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Looper's Delight
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Hi people. Here's some important news for any experimentally-inclined SoCal music players or fans. It's long, but worth checking out: It looks as if there's some hope for experimental music in Los Angeles. There's been some talk on the list about a new club called Lumpy Gravy, which is a sort of combination experiental music venue/art gallery/restaurant which opened in February. Our own Ken Roesser has done some playing there, as have a number of other artists, many of whom are related to the music of this list. I just got off the phone with Scott Johnson, who is the new manager/coordinator/damage control specialist at the place. He's very interested in trying to cultivate a number of unusual and experimental shows at Lumpy Gravy, and seems committed to making the place work. One notion which caught my ear in particular was an idea for a sort of "electronic jam session," probably to happen on Tuesday nights. He envisions having different electronically-oriented artists coming up and doing some spontaneous collective playing -- sort of a blues jam session for the end of the Millenium, or something. I'm dropping this note to first of all encourage everyone in the SoCal area to check the place out, or to get in touch with the club to see about booking some shows there; the number is (213) 934-9400, and the people to direct a tape to are Scott Johnson and/or two young women by the names of Lee and Christina, who are in charge of co-management and booking. In the self-promotional department, I'm already booked for two gigs there: Thursday, August 7th, and Tuesday, August 26th, with another show in between those two likely to be added; it looks like Lumpy Gravy is interested in setting up some sort of regular residency there. Now here's the interesting part: I just happened to send my Echoplex in to Oberheim this very afternoon for repair, and Dean Fouts at Oberheim estimates roughly a one-month turnaround. (Isn't it ironic, don't you think...?!) I told Scott at Lumpy Gravy about this, but he seemed anxious to book something soon. Since it's not often that club owners try to set up immediate residencies for looping artists, I wasn't about to postpone the bookings while the Echoplex (hopefully) gets repaired, so I'll likely be doing these upcoming shows with a Vortex-and-MIDI-guitar-based rig (and hoping the engineers up in Oakland can put my Plex to rights sooner than later!) That's fine, really, as it'll give me a good excuse to delve more heavily into those oft-neglected items. The shows are probably slated to run from 8:00 to 11:00 PM (we'd like to do three hours of continuous music, which isn't such a stretch with looping); the cover will likely be $3. Scott mentioned that he's trying to cultivate the restaurant aspect of the place, so my mission will be music that people can comfortably eat to (sounds like the oft-spoken "ambient" word...) -- call it a chill room with waiters. I also mentioned to Scott that I and other people on this list have been trying in vain to try and organize a multi-artist loop show; he seemed *very* receptive to the idea of staging something there, saying that Lumpy Gravy would likely be the ideal place in town for this sort of thing. It may not be too far in the future that we can actually try and make the oft-postponed California Loop show a reality. There might, in fact, be the potential for it to become a semi-regular event! If any of you can check out the upcoming gigs there, I'll very much appreciate it. I get a very good vibe from the people there; they seem very interested in trying to cultivate a genuinely creative environment that can accommodate a variety of different experimental arts. In this town (or anywhere else, for that matter), they'll need some help, so I urge anyone in the area to look into the place, as a performer, an audience member, or both. Best, --Andre