'.

 I can honestly say that knowing him and his work at with the creation 
and maintenance
of this huge endeavor has irrevocably changed my life for the better.

Over the years,   Kim was always very kind and generous to 
me..............even in the times where we had
major philosophical disagreements about the attempts to kick start an 
international live looping movement.

I remember, he came with Matthias to see me play a show in Berkeley that 
was the last show of
the most demoralizing and depressing short tours I've ever played on.
I had been horridly abused by my tour mate and was depressed, exhausted 
and thoroughly questioning why I was doing anything as an artist
and he had me come back to his house and was just really sweet 
(Matthias, my dear brother too!).

I could tell that he 'got' where I was at and it was really an act of 
human kindness and compassion to
take care of me in that way.

Many times  he would come see shows I'd do in the South Bay and take me 
out to dinner afterwards.
As a musician struggling to be an artist and one who makes exceedingly 
small amounts of money, this
kindness was really touching to me.

I invited Kim to come be a guest speaker at the 10th anniversary Y2K-X 
fest and he politely declined
to speak but said he'd be there.     I was really looking foreward to that.

Also, in my sadness right now,   it makes me smile to remember that he 
and Mark Sottilaro and I seemed to
be the only loopers to dye their hair weird colors.    I always took 
some odd solace in that fact
and I"ll never forget being excited to see what color his ponytail would.

I will really miss Kim.       I will never forget him.

Please as a community,   let's do something for his partner, Violet, as 
a thanks for all he has given us at Loopers Delight.

All my love,    

Rick Walker