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Paolo Valladolid wrote: > I also attended the Sunday night show. I tried to look for Andre LaFosse > but couldn't find anyone matching his description. Hi Paolo, sorry I missed you (and other list members). I was indeed there, sitting in the first row of the second cluster of seats (the nicer ones, with arms). Maybe my self-described "pseudo afro" is more of the first than the second these days... > I had a feeling other > LDers were at the show but I guess we all forgot to wear our Loopers >Delight > (tm) badges or something... :) Kind of ironic, I guess; the biggest single meeting of LD members in one place, I'll bet, in a very small venue -- and none of us knew where the rest of us were! > > I knew I was in for fun when I heard Miroslav Tadic speaking >Serbo-Croat > > in the shop to someone... Not as much fun as hearing him speak Cali slang lingo in that same Serbo-Croat accent, I can assure you! > > He came out and played with Torn for an > > improvised section. It was amazing to see this guy in the flesh. Not to > > say this is a limber guy, but as my girlfriend pointed out he was the > > only guy she has ever seen cross his legs and have BOTH feet touch the > > floor. Never heard it put that way, but he is ONE TALL DUDE, that's for sure. > > This guy's right hand technique needs to be studied like the > > Zapruder film. His thumb alone is a limb in and of itself playing > > upstokes independently on the low strings. About the only thing more mind-boggling than that is seeing and hearing him use that classical/flamenco hybrid technique on an electric guitar plugged into a roaring Marshall stack. There's *no one* who does that sort of thing on the guitar the way he does. > > During this duet Torn added > > in a cassette recording of a muezzin, and did some shaker mic > > feedback... The duet, plus Torn's improvised encore, were the highlights of the set for me. The entire show was a joy to hear, but those particular selections really seemed to crystallize in the air (or something). The juxtaposition of Torn's spacey effects and Tadic's bare-bones nylon-string was something else. They were saying after the show that the soundcheck was even better, though. Hard to believe, but who knows? > So far I have heard _The Snake Music_ by Tadic and Mark Nauseef and > _Let's Be Generous_, an album by a quartet of Tadic, Nauseef, Joachim >Kuhn, > and the bass player for Tony Williams Lifetime (Allan Holdsworth era). >The > music on the latter is somewhere between TWL and maybe Eric Dolphy, >Pharaoh > Sanders, etc. free jazz. > I'm sure Andre can elaborate on Tadic's very eclectic background. He may > still be teaching at Cal Arts. He's still on the faculty at CalArts, though he's technically on sabbatical this semester. He performs in LA pretty infrequently, so it was all the more amazing to hear him duet with Torn. Anyone who's interested in more on his background should check out his homepage at http://shoko.calarts.edu/~snakes which includes bios of himself and collaborator Mark Nauseef, as well as many sound files in RealAudio format and other bits of interest (not to mention some prime examples of their truly warped humor). Torn did a guest DJ spot on LA public radio station KCRW the morning after the McCabe's show; he played some selections from his own projects, including a couple of songs from _What Means Solid, Traveller?_ and "Walls Of The Vortex" from _The Snake Music_, as well as bits of other artists, including some great drum 'n bass from DJ Olive project We which opened the set. I also had the very great pleasure of catching Torn's master class at CalArts the Friday before the McCabe's gig, and was able to spend some time talking with him over the weekend as well. It was a true privilege to hear what he played, as well as what he had to say on so many different subjects. Thanks again for everything, David! I hope you find yourself back around these parts sometime soon. --Andre LaFosse