Looping/music/audience/commerce

["Liebig, Steuart A." <LiebigSA@Maritz.com>]

Okay here goes . . .

There's been a lot of speculation about how to get people aware of other
loopers beyond those that are guitar players, how to get people to see
gigs, how to get more people interested in the technique of looping for
other music, etc.

It seems to me that the biggest problem in all of this is that fact that
the people who are into this sort of thing are a fairly small
minority-even in the musician community. For every musician who wants to
carry around a ton of gear and make strange, beautiful and probably
unusual music . . . there are probably twenty guys who are the "plug and
play, effects are bullshit" kind of  guitar player (or insert
instrument "X") who think that what we do is CRAP. [By the way another
thing about guitar players being the nexus of this stuff, we bass
players-and drummers?-are practically taught that effects and anything
but the sacrosanct "GROOVE" are verboten.]

When extrapolated out into the community at large, you get a really
small audience. How many people worldwide (1 million? 2? out of
billions?) are into non-mainstream/non-commercial music? Do you see
David Torn or Bill Frisell (who are both doing pretty damn well compared
to most of us-how many people doing day jobs or people doing music that
qualifies as a "day job" on this list?) playing large venues? Mostly
it's the small venues like McCabe's Guitars here in LA, etc. Sometimes
they're LUCY and get on nationwide TV at 1:00 a.m. . . . Nope, most
people listen to music as wallpaper to get through their work day, hits
radio, smooth jazz, the quiet storm, etc. (Also, remember that Fripp
didn't come "out of the box" looping, he was in a rock band and had an
audience-some of  whom followed him.)

Anybody out there play at a party with a DJ also being used recently?
People want to hear records that they already know, that way they can
dance to Earth, Wind and Fire (who I love-not a put down), etc. This is
not to mention that many people stop being adventurous (if they ever
were) in terms of their listening around the time that they get out of
college. Hence the "Sinatra, Beatles, etc. were better than this crap"
parental thang.

I guess that what I'm saying is that the "how to get to people" question
is not going to be easily answered being, as I see it, a societal
awareness issue. WE ARE ANOMALIES. Most people don't want to know
anything other than what they know, they're pretty much happy with what
they have . . .  and if they aren't,  they search something else
out-they're already looking and may have found the EDP, insane music,
etc.  How do we nurture these people? I think by creating "hubs" of
activity (see below).

In terms of live music, people expect to like what they go out to hear.
I agree with the guy who wrote about (I think) the Knitting Factory
scene in NY: He goes out to hear stuff and doesn't always expect to like
what he hears, in fact sometimes that's the point! (I often learn more
from stuff that I don't like, or that isn't IMHO always "successful.")
But even people who I know who play that sort of music will often ask
"Is it something that I'll like?" Let's face it, it costs money to go
out and hear people play music, and it can become something of an
investment. People want return on their "entertainment dollar," they may
not want to "learn" anything!

In terms of gear, you can get into the same kind of quandry. Most people
who play want to sound like someone else (at least when they first start
out) or will help them make money playing. (Isn't a lot of the guitar
market based on people who used to play in high school/ college that can
now afford the Les Paul they always wanted so that they can play Stones
covers once a week? Not a put-down, just a reality.) That box that
someone wants to buy is something that their hero is probably using, or
that will help them get that "marketable sound." If the populace at
large doesn't want to hear "interesting" stuff (for the most part), how
can it make money for the player (or for the company making the gear)?
Most of the people on this list (I assume) have far surpassed that
mentality . . . we're looking for the "ineffable other " (or something
like that). Can you change the market place by personal action????



So where does this leave us? It leaves us with the hardy few who, "like
us," are into expanded experience. So we have to search them out. . .
and get what we do across. In my view, the only way to do this is for
the musicians who play this kind of stuff to support each other: Go to
gigs, tell friends/aquaintances about other people's gigs as well as
your own. In short, creat a "scene" (a hub if you will). If you can
create enough of a buzz, maybe you'll get 15 minutes of notice by the
press in your area and humans besides the people who are playing the
music will come and check out the music. Maybe if you're lucky, they'll
like it and tell someone else . . . Basically it's a long-term and
grinding task, with a lot of commitment to doing something else besides
playing, composing, etc. and that's a hard bit of time to let go for
most of us . . .

Support Creative Music where you can.

Sorry if this is a downer or boring (long-winded), or what-have-you. I'm
just trying to get across some ideas that have been sitting around in my
head for a while and have now been spurred on by a couple of the last
threads.

stig

P.S. For those in the LA area: for the last 4-plus years there's been a
scene called New Music Monday, first at the Alligator Lounge, then the
Gig (both Santa Monica), and soon to be at Luna Park (in West
Hollywood-restarts 16 March '98) that does a lot of interesting music .
. . some looping, a lot isn't. It encompasses anything from total
distortion/fuzz-tone rockish free improv, to chamber music, to
DJ-assisted mayhem improv, to prog-punk noise, to avant jazz. It's been
pretty cool, check it out.