Spider Taylor: Surge Studio Music 12″

Description

Spider Taylor crawls over to Dark Entries with Surge Studio Music, an album of archival gay pornographic soundtracks. James Allan Taylor was born into a working-class family in Los Angeles in 1951. Nicknamed Spider by his father due to his frantic energy, Taylor was a natural-born guitarist, gifted with perfect pitch and a voracious musical appetite. Throughout the 70s, he expanded his musical repertoire, playing in bands ranging from country to post-punk, like his outfit Red Wedding, while always looking for new sounds and styles to explore. During this period, Taylor also partnered with his soulmate and musical collaborator, Michael Ely. They were part of a wave of bold, young, gay couples living openly together in the years immediately following the Stonewall Riots. In the early 80s, while working at the West Hollywood gay sex club Basic Plumbing, Taylor met Al Parker, the legendary pornographic actor and director, who recruited Taylor to produce the soundtrack for a film he was working on. Parkers partnership with Steve Scott running Surge Studios produced some of the most popular all-male films of the era. Spiders music was a natural fit for Surge, and throughout 1985 and 1986, he composed the soundtracks for five films produced by the iconic studio. Assisted by engineer Steve Conrad and armed with a drum machine and some synths, Spiders compositions for film veer from the expansive, reverb-drenched Rainforest to the Miami Vice-esque chugger Tech. While Spider thought of this work as little more than a gig, tangential to his real craft, enthusiasts of VHS-era nostalgia and vintage erotica will be brought to bliss. Surge Studio Music will be available on both LP and CD, the latter of which includes a 20-minute version of Strange PlacesStrange Things! as a bonus track. The albums cover art was designed by Gwenael Rattke, and features stylish images from Surge Studios releases. Also included is an insert featuring liner notes by Will Lewis, a longtime friend of Spider. The music is released from Spiders estate by Michael Ely, Spiders partner of 43 years. The shadow of AIDS lingered over Surge; Steve Scott passed from AIDS-related illness in 1987, and Al Parker succumbed in 1992. In 2014, when it became legal for same-sex couples to marry in Arizona, Spider and Michael finally became wedded. Spider would pass away from liver cancer six months later.

• Label: Dark Entries
• Format Type: 12″
• Genre: Electronic