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european adventures shoutouts and thanks



It’s been nearly two weeks since I got back from 5 weeks in Europe, and I had a great trip. I stayed in Zurich for the better part of 4 weeks with my host and brother in arms Bernard Wagner, who gamely recorded several hours of my loop improvisations, and also played with me on several as well, successfully clocking my LP-1 with his EDP, not to mention making killer muesli for breakfast. He also was kind enough to score me a couple of clinics, one at a music school in Winterthur, and at a music shop in Will. The clinic at the music school was to an audience of mostly twenty year olds, and I did an hour of playing and talking about lap steel and slide playing, covering open tunings, and slide techniques, palm harmonics, a little history, a bit of recommendation of players to check out and influences, and some gear talk. The other hour I devoted more to looping, and looping techniques, but tried to focus as much on what can be done on basic entry level units as I did showing what my state of the art LP-1 can do, Demonstrating guitar beat box techniques, and promoting the benefit’s of looping as a practice tool for developing instrumental skills, as well as covering how I use looping to compose and improvise.. I invited people up afterward to take a crack at my Lap steel and loop rig, and spent the remainder of the session answering questions. The music store clinic in Will was a much wider demographic and I did a more condensed clinic and also actually demoed an RC-20 and a Dl4 in series.  At both clinics I was struck by how relatively obscure the lap steel is over in Europe, even more so than in the states, and it was gratifying to experience peoples reactions to the sound and expressive possibilities of the instrument.

The first week in Switzerland, we traveled to Bern where Bernard had arranged a trio gig with trumpeter/ looper/soundscaper  Werner Hasler and drummer/percussionist Gilbert Paeffgen. We did two sets of free jazz/ electronica in a cool underground bunker club, and what looping we did, was more abstract, non linear and not synced, and  worked really well.. Many thanks to Werner Hassler, for inviting me to play  and putting me up for the night

Nearly three weeks in to my trip my wife Nancy joined us and she and Bernard and I took the night train to Berlin for the Berlin Looping fest. It was a great event in spite of my own sub par and tired set, and it was great to re connect with everyone and meet some new friends as well. Many thanks Leander for all of his work and his gracious inclusion of Bernard and I late in the game. Also many thanks to the great Andreas Willers who hosted us at his home in the “Eastern Sector”, and invited us to his cool outdoor gig the next evening where they played Hendrix tunes with a more free jazz aesthetic., and I got to hang out with my looping buddies and drink beer..

 The day after we returned from Berlin, Nancy and I flew to Istanbul where we were guests of Erdem Helvacioglu and his lovely partner Esin, and spent a week recording with Erdem, and doing some sight seeing. I’m very excited about the project Erdem and I did and will be continuing to work on over the next several months. We had a great time in Istanbul, a truly amazing city, and got to witness such things as a crowded Taksim square going crazy the night Turkey beat the Czech Republic in a qualifying round for the Euro football championships. This was a qualifying round and people were acting like armistice had been declared !  I can’t thank Erdem and Esin enough for extending the invitation to visit a place I had not been to since I was 3 years old, back when my father had been serving in the air force stationed in Libya. One evening Nancy and I took the opportunity to spread a little vial of my Dad’s ashes in the Bosporus. My dad was a man of the world.

 We spent one more week in Switzerland where we did the afore mentioned clinics, some more recording and spent a night outside of Will in a little hamlet at the home of Bernard’s dear friend Damien, and took a drive and hike  in to the eastern Alps the following day. I think my favorite audience on the whole trip where the group of village children who gathered to hear our impromptu patio jam at Damien’s house the evening we spent at his house. A perfect evening and coda to a great trip.

I am determined to get an earlier start on doing this again next year so this is my official letter of interest to anyone thinking of organizing a looping festival in Europe next summer, or better yet, late spring.  I would love to come be a part of it.

 Thanks again to everyone who showed me tremendous hospitality on this great trip.

 Bill

 

PS my gear for the most part performed with flying colors, with the one exception being my monster power strip that couldn’t handle a step down transformer in Istanbul and fried, taking the transformer with it in a hail of black smoke. blowing a fuse on my preamp but other wise not harming anything else,  I got charged  about 90 euro for over weight on the connecting flight fro Switzerland to turkey but not on the way back which was curious.