2007!!!!!

["RICK WALKER" <looppool@cruzio.com>]

Happy New Years to Everybody!

I think 2007 may be the cultural watershed year of this first decade of 
the 
new Millennium
in much the way the 1967 and 1968 were defining years, culturally in the 
1960s.

We've been in a really flat place for a long time here in the United 
States 
(waiting out the Bush
regime's end) but I think the tide has turned, culturally and artistically.

The older paradigms of the music industry are dying rapidly (Tower Records 
completely out of business?).
We are in a new phase where people don't listen to whole albums much 
anymore..................they are able
to get the lion share of their music for free on the web and listen to it 
on 
I pods.

A lot of things are changing which means that a lot of new ways of 
communicating  are on their ways.

The musical and artistic communities of the future are starting to be 
built 
now through places
like this website,  tribe.net,  myspace,   youtube.com,   etc.

The amount of information on many, many things musically is available 
almost 
instantaneously, now on the web.
I spent the evening watching looping French pop vocalists,   Russian world 
fusion multi-instrumentalists,  12 years
old South Indian girls who are going to be the next generations' master 
drummers,  online tutorials for
Max/MSP and Jitter,   directions for reinstalling my MAudio Firewire audio 
computer interface,   all
just sitting in front of my computer.      I worked on Arabic maqams on my 
Armenian Duduk,  my purple anodized
pocket trumpet,  my Rick Turner purple fretless acoustic/electric bass and 
my voice out of a book that I found
online and ordered through the independent bookstore where my wife works.

Ten years ago,    ney  five years ago,  I couldn't have possibly had as 
productive and knowledge increasing a day as I did today.

***********************************
Someone once said that artists are the Antennae of a Culture.  Because 
they 
are so sensitive,  they can frequently see changes
coming in the culture long before they occur.

It's an exciting time to be alive............... a challenging time to be 
alive, ecologically and economically.
A lot of things are going to change and very, very rapidly.

I think we are on the cutting edge in this musical movement of Live 
Looping 
of a lot of what's going to change and define
the paradigms of live playing in the next decades to come.

In the past years,  a very large number of very famous and prominent 
artists 
had musicians in their bands who are using live looping tools.   I saw a 
show with Thomas Dolby,   Loop Station and Genie where EVERYONE was 
looping 
live on stage
and there wasn't a single word about Live Looping anywhere.     That made 
me 
really happy.

We are finally starting to arrive in the musical landscape.   I could not 
have written that paragraph 5 years ago.

Things are changing.

I feel happy and blessed to be part of this community that is so 
innovative 
and also so supportive of each other's artistry.

Happy New Years everyone.     May you all have a fantastic year, 
creatively.

Throw caution to the wind....................................Put out a CD! 
Throw a festival!      Buy recordings from your fellow artists.
Let's do it!!!!!!