Spider Taylor - Surge Studio Music [Dark Entries]

Format: LP in printed sleeve.
CAT: DE-337

Spider Taylor crawls to Dark Entries with Surge Studio Music, an album compiling archival soundtracks from gay porn films. James Allan Taylor was born into a working-class family in Los Angeles in 1951. Nicknamed “Spider” by his father due to his frenetic energy, Taylor was a natural guitarist, gifted with perfect pitch and a voracious musical appetite. Throughout the 70s, he expanded his repertoire, playing in bands ranging from country to post-punk, such as his project Red Wedding, always searching for new sounds and styles to explore.

During this period, Taylor also joined his soulmate and musical collaborator, Michael Ely. They were part of a wave of young, audacious gay couples living openly together in the years immediately following the Stonewall riots. In the early 80s, while working at the gay sex club Basic Plumbing in West Hollywood, Taylor met Al Parker, the legendary pornographic actor and director, who recruited him to produce the soundtrack for a film he was working on. Parker's partnership with Steve Scott at the helm of Surge Studios resulted in some of the most popular all-male films of the era.

Spider's music fit naturally with Surge, and between 1985 and 1986, he composed the soundtracks for five films produced by the iconic studio. With the assistance of engineer Steve Conrad and armed with a drum machine and a few synthesizers, his film compositions range from the expansive and reverberating "Rainforest" to the fast-paced "Tech," with echoes of Miami Vice. Although Spider considered this work little more than a side job to his true vocation, enthusiasts of VHS-era nostalgia and vintage erotica will find an authentic delight here.

Surge Studio Music will be available on LP and CD; the latter will include a 20-minute version of “Strange Places…Strange Things!” as a bonus track. The cover art was designed by Gwenael Rattke and features elegant imagery from Surge Studios releases. Also included is an insert with notes written by Will Lewis, a close friend of Spider for many years. The music is released from Spider’s archive by Michael Ely, his partner of 43 years.

The shadow of AIDS marked Surge's history: Steve Scott passed away in 1987 from an AIDS-related illness, and Al Parker died in 1992. In 2014, when same-sex marriage was legalized in Arizona, Spider and Michael were finally able to marry. Six months later, Spider passed away from liver cancer.