Taking Tiger Mountain is a strange film with an even stranger back story. It all began in 1974 when thirtysomething filmmaker Kent Smith saved up enough dough from making educational shorts to go off and produce his dream first feature. The folly of many first-time directors is knowing when to curb their ambitions. Smith was certainly ambitious—maybe overly so. He had an idea to make a kinda art house movie set in Tangiers—something inspired by Albert Camus’ novella The Stranger. There was no script, just a poem Smith had written on the kidnapping in 1973 of sixteen-year-old John Paul Getty—heir to the Getty oil fortune. Smith thought of his poem as the film’s framework. Add in a touch of Jean-Luc Godard and hint of Fellini and his debut feature was gonna be just peachy.

So, Smith had ambition—check. A basic storyline—check. And a nineteen-year-old actor by the name of Bill Paxton. Check.

Paxton was a hunk. A pin-up. The type of young actor who had I’m gonna be a big movie star pumping out of his pores. He had the looks, the demeanor and the talent. He was also fearless—as anyone would have to be if they were going to hook-up with Smith on a madcap movie-making adventure.

They packed their bags, leased some Arriflex Techniscope equipment and headed off to France. On arrival at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, they discovered that their equipment had been lost in transit. It was the first of several small obstacles that eventually turned the film onto a different course. When the pair were eventually reunited with their equipment, they hired a car and headed for Spain. But the roads were like parking lots—gridlocked with holidaymakers on their way south to the coast. Eventually after a long, slow, infuriating drive, they made it to the ferry terminal and waited for the first ferry to take them across the waters to Tangiers.

As Paxton told Variety in 2015:

We got to Tangiers around midnight, and all of our equipment was impounded because we hadn’t paid the baksheesh. We got out in about 48 hours, and my attitude was “What the f–k?” I remembered I knew someone in South Wales when I was a foreign exchange student, so we drove there, and that’s where we shot the film.

 

A young Bill Paxton as seen in the film.

Paxton and Smith traveled back up through Spain and France to England and then to Wales where things got “even crazier.”

We had purchased black-and-white short ends (film stock) from the film Lenny, and we sort of shot things as we came across them.

One guy had a Kenyan vulture, so we used that for a scene of eating my entrails. We met some girls and talked them into doing some nude scenes with us.

Basically it was a bunch of hippies running around naked. It was all silent, black-and-white footage.

They shot ten hours of footage—but what the hell to do with it all? They returned to the States. Paxton began making inroads into big screen movies, while Smith sat with his rushes wondering how to make a movie out of it.

In 1975, Smith showed the footage to a student at the University of Texas called Tom Huckabee. Nothing happened until Smith relinquished the rushes over to Huckabee in 1979. That’s when Huckabee started logging and assembling the ten hour’s worth of material together as he explained to Beatdom:

I started building scenes using the script they had which was loosely based on the J. Paul Getty kidnapping. There was no sci-fi element, no assassination, no prostitution, no feminism, or brainwashing. It was a dream film about a young American waking up on a train – with amnesia, maybe – who wanders into a Welsh town, meets a lot of people, has adventures, bad dreams, and then gets killed on the beach, or does he?

Once I had assembled all their footage into what seemed like a narrative flow, I started thinking about what the story could be. I didn’t like their story much, it was too languid for me,  disconnected, but mostly they had only shot half of it and I knew I couldn’t go back to Wales. I’d been reading Burroughs and a lot of other avant-garde, transgressive, and erotic literature. Story of the Eye was a big influence. I started reading The Job. I got the idea that he was an assassin… and maybe the idea to set it in the future.

Huckabee’s friends were all chucking in their two cents’ worth. A “mysterious guy named Ray Layton” had “the idea to make it about feminist terrorists brainwashing Billy…. and the prostitution camps.” Then Huckabee read William Burroughs’ novella Blade Runner (a movie) and the whole thing began to take shape in his mind.

I lucked into finding a backer who promised $30,000, and that’s when it got real. I remembered seeing another short film that Kent and Bill had made; a thinly veiled homoerotic portrait of Bill, called D’Artagnan. I thought it could be used to represent Billy’s brainwashing. By then I’d acquired the MKUltra transcripts and was heavily into The Job.

Huckabee approached Burroughs and obtained his permission to adapt Blade Runner into his movie. This was now the early 1980s, Ridley Scott was making a movie version of Philip K. Dick’s cult sci-fi book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Scott had also approached Burroughs to buy his title Blade Runner for his movie.

It took at least a year to write the script to conform to the footage, which by the way was 60 minutes. I knew I needed 75 min. minimum for it to be a feature. So I built five minutes of dream sequences out of outtakes, including one where I threw the film in the air and put it together as it came down – cheating a lot.

I should mention that I was fairly regularly during this time, maybe once every one or two months, on acid, mushrooms, and baby woodrose seeds… this, added with all the experimental film I was seeing, and avant-garde and erotic and left wing and feminist political literature I was reading, kept my mind open to outré thematic and formal tropes… so, say, if a scene wasn’t working I could always run it upside down and backwards… Also by then I was thoroughly versed in MKUltra brainwashing, psychic warfare, so in that respect I think I was getting a lot of that independently from Burroughs, maybe from the same source he was getting it.

Then I wrote the opening scene and shot it… and started dubbing in dialogue. I forgot to mention Woody Allen’s Tiger Lilly as an influence. First I hired a lip reader to tell me what the characters were saying and many of them were speaking Welsh.

Huckabee finished his film. Now called Taking Tiger Mountain—the title lifted from a Chinese opera—it was released in 1983. The film was described as a “unique sensory experience.” Set the near future Taking Tiger Mountain follows Paxton as:

Billy Hampton, a Texan who [has] fled from occupied America to British island in order to avoid compulsory military service. Once there, he [is] abducted by a group of sophisticated feminist terrorists, who have been opposing the oldest profession [prostitution] legalization, creating assassins by brainwashing and then setting them on the prostitution camps leaders. (They also specialize in redirecting sexual orientation and sex change operations.)

At the start of the film:

[A] quartet of middle-aged women analyze Billy and persuade him to believe that an aging major is actually a tiger sent by God to kill him. That prologue is a combination of sequences with Huckabee’s signature and those from a short film that Smith and Paxton had been working on prior to their arrival to Wales. What follows could be described as a sporadically wet psychotropic nightmare, with hypnotic soundtrack composed of gloomy drones, overdubbed dialogues, confusing monologues and omnipresent radio announcements about the war [and its] aftermath and the use of thermonuclear weapons on the United States…

More ‘Taking Tiger Mountain’ after the jump…

 
In 1967 Steve Reich produced one of the landmark experimental compositions of the 20th century, with “Piano Phase,” which incorporated the brilliant idea of playing the same short repeated melody twice at the same time, with the two versions being slightly out of phase. Over the course of approximately 15 minutes, the two melodies diverge and create unexpected cacophony before realigning again and so forth.

No matter how it’s done (it can be done many different ways, with tape loops, or multiple pianists, or even with one pianist), it’s always a stimulating experience to listen to “Piano Phase.”

If Reich’s piece was (among other things) proof of concept, then it’s up to the world at large to apply the technique to other musical artifacts. A resident of Denton, Texas, named Joseph Prein decided to see what happens when you play that game with the most famous drum fill of the 1980s, the majestic burst of “gated reverb” that punctuates Phil Collins’ 1981 track “In the Air Tonight” around the 3:19 mark. 

In Prein’s version, you get three versions of the drum fill (which of course only lasts a couple of seconds), played at regular speed and two other versions at 99.9% and 100.1% of the correct speed. The track lasts 70 minutes.

Enjoy the mind-obliterating fun of this mental mantra after the jump…

 
When it comes to describing the work of artist Sig Waller, I think the writer Seb Doubinsky sums it up best:

If you don’t know Sig Waller’s art, you don’t know shit. It’s amazing.

Writers are good like that. Good with words.

Over the past twenty years, Sig Waller has produced a staggering array of exceedingly beautiful, powerful, subversive, often disturbing yet darkly comic paintings, drawings and prints. Her work explores the darker borders of our culture of excess—with particular attention to our potential for destruction.

Her most recent work Goodbye to Love was a hit exhibition at 35blumen, Krefeld, Germany in 2016. Taking its title from that well-known bittersweet song by the Carpenters, Goodbye to Love focused on the reality between being a woman and a mother when compared to the idealized fantasy as promoted in the pages of women’s magazines, TV and billboard advertising and old 1950s housewives’ guides. Sig’s “housewives” are drooling Pavlovian figures, expected to perform absurd tasks and domestic rituals. The work is a stylistic follow-on from her 2013 show Happy Homes. But the black humor very apparent in Happy Homes has now been replaced in Goodbye to Love by a far more subversive and unsettling vision of supposed domestic bliss.

Born in Wales, the daughter of an American historian father (“who dressed like a tramp”) and a German psychologist mother, Sig studied Fine Art and Art History at Goldsmiths College, London, before going on to work in animation, music videos and design. In 1995, Sig moved to Berlin where she started exhibiting under the name S.I.G.

Since then Sig has successfully exhibited across the world in America, England, Germany, Austria, Italy (where she had a residency) and in her home country of Wales. 

I’ve banged my drum about Sig before and will continue to be her cheerleader as I believe Sig Waller belongs to that small body of contemporary artists who have something important to say. Sig’s next exhibition Running with the Wolves will open on May 26th at 35Blumen, Krefeld. Below is a selection of Sig’s paintings (oil on digiprint) from Goodbye to Love from 2016.
 

 

 
More of Sig Waller’s domestic horror, after the jump…

 
In the early to mid-1990s there were few cultural experiences comparable to a Jesus Lizard show. David Yow’s famous snarl and equally famous willingness to subject his body to abuse as well as the band’s enervating music made all of their shows required viewing for quite a while there.

In October 1994 the Jesus Lizard played the Venus De Milo Club across the street from Fenway Park, and the show was captured on mutli-cam video. In 2007 the footage would be released on DVD as Jesus Lizard Live 1994; that product also included five tracks from JL’s August 29, 1992, show from CBGBs (not to be confused with the 1993 CBGBs gig that was immortalized on the 1994 live album Show).

Michael Azerrad, author of Our Band Could Be Your Life, is blurbed on the back of the DVD as follows:
 

When the Jesus Lizard played one of their mighty shows, it was a carthartic rite. And on October 4, 1994, their temple was the Venus De Milo Club in Boston, the show captured in living color and thoroughly crankable high-fidelity audio. ...

Here is the Jesus Lizard in all their glory—frontman David Yow unleashes bloodcurdling howls while heaving himself into the audience, guitarist Duane Denison chops out riffs like a kung fu master on a chainsaw massacre, and drummer Mac McNeilly and bassist David Wm. Sims groove with the ruthlessness of an automated slaughterhouse.

 
My favorite bit comes right after “One Evening,” when Yow witheringly abuses anyone who will admit to wearing earplugs. In his best “pathetic wimp” voice, he cries, “It’s too loud, it hurts my ears!”
 
More after the jump…

Who knew puffy jackets were a turn-on? Illustration by artist Dominic Myatt from the 2016 book ‘(no kissing).’ Text reads: “I’ve got a real fetish for masc lads wearing puffs/padded jackets. If this is something your interested in too, hit me up and we can chat and hopefully meet. Send pic in first email along with stats for response.”
 
There are so many things to love about London-based artist Dominic Myatt‘s illustrated “m4m” (men for men) Craigslist personal ads. Such as the fact that he kept all the various typos from the original ads (genius), and his wildly inappropriate interpretations of the people who placed the ads themselves caught in the act of their requested liaisons. Thanks to Japanese publisher MNK Press, (no kissing) a book featuring 30 of Myatt’s m4m illustrated ads can be yours for about 34 bucks. According to other Internet sources, (no kissing) will soon be available from a UK publisher as well. I’ve included a few of Myatt’s incredibly specific illustrations from (no kissing) below. And, much like some of the characters you might, er, cum across on Craigslist, they are pretty NSFW. But funny.

And since I’ve grown fond of all of you DM deviants, I transcribed the text associated with Myatt’s illustrations so you can read them in all their horny, typo-riddled glory.
 

Text reads: older white man, generous, looking for a man to TORTURE. BIG nipples, can take a lot of pain. hope to find a man into it, slap me around too, need a ROUGH man.
 

Text reads: Looking for muscular alpha guys. I have beefy titties and like for a guy to squeeze bit/nibble, and tongue them. you can also titty fuck them. I am masc and discreet.
 
More, more, more after the jump…

 
A Texas Trip, the wonderful 1987 compilation produced and recorded by the Butthole Surfers, was the first release on the group’s Latino Buggerveil Records. Like the label’s second release, Double Live, it’s highly recommended if you can find an affordable copy, and just like the title says, it is a trip: a psychedelic audio tour of the Surfers’ Bloodrock-damaged Southern milieu.

There was Steve Fitch, later immortalized on My Album By Me By Steve Fitch, singing “In The Neighborhood” in his impossibly deep voice. (All I know about Steve Fitch, I learned from the handwritten liner notes to A Texas Trip: he was born in the same town where surgeons operated on President Reagan’s butt, and 30 years ago, he could be reached at Kobe Steakhouse in Nashville, Tennessee: (615) 327-9083, now the restaurant’s fax line.) One of the two songs submitted by the terrifying Dallas punk outfit Stick Men With Ray Guns was the definitive version of “Kill the Innocent,” and the Surfers themselves contributed “Flame Grape,” later to become “Jimi.”

Daniel Johnston gave Latino Buggerveil “Don’t Play Cards with Satan” and “Grievances,” and the troubled singer-songwriter joined the Buttholes on the disorienting, nine-minute drone and percussion jam that closed side one, “All Day.” Again, the liner notes don’t exactly, ah…

THE BAND WAS PLAYING a SONG, THE SINGER WAS HAD BEEN SINGING AWHILE THEN DANIEL WALKED IN THE ROOM AND STarted singing THEN THEY BOth STARTED SINGING Together and all the otheR THINGS ©1987 SECOND HARVEST

Several years later, during the brief, post-Nevermind craze for quality, Buttholes guitarist Paul Leary produced Johnston’s major-label debut (and major-label swan song), Fun.

Listen to “All Day” after the jump, plus Gibby Haynes’ interview with Daniel Johnston. Acid comes up…

 
Jim Hopkins of the SF Disco Preservation Society curates a digital archive of mixes, sourced from old cassettes and reel-to-reels, from luminary ‘80s and ‘90s San Francisco dance club DJs.

Many of these mixes come from gay dance clubs which are no longer in operation.

“Somebody just came and dropped off this whole bag of cassettes,” Hopkins told SFist. “A lot of these guys are getting up in years, and this is stuff that shouldn’t be lost.”

Hopkins wants people who went to SF nightclubs like Pleasuredome, the I-Beam, and the EndUp back in the day to be able to hear some of these multi-hour mixes that they may only have the haziest memories of, and he wants to introduce a new generation of DJs and nightlife mavens to the talents of their forebears.

The online archive which is housed at hearthis.at contains a selection of ‘80s mixes. Dance mixes from the ‘90s can be found on a separate page here.

What’s really remarkable about these mixes are how deep many of the cuts go. There’s really so much worthwhile high-energy dance music which has been lost to the sands of time. Hopkins’ curation of these tapes will hopefully expose a lot of this music to new ears. This archive is your one-stop destination for programming your next workout or home dance party. 

After the jump a selection of mixes from this amazing archive…

Submit to the superior mind of Dr. Hal!
 
One name alone could never properly designate the spellbinding polymath who calls himself Dr. Howll and Dr. Howland Owll, though he is known to hundreds of listeners around the world as the host of the Ask Dr. Hal! show.

A clergyman and theologian of the highest attainment in the Church of the Subgenius (“Master of Church Secrets”), Dr. Hal is a man of great learning, the numerosity of whose specializations is exceeded only by the perspicuity of his understanding, which in turn is outstepped only by the very testicularity of his hauteur. Why, Dr. Hal’s conversation makes Dr. Johnson sound like an analphabetic dirt farmer doing whip-its in an Andy Gump at the Gathering of the Juggalos, if you’ll pardon my French!
 

Ask Dr. Hal! via Laughing Squid
 
When did Dr. Johnson, so comfortably provisioned with nitrous tanks up in his ivory tower, ever give the American working stiff a break like this? “I refute it thus”: for $5, Dr. Hal will answer any question you can fit into an HTML form. Alternatively, “if you’re going to San Francisco,” be sure to wear some dollars in your hair, because your trip to the ¢ity by the pa¥ just got even more expensive: there is a run of Ask Dr. Hal! shows coming up in April at Chez Poulet in the Mission. If Chicken John likes your question, he will even pour you a shot of Fernet.

That’s Dr. Hal’s partner in the live show, Chicken John Rinaldi, the author of The Book of the IS, Volume I: Fail… To WIN! Essays in engineered disperfection and The Book of the Un, Volume 2: Friends of Smiley! Dissertations of dystopia. The live Ask Dr. Hal! show works like this, according to Chicken John:

You fill out the slip, you write your name, you write your question—any question about any topic, left or right, up or down: science, entomology, etymology, Greek mythology, sex, religion, jewelry, what’s the plastic thing on the end of your shoelace called. Aglet, by the way, on the end of your shoe. Aglet.

Much more after the jump…

EMI TG12345 MK IV. The console that Pink Floyd used to record ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ in 1972 at Abbey Road Studios. Photo credit Mike Ross.
 
Only two of these custom EMI TG12345 MK IV consoles were ever made and according to former Abbey Road engineer Brian Gibson—long considered to be one of the foremost authorities in the world on such things—this particular console is the “greatest to ever be constructed.”

This particular EMI TG12345 MK IV was in use for over a decade in Studio 2 at the world-renowned Abbey Road Studio. The mythical studio that has stood on 3 Abbey Road, St John’s Wood, City of Westminster, London, England since 1931 has recorded notable bands from The Beatles to The Buzzcocks during its long history. When it comes to the history of this console, it is as rich as the studio it occupied during its heyday. Though it was used by other prestigious artists such as Paul McCartney and Wings, George Harrison, Kate Bush and later on by The Cure—as the title of this post indicates—the most noteworthy piece of musical history created with the help of this console was Pink Floyd’s 1973 mind-bender The Dark Side of the Moon. Whoah.

More after the jump…

 
One of the primary reasons that the quite mind-blowing, entertaining, and enjoyable Monkees movie Head did so poorly at the box office in 1968 was that it represented such a sharp break from the family-friendly sitcom on which the group had built its following. The movie featured lots of utterly confusing footage, at times on an antiwar theme, that was mostly the kind of thing college-aged pot smokers like to see, but it amazingly garnered a G rating, at least initially. As Joseph Brannigan Lynch wrote on the occasion of the Blu-Ray release of Head:
 

Partly to blame was the marketing campaign that was almost as avant-garde as the film itself, but even worse was the fact that many theaters (successfully) demanded the film’s G-rating be turned into a Mature rating, simply because the film structure allegedly resembled an acid trip.

 
One of the many fascinating people involved with Head was, of course, Frank Zappa, who wanders through the movie with a Hereford Bull in tow and chides Davy about how “white” his music is not to forget the youth of America. One wonders if Columbia Pictures’ famously miscalculated ad campaign was in any way influenced by a similarly odd campaign for one of Zappa’s albums a few months earlier.

In March 1968, the Mothers of Invention unleashed their third mind-bending cultural intervention, known to all and sundry as We’re Only in It for the Money. In a curious move, Verve Records, no doubt directed by Zappa himself, apparently selected the pre-teen comic book audience to be one of the target demographics to promote the album to. Specifically, Daredevil #38, which came out the same month as the album, and featured a remarkable full-page ad promoting the record.

More after the jump…