Gay porn in the 80s was home to beautifully moody synth music that is only now getting rediscovered – tragically too late for many of its creators
M
ichael Ely knew from the first moment he met James Allan Taylor that he had found someone special. The pair had separately hitchhiked to a gay bar, with fake IDs, in Sunset Beach, California. They connected, they danced and stepped outside for a kiss in the thick fog. “I was only 18 but I knew I had just met my soulmate,” says Ely.
The pair remained a couple until 2015 when Taylor, who was nicknamed Spider, died from liver cancer. A new collection of Taylor’s music, Surge Studio Music – electronic pieces he composed for gay porn films – has just been released. “I was like: wait, there’s a fanbase for 80s gay porn music?” laughs Ely. “I had no idea. When Josh contacted me, I found the cassette tapes in a box in the back of the closet. They’d been there for ever.”
Josh Cheon runs Dark Entries, a San Francisco-based record label that focuses on celebrating overlooked gay artists, including many who died from Aids-related illnesses, and releasing their lesser-known forays into the world of soundtracking gay porn. As well as Taylor’s Surge Studio Music material, there have been releases by the Hi-NRG and disco pioneer Patrick Cowley and the electro innovator Man Parrish, and the compilation Deep Entries: Gay Electronic Excursions 1979-1985, described as “10 tracks of obscure queer synth bliss”.
