Members popthree Posted February 18, 2009 Members Share Posted February 18, 2009 i have a crazy idea for a solo act. it would be just me, and i'd call it The Bonanza Lunchbox... a lunchbox because mom packed my lunch and i won't have any idea what's in there until i open it... basically what i want to do is open up for some band...it would have to be at a low key dive... and what i'd do is bring a keyboard which has some drum patterns built in, my looper, my guitar, a small mixer and my amplifier. the guitar and keys would run thru the mixer.. i might have a microphone running thru it too.. but also another microphone that would rely on the house PA...oh and the amp would be mic'd. my idea involves spontaneously generating a song... no preconceived idea at all... just walk up, start doing something, loop it, do whatever else occurs to me, loop that possibly... and start singing some words that i make up on the spot. sound crazy ? it probably is... i don't know if i could really pull it off or not. but it sounds exciting to me. here is such an effort that i did today. i quite literally just turned on my amp, looped a drum pattern from the keyboard, stacked a couple of little parts with the guitar, then a keyboard bass part. after that i liked what i had so i hit record and started dinking around with a guitar solo... i heard a melody of sorts and started improvising the words i was only using 1 microphone and during playback i discovered that the vocals were frightfully louder than the amplifier..so i went back and stuck a mic right in the speaker and recorded the loop and some more guitar solo on a separate track so i could get the levels closer to right just to make it listenable. though the recording method was quite crude i think it turned out sort of nice. http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7349757 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted February 18, 2009 Members Share Posted February 18, 2009 It does sound crazy. And I know because I did more or less that for some years starting in 1991 on and off for a decade, under the names Frippenstein (a tribute to Robert Fripp's seminal echo loop act, Frippertronics, which used two Revox tape machines back in the 70s to generate his echo loop) and Tranz Azul. (Which I changed the name to for a while trying to be more commercially attractive and also because my band name was showing up above Frippertronics in some early internet music listings... what started as an insider joke and tribute to Fripp was threatening to confuse folks. Anyhow, I didn't usually have words but I sometimes did. I would occasionally have friends come up and sit in with me on instruments like violin, lap steel guitar, harmonica, clarinet and recorder and percussion, and, indeed, that fed into an ensemble with my echo loop and keyboards at the middle and those instruments played by three pals. We played a few club gigs and a festival and then sort of drifted apart. Ironically, since the name of the band was Drift. Here is an overly long example of such a track: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=42915&songID=407303 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members popthree Posted February 18, 2009 Author Members Share Posted February 18, 2009 i like it. very nice. its so easy for the 'song' to run long isn't it ? i was suprised when i looked at the time on mine and it was 7 minutes... take that plus the 10 minutes or so it took to build the loops and have a melody inspiration hit me.... it would be a weird thing to do live. that's why it would have to be very low key...someplace where the crowd comes to see the different and the freaky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gayforjesus Posted February 19, 2009 Members Share Posted February 19, 2009 i've done that a couple times this month, without the drum loop, just strumming the guitar. but i've written a few songs like that. just hit record and see what falls out. it's usually meandering crap, but sometimes there's something good in there, and occasionally a complete, decent song falls out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gayforjesus Posted February 19, 2009 Members Share Posted February 19, 2009 oh, forgot to add, i'm doing the february songwriter challenge. record a full album of ten songs in one month. so i can't sit and wait for inspiration to fall in my lap. it's interesting. when you write when you're not focused on something, you get surprising results that you normally wouldn't consider. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted February 19, 2009 Members Share Posted February 19, 2009 i like it. very nice. its so easy for the 'song' to run long isn't it ? i was suprised when i looked at the time on mine and it was 7 minutes... take that plus the 10 minutes or so it took to build the loops and have a melody inspiration hit me.... it would be a weird thing to do live. that's why it would have to be very low key...someplace where the crowd comes to see the different and the freaky. Yeah... once I added the drum machine to my rig, things changed... before it had been loose and open, but once the d.m. got in there, it just sort of started taking things over. Although, before, I'd set up rhythms with percussive instruments and sounds but, particiularly when I was using a conventional digital delay (later I switched to the orginal, 8 second Jam Man, adding a second and then the d.m.) and that first delay seemed to make the slowly evolving echo groove, with elements fading in and fading out over time, much more easy. I'm not really sure why... something about the mix controls on the Jam Mans... Adding the drum machine meant I could do some interesting things but it really changed the tenor of the performance. And even though I tended to then make things shorter, everything seemed longer. And more infuriatingly repetitive -- even though I usually would switch up the programmed sequences on the d.m. to vary things -- and because of the short delay on the Jam Mans, I'd often set up a three bar loop, which would have an interesting effect, at times, when played across the typical 2 bar d.m. patterns... even if you didn't change the loop, it would go 6 bars before you'd get a 'full' repetition of all the elements. Still, the d.m. kind of wrecked it all for me. Anyhow, it sort of amuses me to see so many people doing live loop stuff now because there were only a handful of us in the early 90s. BTW, I should have linked to the collaboration I used to do with another echo looper, this guy guitar oriented, Mike Rothmeyer, who, I think, has continued doing the ambient abstract thing, to some extent. (He moved up above Seattle, though.) Rothmeyer & Frippenstein PS... even though I'm primarily a guitarist, I found that keyboards worked better for me as a looper. I'm not much of a keyboardist, but playing live into an echo loop works pretty good for guys like me who are all right hand. Play a little bass part on one pass. Play some chords coming back around, etc. I have a volume pedal and I worked some with guitar but it never had the grab for me that keys into the loop did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Stackabones Posted February 19, 2009 Members Share Posted February 19, 2009 What may be fascinating for you may be agonizing for others. Gotta watch out for those loopers ... they tune out the loop (while the listener doesn't) as they are thinking about next step. The creator is busy while the listener hears something gradually change every minute or so. Unless you really have it together, it would wear a body down if done all night. Were I to do it, I'd put up a timer and set arbitrary limits -- short ones of about three minutes. Anything longer could be viewed as overly self-indulgent. IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted February 19, 2009 Members Share Posted February 19, 2009 Oh, hell yeah. Has a lot to do with why I've barely done any in more than ten years. For me, bringing the d.m. in was kinda the kiss o' death, as I was getting at above. But any repeating figure, particularly a melodic one, could go from trance inducing to infuriating really easily. It's a thin line... By the time sample loop-based production was hitting big in the late 90s, I'd already hit the wall. 17 bars without a new element or changeup was/is pretty much my tear point... the point where I reach for the skip or station button. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members popthree Posted February 19, 2009 Author Members Share Posted February 19, 2009 i think it would have to be done very carefully. certainly it is not something i'd want to try and headline a show with.... give me 30 minutes to warm up the crowd for a full blown band...that sort of thing. i think incorporating some projected video or images along with some lighting effects might make the whole experience a bit more enjoyable too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Stackabones Posted February 19, 2009 Members Share Posted February 19, 2009 i think it would have to be done very carefully. certainly it is not something i'd want to try and headline a show with.... give me 30 minutes to warm up the crowd for a full blown band...that sort of thing. i think incorporating some projected video or images along with some lighting effects might make the whole experience a bit more enjoyable too. It could work -- distract the audience from the music with visuals. You could call it a sort of post-modern musique d'ameublement. But even Satie emphasized that this was a music not to be listened to ... he even included snippets of other composers that he didn't consider too highly. Perhaps ambient music is what you are looking to do as well? I've been to installments where the music and visual aspects were linked. I can't remember the name of the show, but Brian Eno did one such installment at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in the late '90s. It was a rather pleasant experience. Super dark room with slowly pulsating and shifting color patches with Frippertronic-type music to intensify the womb-like atmosphere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members popthree Posted February 19, 2009 Author Members Share Posted February 19, 2009 i don't know if i'd call it ambient.. maybe a bit.. did you listen to the example i provided ? that is the sort of thing that usually comes out. i was just thinking i may post something on craigslist...looking for a visual artist who might want to be involved in such a project. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Stackabones Posted February 19, 2009 Members Share Posted February 19, 2009 i don't know if i'd call it ambient.. maybe a bit.. did you listen to the example i provided ? that is the sort of thing that usually comes out. i was just thinking i may post something on craigslist...looking for a visual artist who might want to be involved in such a project. I totally missed the link! It could work ... it sounds like songwriting/brainstorming session, so I'd be sure to record the shows in case you get something that you'd rather not lose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gayforjesus Posted February 19, 2009 Members Share Posted February 19, 2009 keller williams can pull it off well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members popthree Posted February 19, 2009 Author Members Share Posted February 19, 2009 I totally missed the link! It could work ... it sounds like songwriting/brainstorming session, so I'd be sure to record the shows in case you get something that you'd rather not lose. yes it could be considered a songwriting session... that's sort of my concept. it could be viewed as a songwriting session with an audience. i have generated many many many of these type of ideas and never recorded them. just passing moments in time never to return. i really should always drop a mic and hit the red button with these things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members popthree Posted February 19, 2009 Author Members Share Posted February 19, 2009 keller williams can pull it off well.is that what he does ? i just noticed keller williams is playing locally soon. i'll have to make it out and see how/what he is doing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gayforjesus Posted February 19, 2009 Members Share Posted February 19, 2009 he uses a looper with an acoustic guitar and a bunch of random percussion instruments. he also does some straight ahead acoustic stuff. he's a really amazing guitar player. you can probably check it out on youtube and see if it's something you like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members popthree Posted February 19, 2009 Author Members Share Posted February 19, 2009 is it spontaneous or rehearsed ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gayforjesus Posted February 19, 2009 Members Share Posted February 19, 2009 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members popthree Posted February 19, 2009 Author Members Share Posted February 19, 2009 that looks cool, i think i will try and go see him... he plays at the cains ballroom next wed. night here in tulsa. the youtube you linked looks to me like something he rehearsed, and there is no words. my idea though similar, is different because i'll basically be trying to create something original right on the spot, no preconceived riffs, bass lines, nothing prepared at all.....birthing it all live onstage for the first time... and hopefully, be able to adlib some type of melodic lyrical thing along wtih it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted February 19, 2009 Members Share Posted February 19, 2009 i think it would have to be done very carefully. certainly it is not something i'd want to try and headline a show with.... give me 30 minutes to warm up the crowd for a full blown band...that sort of thing. i think incorporating some projected video or images along with some lighting effects might make the whole experience a bit more enjoyable too. Yeah... the stuff I did most of my live loop career was ambient and spacey, chill room stuff, really. And it could take forever to set up and break down my rig. I had almost 80 signal cables, audio and MIDI at one point... not even counting power cables and wall warts. It could be nasty. At one art festival thing, I backed up spoken word artists as well as a performance art troupe. That was... funny. I'm still not sure if it was supposed to be. I think so... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gayforjesus Posted February 20, 2009 Members Share Posted February 20, 2009 that looks cool, i think i will try and go see him... he plays at the cains ballroom next wed. night here in tulsa. the youtube you linked looks to me like something he rehearsed, and there is no words. my idea though similar, is different because i'll basically be trying to create something original right on the spot, no preconceived riffs, bass lines, nothing prepared at all.....birthing it all live onstage for the first time... and hopefully, be able to adlib some type of melodic lyrical thing along wtih it. oh, i'm sure there's definitely a lot of rehearsal going on there, mixed with improvisation. he does a lot of songs that are set(freaker by the speaker, jimi hendrix covers), but he mixes up how he plays them from night to night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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