Re: looping clothes (& performance style)

[Elio DeLuca <elio@telepathyrecords.com>]

The subject line of the last email got me thinking....

There's been a lot of back-n-forth here on the notion of looping live, and
the potential audience reception (or lack thereof) to someone who seems to
merit the term "manipulating" as much as "performing." (Using the former
in a positive way, that is ... I certainly don't mean manipulating the
audience.... or at least, if you are, hopefully you don't have TOO many
evil intentions... :-)

Anyway, my interest is: what do you do on the EXTRAmusical side of things,
when performing loop-based music (in any setting) to better relate your
approach to your audience? (assuming that not everyone in the audience
will be familiar with live looping) All the stuff like lights, staging,
band/performer setup, clothing, visual stuff (films, etc), other mood
controlling devices.... what's your style? I'm also assuming we're not all
looping at the local pub, and that we actually DO have control over the
setting somewhat. I mean, looping is often close to sound art anyhow, so
what I'm wondering is how we "install" ourselves.

I'll start off: since I'm nearly always performing loop-based stuff at
very "intimate" venues, I can have my way with nearly all aspects of the
environment, so I'll keep the lights way down and focus a few colored
lights at the stage area, and use the regular lighting at the back of the
venue to just barely illuminate the rest of the room. I loop on solo
guitar, and I run my rig into an amp, which is then miced and sent into a
mixer with various delays and two Line 6 DL4s for looping on the effects
sends. I send the mixer output in stereo to the PA, and through PA
speakers which are placed as far stage right and left as I can get them.
Also, in the far back corners of the room (or near the back row of
audience, in the case of a seated concert) I'll put two floor wedge
monitor speakers: the one in the right rear corner of the room gets the
left channel of the PA signal, the one in the left rear corner gets the
right channel. Since my stuff falls often into the "noise" category, while
still being reluctantly (for lack of a better word) ambient, having sound
all around the audience is, for me, part of the experience. Audiences
generally seem into it; no one's complained about feeling fenced in, or
anything.... :-)

Aside from the speaker setup, and maybe burning incense on stage, that's
my deal. I never dress up, usually staying as nondescript as I can, and I
never talk to the audience. I'd love to experiment with playing along to
abstract films, or other types of projections, but haven't yet. (The more
eye-candy the better -- I'm not too much fun to watch, I wouldn't think)

Alright, so .... anyone else?

peace,

Elio

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