Looping influences (generally speaking and on-going) A sort of thanks.

[ArsOcarina@aol.com]

Hi all,

I first heard "live" looping in 1972 by being taken to the home of an
friend of a friend in an old Victorian house in Oxnard, CA. The player 
was a mid-to-late-20s-ish hippie guitarist named Randy Jones. I'd 
never heard of him before (or since) and I have absolutely no idea 
who his musical influences were. He was undoubtedly more influenced 
by major doses of cannabis than anything else (but let's not start 
THAT particular thread again, please).

He played an old Strat copy with a mother-of-dinette-set pickguard
and lipstick tube pickups into a pair of reel-to-reels set up on the 
mantle over the fireplace. The output of these (such as it was) went
to his home stereo. An approximately 8 foot loop of 1/4 inch tape 
was strung between the two recorders and dangled before the empty
hearth -- which would have been quite dangerous if there'd been 
a fire in it. 

He played with a bottleneck slide (which I'd been toying with some at 
that time too -- and THAT was the whole reason my pal took me over 
to hear this fellow play). Anywho, he played medium to pretty well 
guitar-wise. But, I was floored . . . absolutely knocked out . . . by the 
delay concept he was toying around with. It was a musical epiphany
that changed my life. 

I set out from then on to learn how to do this sort of thing myself. 
I was a shy, reticent young dude and not hardly prone to joining bands
and playing much in public anyway. The simple Idea that I could (by this
method) be a one-man-band in the comfort and privacy of my own 
bedroom closet was what attracted me. That and the all-instrumental 
aspect of it -- I still cannot sing and play guitar at all after 40 years.
(heheh, some would say I still can't PLAY either).

I saved my money and periodically rented tape "echoplexes" from local  
stores, bought electronic analog delays when they became available
and digital ones when they came around and became affordable to me
(mostly EH and old DOD stuff). I never even heard of Fripp's 1973-74
recordings with Eno 'til I was more financially established (married)
in 1978 and could afford to visit the record store more often. 

I snagged my first copies of "No Pussyfooting" and "Evening Star"
from the cutout bin for less than half normal price. I'd been a fan
of King Crimson and had read about Mr. Eno in magazines but was 
not familiar with these recordings at all. They were revelatory, to say 
the least -- totally outside the scope of my previous experience
as a lonesome finger picker. I got my first eBow in 1980.

I've sought out a lot of music since then that I knew was "looped" in
some fashion or another (not all of it guitar). And listened to many 
pieces of music that didn't involve looping at all, but (because of the 
repetitive and rhythmic nature of pop music) I constantly imagined 
just how they could have been realized if they HAD been. 

I never really set out with the expectation that I'd ever really turn
out to be a "real" musician even. Jeff Kaiser put that troublesome
notion in my noggin BTW (blame him). I was just an interested and 
quirky tinkerer with only a modest amount of talent, a certain 
amount of imagination and time on my hands to develop it (plus 
a "mostly" understanding wife and family). 

I still don't really imagine that I'm a whole lot more than that, even
though I have become accustomed to having the "m" word (musician)
applied to myself . . . and occasionally even the "c" word (composer).
I am a visual artist by academic training and a commercial artist/
graphic designer for 25+ years of my professional life.

I don't imagine I've been an influence on anybody. But almost everybody 
on this list who has bothered to share their music freely and publicly
in this forum or in the various festivals has been an influence on me -- 
whether the influence is obvious or not. In particular I'd single out 
LDers 
past and present (and in no particular order):

Andre LaFosse
Rick Walker
Michael Klobuchar
Max Valentino
Steve Lawson
Dave Trenkle
David Torn
Mark Hamburg
Scott Hansen
Dr. Richar Zvonar
Matthias Grob
Jon Wagner
Kim Flint
Amy X Nueberg
Bill Walker
Stan Card
Joe Cavaleri
Greg Campbell
Andy Ewen
Frank Gerace
Tom Heasley
Terry Blankenship
Alan Hoover
Sunao Inami
Zoe Keating
Hans Lindauer
Mark Sottilaro
Cara Quinn
Steven Rice
Alex Martinez
Larry "the O" Oppenheimer
Nick Roozeboom
Kevin Cooney
Stuart Liebig
The Loop Collective
and a host of others . . .

Thanks a bunch! With all of this talk of who influenced who and when,
I figured it was time to render a certain amount of appreciation
to present company. A number of you have exchanged CDs with me 
(often making nice comments about mine) and or exchanged e-mails 
on- and off-list. Others have pointed in the direction of where their 
music 
could be downloaded or streamed from time to time. I may have even 
left out a few names. You will have to forgive the omissions and chalk 
them up to "old guy's" disease. But I am thankful that LD is here and 
that all of you are too . . . corny as THAT may sound. 

Best,

tEd ® kiLLiAn

PS: If any of you knows the whereabouts of Randy Jones. I owe him big time.

http://www.mp3s.com/tedkillian
http://www.pfmentum.com/flux.html
http://www.CDbaby.com/cd/tedkillian
http://www.guitar9.com/fluxaeterna.html