I'm proud to announce a little
mini
SANTA CRUZ NOISE FESTIVAL celebrating
the surprise visit from Japan'sTait R (of the wonderful
Junk Sick Dawn)

featuring:
TAITO (from Tokyo's NOISE CLINIC)
No, I see (rick walker's electro-acoustic noise)
A Funeral for Love (brian from Rapeshower)

META MUSIC
Tues 7-22
7:30 p.m.
All Ages
Free

I have just returned from headlining 15 live looping festivals and events
in 8 countries in Scandinavia, Germany and the British Isles during
a long 2 month tour.

On that tour, the TRANSPARENT DAYGLO ORANGE PLASTIC tour
I came up with an unusual found sound/live looping show that
utilizes a lot of Dayglo Orange Plastic under
black lights (and bells and tuning forks
and vibrators and trumpet and overtone flutes and extended vocal
techniques and beat boxing and and and......

I will be performing this show at the very final performance at
the HIDE GALLERY in Santa Cruz, tonight (FRIDAY, July 11th)
from 10-11 p.m.

The HIDE , in case you don't know, is in the 2nd block
of FRONT STREET just South of LAUREL STREET downtown.

FRONT STREET curves to the right as you approach the hill
and that's where I'll be performing along with an amazing
electronica/pop band from LA, WOVEN (11 p.m.-12 a.m.).

They are one of my very favorite musical groups and they rarely
play in Northern California.

There will also be painters and airbrushers and dancers all
performing and creating while I play so it should be
a wonderful send off to one of the most creative institutions
that this town has seen in a long time.

I hope you can make it.

Great to be back in Santa Cruz,

I hope to see you at the show tonight.

yours, Rick Walker

The sun is rising and in a couple of hours, Chris (my intrepid tour manager, road technician and spouse)
and I are taking the Airporter up to San Franscisco to fly to Goteborg, in the south of Sweden
for the first gigs of a two month tour of 8 countries.

I'll be headlining 15 different Live Looping Festivals and gigs on this tour in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark,
Germany, Great Britain, Wales, and Northern Ireland, finishing up in the first week of July with a three day
vacation in Dublin, Ireland.

This means we'll travel to four countries we've never been to and add three more countries to the list of
places that have had Live Looping Festivals.

By the end of this summer, there will have been 70 live looping festivals in 20 countries in the last five years and
since we kick started this global movement in Santa Cruz in 2000.

I'm blessed to be getting tour support from the Swedish, Finnish and German governments and from Looperlative,
the fantastic live looping device that I am using and helping to design software functioning for.

I'll be blogging and sending pictures to my own website if anyone is interested in following this tour.

It's at www.looppool.info Just look for the link on the homepage to the BLOG.

See you all in July!

Today I went to the dentist for the first time in
at least 10 years.

I got a really heavy deep cleaning and my mouth had to be completely anaesthetized
because of all the grinding that the dentist did. He told me that he was amazed at
how strong my immune system was considering how infected my teeth and gums were
and the fact that I wasn't on my back from it all. It was continual sinus infections that prompted me
to go in the first place.

He said I'd probably feel sick off and on for about a week as my body tries to get rid
of it all but that I"d probably feel better than I have in 20 years once it all got sorted out.

Afterwards, with a ton of bleeding and mouth that would not work, I woozily made my
way home and took this video of me trying to say tongue twisters.

I really am as out of it as I appear..................lol.

I find it kind of amusing.

www.looppool.info/NUMB_GUMS_WALKER

Oh, and by the way, it's a hefty 57 megs so don't try this without DSL or BROADBAND or
a relatively fast computer.

After a really hard week (I have my main harddrive with my next two records and all my recent video
work bite the dust and discovered to my horror that my backup drive had folders on it that were all empty),
I had a nearly perfect day today: you know, one of those days that Native American cultures have called,
"a good day to die".

My dear friend (and renaissance man, Craig McCoullough) helped me to recover my hard drive data
in the middle of a very busy week) and I just finished an amazing rehearsal with the 'Voice of Tibet",
the fantastic singer, Yungchen Llamo tonight.

I was asked to put together a band to help her do the concert tonight at the Rio Theatre in Santa Cruz
and I was very lucky to get Dana Massie on guitar, Daniel Robbins on uprigtht and electric fretless bass guitar
and Peter Cor on keyboards. We just had an amazing rehearsal. There were several times where the hairs
went up on the back of my neck.

During a break, Yungchen came into my living room and asked me to play a few of the many instruments that are in there.
I explained to her about my career in live looping and played for her on a Native Amercian double drone flute and a
chromatic Strumstick. She enjoyed what I played and asked me if I would do a duet improvisation with her tomorrow night.

After the rehearsal, I spent some time and tuned my Cooperman Kanjira and Hadjira to the fundamental pitches of the Native American
Flute and then tuned the Strumstick to it as well. I'm very, very excited and privileged to play, creatively with such an amazing
singer. We are even going to do a little overtone singing together tomorrow night.

She has the sweetest vibe, too. She said, "don't worry about making mistakes tomorrow night. This is not about competition.
It is our karma to be playing together and we should enjoy it."

I felt so calm and relaxed and centered after the maelstorm of my earlier week (computer woes and booking snafus on my upcoming trip).

Everything got worked out though and tonight we'll have a two camera crew filming the results.
I am having a hard time sleeping because I"m so excited.