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July 17, Switzerland
As frequently has happened so far on this trip, we sadly said goodbye to Luis Angulo's lovely family and piled into the car to travel to Lucerne to meet the Swiss Loopers. I've grown quite attached to his son and daughter (Elias and Sofia) even though we've been unable to communitcate verbally (despite Spanish, German and English being spoken between us). Yesterday I got out the green plastic toys and we all played together while Luis taught a guitar lesson. We got goofy with the green voice changing megaphones. At one point Elias sang a little German song while pitch shifting his voice with two different settings on each megaphone...........what a creative little blonde haired Mexican/German kid!!!
Sofia is amazing too, with a much more shy personality. She is very bright and notices a lot for such a little kid. Nadja (Luis's wife) and he must be very proud to have such great kids. Nadja has been especially nice to us. She is an attractive blonde German with a keen intellect who really made Chris and me feel comfortable and welcome. Chris pooh-poohs her command of German (learned as an exchange student 20 years ago when she lived in Braunschweig), but in no time she and Nadja were conversing rapidly in German (leaving me, with my 2 semesters of high school german 30 years ago, in the dust).
We've been so lucky and have only had to pay for 5 nights in a hotel room in our entire tour thanks to all of our generous hosts. We've tried to say thanks by taking Luis' whole family out for dinner on our last night. Luis drove us to a lovely regional restaurant right by the huge lake by the side of Radolfzell. I had Maulentaschen, a regional specialty which are like large meat-filled raviolis. I mention it because i have attempted to try regional specialties in both food and beer ever since we have come on tour.
I'm not normally a beer drinker but have really enjoyed trying everything from the tepid tap Bitter of English, Welsh and Northern Irish pubs (and which I adore) to the French, German and Swiss beers.
Anyway, I digress...... Elias was so cute. He knew we were packing to leave and got really sullen and withdrawn. I knew he was just sad so I went out and played a little bit of basketball with him until it was time to pile in the car and say our goodbyes to them and the beautiful community of Radolfzell, and set off for Lucerne to meet some of the Swiss Loopers.
On the way we stopped for an hour in Konstanz which is one of the most beautiful cities I have seen so far on our trip. Chris and I felt immediately that we could live in this city. During World War II the mayor found out that the Allies were planning to bomb it and had all of the electricity cut off so that the bombers flew over it in the darkness and bombed a city inside the Swiss border instead. There was of course a huge cry and the Americans were forced to pay a lot of money in damages to the Swiss. They also decided bombing Konstanz was just too much trouble (being so close to the border) so , in effect, the city was saved and the mayor considered a hero to this day. This is one of the reasons that the city is so beautiful. Many, many German cities were destroyed or partially destroyed making this city a beautiful exception...........it really makes me meditate on how horrible wars are and how important it is that we try to avoid them at all costs.
It also makes me think about how we are considered here in Europe since people are so angry with how the current President seemingly ignored most of the European community with his recent war in Iraq. I've been treated rudely a few times but the vast majority of people we've met seem to know that the American government and the American people are not necessarily the same thing. I was relieved to find this out and we have had many more discussions about American and world politics here than we have had in the United States. I find it ironic when people treat us badly for being Americans (please forgive this rather narcissistic term but it is one that most citizens of the US use to describe themselves) because Santa Cruz, where we hail from, was the first city in the United States that opposed a war in Iraq. Most Europeans and citizens of the British Isles were surprised that over 150 cities (including Chicago) passed similar resolutions condemning the war. In that sense we had the same feeling of not being listened to by the current administration.
None of this, of course, has to do with a live looping tour, except that it is always in the back of my mind when I meet new loopers and new hosts and venue owners.
July 10--more about Köln
Sometimes I feel like I must come off as Pollyannish when writing about this tour, but I am just overwhelmed by the talent, kindness and generosity of spirit exhibited by the vast majority of all the live loopers I've been blessed to play with on this tour so far.
That being said and done, I just had a fantastic four days with Michael Peters (pronounced "Mee-shy- elle Pay-terse" for you Americans and Brits out there) who lives outside Köln (Cologne for those same folks) in a beautiful pastoral low mountain village called Kuerten.
Michael had already inhabited a soft spot in my heart because he is the first person I discovered outside of my own country when I first went online and began making electronic music with a vengeance 4 years ago. He was in the very creative electronic music collective CT One that I'm also in (much gratitude to Mike Biffle, aka Miko B, for dragging me into that wonderful group of crazy composers) and had an online musical project called My2K that really inspired me when I first discovered it. On it he was composing or recording a ten-second sound snippet every day for the year 2000.
Discovering his website, which was like finding a sonic oasis in the middle of the mass media music desert, coincided with my own resolve to try and release a CD a year for the rest of my life.
I've been a perfectionist all of my life and though I've played on hundreds of recording projects as a side man and producer I've only released 3 CDs in the years between 1980 and 2000. My head has always been full of ideas and projects that have never seen the light of day, so Michael's sheer audacity to attempt such a creatively expulsive project just really fired my imagination and inspired me to do the same in my own art.
Longer story even shorter, I was quite excited to meet the guy who had attempted this project (still unfinished but impressive nonetheless) and who has also released the beautiful ambient soundscape "Stretched Landscape #1" which is enjoying a lot of internet radio play lately and has just received a laudatory review in the WIRE magazine.
Michael met us with a hand truck --the only person to do so on our tour so far, which was especially nice since I just blew out two tires on my brand new Gator road cases --(I love these cases by the way and can highly recommend them--- also, the people at Gator are fantastic and are rush-mailing me a set of wheels to repair my cases for the rest of the tour). For those who don't know, these are 6-space rack cases that have retractable handles and wheels built into their case like modern airline luggage. They are incredibly easy to roll around on trains, which we've been doing since we discovered that it is prohibitively expensive to fly in Europe with the excess baggage rules on all European airlines. I can't remember if I posted this or not, but we were charged close to $800 extra baggage for our first flight from Stockholm to Glasgow and forced to take a ferry instead of a second equally expensive airplane ride from Glasgow to Belfast.
Michael pointed out that the famous Koeln Cathedral towers over the railroad station. This huge Catholic cathedral (Koeln is largely Catholic I learned, as is most of Southern Germany) is even more impressive than Notre Dame. Its two massive towers dominate the Koeln skyline.
We went immediately to his house, dropped off our suitcases and picked up Michaels's rack case and the humongous anvil-cased blacklight that he had arranged for me to use for my dayglo green plastic instruments.
Our gig was at an unusual installation art gallery called the Rachel Haferkamp Gallerie. The space was very minimal with only a small installation in the foyer (which I dug), an upright grand piano with lit candles in the main room and a minimal installation upstairs (with two listening chairs wired for subsonic derriere massage!!).
July 9, Radolfzell, Germany
Live Loop Tour rule #362:
Never play the game "Guess what kind of fruit this regional Schnapps is made of" even when your host is a charming, generous and supportive music venue owner.
Luis and I stumbled home at 5 a.m. after a really fun jam and hang at the Bokle. I'm not an indulger and neither is he so we are mildly regretting our hosts' beneficence today......................lol. Heretically, we actually played our instruments (drums and bass, respectively) in real time without any looping devices whatsoever. All apologies to live loopers everywhere..................tee hee hee.
We went all over the stylistic map in our jam with a good German keyboardist, visiting Africa, Jamaica, the Middle East, and Northern inner-city America with our improv. It was a wild and diverse ride but I think the Radolfzellians in attendance found it a refreshing break from the American soul and blues that the earlier musicians had been playing all night. We certainly had a blast.
July 8, Radolfzell, Germany
I am so excited today!
I had the most inspiring concert and duet performance with Luis Angulo, the Mexican looper, who lives with his beautiful German wife and kids in Radolfzell at the South of Germany.
Luis and I have been internet friends for a couple of years now and share a mutual love of cubano music, looping and rhythm so it was a special treat to improvise with him.
We were hosted by the coolest alternative bar (the only one in this region) called the BOKLE, which is the German word for grasshopper....and takes its name from the two founders, including our charming host for the evening, Klebi.
Klebi is a really interesting guy who has provided a forum for local musicians (in a weekly jam, which is tonight). He plays a cool blend of pop, hip hop, african and electronic music in his club and he was genuinely enthusiastic that we brought such unusual music here to Radolfzell.
It has me musing: most of the big cities of the world get the most cutting- edge innovations in music and art, and frequently places that are further away from the cities don't get those kinds of travelling artists. Most of this is an economic consideration (not as many newpapers, radio and television channels for promotion) but I'm thinking that it is really hip to take the new to these places that never or rarely get it. Max Valentino and I have talked about this a lot in planning for an interior California tour. San Francisco and Los Angeles are very cool to play but it is almost more revolutionary to play Fresno and Bakersfield (do I have this wrong, Brian Kenny Fresno?....LOL).
Who knows, I may actually be able to play a drumset at the jam tonight, my first love in music.
One of my regrets about this tour is the inability to bring along even a minimal trip-hop drum kit, a bass guitar or a proper synth. Last night I really wanted those instruments in my improvs with Luis, so I did a lot of beatboxing and percussion playing during our jam.
Luis is a very gifted and creative musician. He was playing his very first public live looping gig, which was amazing because he is so accomplished and really uses his equipment in a very sophisticated fashion.
He has a great sense of rhythm and a refined sense of mixing timbres. He also loves latin, middle-eastern, african, funk, soul and electronic music, which are all loves of mine.
We are already talking about a duet tour of Northern Mexico for next February, such was our mutual resonance.
Then, to top the whole glorious day off, I just recieved word that Jesus has arranged for us to do a Swiss Live Looping Festival in Lucerne this coming Thursday. It will be at least Matthias, Jesus, Luis and myself and whoever else of the Swiss loopers we can entice to come play a spontaneous, relatively non-advertised loop show.
What a great day. The birds are singing. I feel the most relaxed I've felt on the whole tour (especially after our fantastic visit with Michael Peters).
My only sadness today is that Michael is not with us in Radolfzell and that my brother is not with me here. Bill would just rip up over here and I sincerely hope that he will come tour here next year.
July 1
I've been meeting so many interesting people and playing really cool shows.
Unfortunately, we have have very little internet access and no FTP services to update the tour diary.
I find myself in Paris on our last day, away from my notes so this will be really sketchy but.........................
The CAMBRIDGE LIVE LOOPING FESTIVAL was just awesome........one of the best events that I've played in the live looping vein. I want to go on at length, but suffice it to say that Cambridge has a very healthy live looping community full of really talented and original musicians.......and what a beautiful, beautiful place.
We had the traditional post-loopfest brunch the next day by the beautiful canals in Cambridge and the loopers were really wonderful and generous.
Many thanks to Os for putting this event on............played to one of the largest audiences I've played to (probably 20-30 from my guesstimate) who all seemed enthralled by the performances. The response to my set was great.........a lot of humor in my performance that night and I felt very whimsical and free.
I'll write later about my London gigs at the wonderful KLINKER (at the Sussex) in London with Matthias and Steve when I have more time.
Got to Paris and finally met and stayed with Stuart Wyatt who is a wonderfully talented violinist and quite a master with the DL-4.
My friend April King had booked us into a two-day festival for the 1st Paris Live Looping Festival, but my spam filters erased her e-mails; then, she had to return to the United States suddenly because of an accident in her family, so we passed like ships in the night and I got to Paris one day too late to perform.........I was so bummed about that, but she came through and we did a great gig at the very last minute at a cool pub called Lappe Art, on the Rue du Lappe near the Place de Bastille in the center of Paris, to a great response from the crowd (again 25-30 people).
We can call it the 1ST IMPROMPTU PARIS LIVE LOOPING MINI-ITSY-TEENSY-WEENSY- FESTIVAL.....................LOL.
A beautiful day in Paris with a huge storm coming in............black clouds framing perfectly gleaming white buildings at the Louvre and the Tuileries.............just amazing.........what a beautiful city.
Met Andy Soto as well, and he and Stuart are excited after my demo of the EDP today about getting one.
Off to Köln and to meet Michael Peters, the first computer musician that I ever met online when I first joined Loopers Delight.
Au Revoir.............und Auf Wiedersehen!
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click here to read diary entries from May and June