I finally got my mouse hooked up to freewheelin,
http://freewheeling.sourceforge.net/. Which means I can dance around,
and trigger the recording of music with the mouse in the hand. Next
step: get a silent, wireless trigger.

I also noticed that when I have power plugged into the laptop that I get
some not so nice background sound. Strange.

Anyhow, the trick was a mixture of xbindkeys, xvkbd and fweelin config.

So, from my .xbindkeys.rc.fweelin:

#Button 3 sends a 'p' into X
"xvkbd -xsendevent -text 'p'"
b:3

and from my .fweelin.rc:

<!--jhb-->

<binding input="key"
conditions="key=p and keydown=1"
output1="trigger-loop"
parameters1="loopid=VAR_loopid_footswitch and vol=1.0"
output2="set-variable" parameters2="var=VAR_xferloop and value=1"
output3="set-variable" parameters3="var=VAR_xferidx and
value=VAR_loopid_footswitch"/>

which makes p replace the footpedal.

Works for me - for now. Did give it a first go in Garys kitchen, which
was good fun.