Taking Sides: Patrick Cowley vs Arthur Russell

Man, I wish it wasn't so gauche to ask about YSIs, but since I'm coming from that chin-stroking world (I like Arthur Russell AND have a beard), but have been enjoying more and more the gay disco music (much to my father's horror— I think he believes it'll make me go homo or something), and have never heard of this Cowley guy... Can someone at least point me in the right direction? I'll do some crate digging the next time I get a chance, but what should I be looking for on SLSK until I can buy it for real?

Point taken Deej, but it's precisely that side of Cowley that wouldn't be revived by Soul Jazz or whoever. I can even see the liner notes now, briefly praising Cowley's work for Sylvester as being good for music of its type, before going on to say that the REAL DEAL is his solo work with all the weird sci-fi sleeves.

Never mind that "I Need Somebody To Love Tonight" is one of the eeriest disco tracks I've heard (although Sylvester's own vocals are a huge part of this).

see the 1st post in this thread, and follow the discogs links.

A quick five are:
Menergy
Sea Hunt
Technological World
Hills Of Katmandu(Crowley Remix)
Get A Little

ok yeah i think i agree in that case ... so its basically an issue of marketing?

'sea hunt' sounded so great on that 'one night in berlin' record from a year ago

I can even see the liner notes now, briefly praising Cowley's work for Sylvester as being good for music of its type, before going on to say that the REAL DEAL is his solo work with all the weird sci-fi sleeves.

Ha ha the key word in your post is "credible" haitch.

Can someone at least point me in the right direction?

I found this weird Cowley bootleg last year and put it on my blog, it's a "tribute" megamix that someone in Europe made after he died. I just re-uploaded it if anyone wants to check it. I don't know the names of everything that's on it, there's really no info on the sleeve -- I recognize Megatron Man, Menergy, some Sylvester stuff. the biggest hits from the gay disco side of things.

http://threethreefourfive.blogspot.com/2006/06/megamix.html

oh wow. stirmonster to thread?

DMR— Cool, thanks. I just want to find out if I want to find out more.

uh hi dere i'm listening to 'invasion' right now... soo good! but i am a chin-stroker who doesn't know anything about dance music. once i hear it consider it gentrified. :(

also here's a clip of the betty botox version of voodoo if you want a rough idea of what Indoor Life sounds like. (does Cowley have other records like that or is it the only one?)

http://www.igetrvng.com/shop_12_02.html
http://www.igetrvng.com/Voodoo1.mp3

it's weird that this stuff (hi-NRG in general i guess, but cowley in particular) is ignored like it is, a bunch of the classic italo trax seem to have a much higher profile now despite being quite similar. did hi-NRG get much play in all those mythologised new york clubs like the garage? because everything from that scene has been comped and re-evaluated to an extent, there doesn't seem like there's any lost classics from that era now.

I think Patrick Adams has a higher profile than Cowley does because cosmic heads and even hip-hop types like the P. Adams moves (I've been hearing and seeing the "Patrick Adams" name-drop quite a bit ... btw, are all disco producers named Patrick completely bad in the azz!?)

Cowley, however, lives in the big gay disco ghetto (although I hear it's being gentrified ... lovely).

And I cosign on Sylvester's "I Need Somebody to love tonight." Shit gets me extra moist at 108 beats per minute (there's more to Cowley than NRG, dammit!).

About these chin-scratchers. (Great thread of course -- someone create a fancy box set like the 1981 one I.M. did.)

a hi-nrg revival probably is next, but in gay circles, and pretty mainstream ones at that, it never really died did it? don't most big american cities still have the hi-nrg station to the left of the dial?

i don't know much about cowley aside from sylvester, but suspect i would like him based on comments here. i had severed heads on yesterday because of the poll thread and i kept thinking that a bronski beat severed heads hybrid would be the best thing ever.

russell's dance tracks are the ones that get me the most, but i adore world of echo.

does patrick adams stand a chance??

at the risk of being that guy, I was interviewing Al-P from MSTRKRFT back when they were touring with John Digweed back in the spring, and when I asked him what he was listening to at the moment he said "Basically a lot of disco - especially Patrick Adams". Then he started singing "In The Bush".

So basically Adams is DEFINITELY going to get canonized by the hipsterati sooner or later, not that that's a bad thing of course.

Man, I'm hoping that dood from MSTRKRFT will listen to A LOT MORE Patrick Adams

Hi-NRG and Italo never really died, it just mutated into stuff that's mostly truly beyond horrible, and like Italo, it's going to take some young hipsters to dig through the crap and re-contextualize it to make it palatable, or at least ease the transition. Don't worry, I'm up for the task.

But seriously folks, I don't get this talk about comparing I Need Somebody To Love w/ Is It All Over My Face. Cowley has that one beautiful slow song, most everything else he was involved with writing, even the weird "space" ones, are basically grade-A mainstream hi-nrg electronic disco. It's not like he has a whole catalog of dubbed out pop songs and improv cello experiments. If the Wire magazine crowd or whatever is gonna take to Cowley, they'll take him for what he is, GAY ELECTRONIC DISCO OF THE HIGHEST ORDER.

These conversations are always really frustrating though...in my world, all the hipsters discovered Patrick Adams years ago, maybe it's just New York?

I wasn't around the NY clubs of old because I was just a baby, but a lot of hi-nrg comes from Bobby O and that stuff was and still is timelessly awesome, and much of it was revived during the electroclash days, remember Trevor Jackson used the I'm So Hot 4 U instrumental, and I-F used Cowley's Sea Hunt on Mixed Up. It's just the term...a lot of italo and euro disco from the 80s is hi-nrg, and I learned about stuff like Evelyn Thomas' High Energy from your standard disco heads. Certifiable hi-nrg like Lime or Tapps are regulars in any decent italo/euro-disco/whatever sets.

and somebody should mention how awesome his remix of I Feel Love is.

MSTRKFT ♥s PTRK DMS

DN SLZR DS NT ♥ THS CNVRSTN

Primitive World was on Mixed up Hague.

These conversations are always really frustrating though...in my world, all the hipsters discovered Patrick Adams years ago, maybe it's just New York?

Dan, I feel you. Well..better late than never for those who are late, I say. Find "Super Disco" if you're late to PA, listen straight through daily for a week and then chime in on how your life has been changed.

And find the SINE record if you're up to it. Godhead.

oh yah! i totally forgot about indoor life. i wrote about them in my old blog and the ex-singer left a comment ...

Anonymous said...

Hey, this is jorge (hor-hay) socarras, singer of former band indoor life. We were together '80 - '87, and this ep was our first release. Patrick Cowley was awesome (he died in '82), and the rest of us our scattered about, myself in my native nyc. i'm so glad you enjoy the music, and have to say that "sexily crooned in hell's burning velvet lounges" is my favorite reference anhyone's ever made about my singing! You totally got it! Thanks so much. -jorge

also, i don't wanna be THAT GUY either, but toronto is small and i do know that our friends in mstrkrft didn't just discover disco yesterday cuz it's supposedly cool now (only on the internet, please try to remember). it not being obvious in their music does not mean they've never listened to it. i mean, the bassline in the sexy results remix from 04 or whatever IS a disco bassline. and al usually plays full, non serato disco sets (patrick adams, patrick cowley, sylvester, rinder and lewis, etc etc) when he plays solo. he was the first person to play marta acuna's 'dance dance dance' for me years ago (all i knew about adams came thru house samples before that)

and, when i brought up i need somebody, i did not mean to infer comparison. i don't really wanna make the comparison either really. oh and one more thing about sea hunt - i heard it was a cover of a song written in the 50's??!!?

Never mind that "I Need Somebody To Love Tonight" is one of the eeriest disco tracks I've heard (although Sylvester's own vocals are a huge part of this).

In the past couple of years this has been on the Collectors Series Pt.2 - Danse, Gravité Zéro, Computer Incarnations For World Peace and Dirty Space Disco comps so maybe his cache is rising. All he really needs is a nice looking comp that people see in the shops. Someone should pitch it to Soul Jazz, like what that Ike Yard bloke did for vol. three of New York Noise.

The Megatone catalog is owned by Unidisc, who are notoriously difficult to license from. Maybe a Soul Jazz is up to the task if they were interested, who knows.

Picked up Sine at the Atlantic Antic for five bucks!

I pretty much agree with dan on this.

the main difference between cowley and russell to my eyes is that russell basically took his outside influences and applied it to dance music, warping it to various degrees of recognition while cowley just delved as far into the form as he could. his production techniques and song writing aren't really particularly intellectualised just a lot better than virtually all of his contemporaries.

the argument is basically producer (cowley) vs songwriter (russell). it's a shame they never collaborated...

I think that megamix may be a bootleg of an official release I picked up in a thrift store around 6 years ago. I'll do a compare & contrast tonight and post the full tracklist if it's the same.

cool, someone left this comment about it at the time I first posted it, not sure if it's accurate ...

This illegal bootleg mix was made by Raymond Adriaans in Holland.
The sound quality was not that good but good was the brilliant idea to make a megamix of this great performer onb the synthesizer

best...comment...ever.

Taking Sides: Patrick Cowley vs Arthur Russell

avoid an either/or situation

onb the synthesizer

I just grabbed a handful of tracks last night, and I'm slowly plowing through them on my mp3 player... I think I'm actually liking Cowley more. Not to be too redundant in the face of comments prior, but it's just really GOOD. The lyrics are a bit silly, but it's nice how futuristic it still feels, something that I don't feel applies to Russell.

Though I do think Menergy is now the gayest track in my entire library.

So you don't have Male Stripper by Man II Man yet? Carl Bean's Born This Way? Bronski Beat and Mark Almond doing I Feel Love? Castro Boy? Menhungry? Get with the program!

I eat cannibals, i have 2 other songs for you if interested at http://www.robotsinheat.com

the Indoor Life full track (07.23.07) and a 12" i bought at the same time as that record: Sarah Dash's "Low Down Dirty Rhythm" (08.08.07)

at home i also have the Loverde 12" that i'm not sure i love (have to listen to again tonight) http://www.discogs.com/release/99293

and i hid a Cowley greatest hits record at a store recently that i keep putting off buying but i will soonish.
http://www.discogs.com/release/90070

Someone mentioned how Russell was perceived before the reissues. The only thing I've ever come across, oddly and depressingly enough, was Entertainment Weekly, which used to (still does?) a list every year of artist/celebrites/etc. who died of AIDS. Russell was mentioned/shown for '92.

I think a lot of this discussion about Russell and similar "disco-not-disco" artists being more recognized ignores the fact that many people want something to listen to at home. Big deal. Get over it. And in the headphones too. That's big leap for a label like Soul Jazz in their effort to market someone like Russell. If you want more people to get into Cowley, then write something about him, try to get labels interested, etc. etc. Talking about him on here won't help much.

I think Dan Selzer is spot-on when he says that Cowley's music is the type of stuff the dance-punk kids will be into when they get older/more comfortable with their sexuality. Those types are always posing as pro-dance/anti-Rock, with poorly thought-out gay affectations which they think will show comfortable they are with their sexuality but do the opposite.

So ... wait ... Patrick Cowley is not good for home listening or headphones listening?

uh yeah, because the Soul Jazz Acid House comp was totally for chillin' with the phones at home between your Augustus Pablo Singles and your Soft Machine LP's.

dmr, the megamix I have is the greatest hits jaxon mentioned.... patrick cowleys greatest hits dance party. all new remixed versions - non stop discotheque format. released in 83. so completely different to your mix.

I don't think anyone is *complaining* per se about Cowley not getting the hipster cred that Russell does, so much as musing on how that process of retrospective gentrification works, and whether it *could* happen for Cowley. Certainly no-one in this thread is arguing that the critical distinction between the two is arbitrary! I don't think there's a single post on this thread that conveys that impression.

Basically everyone on this thread "agrees" with Dan's position, but I take issue with the notion that, because there are fairly identifiable reasons as to why people go for Russell and not Cowley, it's therefore an open-and-shut case that doesn't merit further discussion.

"Those types are always posing as pro-dance/anti-Rock, with poorly thought-out gay affectations which they think will show comfortable they are with their sexuality but do the opposite."

I'm very sceptical of this argument. What on earth are you basing it on.

not to derail, but this thread is making me think that someone like jacques lu cont is the cowley of our day, (or is it someone who does more straight techno?) and also that maybe richard d. james is the russell equivalent.

I think Lu Cont is a good comparison point for Cowley. Maybe Villalobos is an alternative Russell equivalent?

yup, much better cos he's got the crossover dance angle a more covered though i can't imagine the analog for "is it all over my face?". "easy lee" doesn't quite cut it.

another thing this thread made me realized is that i have heard a lot more cowley that i previously thought. (still not hiding the megamixes though ;-)

wow i should edit my posts better.

Romeo Jones, think of it as more a spectrum, rather than an either/or. I listen to everything I listen to at least a little bit on headphones.

Tim F, who used the word, "complaining," but you? You're mistaking a opinion you don't agree with with an opinion using legalistic/ideological language like "open-and-shut case" and "merit further discussion." Perhaps this mistake extends to your response to my comment about dance-punkers. Perhaps not. Obviously, me being somewhat flippant and callous with that statement is a sign of me not being terribly interested in the subject. Also, was I suggesting that the critical distinction between Russell and Cowley was abritrary, or was that a response to someone else? I'm not sure.

I'm sorry if my post sounded rude; don't take it wrong: I truly would like to see something more constructive/positive than this kind of discussion. I imagine that the extent to which someone finds the process of gentrification intellectually interesting, or thinks that terms like "hipster cred" can be used in a meaningful way except as (self-)parody, is also the extent to which they are deflecting their mental energies away from creative endeavors.

that last sentence explains a lot of what has been bugging me about this thread and "hipster revival" in general, but i also think the term hipster has been undergoing rehabilitation amongst those who may have once used it as a kind of epithet.

(i don't like "hipster revival" cos i wanna see things pushed forward mannnnn. admittedly a bit of a reactionary or non-nuanced stance.)

(the future's got cul de sacs, too.)

mathew dear would be a good modern equivalent for russell, i reckon.

And you also get stuff like Set It Off By Strafe, Music Is The Answer by Colonel Abrahms or All Played Out by L.I.F.E. or any other number of records that have the jack clap pattern before 1986. The ambiguity of black American DJ records between disco and house is the whole beauty of that period of music. As much as I love the old Chicago stuff, I love the fact that the Roland drum machine at 120-127bpm formula didn't apply yet.

If you REALLY need to put a label on this stuff so that you can pay inflated prices at curated record stores, go for it. When I play this stuff it gets mixed into all the other DJ records of the era and I don't need it to be in strict category. The idea of playing this stuff exclusively as a genre seems to miss the point of these records. You should be playing them with disco, italo, electro, boogie, classic house Ect. The whole point is that it isn't house yet, it isn't the formula that will dominate clubland for the next 20+ years. It was an era of flux and it's position within a set should reflect that.

I'm quite happy buying this stuff on the cheap, but I live in a section of the Midwest thats got very little use for dance music from this era (Wisconsin). So I buy everything on the cheap really, if I was in Chicago this stuff would be so much more expensive I wouldn't even bother.

one time-- a new thread for this stuff would not be amiss. No one's really talking about Russell or Cowley anymore and there's definitely a lot more to be said. (someone else start it, though, I'm not personally knowledgeable enough to frame it)

i <3 patrick cowley and have a couple of the proto house boogie electro italo tracks mentioned, but can someone curate a ysi? plz? i'll be checking leonardo.

What a weird comparison to even make (the original premise of this thread). . . I don't get the basis of comparison.

I just went to start a new thread but instead somebody should revive one of these:

The post-disco pre-house clubbing scene

this is the proto-house youtube thread

i second sciolism, selzer and pappawheelie should get together and write a book/ set up a site/ make a dvd about all the post-disco musics

selzer and pappawheelie spent a few years trying to educate the masses in disco/post-disco musics and it only ended in drunken fights at 3 am in a williamsburg bar that smelled like cheese.

http://www.myspace.com/caponesbeatclub

Morgan Geist's "radio show" (the later volumes are more like mixtapes, just music) for the "Red Bull Music Academy" (I don't think I need to point out the irony there) lean pretty heavily on this era. Volume 2 of the series even contains an interview with Steve Knutson of Audika Records, which put out all those great Arthur Russell resissues, so you know you want to listen to that!

"Personal" w/Morgan Geist

Personal w/Morgan Geist

xpost, ah no way! would have loved to have checked out your night, you've both introduced me, and no doubt many others, to countless awesome songs and genres over the years on here

anyone heard anything from this catholic record yet? ive been hammering indoor life recently so was hoping for something in a similar vein

http://rcrdlbl.com/artists/Patrick_Cowley__Jorge_Socarras/track/Soon

:D :D :D

interviews with Jorge Socarras.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKvP9jkK8fU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmrkJu0asxQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g8P0N5TpTo

streaming on myspace. "i never want to fall in love" goofy - good goofy! "i'll come see you" reminds me a bit of ruth and grauzone. awesome. "soon" is downloadable at rcrd_lbl.

well. simultaneous thread revive :)

if by simultaneous you mean 8 minutes before you ;)

:)
(i let those two songs play while i waited to hit "submit post")

http://www.deejaypeeplay.com/megatronman/index.html

"Dance, Dance, Dance, by Marta Acuna is my favorite disco track ever."

I think I may have listened to this song 5 times on repeat today.
What a beauty. I know I may sound hyperbolic but tonight this seems like the perfect song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jzRwxdwK90