L.A. LoopFest and some inconherent ramblings............

["Rick Walker \(loop.pool\)" <GLOBAL@cruzio.com>]

Max Valentino wrote:
"But, when the 2nd LA LoopFest comes around please count me in!!!"

I, too, would like to throw my hat in for
the 2nd Los Angeles LoopFest* :  any chance to join you guys down south and
any chance to get to see my good buddy, Max!!!

I wanted to commend all of you So Cal loopers for how quickly this has all
come together and with such communal spirit.


Here are a couple of quick thoughts of things that I've stumbled on
producing similar events.  They are gratuitously proferred and
should be accordingly ignored if they don't fit:

I have discovered that if everybody sets up their gear at the start of the
show the time between sets can be nullified which makes it a much more
effective listening experience.
Limiting the performances to more festival oriented sets (between 15 
minutes
and 30 minutes) with a 'headliner' act at the end playing a long set seems
to add to the flow of the show and keeps things moving, stylistically.

Also, for what it's worth, we've set up a merchandise table and gotten the
artists who are not playing to
man (or rather, to person) the table while not playing in a rotating 
fashion
(It may seem silly but remember to bring $50 in $5 dollar bills and get the
artists to charge in $5 increments ($10,$15,$20, whatever).
 More CDs get sold because there is someone to talk to or get autographs
from).

Add an official M.C. to the proceedings with a little cued up Loop music
from auslanders (people who couldn't make the gig but want to participate
and remind them to mark which
cut(s) they want played on the outside of the CD so that it is a no brainer
and you have a pretty professional festival oriented listening experience.
Dead time (space with nothing happening sonically) is one of the great
killers of vibe at concerts so the more the 'show' flows, the better the
listening experience for the audience.  I say all of this because we want
this thing to grow as a phenomena.

I'm just pulling things off of the top of my head after a night with
insomnia so please
forgive the wierd order:

Oh, yeah.  Remind all the artists to have
two really long line cables that can patch into the main board (if there is
one). With a lot of solo acts on stage there is always a good chance that
you might end up further away from the mixing board (I always set it up on
stage for ease of access because I tend to be the M.C., the mixing engineer
and a performer and , in the last Festival of Voice + Electronics, I had to
run all the way to the back of the Rio Theatre-which is a long ways-to
change the lighting on stage for the modern dance troupe that was on stage
at the time and then run back and continue MCing out of breath just because
there was nobody else to do it---free shows are frequently like this.
The controversial Musicians Friends catalogue sells these obnoxious dayglo
line cables in long lengths.  They are very good to own when there is a
tremendous amount of spaghetti on stage (all the other black cables from 
all
the loopers).  Because I play a lot of instruments I use several colors
(also, I'm a
dayglo fetishist but that is topic for a different e-mail chain ;-) so it 
is
really easy to see my routing in low light situations.

I've rambled enough.  I'm jealous that I can't be there is all.   good 
luck,
Rick








* or you could call it "2001:  A Loop Odyssey"---ouch that's corny, but I
swear that I'll use it before the year's up)