|
bio dates downloads forum links merchandise general info |
photo by Whitney Duvall
My name is Philip Reilly Stendek. I'm a loop artist from St. Louis, MO (USA). The term "loop artist" means that I play music into a recording device called a "looper," which plays back instantly what I record on it and lets me record additional layers of sound on top of it. This technique was first done on dual Revox analog tape recorders in the early 1970s by Robert Fripp and Brian Eno, but it was made more accessible to a wider audience of musicians by digital looping units like the Echoplex, Jamman, and Boomerang Phrase Sampler. I was turned on to looping in July 2002 after hearing loop artist Keller Williams perform solo, and in August of that same year I decided to try my hand at it and purchased a Boss LoopStation.
By October I found myself integrating the LoopStation into my solo acoustic performances. As 2002 drew to a close, I decided to sell everything I owned except for my music gear, and I bought a van with the intention of touring in it. Since February 2003, I've played over one hundred and fifty shows, toured through all the U.S. states west of the Mississippi River, and recorded three CDs.
I started off looping with acoustic guitar and hand drum, but as time progressed, I began adding more instrumentation piece by piece. With every instrument added, a new window would open up and reveal what has influenced me as a musician: the jazz/funk influence of Larry Coryell can be seen in my electric guitar, my deep adoration of Sonny Boy Williamson sometimes peeks through in my harmonica playing, my love of the James Brown rhythm section is all over my drumming, and the very records I grew up listening to get sampled and scratched with on my turntables.
Live at The Palms w/ Brandon Duvall
photo by Whitney Duvall
The name "Stendek" comes from an alien abduction theory surrounding a 1947 airplane crash over the Andes Mountains. The story, in a nutshell, is as follows: a passenger airplane flying over the Andes Mountains gets caught in the jet stream and flies straight into the side of an icy mountain. The last thing the plane radios to the tower is the word "stendec," a word of unknown origin. For years, the plane was declared missing due to its wreckage getting lost in the ice and snow. Alien abduction theories on the disappearance of the plane are eventually debunked when the wreckage is discovered 50 years later at the bottom of the mountain. When I first started looping, the process felt very "alien" to me, and the name Stendek just made sense.