Taking Sides: Patrick Cowley vs Arthur Russell

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.

i mean some of this music goes back way further than 85, check this from 82:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4jRoDC9Lks

and this from 83:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1laS_fqcow

this stuff is clearly related to disco first and foremost, i guess 80's r&b secondly. all synthed out, but really it has nothing to do with italo and predates most things considered "electro". some of tony humphries early stuff is like this, too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnpjN3DUvk8

that's 82 as well. to me, this stuff is definitely disco, kind of an extension of shep pettibone and larry levan shit that goes back to 81 with lots of electronics and even some dubbyness.

Sea Hunt. Wow.

― Violent In Design (Masonic Boom), Friday, July 3, 2009 10:09 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

speaking of gentrification ...

OHMIGOD A GURL HAS DISCOVERED YOUR MUSIC, RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!

these guys definitely spanned the gap of that period judging from the 82 stuff you posted and the 85 stuff I posted. I wouldn't reference italo like it's such a bad word, remember italo means Change as much as it means Tarzan Boy and I think a lot of that synthesizer boogie is closely related to those aspects of italo.

i think i like every song mentioned above.. i wish more people would listen to all of this stuff.

when are we gonna get to hear soundclips of that unreleased patrick cowley thing that is about to come out? anybody now?

I like the direction this thread is going. All this sort of stuff was getting played regularly at the Negroclash parties in NYC when they were happening a few years back. I'm with Speculator in that I wish more people would latch onto it (again). Such a fun sound.

Galaxie party in NYC...

On July 10th, Honey Soundsystem will be visiting us from San Francisco following their impressive discovery of unreleased Patrick Cowley tracks stored precariously in the basement of Megatone Records' HQ for decades! Check out these exclusive never-before-released tracks and many more when the Honey boys visit us from SF.

o ya, i've got tons of this kinda stuff. some of it is too cheesy. this is one of the ones i've been stoked on lately though. definitely fits right in the middle of disco, boogie, italo and house

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

picked this up today:

http://www.discogs.com/Patrick-Cowley-They-Came-At-Night/release/188724

niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice

[img=http://c4.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/110/l_3a5b7e7239364d02b0373bff3e1269ab.jpg]i once designed a flyer to look like a patrick cowley record[/img]

fuck u ilx code

funny, i was once on a flyer designed to look like a patrick cowley record/img

oh, the good ol' days

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I0ML2KAcIA

I'm not sure if this is proto-house or proto-freestyle but its my jam.

dan selzer, if you taught a class, wrote a book, or started a cult I would be there. coherent, intelligent, non-chin-scratching perspective on dance music is hard to find.

thanks, I like when people say nice things about me.

I have that Phyllis Nelson record, as well as another called "Don't Stop the Train", which is definitely HI-NRG. "I Like You" is pretty HI-NRG as well.

This is my jam...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnRJjuW7y3M

And I did teach a class in dance music once. Oberlin College had a thing called Exco (experimental college), where students could teach classes for 2 or 3 credits and take student-taught classes for 1 or 2 credits. I taught a class on David Cronenberg films and when I was a senior I took a class on Pink Floyd that was all first year students who'd smoke pot then listen to Dark Side. I did a Syd Barrett lecture though. But earlier on all these sports dudes had a "Techno" class where they'd take drugs and listen to bad techno circa 1994. One year I took the class with Morgan Geist and a woman we called "Rave Feve-y Dogg" for reasons I'm not sure I remember. Anyway, that year and the following year when I didn't take the class but knew the folks who ran it, I lectured on the history of electronic dance music. I remember playing Cluster's Zuckerziet and Silver Apples and Eno's synth bassline in Virginia Plain and Kraftwerk and Parliament and I Feel Love and Moroder and Man Parrish. If only I knew then what I know now...

Speaking of Morgan Geist, isn't he doing some remix of an unreleased Patrick Cowley project?

http://www.residentadvisor.net/news.aspx?id=10626

thats what I hear.

so i've got one song on a comp (billie's "nobody's business"), but where else should i begin with jarvis and/or regisford productions?

their shit together is what's up: Visual's "Somehow Someway" and especially "The Music Got Me" on Prelude, Tony Cook And The Party People "On The Floor (Rock-It)" on Halfmoon, dub mixes of Janice Christie's "One Love" and Choclette's "East Street Beat" on Supertronics. Timmy Regisford did dope mixes on Touch "Without You" on Supertronics and Colonel Abrams' "I'm Not Gonna Let". those are some of my favorites.

more details on that unreleased cowley project: this will be fantastic, right?

pretty exciting. this makes it sound like it's got some of his Indoor Life stuff: will be a shock for Patrick Cowley's fans. It's way beyond his Hi NRG Disco stuff - a post-punk, new wave, experimental Cowley.

this crowley guy sounds interesting, nice thread!

i really like that stuff too, i've been calling it garage or proto-house. i would say, besides boyd jarvis/timmy regisford/tony humphreys/eric matthews, the other guy who did lots of big records in that vein is paul simpson.

should this stuff have a thread of its own?

I just shoehorn this stuff into boogie. I kind of like the ambiguity of the genre, I don't think there is any constructive reason for segregating this stuff from the rest of the post-disco R&B stuff.

This is my favorite Paul Simpson joint:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cijl3Y1HQNE

I used to play the hell out of this record at my old residency. Streetwise Records was a goldmine of wonderful music.

yeah but stuff like serious intention "you don't know" is pretty much house, no? doesn't seem too much like r&b or boogie to me. either way, it's great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcW5c6nG5PY

Paul Simpson did this great edit of Patti Labelle's Shy. Its sooo cheesy but so great.

Considering that its a dub mix of a Gamble and Huff penned song, I guess its pretty much house too.

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)