Highmatt history
The journalist and long-time confidant Hanspeter Spörri has written a comprehensive biography of the Appezell musician and multimedia artist Steff Signer.
Steff Signer, alias Infrasteff, has never cracked a hit parade, nor filled stadiums or otherwise sent the box office into raptures. At least his opera Late afternoon in paradise at the Rossini Opera Festival on the island of Rügen, after which conductor Wolfgang Danzmayr praised the work as "ravishingly wacky". And once the experimental rocker, composer, poet and painter, who was born in Hundwil in the canton of Ausserrhoden and is now 74 years old, even found himself in a key position: from 1989 to 1994, he was head producer for the "Musikszene Schweiz" series run by Migros Culture Percentage.
It is precisely the unexpected (lateral) leaps that make Hanspeter Spörri, the former editor-in-chief of the CovenantThe chronicle, written by a friend of Signer's since his school days, is such an enjoyable and nourishing "deep dive" into the musical and social history of Eastern Switzerland. Signer's archive is now maintained by the Cantonal Library of Appenzell Ausserrhoden. "As a contemporary testimony, the diverse materials document a period of Appenzell's history that was previously inaccessible in museums, archives or libraries," writes library director Heidi Eisenhut. "The Signer private archive is a testimony to a subculture at home; characterized by 1968 and Frank Zappa, 'alternative', 'freaky', different from the usual and yet deeply connected to Appenzell in many reference points."
Thanks to a generous selection of QR codes, the book does full justice to Signer's multimedia work. The sounding examples begin with youthful "piano jazz" and range from early "beat" combos, Zappaesque experiments (Signer never got rid of the title "Appenzell Frank Zappa"), jazz-rock big bands, occupations with new music and a pop phase in the 1980s to the satirical and loving exploration of the Appenzell environment in recent times. An exemplary book.
Hanspeter Spörri: Steff Signer. The musical biography. A piece of Swiss rock, pop and highmatt history, 400 p., Fr. 48.00, Appenzeller Verlag, Schwellbrunn 2024, ISBN 978-3-85882-888-0
