Re: Looper Moving!

[Mark Sottilaro <sine@zerocrossing.net>]

I see your point, Andre, but I also think that bigger cities seem to 
harbor populations that are more interested in
music that's beyond the usual Mustang Sally cover.  While I agree, that 
not much "scene" exists among loopers, I
think it might be more our fault than a geographical issue.  I started 
looping when my pop band disintegrated,
after our drummer left.  I felt I had spent a lot of time and energy 
forging a relationship with the other band
members, and it hit a brick wall because the drummer got offered a paying 
gig in a country band.  I never wanted to
be in that situation again.  I first picked up a workstation style 
keyboard, and then a JamMan quickly followed.

I still play with other people, when I can, but I don't relay on having 
other musicians around to play.  Case in
point: Our stick player is swamped with getting a grant proposal together. 
 We're got a gig (hidden gig spam!) this
Friday at 21Grand in Oakland (http://www.21grand.org/) and she announced 
on Sunday she can't do the gig.  Rather
than it being an issue of canceling the show, we'll play anyway, knowing 
I'm more than used to providing bass
parts.  She'll be missed, but it's not a hardship.  Maybe this is why we 
loopers don't form a more solid scene.

However, I've found an incredible amount of people that seem to be 
interested in what I'm doing, compared to when I
lived in Syracuse, NY.  Ithaca was hip, but not even close to the 
audiences I'm finding here in the SF bay area.

I'm a loner, Dotty.

Pee-Wee

Andre LaFosse wrote:

> Yo Kevin,
>
> > After being on this list now for around 8 months I have to say I’m 
>quite jealous of you California  > Loopers.
>
> > Having LoopStock and all I just can’t resist anymore I feel compelled 
>to move closer to the action.
>
> Well, let me give you my own perspective on the "action," so to speak,
> from my vantage point in Los Angeles:
>
> Loopstock had an amazing sense of community, and it was pretty
> remarkable to see how many different loop-based artists are located
> reasonably close to the central Californian coast.  But, although you
> could say there's a "scene" here, it's one of an extremely fragmentary
> nature.
>
> What I mean by that is that I see people like Rick Walker, Hans
> Lindauer, Kim Flint, Max Valentino, or Richard Zvonar once every few
> months (if even that), and that's on account of going well out of my way
> to do so.  It's a great pleasure to be able to interact with these and
> other Californian loopers, but it's not easy logistically or financially.
>
> Closer to home, Los Angeles is infamous for being fragmentary and
> disconnected, so it's no surprise that cultivating a sense of looping
> community here has been difficult.  Occasionally Rick Walker will ask me
> about the LA Looping Scene, and I have to reply that there IS no LA
> Looping Scene, at least as far as I'm aware.
>
> The last two solo looping gigs I played drew one and zero people,
> respectively.  That's not a complaint; I'd like to see LA list members
> that do play out, like Stig and Andrew Pask, more often than I do (I've
> never seen Andrew, as a matter of fact, though I'd very much like to),
> but seeing a gig "here in town" can frequently mean battling freeway
> traffic for a half hour of more.  So I understand that schedules don't
> often work out for people.  But this sort of thing does tend to cast a
> sobering light on the notion of "looping scenes" and their impact on
> one's day-to-day existence.
>
> I'm not qualified to speak authoritatively about the Bay Area scene from
> an insider's point of view.  I do know that Rick Walker has been endless
> in his enthusiasm and drive to cultivate a sense of looping awareness
> and community, and he deserves an immense amount of credit for helping
> to solidify a notion of a California looping "scene" of any sort.
>
> Hans Lindauer has also done incredible work, and has been utterly
> selfless in spending time and energy trying to facilitate things for us
> on the West Coast.  Max Valentino and I did some shows together in San
> Luis Obispo at the end of March, and Hans was unbelievably together and
> supportive on all fronts.
>
> But frankly, gigs aren't THAT frequent.  If you check the list archive
> for gig announcements in the last year of two, I think you'll find that
> there just aren't that many performances happening in California.  And
> if they ARE happening, people aren't publicizing them very much, which
> gets back to the issue of how fragmentary the "scene" here actually is.
> It's not like the New York bebop scene in the 1940's, or the CBGB's punk
> scene in the '70s, or the British IDM scene in the '90s.
>
> I'm not exaggerating when I say that you could probably fly out to every
> major (and even many of the non-major) California loop gig that's been
> held in the last year and be about as plugged into "the scene" as if you
> were living here full time.  And you'd probably also be in better shape
> financially.
>
> This doesn't mean that there isn't a very cool and tangible sense of
> being involved in something here in California.  It doesn't mean that I
> don't very much appreciate being within reasonable geographic distance
> of all the wonderfull people I've mentioned (and many I haven't, like
> Sean Echevarria, Cliff Novey, Gary Lehman, Jon Wagner, Bill Walker, Tom
> Heasley, Mark Sottillaro, and the folks I'm sure I'll remember just as
> soon as I send this email off... apologies to you deserving folks I'm
> forgetting right this second).
>
> What it DOES mean is that, in my opinion, the scene here is very 
>fragmentary,
> sporadic in its convergence, and only just starting to emerge as
> something with tangible structure and order to it, thanks to the
> efforts of a few people who have been working away at it for years.
>
> In other words, if you move out to California for the "looping scene," I
> think you're going to spend a hell of a lot of time waiting around for a
> handful of gigs to happen.
>
> Anyway, this is enough out of me.  I'd be curious to hear other people's
> take on this as well...
>
> Take care,
>
> --Andre LaFosse
> http://www.altruistmusic.com