Taking Sides: Patrick Cowley vs Arthur Russell

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.

also, no one mentioned Two Tons of Fun "I Get the Feeling" and Michele "Disco Dance" mixes that Cowley did, both are amazing.

I think Regisford and Jarvis are more acknowledged by the sort of proto-house scene, it seems rarer for disco heads to dig that far into the 80s.

is there really a "proto-house" scene? i guess to me this is all the same shit.

the two tons of fun mix is EPIC

I didn't just invent the phrase "proto-house".

c'mon yes you did.

obviously you didn't invent the term, but i've only heard it used in reference to a very certain small selection of records. i would guess those records are mostly played by house or disco deejays, i don't think there's anyone playing strictly those records. that's all.

is there really a "proto-house" scene? i guess to me this is all the same shit.

i think the "proto-house" scene are like OG US garage heads (the genre, not the club) who are into all the shit they were playing at like zanzibar in the mid 80s.

i mean, if there's any such music you could label as proto-house it'd be that

In my experience with people getting into disco at various times since the mid 90s or so, there's a break even between people's interest in and discussion of "disco" of the 70s which includes things like strings and live drums and whatnot, and the disco of the early 80s, stuff like Prelude or boogie stuff or whatever, though all of that was still under the umbrella of "disco". But when you get further and further into the 80s there's some point where people simply don't use the term disco much to describe stuff. I'm not saying it's not disco, but for a long time nobody would use that term in that context. Not that I want to bring up my infamous early ILX flame-war regarding the death and rebirth of disco, but the music is produced differently, sounds different and in my experience, is defined differently. Stuff like Colonel Abrams or much of the Boyd/Jarvis stuff I've heard may be a logical evolution of disco to a real disco head style-wise and technology-wise, but it sounds more like late 80s House music then it does like classic disco. All of this is the eye (ear) of the beholder, but what it comes down to is the perception, and while we can take for granted the popularity of house music right now, especially since it's quickly replacing various types of disco as the style/reference point du-jour, for a long time the people reviving disco were into a very "disco" aspect of disco. Hell, some of those people were also into House, but would acknowledge this big vague area of the early mid 80s that got, and continues to, get lost in the shuffle.

More practically, I think it has trouble fitting into the contexts that it obviously exists with. Mixed with classic organic disco/deep house stuff, it sounds too contemporary, mixed with classic house stuff, it sounds almost too poppy. I mean, I certainly learned about this stuff from real disco heads and have heard it in house sets, I'm not implying people solely play this stuff, but when I used to hear disco sets, sometimes they'd even jump from disco to house and bypass this stuff. Maybe it's just that date...1985...1986. When you're digging for records and seeing stuff you've never heard of, those are years that only appeal to certain people. I don't know, it's a good time for that stuff now, I think.

I remember it all being referred to as "club music" (Northern New Jersey, 1983-1989) when it wasn't your "disco made with live musicians playing everything" dance music. Just sayin'.

can you guys name some artists/songs/post some youtubes of things you're talking about? Would the Patrick Adams produced skipworth and Turner track fit into what you're talking about? What about

two from 85 on youtube...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvy_RxdHS5g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0DiTPOMOi4

87...more clearly housey...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWySnzccch8

ALWAYS loved this, I think everyone in NY has this record but thinks its too cheesy. Singing about Zanzibar...more "club" music, with electro/hip-hop influences, then strictly disco or proto house or whatever.

http://www.traxsource.com/index.php?act=show&fc=tpage&cr=titles&cv=21293

I don't think there is really a current scene for this stuff, and there really aren't producers making it that I am aware of. It just seems like a small vein of records that fit in between the italo or electro section of a set and the early house stuff. I don't really see this stuff as an extension of disco.

I kind of see it as disco-> italo-> italo meets boogie and electro(proto-house)-> early house-> acid

Six years is a long time in dance music. There is about as much remove as late 90's Purposemaker clones and the mnml scene.