We have a new website!!! At last. A huge thank you to Stephen Gilewski at Gilewski Design for creating a fabulous new site for all things loop. There is a blog integrated into the new site..and that is the current place to keep track of news, thoughts, and see some extra photos and videos. The new website is also integrated with our social networking sites so you can find those links at the new homepage and stay connected with us that way if that is your style. This blogger page will remain for now as a record and in case we find the need for more space to rant wildly...but that usually happens through the music... Kindest regards, and please DO visit us at the new www.loop243.com.

Dafnis Prieto with Loop 2.4.3 at the Tank in New York City

Loop in London

I got to travel to London in May with Clogs to perform on the Steve Reich Reverberations Festival hosted by the Barbican. What a fantastic time! We performed alongside the Kronos Quartet, eighth blackbird, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Nico Muhly, and many other uber-talented artists. A great opportunity and a great tribute to Mr. Reich.

One of the special things for me was making the London premier of Underground, a Loop 2.4.3 piece from Zodiac Dust, as a duo version with Bryce Dessner (Clogs, The National). A big thanks to Bryce for giving this a go in short order - not an easy piece!

There was a detailed review of the Clogs set by QRO magazine - find it online HERE.

Loop at the Lyric in NYC

We've had some really fun shows the last couple of weeks and one of the highlights happened to be right here in New York City. The room we played in for the Lyric's salon series on Manhattan's Upper East Side was simply fantastic! A medium sized room with a high ceiling, and everything was dark wood. The acoustics were superb. Resonant, but controlled. We had to hold back a little bit on some of the powerful drumming bits in Chickchi, but otherwise were able to achieve great dynamics. The concert was recorded and may appear on NPR down the road...we'll pass on any news.

The other great thing about this show was the mix of people in the audience. There were a large number of Upper East Siders in their 60's, 70's, and 80's who were ecstatic about the show and stuck around to chat afterwards. There were some young artists from SOHO who just randomly heard of the show and came up, and then some hardcore Loop fans from the West Village, Brooklyn, and even Connecticut. There were a few small children, so the age range was huge. I find this type of communication across generations to be really exciting.

Wait a minute, there was one more really great thing about this show - Christian Hebel joined us on violin. This was our first collaboration with Christian and we're looking forward to more. He performed on Zodiac Dust and Epilogue. Epilogue involves a good deal of improvisation in a non-traditional fashion, and Christian played some really beautiful music. Thank you!

We would also like to thank Joan Kretschmer, and Julia Reinhart at the Lyric Chamber Music Society for all of their support. Joan took a big chance by programming us on a very classical/romantic series, and it was a huge success. Our humble gratitude for all you do.

coming up....Thom is headed to London to perform with Clogs for a Steve Reich 75th birthday celebration festival at the Barbican. We'll try to get some pictures...Lorne is working with Tom Burnett and James Godwin for our next NYC show on May 25. Hope to see you soon!

Snow Bowl flashback

Lorne's Snow Bowl Review: Our Snow Bowl Tour was a great success for us. We thought that the weather would be terrible the whole time when we started out getting the Camry stuck in our own parking lot! That day NYC got 4 inches of snow, then 2 inches of rain and then 4 more inches of snow. That was the toughest day of driving!

We made it to Buffalo a little late (1am?) but Tom Kolor, Professor of Percussion at University at Buffalo, was there to greet us. The next day we met all of the percussion students for a master class in which we played through our road show, the long program, and discussed our processes from composition to business. As we left that day, it was snowing, but to be expected in Buffalo, all the way to Toledo. (I Chickened out on driving. The amount of trucks on the road was way too intense!)

Our gig at Toledo was really nice. Gabe at the Robinwood concert house puts on great events in his living room. This is definitely a repeat place for us to play. The audience was fabulous and the company was FUN! After this gig it felt as though we had already been on the road for a week, but we were just getting started.

The next three stops were very nostalgic. We rocked Holly middle school with our great friend John Hill (who broke his cats foot while we were there) at 8:00 am! Then quickly loaded up the car and headed to Michigan State University. This is where I saw some of my first concerts and always wanted to perform at the Music Building. Well, now we can check that off the list. Gwen was a great host and we hope to return. Then it was off to Thom's and my the Alma Mater, Central Michigan University. Andrew Spencer hosted us for master classes with his students. It was nice to play in the hall again, it has been almost 15 years since I played there.

Then, of course, it was snowing, wouldn’t be a SNOW BOWL TOUR with out it. The blizzard was on the way and we had to get to Wisconsin for a show the next day. Instead of driving south of Lake Michigan, we went north through the UP, stopped at the Tighe Family House, (Patty’s, my wife's, parents) and had some pasties and squeaky cheese. We continued on to Appleton and just beat the Blizzard by mere miles and minutes. The next day we had an excellent concert at Lawrence University. The sound was great and the students were very helpful during the frozen load-in.

That night it went down to about -20 as we arrived in Minneapolis at 3 a.m. There was some crazy “business” happening at the hotel, which ended up leaving the catch phrase in our heads, “Not cool, Not cool at all”. We got up to warmer temperatures, about 15 above zero, and loaded into the Southern Theater. What a great space! The sound system and engineers were great and we actually had a real sound check. We shared the show with Juliana Barwick, which was an excellent double bill as we are two TOTALLY different acts.

After this show we were felling the road sores and drove up to St. Cloud state where Terry Vermillion hosted us in a master class and an evening performance. Terry was great host and the students were amazing to work with. We hit the road right after to make it to Chicago for our last performance. We crashed at the Red Roof Inn in the Wisconsin Dells, which I have heard are beautiful, but with 4 feet of snow and darkness upon us, it looked like Christmas Eve.

Click HERE for a video from St. Cloud

We woke up late, got a late start, and scrambled down to Chicago to play with The Rowe-Clark Academy steel band directed by our great friend Doug Corella. Man, can his kids play! After the concert we had a great hang with all of our friends and family that are in Chicago. Good times had by all! Doug hooked us up with a great breakfast in the morning and we were off on a 14 hour journey back to New York. We really need to find a great spot to play a show in Pennsylvania along I- 80. Any suggestions?

Oh Yeah, of course we got the Camry stuck in the parking lot again, just to keep the the whole tour balanced! Thom had to put chains on the tires at 3am just to park in the ice rink of a lot in Bed-Stuy.

Good Times!! Great to see all of you on the road and stay in touch. Hope you enjoyed the tales. There are a bunch of videos online from the shows in Minnesota. If you search "Loop 2.4.3, St. Cloud" or "Loop 2.4.3, Southern Theater" in google or youtube, you should find some fun tour coverage.

All the Best - Lorne, Loop 2.4.3

photos by Jon Behm, http://www.reviler.org

Tank Loop

We're not going to lie - this residency was a lot of work...it was nuts. Thom moved back to NYC full-time and we completely renovated Loop Headquarters in Bed-Stuy. This meant rehearsing late at night at Carroll Music - who were wonderful to us throughout, while Loopland was a construction zone. An-Lin was amazing in this entire process and helped design all of the changes to the studio. Lorne spent hours schlepping gear into studio 4 and trying to wire the PA system for rehearsals, T-Byrd Burnett tried to keep peace with the short fuses of the directors, and James had to spend extra money on beer at mid-town deli's...we all made sacrifices. It paid off as there were wonderful moments in each show, and when things hit their stride in show #3, everything made sense.

Please check out some of the photos, mostly from the dress rehearsal of concert 3 and taken by Kiyoshi Inoue. There will be video posted eventually, so check back at the youtube channel.

Thanks to all of the performers: John Amira, James Armstrong, Tom Burnett, Mat Fieldes, Erik Friedlander, James Godwin, Emily Hope Price, Dafnis Prieto, Steven Reker. We also thank Suzan, Brendan, Jenn, Chris, Trent, and all at the Tank.

CMJ Loop

We were selected to perform at the CMJ (College Music Journal) Marathon this fall in NYC. This is a big industry happening of which we were glad to take part. Zodiac Dust reached #23 on the CMJ RPM charts (experimental music) in 2009, thanks to the DJ's and students! The sweaty, candid photo (courteousy of Kiyoshi), is after the midnight set.