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Looper's Delight
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I want to personally thank all the wonderful artists who made Y2K5 so special this year. Every single artist paid for their own transportation and, in many cases, their lodging. Our town (and the world) gained it's next newbie looper in Mayor Mike Rotkin Our headliners were given keys to the city. The City of Santa Cruz officially declared "International Live Looping Day" on Sunday, October 9th Andy Butler, Bernhard Wagner and myself officially taught a University of California of Santa Cruz class on the History and Techniques of Live Looping for their History of Electronic Music class (a first for me) The sophistication of our short lived musical community was palpably higher this year than it has been and there were some wonderful new artists introduced to our scene (Genie from San Francisco stands out in my mind as someone I've never seen who blew my mind). It was just a wonderful time (even when it got hellatiously stressful, like losing the main venue 24 hours before we were to start). I just want to let everyone know how much gratitude I feel and how privileged I felt to be able to host everyone. I could not have done it without the help of the following friends and artists. I want to express my deepest gratitude to these people for making Y2K5 such a great event: Bill Walker for completely planning and executing the Big Sur portion of the festival and for jumping in and completely saving the day when we were forced to abandon the original venue at the last minute as I had to drive the foreign artists to SF to play (and for playing a beautiful set) Dan Soltzberg for making the beautiful poster and graciously handling Sunday's front of house for me (and for playing a beautiful set) I will send the .pd to anyone who wants to print it out for themselves---------it's a trip because the graphics are such that if you walk to and from the poster, the concentric circles appear to rotate as an optical illusion) Ted Killian, for being a constant standby for all of my graphics needs and concerns(and playing a beautiful set) Rodent, who tireslessly and professionally staged manage Saturday's show Chris Cohn for tireslessly and professionally handling the front of house. (we look forward to next year's set from you, Chris) Michael Horne, for generously gifting us the venue at the last minute. Also, the businesses at 120 Pearl Street that gave up a day's work to host us. Wes Anthony, for generously loaning us his pro speaker systems. Good luck with the E3 Playhouse, buddy! Mike Rotkin, the Mayor of Santa Cruz for such a beautiful speech and for having the cojones to get up and let me teach him how to loop a twelve bar blues (with a Line 6 that doesn't have enough memory to handle a 12 bar blues loop...........gulp!) Herb Heinz for helping me configuring the routing in the mixers at the last minute so everyone could have a silent headphone mix (and for a beautiful set) Kris Hartung for tireslessly broadcasting the whole event and recording much of it (and for playing a beautiful set) To Headliners Ryusei Hattori and Hideki "mando man" Nakanishi and Bernhard Wagner and our Featured performers, Phil Zurrigo, Andy Butler and Max Valentino (for all of the travelling they did to get here and for their wonderful sets). Thanks especially to Andy and his delightful partner Peta who transported the artists with Bill and I . To my wonderful,brilliant, beautiful, talented, erudite, funny and generous wife, Chris Wedertz for every thing that she did to host our artists................to keep me sane when I was on the verge of freaking out (which was frequent, I have to admit) and for selflessly devoting herself for one week to an artform that she doesn't even participate in.....................To Nancy Levan, my brother's partner for the same gift. We couldn't have done it without you both and we love you for it. and last but not least, to Bernhard Wagner, who is my brother and who inspired me to put this festival on again this year after his wonderfully and professionally produced festival in Zurich this past summer. He also produced and maintained the website for the entire event. Yours, sincerely, Rick Walker festival organizer ps We also send out healing thoughts to Paolo, Roberto Zorzi's wife. We look forward to your performance next year, my friend. Be well!