Like a majority of our clients at Superior St., I'm used to playing in a band and collaborating with other like-minded musicians, but sometimes, working with a bunch of other prima donnas can be a complete pain in the ass when all you wanna do is create some musical magic.
That's why most creative types holed up in their home recording studios, chasing inspiration with an old Fostex four-track cassette recorder (old school analog, baby!) or the latest edition of Ableton Live.
But what about playing live?
Well, you could either show these songs you've recorded to the rest of your band and hope 1) that they like them, and 2) can do them proper justice, or you could invest a few hundred bucks in a looping station and take your one-man-or-woman creations to the stage.
Imagine single-handedly building a mind-blowing musical foundation upon which you create a singular performance that is equal parts spontaneity and an awesome use of current digital technology.
When I was living in L.A., I used to go to church every Friday night. My church was the Largo, a small dinner club on Fairfax, and my minister was Jon Brion, who, on a nightly basis, was the best one-man-band in the world. Of course, this was 1999, so the technology Brion had at his disposal was hilariously primitive compared to now, but the limitations didn't seem to stop Brion from coming up with absolutely genius improvisations.
Sure, you could load a bunch of parts onto your Ableton, trigger them onstage with a controller, and not a single person in the audience stare at you in wide-eyed amazement OR you could hit the stage with an empty looper - a blank canvas, if you will - and build something beautiful from your soul that is "of the moment" that everyone in that audience will remember for the rest of their lives.
And therein lies the greatness of looping: once you have a working command of your looper of choice, the possibilities of what can be attained onstage are limitless and no two performances are ever the same.
That's an interesting word, "performance". Somehow, a DJ or an artist relying upon pre-recorded tracks just doesn't qualify as "performing" no matter how great their light show may be, but an artist who hits the stage with nothing but a microphone and a looper and somehow manages to create a singular musical symphony out of thin air, THAT'S a fucking performance.