Re: Answering Matthias' letter and a quip from BASS LOOPIST Max Valentino of Tehachipi, California

["Steve Lawson" <steve@steve-lawson.co.uk>]

> Hi Matthias!,
>     you asked:
> "Did you build bridges between the artists, Rick?
> Or is that usual now on loop festivals that one soloist takes over
> directly from the other, not leaving any sound gaps the whole night?
>
> This is a new thing, so there is no usual.  It was cool that it worked 
>out
> that way from Scott's set into Steve's set
> (with me eventually fading Scott's last loop so that Steve could seque 
>into
> his first piece).

Yeah, that just happened as I was listening to Scott's soundcheck, I 
thought it would be really nice to play over one of his
soundscape pieces, but didn't want to hijack his set by asking to join 
him, so instead offered to give him some extra virtual
stage time by leaving his last loop running. All it meant organisationally 
was that I got set up and ready before Scott
finished his set and went straight on after an intro from Rick, who talked 
over the loop... I then did a loop of my own,
Scott's was fade, and we sort of seamlessly blended from one to another. 
It was kind of fun to play over a loop of someone
else's making (not something I do too often)...

In the past I've put on gigs with no pre-recorded music all evening, 
bringing in a didj player to provide ambient noodles
between acts and before the evening got going. It's a nice feeling to have 
every bit of music in a venue come from the
artists involved... I quite often start a loop before anyone enters the 
venue and have that running at the beginning of the
set, and then just get up out of the audience bit and join in, just to 
mess with people's heads a little, and break down
ideas about artist/audience relationships...

...it can also help to have some other visual artist involvement, to 
further mess with the general preconceptions about
convcert format. I did a gig recently solo and with my trio which involved 
a multi-media arts collective who installed
scaffolding and projectors and TVs with video loops and all kinds of mad 
stuff into the venue, and set the chairs out so half
of them weren't even facing the musicians... It seems to me that if you 
can create questions in the audience's mind before
they start listening, they're going to be listening and observing on a 
higher level in order to try and get into whatever it
is that you're doing... it seems to work for me...

cheers

Steve
(BTW, next loop gig in London - March 2nd, with David Friesen - see 
www.solobassnetwork.org.uk for more info)