Martini skewers, Alligator Clips and Capoes, Oh My!!!

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

lance g. wrote:

"i've been listening to the KPIG archive webcast, and i must say i'm 
totally
blown away by you guys! makes me very sorry to have missed the shows...i do
have a technical question for you rick: what gear did you have with you for
that interview? in particular, there were some really lovely tapped and/or
thrummed and reverberated tones in your piece (layed over the groovy
syncopated
gamelan-like bed), starting around 9:50 or so...did your signal go through
anything particularly exotic, or was that just your superlative
alligator-clip
& martini stick technique? oh, and what did you mix through?"


I was just using a line 6 pedal with my bass capoed up as high as it would
go,  alligator clips randomly placed on the strings and then malleting with
these awesome martini skewers that I found that have large translucent blue
tiki heads on the ends of them.
When I play hammered/bowed/slide mandolin (the only kind of mandolin I 
play,
unfortunatetly)  I can use these skewers as
hammers with very good multiple bounce capabilites or I can use them as 
mini
'slides'.  They are awesome and I got them at a trendy
retro kitsch store in Santa Cruz for $2.50 for a set of 8.

I relied a lot on the line 6 modellers' wonderful backwards/forwards/half
speed/double speed characteristics to create parts that
were an octave higher or lower.  Using this technique, I play a normal
rhythmic ostinato, half the speed and then play a skeletal
double speed rhythm to the slowed down rhythm.  By bumping it back to 
normal
speed, I now have a rhythmic line that is
twice as vast and an octave higher.............instant abstract drum and
bass ;-)

Steve Lawson used a line 6 pedal also and his very cool Lexicon guitar
effects processor.  I thought I had the line 6 pedal wired until I saw him
play and get all of the extraordinarily wierd effects out of his.  He
doesn't even use an expression pedal.....what an inspration.   Max, I
believe, was also using an aligatored bass through a Line 6 on that piece.
I started the piece for about 30 seconds, Steve joined for a minute or so
and Max finally entered.  It came out really cool........kind of a 
psychotic
gamelan feel, don't you think?

yours,  Rick (loop.pool)