off: das ludicroix SD '99: PRAY FOR A GOOD HARVEST

[DASLUD at AOL.COM]

this is what i sent to my compatriots this morning..."pray for a good
harvest" was on a sign we saw in front of an ohio church about 3am as we got
closer to the festival.
it specifically pertains to the 'drought of 99' but those sentiments have
been xpressed for thousands of years...
my 1980 dodge st. regis performed like a dream, justifying the almost $400.00
of car work i put into it prior to our departure. one of the reasons i
continue to live around here is that my mechanic lets me run a
tab...heh...but over 1400 miles later, we were all happy to be back home.
sorry we missed the first night while en route; born to go was singled out
for being way cool...and provided me w/a moment's notoriety the next day
when, while stumbling around the food table seeking to feed myself, i hear
this english accent call out "larry?! are you the larry who stirs shit up on
BOC-L?" or words to that effect. "i must be", i replied.
hey, there was a stage, and good equipment to play through, and free food for
the players,, and amicable when not righteous guys and gals (more of the
latter than i'd been told to xpect) to mingle with or stumble amidst, and no
dearth of the herb either.

many thanks to jim lascko and co. for putting the whole thing together out of
, um, love == certainly not for any profit left unturned == i hope he feels
like putting up w/the aggravation again next year. we're happy to have been
part of it.
"<>"
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i played the boombox version of our set last night...
bearing in mind, comrades, that i listen to everything but everything with a
hypercritical ear...
there's less to cause me to feel unhappy about than i kinda thought there was
while we were playing.
a boombox can be merciful like that; hearing the board tape will be a
separate xperience ^_~

strangely enough, we sounded like das ludicroix, heh...nothing at all to
regret in that respect....we delivered as to what folks might've "expected"
to "get" from us.

we did in fact fly by the seat of our collective britches start to finish,
even by ending w/an actual song which was only known to me. (disarray's "down
at the mall")
we played rhythms we'd never used before; we had some loud/quiet/loud moments
which we'd rarely touched upon...and a few train-wreck moments as well. goes
with the territory.
in the absence of the guitar overdose we've tended to indulge in previously,
we dealt in dynamics and ensemble sound...to the extent that those of us
onstage could hear each other (laughs).

the boombox tape "mix" is dominated by doug walker and ian...carl a. might be
the least audible overall although he does cut through now and then, and you
can hear him doing that dave brock wah pedal cool stuff in the distance. ron
is audible too and he was as killer as theorized. we're a good rhythm section
and i couldnt "lose" him on the occasions i switched gears or had
"mathematical" moments.

doug pearson was an xcellent contribution to our gang; can't hear him a whole
lot but then suddenly you can, w/xactly the sound i'd've wished for in the
violin shoes.
i look forward to hearing him more clearly on the board tape.

more than i look forward to hearing myself...aaahh, i dunno, at least the
periodic clumsy moments are in tempo. the missed crashes dont sound so bad
via boombox; god knows there were cymbal crashes to spare that day, for
reasons including for once i had great cymbals to come down hard on.
there is one noticeable time falter on my part during the most hawklike
jam...i remember when it happened because i went "oh shit, did i just do what
i think i did?"...alas, such was the case, but i managed to bring the tempo
back up, and i'll just have to live w/it...ha ha, you'll know it when you
hear it ^_~

doug walker, "dr.synth", was cool as shite. easily the MVP of STRANGE DAZE
99, hands down, for what he did for us, a couple other bands, and the kickass
set he performed with the lean and mean incarnation of alien planetscapes.

and ian? he's had serious medical problems in general, a problem w/one of his
hands more recently, did much last-minute repair work on his guitar (damaged
on the bus ride) and had problems w/his effects pedals the whole time...he
didnt do a whole lot of the
classic-ian-souther-blazing-psychedelic-ranger-lead-guitar stuff i had hoped
for, and after hearing the tape i believe he was tripping during our set,
which is only a conjecture of mine right now....but he did some worthy
playing despite all that, just w/more subtlety. it was a significant moment
for him to play that festival, and he carried on through more than his share
of adversity; moreso than the rest of us, truth told.

i guess all the unexpected aspects of what we did should be considered
components of, ahem, "the das ludicroix xperience"; no one knew what would
happen until it happened.
we had never sounded quite like that before and are unlikely to again. when
and if an entity called das ludicroix makes a subsequent appearance neither
the personnel nor the music played will be like it was on this sunday
afternoon in ohio.

or else it was all a bunch of crap.

i hope we are invited back to STRANGE DAZE 2000, if there'll end up being
such a thing.

PRAY FOR A GOOD HARVEST
"<>"