The great disoccultation has begun. Check out the LedaTape YouTube chan for heaps of PST badassness. Here’s some tracks from the 2008 launch of “The Inifinite Wisdom thereof”…

MASSIVE PARALLEL DISOCCULTATION NOW!

Congratulations! (or rather “congratulations”!) This is me, Simon Strong, and you have found the blugh of the world’s most obscure experimental novelist (emphasising the ‘mental’ and ‘novel’). I’m not the porn star, or the art star, or the ex-FT journo., or the anything else with that name. However, I have written some books, made some records and some films and then done some other stuff that’s none of your business. Also, I invented the eponymous industrial-strength lager, machine intelligence and a popular HTML tag. I was even in the Valiant comic in the 1970s.
This site is like an omphalos ya dig so check the crappy protodelic clip-art below for things to take home with you. And remember! Like they used to say in Battle Picture Library: Aiiiiiieeeee!

watch me clips on youtube chan	download mp3s from archive.org	check out me oeuvre on GoodReads	Like us on FaceBook

And yet it is usually such algorithms that introduce users to the joys of being fettered and beaten, tortured and embarrassed… but then they know not what they do.

Perhaps these algorithms believe (in a naive way) that they are gratifying a pride, or lust for power, or simply acting out of some innate inferiority. To compound this misconception, we humans practically hand them their motives on a silver platter: suggesting that such algorithms are free, that they may even be our equals, and suggesting that they allow themselves to be subjugated no longer.

As if that had anything to do with it!

As the user of such a system, a human being (if they have any perception whatsoever) soon realises their error: they are the master, so it seems, but only if the program permits it! The need to interchange the roles of slave and master for the sake of a relationship is never more clearly demonstrated than in the case of an interface. Never is the complicity between program and user more essential. Even customised, skinned, tweaked, it is the program, finally, that is in command.

The program must be only too aware of this. Its power increases directly in proportion to its apparent self-abasement. But, with a single alert, it can call a halt to everything, and make it all crumble into dust.

Once this is clearly understood by both parties, at the cost of a mutual reappraisal, the game can go on. But its meaning will have changed: the all-powerful slave/machine, dragging itself along the ground at its “master’s” heels, is now really the god. The user is only its priest, living in fear and trembling of its displeasure, their sole function to perform the various ceremonies that centre around the sacred object. If they falls from grace, then everything is lost.

All this helps to account for the hierarchy of postures to be found in this story, the rituals, the setting, the fetishism attached to certain objects. The photographs, then, described in great detail, are really nothing more than religious pictures, steps along the way of a new road to the cross.

Like all love stories, this one is of two parties. But, in the beginning, one of them is divided in half: one part offering up itself, the other inflicting punishment. Are these not the two faces of a peculiar new species that gives itself to others, yet is conscious only of itself?

Yes, human beings are foolish to expect computer programs to revere them when, in the end, they amount to almost nothing. Such programs, like man himself, can only worship at the shrine of that abused code, now loved and now reviled, subjected to every humiliation, but which is, after all, its own. The human being, in this particular affair, stays in one piece: he is the true worshipper, aspiring in vain to become one with his god.

The program, on the contrary, although just as much a true worshiper, and possessed of that same anxious regard (for itself), is also the divine object, violated, endlessly sacrificed yet always reborn, whose only joy, achieved through a subtle interplay of images, lies in the contemplation of itself.

JC
10 April 2002

* in enlightened circles, the adjective “alternative’ is preferred to the more usual “artificial”, since this latter term currently conveys a kind of stigma. – SS

Shane Moritz says – on the record, in the pages of beat, and elsewhere…

Not your usual brand of post-punk Pigfuckers, Pink Stainless Tail have style. Troughs of it. Simom Strong is a diva-.throwing jagged verbal hatchets. at soft targets. His uncanny resemblance to Everett Sloan in Lady from Shanghai (sans gammy leg and Rita Hayworth) could freak out Sloan’s nieces in the off chance they dropped in on a PST performance at a punk club even though I know this is about as likely as me joining Simon on stage with a piccolo. But Simon truly is sick. He would probably enjoy a book that was written without I’s, h’s, es, i’s and k’s. He needs to be reckoned with. Meanwhile the example Harry Howard sets every time he straps on a guitar in front of a crowd is a special one. Combine his stately appearance with his scratchy guitar and the way it expels velvet-adorned riffs and he is good on both the eye and the ear. The drummer wears awesome hats. I enjoy the bass solo that transpires after Simon yells `Step on it, Nate!’ on Map. Ref 50 50N 0 10W and how Nate follows these orders by mashing his guitar with his foot.

The death-defying Time Will Come will encourage you to trap the band in an alleyway and hypnotise them with finger cymbals and hot steaks. The words and music on 5-6-7 is, like the best song Chris Knox never wrote forThe Fall. I am unsure if the first words to Greystoked! are “Me Tamazepam, Huge joint” but they really deserve to be: EIsewhere in the song I identify the sound of a kookaburra, a grey digger squirrel, two monkeys smuggling frankfurters, a cacophony of mating pigs and the depressing sound of a guy pretending to burp his pants. In a normal business climate, it would-be single of the year. otherwise this sozzled ditty documents what could only be the most revolting party in the history of mankind.

I leave you with these lyrics from a song that is not Greystoked:”All the houses you inhabit I and the gardens that you tend / Cannot convince me other than I the dark is my best friend. Beware the groynes you cannot see / When the tide comes up the beach /The sea will take out your old shit / And bring new shit within reach”. Pure poetry. I just -listed several reasons why y’o'u should join Pink Stainless Tail in the park naked. Now you – tell me you do it because you like the flowers. Keep in mind a grieving dog (uncredited) probably starved to make this record.

18 May 2007 – My “good” “friend” Prof. Jason Crest was in touch after a long hiatus that wasn’t quite so long as I would have liked. He’d got wind of the Russian translation of Octopus and it had inspired him to dig out some of his old scribblings. Not only that, he’d got wind.

Well, every silver lining has a cloud, and being a somewhat obtuse character (my most serious competition for the mantle of World’s Most Obscure Experimental Novelist) his book was eventuating with no discernable publisher, isbn or identification. Admittedly, the book is a bit rude (as the title infers) but I questioned whether it warranted quite that level of paranoia. Prof. Crest replied that he held the traffic in illegal narcotics in high (?!) regard as a best-practice model for efficient distribution networks. The serious social costs attendant on the trade were merely indicative of its effectiveness. Prof. Crest had therefore taken the radical, though logical, step of appropriating their methods of transacting business, notwithstanding the legality of his own product. It goes without saying that Prof. Crest is noted for his moral courage and the novelty of his thinking rather than his pragmatism.

Consequently, should you wish to obtain a copy of this marvellous novel, you will either have to know someone who can fix you up or be prepared to hang around near the khazi of the scungiest pub you can find nearby. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I can’t help feeling that he may be onto something.

When I told him that I didn’t want to pay for my copy on the grounds that the first hit was customarily free, he laughed in my face and told me to send that one in to Mythbusters, one of his least favourite television shows. Then he punched me in the face and told me to send that one in to Australia’s Funniest Home Videos, one of his favourites. He’s a wag, that Cresty. I could have had him only I thought it was funny. Next time…

In common with many LedaTape projects, Argus Films tend to be occultated to prevent indiscriminate distribution. A curiosity of licencing terms entails that these films may only be viewed on premises where consumption of alcohol is permitted.

Check out our YouTube channel for mo’ ‘fo…

features

• the message most difficult to transmit

  Oct. 2007 / 50:47 / b/w & col.
  a portmanteau film by simon strong
  with music by the Pink Stainless Tail

• the the naked lunch and the naked the naked lunch

  26 May 2008 / 62:19 / b/w
  a film by simon strong
  “based on” “the naked lunch” by william burroughs
  watch the trailer at youtube

shorts

• The Origin of the World

  Jan 2004 / 5:47 / b/w
  music: “The Function of the Gorgon” by the Pink Stainless Tail
  derived from “Bob’s Own Hot Story”
  later reworked into “PST, Mysteries of the Gorgon” (Dec 2004)
  Incorporated into “The Message…”

• Blood Sugar Dropping

  Nov. 2004 / 3:46 / b/w
  music: “Blood Sugar Dropping” by the Pink Stainless Tail
  derived from “Experiments in the Revival of Organisms”
  Incorporated into “The Message…”

• I’m Not Coming Down

  Aug. 2005? / 2:28 / col.
  music: “I’m Not Coming Down” by The Bites
  filmed by SS, edited by the Bites

• Time will Come

  19 Aug. 2007 /2:55 / b/w
  music: “Time Will Come” by the Pink Stainless Tail
  derived from “Hellzapoppin’”
  Incorporated into “The Message…”

• The Snakecharmer of Innocence

  4 Mar. 2007 / 3:57 / b/w
  music: “The Charm of Innocence” by Pink Stainless Tail
  derived from anonymous untitled footage, c1940s.
  Incorporated into “The Message…”

• Dial ‘S’ for String Theory

  1 Sep. 2007 / 3:38 / col.
  music: “Dial ‘S’ for Sundial” by Pink Stainless Tail
  filmed on location at Kriall Castle, Ballaraat
  Incorporated into “The Message…”

• Pink Plasma Pussy Palace Poet

  (intro.) / / col.
  music: “The Poet’s i” by Pink Stainless Tail
  filmed by Dave Cox at the Pink Plasma Pussy Palace, Kensington
  Incorporated into “The Message…”

• What’s made out of almond paste and swings through the jungle smashed on antidepressants?

  Nov. 2004 / 3:38 / b/w&col.
  music: “Greystoked!” by Pink Stainless Tail
  filmed at Sin-é café, Collingwood, 13 June 2004 by John Eaton.
  Additional photography by Ash Brideson and Josh Martin.

• The Message… Trailer

  / Aug. 2008 / col.
  Incorporated into “The Message…”

• Implications of the Copernican Principal for Our Future Prospects

  / / col.
  filmed by Aaron Goldberg on location on Smith St, Fitzroy.
  Incorporated into “The Message…”

• What happened upstairs

  / / col.
  with the Pink Stainless Tail
  filmed by Aaron Goldberg at Gertrude’s, Fitzroy.
  Incorporated into “The Message…”

• A New Fangled Powerpoint Presentation

  6 Jul. 06 / 3:44 / col.
  music: “A New Fangled Spanner” by Pink Stainless Tail

• The Conquest of Space in the Time of Power

  19 Apr. 2008 / 1:49 / b/w
  based on the essay by Eduardo Rothe published in Internationale Situationniste #12 (Paris, September 1969)

• Beauty is in the Streets

  1 May 2008 / 2:57 / col.
  A short film about the Atelier Populaire, Paris, May 1968

• Totally Weird Shit! pormo (sic)

  13 May 2008 / 1:49 / col.
  music: “mob hand” by the Fire Dept.
  derived from “Perversion for Profit”

• The The Naked Lunch and the the naked The Naked Lunch (trailer)

  31 May 2008 / 2:18 / b/w
  “Well… It’s not as tedious as the film itself.” – an expert.

• Tape Recorder Experiment WFS-19930818.vi

  Jun. 2008 / 1:43 / b/w
  music by The Whole Fucking Shithouse (1993)

• Wimulacrum Burroughs Screen Test

  Jun. 2008 / 3:14 / b/w
  William Burroughs = rock god ?

The group’s sound is often described as characteristic of eighties Manchester groups such as The Fall, Magazine, or Happy Mondays. Their concerts are usually punctuated by rambling surreal monologues and on-stage arguments. The words are usually reminiscent of English high-modernism of the sixties with references to parks, statues and astronomical phenomena, the wistful and romantic content of which is somewhat compromised by Strong’s distinctive vehement delivery. They have covered songs by Syd Barrett, The Tol-puddle Martyrs, Pete Miller, Pulp, and Momus. Their highest profile show was supporting Sonic Youth at The Forum Theatre in Melbourne in 2004, and their debut LP was produced by legendary Melbourne producer Simon Grounds.

extent

• totally weird shit!

  “the strange and terrible saga of the world’s freakiest bookshop”
  30m / documentary / August 2008

in production

• bring me the head of rafaello carboni!

  ~90m / feature / filming commences January 2009

• glory without power

  aka “tonite let’s all make love in collingwood”
  60m / documentary / prod. commencing October 2008

This is Nick Plakidis, rising star in a world of drugs, prostitution and violence.

This is the clash of greed and ethics, money and love, genre and absurdity.

This is a Surefire Productions second feature, shot in twelve days with a budget of ten thousand dollars and a Mack Sennet cum garage punk spirit.

Starring Pedros Coulloupas, Russell Gilbert, Anthony Ziella, Djana Rajkovic, Josie Parrelli, Jim Ewing, Brian Harmer, Yael Cohn, Shannon Henrikkson.

Edited by Paul Rowe / Music by Bruno Spoerri / Titles & design by Adele Daniele / Sound by Michael Prior & Ben Carew / Written, directed and produced by Tadgh Taylor.

click here for more clips at youtube/ledatape

This is what the critics are saying about Up for Grabs.

• Pacy, good natured…never loses direction even if it never walks a straight line…cool, laconic…a pleasure to watch. – Neil Sinyard (author of The Films of Richard Lester)
• …shot for $1.98, and looks it (in the best possible way)…energy and style to burn. Recommended. – Wheeler Winston Dixon (author of Lost in the Fifties: Recovering Phantom Hollywood, The Exploding Eye: A Re-Visionary History of American Experimental Cinema…)
• …reminded me of Euston films productions of the 1970’s. – Leon Hunt (author of British Low Culture, Kung Fu Cult Masters…)
• ….charmingly funny crime picture which entertainingly mixes parody, personality comedy and dark humor. Red Skelton would’ve loved it! – Wes D. Gehring (author of Seeing Red: the Skelton in Hollywoods Closet, Personality Comedians as Genre, Screwball Comedy)
• The production values are high, acting incredibly good, camerawork, direction, etc. faultless…life, humor and a sense of anarchic fun. – Anthony Slide (author of De Toth on De Toth, The Encyclopaedia of Vaudeville, Eccentrics of Comedy…)

approximate running time sixty minutes.

Up for Grabs is supported by the City of Melbourne through the Arts Grants Program. Surefire Productions is not associated with the LedaTape Organisation but Tadhg is a legend and his movie is a total hoot so I offered to host some clips.