FEATURE

STEFAN TISCHLER / Saying Yes To Another Excess

It’s official: New York City, a metropolis whose very nature actively encourages the genre collision of music and its inherent tropes, is no longer the mecca for experimentalism. Hard to believe, but true. Astronomically skyrocketing rents have virtually eliminated venues for those mainstream-challenged individuals looking to ply their trade publicly. Additionally, the independent record shop is going the way of the dodo (the diminishing presence of notable stores on the island is simultaneously conspicuous and unacknowledged) and the ones that still exist seem more concerned with pushing familiar, safer categories of music (splintering off folk and rock idioms) than anything with the faintest whiff of rank experimentalism, let alone the all-too-encompassing annals of “electronica” despite the category’s cannibalistic anchoring to everything dance-oriented. Forget the calendar year, and we’ve come full circle, when rock ruled the roost and anything bleeding out from the edges has become ghettoized to the point of irrelevance.

In fact, better still to turn back the calendar year, way way back to the late 70s/early 80s, when fledgling musics were fairly erupting from the downtown Manhattan streets in a kaleidoscope of intrigue and intent. This was a time, remember, when folks like Robert Fripp came to the Apple to jam with Blondie, Eno was getting it on with Talking Heads, a gent named Bill Laswell was knitting some proto electrofunk weave of new Material, and electronic music became a melting pot of punk-filtered prog, krautrock, new wave, and just about any ingredient conceivable. It was a time of throwing the mess against the wall to see what stuck, and as equipment became cheaper and caution thrown further to the wind, out of the grimy core of the Apple came some pernicious buggers who brought all their weird record collections and zeal to mess with the status quo, who turned loose their newly acquired electric noismakers to bear on a city in the grip of one of the most fertile and richest eras in its musically-storied history. It was a great time to be an electronic musician, and Stefan Tischler, whose colleagues then included underground cassette network-folks such as Gen Ken Montgomery and David Lee Myers (Arcane Device), and fellow gadfly Keith Keeler Walsh (better known as unsung electronician Keeler, and the other half of Port Said), wanted to milk it for all it was worth.

Unfortunately, like many an artist before him, Tischler’s career was swallowed up in the mechanations of both an amorphous industry and the ironic milieu of anonymity that is New York Despite insinuating himself with a growing nuclear family of like-minded comrades, the haphazard DIY ethics of the electronic music underground became a battleground that left untold casualties, Tischler among them. Though the record distribution channels of the time were far more invasive, embracing a worldwide legion of burgeoning musicians and provocateurs, more often than not many found themselves the victims of questionable accounting procedures, and left adrift in a sea of non-promotion. Tischler’s two recordings of the period, In Florette’s Room and Excess of Free Speech, radical in their approach and emblematic of the times (see accompanying overview), sadly iterated the old saw that talent alone is never enough. That his work with Keeler in Port Said remains to this day an opaque footnote in the US and New York’s electronic community is an oversight that borders on criminal; that Tischler, soldiering on through the 90s despite both critical and commercial indifference, has amassed a fairly respectable back catalog of recordings that have gone largely unheard is just as unforgiveable. Reacting in tandem with the exploding population of today’s micro-managed, Web-sticky musician’s landscape, Tischler’s taken matters into his own hands, making available to the public his extensive body of work, pressed on the aughts’ answer to that once ubiquitous DIY media called the cassette, the more user-friendly, affordable CDR. Excuses are now rendered moot: the time’s ripe for those of open ear to investigate wholly what makes Stefan run.

In the meantime, the good Mr. Tischler sheds some light on a bevy of choice topics: that galvanic 80s NYC scene, where the artform of music is headed, and how being a well-travelled, diligent indie artist means never having to say you’re sorry.

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So, where does Stefan Tischler, musician, begin?

Before making any music, my friends and I for many years were soaking up the new music coming out of Europe, Asia and the U.S. in the areas of progressive rock, experimental electronic and minimalism. There was a store called Pantasia on 200th Street and Broadway in New York City where we gathered that carried import records, and we met others interested in works by Cluster, Ash Ra Tempel, Tangerine Dream and all the rest. We started Port Said in June 1981 preparing a backing tape which was done in my apartment bouncing tracks on cassette, and then playing over it live at a fashion show in an apartment in Greenwich Village in Manhattan. I came up with the name from a popular belly dance LP from the 50s, which is still around today. There was also a nightclub around 30th Street and 8th Avenue called Port Said. The following few weeks were a real rush, as we put acetates made from our tape on jukeboxes and in the hands of DJs in lower Manhattan. The trio didn’t work out and a few months later, Keith Walsh and I began working together in earnest.

New York was so exciting in the late 70s/early 80s, post-punk, a veritable beehive of activity that cross-pollenated between genre (forgive the clunky, if appropo, metaphor). Shed some light on what life was like in that environment, both pro and con.

I remember there was an incredible amount and variety of music and art happening. Naturally, there was the punk scene, with U.S. and visiting British bands playing around. I met Robert Fripp and became an acquaintance after he recorded his first Frippertronics show at the Kitchen in Soho. Keith and I heard that Peter Baumann of Tangerine Dream was living and recording in New York, so we found out where he was and went to meet him. He later started Private Music, but at the time was trying to move into electropop. There were also many bands making interesting hybrid music, like Mofungo and Arto Lindsay and Material, not to mention the growing popularity of composers like Steve Reich, Terry Riley and Philip Glass. It was altogether a really exciting time and we wanted to be a part of it. On the negative side, New York was not terribly receptive to Euro-style experimentalism at that time. But soon after Eno/Byrne’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, things started to open up. We began to meet others working on their own, like David Lee Myers and Tara Cross, and we connected with people from New Jersey and Pennsylvania, like Charles Cohen (Ghostwriters), the Gulch brothers (The Nightcrawlers), and Don Slepian. WFMU was a major outlet for us, particularly Richard Ginsburg’s show Synthetic Pleasure. Keith was also meeting people like Laraaji and Richard Horowitz at his job as music buyer for a store called Star Magic, which was on Broadway near 8th St.

Care to share any select anecdotes regarding your Port Said partner Keeler (who died in 1992), and the other musicians within your orbit?

When we first started playing together, Keith and I were swept up in a rush of making up for lost time. We often spent hours just playing keyboards and percussion along with records and tapes of music we liked, just to loosen up. Then, aided by assorted stimulants, we got down to the business of creating new pieces that would reflect our own sensibilities, starting with improvisation and slowly editing and building pieces in a formalistic sort of way. Soon we began to create concepts for recording, such as when we made Eve Of Departure. I would put down a track of something, then Keith would start another piece with a track, then I would again and so on. When we had 12 or 13 single tracks, we would go back to the first one and each overlay the other’s initial track. So in effect, we didn’t know what the pieces we had would ultimately be like until they were done, the four tracks being filled. For the next, Crossings, we worked with Keith’s friend, a guitarist who had been in other bands, as a trio once again. We also collaborated with Tara Cross, and Keith did some pieces with Don Slepian. Together we recorded with Cliff Cultreri who had been with the early Material. Sometimes we would be invited to sit in and jam with bands just for the experience of playing in different contexts.

Film and cinematic concepts figure heavily into the bulk of your work, both in the studio and in actual performance. Did Keith and yourself make the most of live interaction? How influential are the other arts, as well as the larger effect of multimedia, on how you operate?

It should be said that after the four live shows with Port Said, neither of us played live again, unless you count my playing on the street with Joe Zeytoonian, bringer of oud and synth. But even that was just the concept chosen to begin creating works for our recording Sultan in Oman. When we moved into solo work, Keith said he was not going to expend the time or energy in groveling to put on live music in NYC. The shows we did, we had been invited to do. From that time on, it became apparent that in order to get any gigs in clubs, it was all politics. You had to beg to play, supply your own advertising, and it was mostly for nothing since, unless you were doing the kind of music that sparked reviews and articles in the press and started a craze, like the B-52s, you would not be noticed.

My work was taking form around the idea of film soundtracks, and was not made to play live. This allowed us to put all our energies and limited funds into our recordings. And this is the main point. We did not see ourselves as players primarily but creators of recordings. We had been inspired by hundreds of albums and all of our efforts went in to the conceiving and producing of an album, the final realization, right up to the artwork. Now one could say that we might have become better known if we did play live more, but many we admired did so just with their recordings, Material and Tonto’s Expanding Head Band to name two.

So for me, the concept became the all important decision. First, what was the album going to be? Often as not it was a book that had fascinated me, such as Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, Alain Robbe-Grillet’s Project for a Revolution in NY and, most recently, Ohran Pamuk’s The Black Book. Or it was an original idea for a film, such as In Florette’s Room and The Blue Pill. City of Dark was made from an actual scenario for a film which I believe was eventually made, by a filmmaker I had met in Vancouver. For Excess of Free Speech, the concept was to make a collage of samples from television talk shows, news and commercials, shuffled and edited to result in an audio snapshot, an audiograph, of the USA and its unwholesome connection to the media.

Following that would be the concept of how to proceed. In one case it was to list the titles, as with In Florette’s Room, so that the titles abstractedly suggested the storyline and then the action each piece would be underscoring. As I reveal on my site, I sent In Florette’s Room to the film director Wayne Wang (The Joy Luck Club, Smoke) and he used the storyline for his film: “Life is cheap...but toilet paper is expensive,” giving me no credit. In another, it was the use of samples arranged like a jigsaw puzzle (that would be Excess). In the case of Invisible Cities, it was a drum machine that would trigger a synth in rhythmic patterns from which the pieces would then be extracted and designed. In most cases, the composing went on right up to the mastering process, in which it was possible to accent or de-accent a particular instrument or musical phrase to better effect. As I noted, working with Joe Zeytoonian began with live improvisation on the streets of lower Manhattan. Since Joe played live all the time, it seemed natural to begin this way. Then I would record some Drumulator tracks, which we then improvised upon. This, in effect, became my education in composition, each situation presenting a different set of circumstances, collaborators and settings.

How do you perceive the struggles of the independent electronic musician, taking in to account past trials and contemporary tribulations?

In the 80s, there was a subsurface audience for independent artists and bands doing it themselves. But now we’re in the era of our world as one big marketplace and there is so much music of such incredible variety, all recordings lined up on sites everywhere, that it’s virtually impossible to get known. Of course, if you’re well connected, you may just make some money with your recordings—maybe.

Do you feel indeed that the record album itself is becoming obsolete? That packaging music as an art form is becoming superfluous, even unnecessary?

Yes, because music has become as commonplace as the latest tattoo or coffee confection. It’s happening in every area of life. The only thing being marketed is trendiness, no matter whether you’re looking for sneakers, toothpaste, play stations, cars or condos.

Where do you stand politically as it pertains to your music and further explorations?

If you mean what is the ultimate purpose of my recordings, it is to capture the imagination of the listener in the hope of expanding their capacity to appreciate possibilities. It could be that this is why my work did not get wider exposure. I have always strived for mystery and intrigue, which is what I listen for. Or you must present some really in-your-face radical, political stance. In other words, you have to make a major statement to get noticed (e.g., Merzbow, Glenn Branca, Muslimgauze). The underground bands and composers working decades ago mostly went for confrontation, either through audio assault or grandness of design.

If you do not transgress the status quo, then you will not get noticed. This could be why the only work of mine to get a label behind it was Excess of Free Speech. However, I did not make it for that reason. I just hoped it would be thought-provoking, and it helped me to get past the disturbing things that were going on at the time. If I had to do it again, I probably wouldn’t.

The last five years has seen vast change in the musical paradigm, let alone the last twenty years. Where do you see yourself today with your own label and website representation?

The whole world of music has been turned on its ear by the computer downloading phenomenon. Furthermore, the ease of creating your own music with software and filesharing has made it possible for many more experimenters to do it. The downside is that the excitement of seeking out and discovering obscure recordings which somehow open up the listener’s imagination has been greatly decreased. Artists who have been working for years and years are jockeying for position and recognition, not to mention distribution and sales of their recordings. I don’t have any audience. Most of my works were not released and the one that was is not representative of my body of work. I created the website in an attempt to overcome this obscurity, but it is buried in the Internet. I guess you could say I came out of obscurity and proceeded into oblivion. DARREN BERGSTEIN www.stefantischler.com