David Yow and Steve Albini on the set of ‘Duelin’ Firemen’ (via Bogart9)

The video game Duelin’ Firemen would have blown minds if it had been released in 1995. Think the Jodorowsky Dune of games. Much of the cast is straight out of the pages of Mondo 2000 or Fiz: Rudy Ray Moore, Rev. Ivan Stang, Mark Mothersbaugh, Timothy Leary, David Yow, Steve Albini, the Boredoms, Terence McKenna, Buzz Osborne, and Tony Hawk all had parts to play.

But unlike other worthy computer games that were actually produced in order to suck away vital months of my adolescence, such as DEVO’s Adventures of the Smart Patrol and the Residents’ Bad Day at the Midway, Duelin’ Firemen never passed from becoming into being. All that remains is a seven-minute trailer and a seven-inch record with David Yow on one side and the Boredoms on the other, both embedded below. From 23 years ago, here’s Rev. Ivan Stang’s account of the shoot:

12.21.1994- Run-n-Gun! filming
by Reverend Ivan Stang

I’ve been in Chicago for the last week, and although I took the modem with me, I never had time to plug it in. I was being an actor in a CD-ROM interactive video game called DUELIN’ FIREMEN being produced for the 3D0 system by a group of SubGenius filmakers and computer animator/vr programmers called Runandgun. It’s a combination of multiple-choice filmed scenarios and v.r. game situations, all taking place in Chicago while the entire city burns to the ground. I have played two roles in it so far—first an evil Man-In-Black and second, Cagliostro the evil 1,000-year old Mason whose spells started the fire. What sets this game apart from anything else I’ve ever seen is the TOTAL MIND-RAPE HILLBILLY SPAZZ-OUT STYLE of it. It makes Sam Raimi look like D.W. Griffith by comparison… makes Tim Burton look like Ernie Bushmiller. It is sick, twisted, weird and ‘Frop-besoaked like nothing on earth. It stars Rudy Ray Moore aka DOLEMITE as the main fireman with cameos by Tim Leary, Mark Mothersbaugh, Terrence McKenna, David Yow of Jesus Lizard and all manner of local Chicago freaks and jokers. (YES! I spent the week WORKING with DOLEMITE. We DO BATTLE in a scene and you get to “PLAY” us in the game section. Now is that cool or what. Of course, you’re probably too SOPHISTICATED to even KNOW who Rudy Ray Moore IS!!! (None of the crew did, although the winos outside the set recognized his VOICE.)) The real stars are the animation, fx and sets. It’s like a LIVING-SURREAL CARTOON from the mind of a CRAZY MAN (in this case, director Grady Sein). The Runandgun crew are like this commune of crazed hillbilly technoids. I had the time of my life. The game won’t be finished till July ‘95, though.

Stang

 

 
The trailer’s quality reminds me of the way videos looked on the screen of my Macintosh Performa during the late Nineties, except that back then they were about the size of a matchbox. What I’m trying to say is: prepare your mind and body for ugly fat-pixel video…

Watch after the jump…

 
Any discussion of fucked-up Japanese music has to begin with Yamataka Eye or Yamatsuka Eye or Yamantaka Eye or whatever he’s calling himself in 2017. In the 1980s he was in the Osaka-based outfit Hanatarashi (which means “sniveler” or “snot-nosed”), whose extreme shows are still the stuff of legend—Eye quit the band after seriously injuring himself in the leg with a chainsaw during a gig. Top that one, you pikers in Einstürzende Neubauten!

In the 1990s Eye founded the provocative Boredoms, which straddled that elusive line between “destroying all conceptions of rock music” and “staying together long enough to release a whole bunch of albums.” Douglas Wolk’s quasi-intentionally uproarious writeup of their work in The New Rolling Stone Album Guide calls their early release Onanie Bomb Meets The Sex Pistols
 

a total mess—they’ve clearly decided that they want to destroy everything predictable about music, but haven’t a clue what to replace it with. There’s a lot of vehement shrieking in a made-up language, riffs that self-destruct after a few seconds, and incoherent clattery mayhem.

 
Wolk calls a later album, Pop Tatari, “hilariously berserk.” But they were just getting started.

About a decade ago, Eye started a loose series of concerts to celebrate various pleasingly symmetrical calendar dates—07/07/07, 11/11/11 (known in some circles as Corduroy Appreciation Day), and so on. The first show, the 7/7/7 one, is probably the best-known, because it attracted a large audience of New Yorkers and also ended up as a DVD product available from Thrill Jockey.
 

 
In June of 2007 word spread that there was going to be a massive Boredoms-organized drum event, to be held on July 7. The show was to be held underneath the Brooklyn Bridge at Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park. Admission would be free, but an RSVP would be required. It became one of those events in New York that rapidly generate an urgent, must-see vibe among the self-appointed cognoscenti. About 4,000 attended, and those who ended up getting excluded became pretty annoyed about it. Amusingly, some used the bridge itself as a vantage point to take in the action, as seen below.

The name of the show was 77Boadrum (sometimes styled “77 Boa Drum”). Obviously, the time to start an event with 77 drummers on 7/7/7 is 7:07 p.m., which was the case. It was presumed (or possibly announced) that the ultra-large combo would play for 77 minutes (does make sense, no?) but apparently they played for almost two hours. Every drummer was provided with the same setup, a full 5-piece, 3 cymbal drum kit, all of which would be arranged in a large spiral (to mimic DNA, supposedly) with the Boredoms at the center. Eleven “drum leaders” were selected to occupy strategic positions in the spiral to keep the stragglers on track and on tempo.
 

Photo credit: BrooklynVegan
 
It goes without saying that this collection of percussionists was quite impressive. Among the drum leaders were Kid Millions (Oneida), Tim Dewit (Gang Gang Dance), and Brian Chippendale (Lightning Bolt), and the full ensemble included figures such as Andrew W.K., Sara Lund (Unwound), John Moloney and Taylor Richardson (Sunburned Hand of the Man), Matt Schulz (Holy Fuck), Josh Madell (Antietam), Jason Kourkounis (Bardo Pond), and Chris Brokaw (Come). Check here for a fuller list.

Okay, enough of my yakking…