Taking Sides: Patrick Cowley vs Arthur Russell

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.

(purely on a music level at least. villalobos has the auteur backstory. depends on where you're putting the emphasis.)

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

I just threw up in my mouth.

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.

It was the "Big deal. Get over it" I was responding to.

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.

I'll admit now I'm boringly into changing currents in music crit. "Hipster cred" should I guess go in quotation marks, I mentally insert them for this type of phrase and so forget to use them at times.

Anyway my aim is not to decry hipsters or even talk about them, to the extent that the term has any meaning...if anything my argument upthread is that people who are totally into Russell but not (insert x disco producer here) are more likely than not to be dance music fans, rather than some archetypal chinstroking armchaired home listener (although, yes, most likely they're listening to Russell at home). I'd be surprised but intrigued if Russell was garnering an audience of younger listeners not into other dance music.

It's impossible to divide these groups into categories of hipster cognoscenti and true dance enthusiasts. If I was going to I'd probably have to end up on the side of the former myself: my own awareness of Russell aside from "Is It All Over My Face" and "Go Bang" stems entirely from the critical rehabilitation which has made his back-catalogue so much more available, so i can't dissociate myself from that whole process of discursive gentrification.

Also, was I suggesting that the critical distinction between Russell and Cowley was abritrary, or was that a response to someone else?

I was trying to head-off any perception that I might be implying such a thing.

Obviously, me being somewhat flippant and callous with that statement is a sign of me not being terribly interested in the subject.

I'm pleased you're distancing yourself from it.

No, not distancing myself from it. Not at all. I'm just acknowledging that the remark for what it was. We should do more to make fun of self-proclaimed dance-punkers. At least DFA is reissing Pylon's 'Gyrate'. I'll have to buy something on their label!

I listen to some dance music, but I suppose I'd also fit the definition of an armchair home-listening intellectual, except that often I'm lying down in bed. And I'm sure 'World of Echo' is not just beyond the purview of most dance-music folk, but Rockers too. But then again, these days so few people limit themselves as such. They may not take the time to listen to such a record closely, but they'll appreciate it in theory.

I don't think you have to see your appreciation Russell as part of some gentrification process. Or, no, maybe we should just see gentrification in the cultural realm as largely a positive thing. This gentification of experimental/electronic/etc. music has been happening on a relatively massive scale since the mid-1990's at lest, and while I'm sad to see the fates of the musics and cultures rejected in favor of these gentrifying schemes (especially Rock music) overall I like what's happened. So much good music that was hard to find a decade ago is now out there. As various people here have been suggesting, Disco, House, and varied sub-groupings aren't "hip" yet but they're getting there.

Whereas gentrification economically, socially, politically, is a far nastier thing.

and surely to some degree the culture is a symptom of that, but if you take this line of thinking to it's logical conclusion you end up at the "authenticity fallacy".

I'm not meaning "gentrification" in a negative sense at all. Reissues are a good thing!

myth >>>>> cynicism, but cynicism >>>> marketing

Perhaps, tricky, but I'm okay with that. Obviously, separating an increasingly gentrified culture from larger societal changes it is part of is a messy, if not impossible, thing to do - and a contradiction. However, it's a similar contradiction to the one wherein I'm interested in various anti-imperialist political/ideological movements in U.S. history, and in the study of U.S. imperialism broadly, but still I pay federal taxes, and a lot of the money thus paid ends up destroying Palestinian cities, torturing people, etc.

yeah. well, gentrification may be bad, but ghettoized culture can be just as bad. as a gay man, the ghettoization (both from within and without) of "my" culture troubles me, but it also makes complete sense given cultural history, etc. but it's complicated because i think it's possible to find exemplary artistic output both from the ghetto and from the gentrificators.
at some point the music trumps the politics.

someone should post dueling russell cowley POXes.

HA, this thread amuses me as someone who's been away from the board for a couple years but whenever listening to Patrick Cowley (which is quite often), wants to start a "TS: Patrick Cowley vs. Giorgio Moroder" thread, which I feel is a more appropriate matchup than Russell. The teacher vs. the student, burning out vs. fading away, etc.

So what does ILM have to say about THIS particular matchup? Moroder's peaks (From Here to Eternity, "The Chase", "I Feel Love", No. 1 in Heaven, fucking inventing this shit) definitely beat Cowley's, but I can't help but wonder if Patrick hadn't died so young (wasn't he the first celebrity AIDS casualty?), what would he have accomplished? I mean, did Moroder do anything worth a shit in the 25 years since Cowley died?

also, for those looking for an entryway to Cowley's ouevre for non-disco historians, go the keytar solo route. Do people like the faux-guitar solos on Discovery? Make them listen to the "I Feel Love" remix and "Mind Warp"!! Always works for me.

Just came by to say I've been rockin' it out— thanks guys. I'll keep an eye out the next time I'm crate digging.

nice track here. http://americanathlete.blogspot.com/2007/09/get-little.html

he doesn't mention HI.NRG though.

Ha ha, my roommate sampled that initial beat and was trying to fuck with it last night! That modulated synth sounds like something off an acid house track from the early 90's. This dude was so ahead of his time.

as the commentor says, it's weird to talk about Cowley as an "italo" artist. I'm sure he dug eurodisco, and in the end had as much or more influence on the early 80s italo-disco then the the italian disco producers of the late 70s.

Sea Hunt. Wow.

just played "Get A Little" in the club last night. been having Cowley on the brain a bit recently. it's weird, when i record shop i always buy anything that sounds good. but then it will be months/years later when i start obsessing over a particular group/sound/producer. thankfully i already have tons of the records by that point.

the disco producers/mixers i can't get enough of but don't understand why they don't get more love: Regisford/Jarvis and Eric Matthew.

"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