stendek

BOSS® recently held the first-ever Loop Station National Finals, the U.S. championship event in a global competition to find the world's top BOSS loop performer. Around the world, BOSS is hosting similar events, which will culminate with the Loop Station World Championship at the House of Blues in Anaheim, CA, during the 2011 Winter NAMM Show.
On October 23, 2010, six musicians performed before a live audience and a panel of celebrity judges at the renowned Musicians Institute in Hollywood, California. The six were chosen from hundreds of video submissions received by BOSS during a three-month contest in the summer of 2010. Philip Stendek from St. Louis, Missouri, was the day's big winner, and he will go on to represent the U.S. at the Loop Station World Championship in Anaheim.
The six all-star judges included The Police guitarist Andy Summers, solo fusion guitarist Frank Gambale, Guitar Player Editor-in-Chief Michael Molenda, The Tonight Show bassist Derrick Murdock, Guitar Institute director Jude Gold, and BOSS Corporation director Paul Youngblood.
Each finalist performed an original composition live, and included singing, playing various instruments, and creating live loops with one or more BOSS RC series Loop Station products. In addition to Stendek, the looping artists were Tony Smiley from Oregon; Brenna Fitzgerald from Pennsylvania; Micah Beverly from Arizona; Brian Kerr from Ohio; and Jason Olcese from Pennsylvania.
All the performers wowed the crowd and judges with their energy, creativity, and excellent musicianship. Most of all, they amazed everyone with their abilities to support their compositions by layering multiple musical parts together with BOSS Loop Stations to create enormous walls of sound.
Third place went to Tony Smiley, while second place went to Micah Beverly. Both runners-up received $2,000 in BOSS gear. In addition to earning a spot at the Loop Station World Championship, first place winner Philip Stendek took home $3,000 in BOSS gear.
Before the winners were announced, Frank Gambale and his band treated the assembled crowd to an exceptional musical performance.
At the close of the event, Andy Summers summed up all the performances and the judges' feelings this way: "It was very entertaining and instructive to be here tonight, and it was great to see all this talent. It was brutal coming to this decision, because I think all these guys are real winners—they're all great. I think we heard some really interesting music tonight, and it was very inspiring to see what you might do with these loopers."
For more information on the National Finals and the upcoming Loop Station World Championship, please visitBossUS.com/LoopStation. - St Louis Post Dispatch

?Years of paying dues in local bands and honing his one-man-band act paid off in a big way for multi-instrumentalist Phil Stendek last Saturday in Los Angeles, when he won the national portion of the Boss Loop Station Championship. Stendek was one of six finalists selected from a pool of 178 eligible YouTube entries who performed in front of a panel of six judges that included Police guitarist Andy Summers and Tonight Show bassist Derrick Murdock. Each contestant was given five minutes to play an original song or routine using their instruments and a set of Boss Loop Station pedals that record, loop and replays riffs. This allows artists to layer and play back tracks in a live performance.
That time limit posed a bit of a problem for Stendek, who played his reggae-flavored song "Nuclear Fusion." "When I soundchecked, the guy who was running the show comes up to me and goes, 'Did you time yourself?' and I was like 'No.' And he goes, 'You better make sure you don't go over, cause they'll deduct points for that.'" Stendek says. "So I just literally played the song faster and it totally screwed me up. I was playing the song about four clicks faster than I normally do and I almost turned it into a disco song."

This stumble made the competition close, but Stendek ultimately eked out a victory after much deliberation between the judges. For placing first, he won $3,000 worth of Boss gear and a spot in the World Championship contest, which will take place January 14 at the House of Blues in Anaheim. Stendek plans to use his winnings to make a pedal setup similar to the one he uses now so that he can ship it to his sister in Ireland for use in a future European tour. In addition to a world-tour, Stendek hopes to parlay his success in the contest to a sponsorship and, if offered, a job with Boss. "I'd love to be a product demonstration guy for Boss," he says. "That'd be so much fun to just go to Guitar Centers and just set up my stuff and just explain to people how to do this."

Even if he doesn't translate his success at the Boss Loop Station Championship into newer ventures, Stendek still has plenty to be proud of. "The president of Roland, which is the parent company of Boss, he came up to me and he told me he really liked what I did, which is a trip," he says. The contest also gave Stendek the impetus to work on his first solo studio album, a process he had put off for seven years. So far he has seven songs that he wants to tweak but liked well enough to share with judges that asked for a copy. He hopes to have a more polished disc to hand out at the World Championship.

Stendek also plans to make adjustments to his approach for his next competition. "The one thing that Andy Summers said that did stick in my head was that my performance was very conventional," he says. "For the Worlds, instead of doing a song, I'm going to do a routine where I pretty much demonstrate everything you can do with the pedal."

Specifically? "I'm going to take one of my songs and I'm going to just change it up so it has all these gimmicky parts in it. I'm going to have a part in the middle where I start playing harmonica into a telephone. I'm going to build the beat out of junk - I've got a box of junk and I'm just going to bang on it."

Until then, you can catch Stendek at various shows around town, starting with his appearance November 5 at the Tin Can Tavern on Morganford Road. - Riverfront Times

Musician Phil Stendek is putting a new face on the one-man band. He plays energetic shows at the Tin Can Tavern and Grille every Thursday, and he doesn’t sacrifice lyrics or melodies. Stendek is a looper. With his loop station, Stendek can record and instantly play back portions of his performance to create new songs. Stendek’s emphasis on the music and fluid transitions into every role as a solo band member let him stand out. Soon those qualities could make him a musical staple.

In summer 2010, Stendek took a risk and entered the Boss Loop Station national championship. On Oct. 23, he was announced winner of the U.S. Finals, and in January, he will compete in the World Championships where he could potentially be crowned best loop artist in the world. The most extraordinary part of Stendek’s story is that this was his first competition as a looper.
The 37-year-old multi-instrumentalist was introduced to looping — the art of recording live samples of music for instant playback — in 2002 when a friend handed him a cassette of loop artist Keller Williams. Stendek’s first thought was: “I can do that.”
Soon he added a Boss RC-20 loop station to his acoustic set. Although he thought he was great at the time, Stendek admits now that he wasn’t particularly good. “My mom loved it, and that’s pretty much all that mattered,” Stendek says.
However, eight years of playing regular sets around St. Louis, including Tin Can, has increased his aptitude for the unusual art form. The Maplewood artist also increased his loop station, finally settling on four RC-20s — the foot pedals used to capture and replay the recorded sections — by the time he added Columbia’s Tin Can to his standard rotation.
“It is actually a pretty unconventional way to do it,” Stendek says.
Most artists only use one station, the more capable RC-50 model, but Stendek got into the habit of using more than one station and never stopped. By using more stations, he is able to put numerous loops into his songs.
In late spring, Stendek’s friend told him about the upcoming Boss Loop Station competition. Stendek entered the contest by filling out an online form and submitting a five-minute original piece. The video submission had to feature a Boss RC-Series looping product — his RC-20s.
Stendek’s entry piece was “Nuclear Fusion,” a song that has been on his roster for eight years. “Nuclear Fusion” has a funky mellow sound with visceral lyrics akin to reggae. He uses it to build up from the bass line, but for the competition he changed it to showcase his talent on drums as well. Along with the new parts, he also added a vocal loop that gave the song a mysterious, ethereal quality.
“When it starts off, the listener doesn’t really know where it’s going,” Stendek says.
Out of 178 eligible entries, the best six were chosen and invited to the U.S. Loop Station finals at Musicians Institute in Los Angeles. Each performer played a contest piece before the judges; the other entrants were kept in the green room. “It helped ease my mind that there wasn’t someone in the audience watching who was also competing against me,” Stendek says. “It allowed me to focus on the music.”
Stendek already plays three to four times a week, so he didn’t feel the need to include extra practices leading up to the contest. By playing so frequently, Stendek’s top concern was the maintenance of his equipment. “My preparation pretty much started about two years ago when I rebuilt my rig,” Stendek says. Since then he has improved everything from his drum kit to his microphone.
Columbia Tin Can manager Eric Abney says Stendek has played there almost every week since Abney found out about him from the St. Louis location.
“He interacts very well with the audience,” Abney says. “Everyone responds to him.”
For his world championship appearance at the Winter National Association of Music Merchants Show 2011, Stendek will prepare even more. “I’m definitely going to work on a new routine,” Stendek says.
In Anaheim, Stendek will aim to impress judges with his mastery of the equipment. He will focus on showing them tricks and contributing to the excitement of the performance. Although it is not his normal style, Stendek has no qualms about playing up the X-factor. “It makes things a bit more interesting,” Stendek says. - Vox Magazine

Genre: DJ/Electronic
MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/stendek

Most of the great American DJs of our time come from four big cities: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago or Detroit. DJ Phil is from St. Louis, a place where you’ll find more Grateful Dead tribute bands than turntablists. When confronted with the idea of joining a band to play “Touch of Grey” and “Friend of the Devil,” Phil decided to become a DJ instead. However, there wasn’t much DJ work available in his hometown, so after learning the basic elements, Phil moved to Las Vegas in 2005 in the hopes of making a living off of his music. It was in Las Vegas that Phil learned to mix properly, and it was also there that he developed his "DJ voice," which mainly came in handy for announcing drink specials and reminding people to "tip your bartenders and wait-staff."

Currently, Phil spins every Saturday night at Club Madrid in Sunset Station Hotel & Casino, playing Top 40 and radio friendly hip-hop to please the crowd, while he puts his love for house and techno on hold. Despite this frustration, it seems that DJing is simply Phil’s destiny. - Las Vegas Weekly

...But, I digress…back to the evening at hand. Had HoneyHoney put on anything less than a stellar performance, they would have instantly been upstaged by their opener, Phil Stendek. This guy is one to watch. Back from Vegas, but a hometown St. Louisan at heart, Stendek is one of the best local performers I’ve had the pleasure to behold. And mind you, I have quite the local music obsession. Stendek takes the concept of one-man-band to an entirely different level. Surrounded by a slew of every rock instrument imaginable (other than bass – but my memory could be deceiving me), the only thing to upstage Stendek’s amazing performance abilities was his even more captivating sense of humor. If, by some horrible turn of events (emphasis on HORRIBLE), a music career doesn’t fledge out for Stendek, he will not be hard-pressed to find a career in standup comedy. But, if he keeps giving performances like the one I saw last Tuesday, there is no doubt in my mind that he will soon be contained in a rapid progression towards musical stardom.

Playing a fantastic combination of covers and originals, every song had a unique and infectious style that would captivate even the highest-browed music snob. If anyone is wondering what “it” is, and who has “it”, Phil Stendek definitely does. And we are fortunate enough to have him in our midst – and I will definitely be keeping a staunch eye on his concert calendar....
- PlaybackSTL