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Sex and the Single Sequencer
CONTENTS OF THIS FILE:
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"Sex and the Single Sequencer: A Chat with Solo Synth Wiz Lauri Paisley,
and Philly's the Nightcrawlers," by Neal M. Callander [Choice Magazine, May
1986, pp. 12, 16-7]
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"Expose Yourself," by Neal M. Callander [Choice Magazine, May 1986, p. 16
(sidebar to "Sex and the Single Sequencer")]
From Choice Magazine, May 1986, pp. 12, 16-7:
Sex and the Single Sequencer:
A Chat with Solo Synth Wiz Lauri Paisley, and Philly's the Nightcrawlers
by Neal M. Callander
Lauri Paisley hopes she'll never have to make the choice, but if
push comes to shove she would rather make music than make love. This
exuberant young synthesist embodies the spirit of a new generation of
electronic musicians who are finally gaining recognition as true pioneers
in contemporary music. Carrying the E-music torch into the future, these
dedicated souls are taking up where Tangerine Dream, Synergy and Klaus
Schulze left off. Call it space, ambient, dreamscape or deep
psychedelia, new ground is being broken by artists unafraid to explore
the infinite possibilities of both man and machine.
If you are like most consumers of popular culture, you already have
had significant exposure to synthesized sound. Many soundtracks to your
favorite movies are created by an electronic synthesizer or other methods
of sound processing. Also, synth-pop bands like Yaz and Depeche Mode
rely solely on electronic keyboard instruments and effects for their
snappy, danceable sound. And for you older fans, who can forget the end
of Edgar Winter's big hit, "Frankenstein."
Pure electronic music, however, has developed its own rich tradition
quite distinct from rock music. While cross-over music has emerged, the
direction of influence has been from the electronic genre to rock, not
vice versa. Classical iconoclasts like John Cage, Oskar Sala, Edgar
Varese and later, Stockhausen, Terry Riley and LaMonte Young all paved
the way for rock's flirtation with electronic music in the late 1960's
and throughout the 1970's. Kraftwerk, Eno and Pink Floyd all owe a
significant debt to these sonic voyeurs.
Two contemporary purveyors of music in the pure electronic vein are
the aforementioned Lauri Paisley, a solo synthesist now residing in
northern New Jersey, and the Nightcrawlers, a prolific E-music trio from
the Philadelphia area. Both are part of vibrant communities of
electronic practitioners based in their respective geographic areas.
Both are producing novel forms of musical self-expression worthy of the
great masters of the genre.
In recent interviews with both Ms. Paisley and Peter Gulch,
spokesperson and chief synthesist for the Nightcrawlers, much was
revealed about the creative process, the business of music and the
electronic music scenes in Philadelphia and northern New Jersey.
Musicians with any integrity seem averse to being easily labeled.
Both Ms. Paisley and Mr. Gulch insist that simplistic categorization of
their music is most unfortunate. As Lauri Paisley emphatically states,
"I don't like to be categorized because you can't put a copyright on a
minor key sequence. Just because I use them, I don't want to be told
that I sound like Tangerine Dream. I don't. I sound like me. For
instance, on my new tape, Skywards, you will have to fasten your seatbelt
during some parts. And then it goes from one change right into the next.
It's varied. It combines some of the more defined styles of electronic
music: some of it is new age, some of it is Berlin-school, and some of it
is neo-classical.
Peter Gulch reiterates this point: "We have tremendous influences,
but when it comes down to the final product, it seems to embody
principles from all these various disciplines, but somehow we have molded
it into our own particular sound. It's even different than people we are
supposed to be sounding exactly like, for instance Klaus Schulze and
Tangerine Dream." To their credit, both produce unique music. Perhaps,
however, such reference points are a necessary evil when curious
listeners are considering unfamiliar artists.
Both Lauri Paisley and the Nightcrawlers began their musical
training at an early age, studying formal classical music. Though she
did not indicate composers or performers who most influenced her, Paisley
mentions she began musical training when she was four, playing her
uncle's piano while attending family gatherings. Peter Gulch is more
specific: "All three of us, myself and Tom, and Dave Lunt, are all
classical music freaks. We had been listening to classical music long
before we started listening to Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream. A lot
of the theoretical aspects of our work involve traditional classical
structures like harmony and counterpoint. The feel and texture of the
spacier parts come from the Berlin-school influence." As to specific
inspiration grounded in the classical tradition, Gulch replies, "A
composer who had some influence on us early on was the avant-garde Pole,
Kryztoph Penderecki. You can hear his influence especially on our tape,
Cybersun-231.
Beyond this similarity, however, there exists a divergence in paths
leading these artists into electronic music. While the Gulch Brothers
and their partner, Dave Lunt, had a varied listening background which
included classical, rock and jazz, their primary focus was on the
classics of synthesizer-created music along with some interesting
homegrown Philadelphia variations. In another interview, interestingly
enough, with Laurie Paisley as interviewer, Peter Gulch recalled that he
first was drawn to performing E-music because there was not enough of the
spacey, floating music being produced that he liked. To remedy the
situation, he and his brother bought synthesizers and began to learn to
play.
"In 1980, we knew absolutely nothing," says Gulch. "We sat down
with the new synthesizers which you could buy for six or seven hundred,
and we said, 'Lets do this and lets do that.' But after six or seven
months, we realized that we could only get away with so many sound
effects. We then had to really learn how to play."
Ms. Paisley's path to electronic music was fraught with twists and
minor diversions. "I studied classical as a kid," she says. "I didn't
listen to radio or records till I was 13 or 14. When I was 14, I dropped
the keyboards and picked up the guitar, an acoustic twelve string. I
played folky stuff like Jackson Browne, Dan Fogelberg and John Denver.
When I was 16, I got into rock music and I started playing in bands. Yes
and Emerson, Lake and Palmer were popular at the time. Soon after that,
I got back into the keyboards. I wanted to be in a band that was playing
that kind of music. After being in a bunch of bands and dealing with
things like leaving my instruments at a rehearsal space and not being
able to work on my own stuff, or playing with bands who played all
originals but none of my originals, I decided to go solo. I wrote lots
of little songs on keyboards.
"I didn't know of anybody else on the planet who was composing music
that was just for synthesizer. I would often play the music for somebody
and they would comment that it sounded good and it would sound even
better if there were guitar and vocal tracks added. That was
frustrating. For two years, I composed in a vacuum until one day I
discovered an electronic music show, called Synthetic Pleasures, on WFMU
in East Orange, New Jersey."
This program was a revelation for Ms. Paisley. "I couldn't believe
it when the DJ come on the air and said, 'You are listening to the Open
Door [Synthetic Pleasure before a name change] -- the forum for the
independent electronic musician; that is the musician not signed with a
major label.' I then sent Richard Ginsburg a tape. He said the music
was good but the recording was poor. So he set up a recording session
for me. We got some air playable stuff and he had me on the show to
play. He interviewed me and played some of my music. The rest is
history."
Each artist's music reflects their separate pre-performance
influences. While the Nightcrawlers have come a long way from the
non-directional sequenced drone of their earlier work, they still create
thickly layered, minor-key textured characterized by subtly propulsive
rhythms, haunting minimalist melodies, and immense synthesizer washes.
This somber meditative music draws inspiration from Berlin-school
electronic music as well a mystical and lysergic encounters.
Lauri Paisley employs many techniques used by the Nightcrawlers,
such as sequenced passages, wavering tonal clusters, and stereophonic
panning, but with a much different effect. Her music can be best
characterized as quite active and more consciously composed. Unlike the
Nightcrawlers, who rely heavily on improvisation, Ms. Paisley works up a
series of song fragments and puts them together in a coherent, flowing
fashion.
"It starts out on the wing," says Paisley. "I just sit down and
play. When I'm playing, I will get ideas, and when I come across
something I like, then I stop improvising and I work on that one thing.
I then develop that theme. I string a whole bunch of these little parts
together. To me, the real challenge is in the arrangement."
Perhaps because she grew up enjoying popular songs and catchy rock
riffs, Ms. Paisley's work is lyrically accessible and more overtly
poly-rhythmic. In this way, her music is more akin to Philip Glass'
upbeat, pulse music than German-influenced drone music.
Lauri Paisley and the Nightcrawlers have been producing music for
close to seven years, now. The Nightcrawlers sport an amazingly prolific
catalog of 24 tapes and 2 albums. This is partly due to their preference
for real time or live recording. "A lot of the material on the tapes is
totally first time without any practice," says Gulch. "We sit down in
our studio, get in a comfortable mood, and roll it. Much of the floating
music we do, we just sit down and it comes out. That, for me, is
extremely enjoyable. We never do anything twice."
Paisley's output consists of 6 solo tapes and a duo performance with
synthesist Don Slepian. Rather than real time, Paisley prefers the
endless possibilities of multitrack recording. However, hazards abound
when excessive time is spent perfecting intentionally structured pieces.
"When you work so intensely on a piece of music, like working 15 hours
laying tracks for a 3 minute piece, there comes a point when you feel
sick of the music," Paisley says.
As with their respective ideas on the creative process, the
Nightcrawlers and Lauri Paisley have a divergence of opinion about the
future. "None of us have any direction whatsoever," proclaims Peter
Gulch. "Like the free jazz improvisors who technique was in their hands,
our technique is in the machines. Many people have difficulty
improvising, but for some reason, my brother, myself and Dave have some
kind of kindred spirit or mind-meld. When we get together, it is magic."
Lauri Paisley is more concrete when asked about upcoming projects.
Becoming more proficient on an acoustic keyboard is foremost in her mind,
these days. "For awhile," she says, "I assumed that the ends justified
the means. As long as I get good music, good arrangements, good
compositions down on tape, it doesn't matter whether I played it or
programmed it. However, I soon began to think, who the hell do I think
I'm kidding. There is nothing that beats the mastery of an actual
instrument. I guess I feel that way deep down because I was brought up
as an acoustic piano player and then moved into electronic music. I want
to be an excellent synthesist as well as an excellent pianist."
One thing they both agree on is the need to perform their music in
front of live audiences and the need to collaborate with other electronic
musicians. Paisley, who lives in Elizabeth, New Jersey, often packs her
car with equipment and travels south to New Brunswick or Freehold to play
with synthesist friends. She is co-conspirator in a vibrant electronic
music community called the Creative Underground, whose members regularly
meet to play and hold concerts in Somerset, New Jersey.
"The Creative Underground concerts are called the 'Fire in the
Firehouse' series," explains Paisley. "They are held in a real
firehouse. The hall seats a couple hundred people and all the seats
usually fill up. Several people are involved, including Patrick and
Billy Tooker, Art Gerke, Neil Nappe, Jesse Clark and Bill Rhodes. They
put on the shows. The performances are audio-visual extravaganzas.
Patrick Tooker puts on the visuals using an array of lights and
laser-like effects. He projects the images on a screen that goes all the
way across the stage. The musicians perform on a platform that is below
the stage level, so all you see are the visuals. He does his work to the
music as it is being performed. There are always three resident
musicians performing and then two special guests. They try to put on at
least one show each month."
The Nightcrawlers are part of another, closely related music scene
in the greater Philadelphia area which also stresses real time
concertizing. This community has impressive roots dating back to the
late seventies when electronic groups like the Ghostwriters and Aural
Prism could be heard bending minds and expanding eardrums at performance
arts spaces and divey, hole-in-the-wall bars around town.
Now, according to Mr. Gulch, "a typical show is at the Painted Bride
Art Center. It holds around 300 people. Show are both partially
underwritten by city art councils and funded by money from the gate."
Other venues for E-music include St. Marys Church at the University of
Pennsylvania and the Mandel Theater at Drexell University. When the
members of the Nightcrawlers are between group projects, collaboration
with other musicians is the order of the day.
Peter Gulch recently put together a tape with Canadian synthesist
Steve Brenner, a man who he had never met. Each artist laid down tracks
and sent the tape to the other to embellish and then returned it to the
other for additional compositional enhancements. The final product is,
according to Mr. Gulch, quite satisfactory. Tom Gulch also indulges in
tangential undertakings, his current project being a duo, entitled Xisle.
[A "duo"? Verrrry interesting! ;) --Steven]
To underscore the interconnectedness of these two musical
communities, northern Jersey's Creative Underground and Philadelphia's
Nightcrawlers will join forces on May 24th at the Maurice Levin Theater
in Orange, New Jersey. According to the press release: "The show will
begin with the Nightcrawlers on stage playing by themselves. As the show
progresses, they will be joined by Lauri Paisley, Don Slepian, Neil
Nappe, Jesse Clark, Charlie Elgart and David Prescott, one at a time,
until the entire stage is filled with musicians. This electronic
orchestra will play together under the visual artistry of Patrick
Tooker." This ultimate collaboration, involving the best of the new
generation of electronic wizards, is a concert not to be missed.
To contact Lauri Paisley or the Nightcrawlers regarding equipment,
purchasing tapes or anything else, use the following addresses. Both are
quite eager to hear from the listening public. Don't be surprised if you
get a personal, handwritten note.
Lauri Paisley
Methylunna Music
812 Murray Street, #2E
Elizabeth, NJ 07202
[NOTE: the contact address above might be out-of-date.]
Peter Gulch/The Nightcrawlers
1493 Greenwood Avenue
Camden, New Jersey 08103
From Choice Magazine, May 1986, p. 16
[sidebar to "Sex and the Single Sequencer: A Chat with Solo Synth Wiz
Laurie Paisley, and Philly's the Nightcrawlers"]:
Expose Yourself
[by Neal M. Callander?]
Struggling synthesists take heart. Both Lauri Paisley and the
Nightcrawlers have found a way to get their music out to the masses while
still retaining full artistic control. The key is to produce taped
copies of your music on cassettes and distribute your product through an
established network of radio stations and magazines which cater to the
independent musician. While these comments are directed mainly at
E-music artists, rock, jazz and avant garde musicians may also benefit,
too.
Every musician dreams of being discovered and promoted, ideally by a
large record label who will make them a lot of money, or so they think.
Actually, the number of bands and individual artists who "make it" this
way is small. If you feel you have an important enough statement to
make, don't wait for some profit-hungry schlep to exploit you and
sanitize your music. Promote yourself. Entrepreneurs in the business
world can be an over-anxious bunch, but you can turn that same spirit
around to your advantage if you have a little motivation and knowledge.
Heed Ms. Paisley's advice: "Don't equate the financial success of selling
a record with how talented a musician is or how original and creative
their music is." Get out there and create new and original music,
promote it yourself, and maybe you will gain self-satisfaction, notoriety
and perhaps even financial success.
The Nightcrawlers have successfully released 24 real time tapes on
their own. According to Peter Gulch, "the aspect of total control over
what is presented to the public is what I like a great deal. That gives
you every opportunity to make sure when somebody gets your music it is
something you would be proud to have them receive." Then they released
two albums: "When you let middlemen come into it, it immediately becomes
frustrating because everybody has their own ideas about what they want to
do. It interferes in a great many ways. For instance, on our first
album, the guy who was mixing it down decided he had certain ideas about
how it should sound. We did not have enough money at the time to go
somewhere else to have it remixed, so we left it alone. Also, on
Spacewalk, Atmosphere Records in Philadelphia paid for the whole project,
including the manufacture, covers and everything. But now we have a
problem. They included in the contract exclusive rights to the record's
distribution. So we're at the full mercy of the company. If they want
to let it rot in a basement, they can do it." Asked if the experience
with middlemen had been less satifying than putting out their own tapes,
Peter Gulch replied, "no question about it. Both albums have been
extremely trying, very frustrating, very time consuming, and so far,
ultimately not monetarily rewarding."
Lest I paint too rosy a picture of alternative distribution, I
should point out that problems do occur. "Producing one's own music
takes time," says Lauri Paisley. "My release list is now about sixty
names long. Sixty radio stations and magazines. I have to dub all of
the tapes two at a time in real time and I don't have any high speed
duplication equipment. I have to do all of the labels by hand because I
can't afford a printer. I have to package the tapes and write the cover
letter and mail it all out. It takes two weeks to get the basic release
done. Meanwhile, that is two weeks I could have been practicing." Even
still, she admits that, "control is the big issue. I'm producing myself.
This can be both good and bad, but in the end, I have complete, 100
percent artistic control."
If you want to try this route, you will have to purchase some basic
equipment to get started. First, you will need either two reliable
cassette decks for dubbing from one to the other (an OK method) or one
good double cassette dubbing deck (a better method), preferably one that
can record both sides of the tape at more than twice normal speed. Then,
find a special deal on high quality tapes, the higher the quantity the
lower the price. Now, get started. Once the tapes are produced, have an
artist friend make up a simple line drawing which can be easily
reproduced for the front cover insert. Be sure to list the song titles,
band members and instruments played, acknowledgements, and possibly a
neat quote or two (optional). Copy the insert, put the package together,
and you are ready to begin your distribution. Here are some places to
get you started on your search for sympathetic ears:
- CLEM -- the Contact List of Electronic Music is an 80 page
listing of electronic music publications, radio stations, organizations,
and recordings. Published yearly with updates. Contact: Alex Douglas,
Box 86010, N. Vancouver, B.C. Canada V7L 4J5. $10 year cash or USPS
money order, no checks. [NOTE: do not confuse CLEM with the Netherlands
electronic music organization KLEM --Steven Feldman]
- Recordings of Experimental Music -- "Reviews records and tapes
of experimental music, and covers such ground as contemporary classical,
electronic music, minimalist, unusual jazz and anything else that could
be considered avante garde or adventurous. Contact: 104 Fern Ave.,
Collingswood, NJ 08108. $9 year for 6 issues.
- SYNE -- Published by the International Electronic Music
Association, "an organization dedicated to the appreciation and promotion
of electronic music as an art." Quarterly publication. Contact: Jim
Finch, PO Box 176, Salamanca, NY 14779. [now defunct]
- Synthetic Pleasure -- a radio show on WFMU, but also an
informative quarterly magazine. Publication includes articles, reviews
and contact information. Essential as a networking tool. Contact:
Richard Ginsburg, c/o WFMU Upsala College, East Orange, New Jersey 07019.
- Cosmic Music Experiment -- a Baltimore experimental music
radio show. Contact: Steve Kellerman, DJ at WCVT 7005 Lachlan Circle B,
Baltimore, MD 21239.
- Option Magazine -- Covers all aspects of independent and
alternative music. Includes articles, reviews, networking information,
and lots of interesting ads. Part of the Sonic Options Network.
Contact: P.O. Box 491034, Los Angeles, California 90049. Call
213-472-2232. [now defunct]
[NOTE: many if not all of the addresses in the listing above are probably
out-of-date.]
This page first constructed by Steven Feldman
<scfeldman@juno.com>
4/18/00. Last update: 10/17/01.
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