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Looper's Delight
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Matt Davignon wrote: "Things that are not OK: .......Using an automated drum machine to replace a real drummer." What's wonderful about this community is it's diversity. I love Ted Killian's music and Matt Davignon's music a lot and, in the same breathe, we're all really different musicians with different aesthetics and different musical loves. Using an automated drum machine to replace a real drummer is completely okay with me as an example. The first time I saw Ultravox live in the late 70's there drummer was playing a kick, snare, hi hat and cymbal (unbelievably and shockingly minimal in the era of huge concert tome drum sets in the Reagan 70's) and he was only playing half of the beat. The other half was played by a Roland CR-78 analogue drum machine (the first programmable analogue drum machine) that was playing ridiculously minimal and repetitive drum beats. The performance was minimal to a fault and it was just electrifying to me at the time for one huge reason: the SOUND!!!!!! Also, I was fascinated with the concept of minimalism at the time. Less is More. I'm still fascinated by this concept. I also loved the statement of this performance. They were purposefully playing wiht the mechanical nature of the performance. John Foxx was really interested in emotions and lack of emotions: machines interacting with human beings. I became a lover of drum machines immediately and began to collect them when ever I could afford to. After digital machines came out (which I couldn't possibly afford at the time), analogue drum machines went out of fashion for being too 'cheesy'. I was like a pig in slop, I bought analogue machine after analogue machine, never spending 60 dollars for anyone until I finally saved up enough money to buy the cadillac TR 808 for 400 dollars (lol, there's no US dollar sign on this computer that I'm using in Per Boysen's flat in Stockholm.........I haven't spelled the word dollars in forever= When inexpensive samplers came along I was even deeper in love. I've always love the interface between artificial and organic. I probably wouldn't be attracted to looping if I didn't have that fascination. I always thought it was queer that most people who owned analogue, digital synths and , later, samplers were always finding ways to make things sound like real instruments. To me, the artificial was far more exotic and enticing. I have just loved that the technique of forward thinking drummers in recent years has soared because they have purposefully tried to emulate the seemingly impossible computer cutups of styles like Jungle and D and B. Indeed, I have worked hard on creating a drumset that has three tiny (6",8",10"= snares, 8" hihats and little 12" and 14" kick drums on one side (to emulate pitching up a drumset an octave on a sampler) and a 26" kick, huge 16" hi hats and a deep 10" X 14" 'coliseum' snare drum, all tuned extremely flabby and flat to simulate pitching a drumset down an octave (jungle meets half speed trip hop). Even trying to emulate a drum machine perfectly is fun for me because I'm a human being and can't do it. It's just fascinating to me the really minor imperfections that occur when attempting to do something silly like this. So, Ted says, I'm sure you can agree with me that you don't like just setting a drum machine up and letting it go for an entire song and, as much as I love his music and aesthetic, I have to confess, that, NO, I actually do like to do that at times. To me all of this is interesting an valid depending on what timbral and rhythmic choices that are made. Personally, I have to confess that the preoccupation of many musicians in their attempts to never have anything repeated is actually more irritating to me than the ones who are guily of repeating things over and over. Of course it all dependes on what's being said (and why). Andre LaFosse can be incredibly maximal and I love what he does. That's my take on it, though it probably won't be the most popular on this list.