Talk to me about Patrick Cowley's 'Menergy'

I am still undecided about his remixes of I Feel Love. Good sections but it isn't consistent overall.

I'm looking forward to new Patrick Cowley material.

http://www.electronicbeats.net/News/Music/Unreleased-Patrick-Cowley-album-to-see-the-light-of-day

my gay anthem of the month is man parrish's out of the ordinary techno mix of man to man's male stripper. ahhhhhhh, i love it. i've been playing it at least once a day. on zyx. can't find it on youtube. although youtube does have a wealth of man 2 man/the fast stuff.

All nine minutes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHk0vd0RGOg

if any of you are in the bay area for this, it should be an amazing event:

http://www.deejaypeeplay.com/megatronman/index2.html

oh goodness! that looks like a must-attend!

I don't know Menergy, but pulled down Megatron Man earlier this week. Was listening to "Get a Little" about five minutes before I read Dan's comment about not all Cowley being great, but that song being amazing.

I can't speak to the rest of his catalog -- but most of that record (LP, right? There's certainly 40 minutes of material on there) is outstanding and feels very italo. I particularly love his deplyment of female vocals -- on "Get a Little" but also the wordless cooing doubling the synthesizer lead on "Sea Hunt."

Also, the retro-50's sci-fi song about teens is cute.

just saw today in Other Music's email update that there's a new CD of pre-Indoor Life music called Catholic. by Cowley and Jorge Socarras (Indoor Life's vocalist). review makes it sound pretty no-wavey (and good)

haha there is a myspace for it. sounds good!

http://www.myspace.com/cowleysocarras

Yeah I reviewed it this week, it's really fuckin great. A lot of Devo influence.

I reviewed it here

really the shorter version of 'menergy' with sylvester on vocals is the crucial one, though i have a feeling i might be in the minority on that opinion - the long version seems a bit directionless after about 6-7 minutes and the vocals are a bit dorky.

You can stream the whole of the new album here: http://www.deejaypeeplay.com/megatronman/catholic.html

http://www.xlr8r.com/news/2009/09/patrick-cowley-remembered

i'll be there!!!

trevor jackson dropped this on saturday night - still rules.

www.phonicarecords.com/product/view/116895

A soundtrack of Cowley's gay porn tracks is coming out in October. Holy shit, talk about psychedelic synth wash heaven.

Sampler up on Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/darkentriesrecords/sets/patrick-cowley-school-daze/

^^^^ yep just came to post that. "Nightcrawler"!

gahhhh just got to the title track, "School Daze." so sick.

wow, this sounds amazing. do the films exist anywhere? can't imagine what kind of porn this would fit but feel i really must know.

o m g

this compilation contains soundtrack music from two Fox Studio films, “Muscle Up” and “School Daze”

http://www.npr.org/2013/10/13/230949363/first-listen-patrick-cowley-school-daze

this shit is amazing

WANT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4HPq1-miis

This is fucking great.

This album is really incredible. I was totally hooked by the "Nightcrawler" teaser clip a few months but was really surprised by how good the whole compilation is.

...and what kind of porno has this as the music? A lot of this stuff seems way too creepy for that, but maybe I'm just kidding myself

Some of the long tracks on here have this incredible depth to them that totally belie that this was a college kid soundtracking a porn movie. Mind they did try harder in the pre-VHS days to make porn with high production values.

I've got a birthday coming up. So.

From richjuz

http://gawker.com/lgbt-history-month-the-aids-masterpiece-of-a-lost-disc-1454245531

Awesome.

"Cowley is a tragic figure for succumbing to AIDS so early." like, the earlier the tragicker? the whole AIDS AIDS AIDS HORRIBLE AIDS tone rubs me the wrong way.

recent xlr8r piece is less histrionic and more respectful as a result imo: http://www.xlr8r.com/features/2013/10/money-shots-five-things-you-need

but yeah, mind warp is tremendous.

OMG this compilation is EXACTLY what I wanted it to be.

Also the snippets of the film 'School Daze' available online feature a really drugged out instrumental version of "I Need Somebody To Love Tonight" which is not here but is awesome.

"school daze" is A++++++ tunes

might be my favorite reissue of the year

definitely mine

yep

The backstory, from Rolling Reissues 2013 (some of these blurbs are pretty entertaining too)
Patrick Cowley School Daze Available on CD December 24th
Double LP Out Now Via Dark Entries/Honey Soundsystem
Earlier this year, San Francisco-based label Dark Entries and Honey Soundsystem released a seminal collection of Patrick Cowley tracks as the double LP titled School Daze. Just named Juno's #1 re-issue of 2013, the collection, comprised of tracks that were originally meant for usage in the films of gay porn company Fox Studio, highlights the most innovative and forward thinking sounds of the disco legend.

Clocking in at just over 80 minutes, the compilation was too large to fit on CD format. However, Dark Entries will now be releasing a CD version that features all of the tracks minus the shortest track, "Pagan Rhythms". The School Daze CD will be available December 24th - pre-order now.

Praise for School Daze

"Cowley created foggy indigenous music akin to the sprawling psychedelia of the Bay Area's famous Haight-Ashbury bands — the keening synths of the title track even approximate screaming guitar heroics. Yet the bulk is far more delicate and sensual, like the warm, well-lubricated touch of a skilled masseur."
NPR

"... it's a very blissed-out and and queasily physical mix (summed up by two adjacent titles: "Journey Home" ... "Out Of Body"): a perfect tonal match-up, presumably, for the onscreen clone-era porn"
The Wire

"Clammy coldwave fugues, shuddering proto-techno, and quixotic funk studies that sound like Raymond Scott high on mushrooms and Moebius"
SPIN

"squelchy, prog-indebted synth music,"
FACT

"...pure, cosmic magic. Deep, sensual, and bubbling with a languid dreaminess, this is Cowley's disco music stripped to its core: warm, skeletal beats, percolating synths, and a keen sense of melody that must have worked perfectly in their original erotic context."
Other Music

"this collection sounds remarkably relevant in the current electronic-music landscape. Perhaps it is a sign of how responsible Cowley is for the building blocks of various genres that one can almost hear the echoes of Emeralds' Does It Look Like I'm Here or even Actress' R.I.P. in certain sections of the album."
XLR8R

"These 80 minutes show the other side, the insular and the lesser seen side of the San Fran synth man. At times dark, others uplifting, this is a fascinating discover from an artist who was talented beyond his years and stolen from the music world while in his creative prime."
Igloo Mag

School Daze CD Tracklisting

1. Zygote
2. Mockingbird Dream
3. Nightcrawler
4. Seven Sacred Pools
5. School Daze
6. He's Like You
7. Journey Home
8. Out Of Body
9. Primordial Landscape
10. Tides Of Man

Pre-Order CD
Purchase Vinyl
Purchase Digital

Perhaps one of the most revolutionary and influential people in the cannon of disco music, Cowley created his own brand of Hi-NRG dance music coined "The San Francisco Sound." Born in Buffalo, NY on October 19, 1950, Patrick moved to San Francisco at the age of 21. He studied at the City College of San Francisco where he founded the Electronic Music Lab. During this time Patrick createe radio jingles and electronic pieces using the school's equipment, first a Putney, then an E-MU System and finally a Serge synthesizer. He made experimental instrumental songs by blending various types of music and adapting them to the synthesizer.

By the mid-70's, Patrick's synthesizer skills landed him a job composing and producing songs for disco superstar Sylvester such as “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)”, “Dance Disco Heat” and "Stars." This helped Patrick obtain more work as a remixer and producer. Of particular note was his 18-minute long remix of Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” and production work with edgy New Wave band Indoor Life. By 1981 Patrick released a string of dance 12" singles, like “Menergy” and “Megatron Man”, creating the soundtrack for a generation. Also that year, he founded Megatone Records and released his debut album. Around this time Patrick was hospitalized and diagnosed with a then-unknown illness: that would later be called AIDS. Prior to his passing on November 12, 1982, he recorded two more Hi-NRG hits, “Do You Wanna Funk” for Sylvester and "Right On Target" for Paul Parker.

In 1981 Patrick was contacted by John Coletti, the owner of famed gay porn company Fox Studio in Los Angeles. John had heard about Patrick's music from the legendary Sylvester and proposed he write music for his films. Patrick jumped on this offer and sent reels of his college compositions from the 70s to John in LA. Coletti then used a variable speed oscillator to adjust the pitch and speed of Patrick's songs in-sync with the film scene. "School Daze" is a collection of Cowley's instrumental songs recorded between 1973 and 1981 found in the Fox Studio vaults. Influenced by Tomita, Wendy Carlos and Giorgio Moroder, Patrick forged an electronic sound from his collection of synthesizers, modified guitars and self-constructed equipment. The listener enters a world of dark forbidden vices, introspective and reflective of Patrick's time spent in the bathhouses of San Francisco. The songs on "School Daze" range from sparse proto- techno to high octane funk to somber post-punk to musique concrete, revealing the depth of Cowley's unique talent.

Featuring over 80 minutes of music, this compilation contains soundtrack music from two Fox Studio films, "Muscle Up" and "School Daze", never before released on vinyl. The tapes were restored and transferred using the same speed and pitch settings, then remastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, CA. The vinyl comes housed in a glossy dual pocket gatefold featuring classic gay porn imagery from the Fox Studio vaults plus an essay from Indoor Life vocalist, Jorge Soccarras. For Patrick's 63rd birthday, Dark Entries and Honey Soundsystem present a glimpse into the instrumental world of a young genius. These recordings shine a new light on the experimental side of a disco legend who was taken too soon.

http://www.darkentriesrecords.com
Patrick Cowley Website http://www.megatronman.com

― dow, Monday, December 9, 2013 3:47 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Also this, which entered my Pazz & Jop comments, because "Seven Sacred Pools" entered my singles list:

Holy moly, just listened to the Cowley. Some of those reviewers seem to be projecting from the press sheet: the music doesn't seem freaky in the let's-fist-again sense, although in the gen. sense that freaks=all us seekers, incl. hippies--yeah: especially the one that gets me up on my feet, dancing way past the point that the headphones come unplugged, and the volume somehow goes to max, and even the laptop speakers know how to sing it, and I'm dancing through beads and chimes with the love goddesses (and Andy Kaufman)---that would be "Seven Sacred Pools." At first, it seems like it's gonna be some filigree brushing by the ever-reliable textures of pulsation (as may happen too much on some tracks: like, just give me that beat cluster and hold the nerfy tweets). But it is 15 minutes and change, most of which seems so so necessary, in a laidback but fully involving way. Also the way he holds a keyboard whirlpool in place, presses, extends the shades---that would be "Tides of Man." (elsewhere, he can gradually meld the keys into really good jazz woodwinds, etc.) The title track, "School Daze" is quite the neon compact; guess I could see this as theme for porn, or a really sharp 70s science show.

― dow, Thursday, December 19, 2013 1:50 PM (1 month ago)

Great review dow, "Seven Sacred Pools" is amazing.

I was ready for porn music, then listened to the comp and was like "this doesn't really sound like porn music for the most part", then tracked down as much archival footage as I could find from the films, and got it.

This was my review btw:

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/18773-patrick-cowley-school-daze/

This is a great album and it isn't just some Caravaggio's sketchbook type curio, it is a great album.

Oh yeah totally excellent review Tim.

First two tracks, my impression was: 'this is all the music Throbbing Gristle was trying to make fun of with their disco singles that most people now prefer to the real TG music' and I nearly switched it off

By the end of the album my impression had skewed more towards 'what in the world is even happening'

Definitely worth hearing

Amen to that, and thanks, Tim, for complimenting my review and writing yours, which is very illuminating. The quote about 70s porn reminds me of what the jam band Particle called their "space-porn," which could get outrageously good live, and now I wonder if they had Cowley's music and the movies it soundtracked in mynd.

freaky in the let's-fist-again sense,

may I borrow this phrase?

from my blogged 2021 round-up, in which White Trash stood tall amidst Top EPs:

Patrick Cowley remains the still-warm black leatherette motorcycle mustachio cap Arthur Russell of posthumous popologicical offerings, thee gifts that keep on giving, though Crowley's are more like poppers and flashbulbs going off in the garage. His later leavings get more and more 0 budget, if possible, but soundz still make it through v. vividly, even musically, even from the junk shop 7" single sources of his latest:

…four tracks culled from some of Cowley's earliest rehearsal tapes. In 1972 Patrick was living in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood with Theresa McGinley and Janice Sukaitis, friends of his from New York. In 1973, Theresa and Janice formed White Trash Boom-Boom, an all-female avant-garde performance troupe. Reacting to the Angels of Light and the Cockettes, they captured the spirit of the times: camp, confrontational, and delirious. Theresa recalls, "We brewed a brand of performance that steered away from the doctrinaire and reveled in ambiguities." Patrick provided their theatrical experiments with appropriately zany musical accompaniment. Side A features two songs from the "Country and Western" skit, "Bride" and "Beer and a Pizza", which were written by Janice and Karen Dunaway and produced by Cowley. The feminist skit tackled the issue of women's limited life choices in society. The B-side contains "Baciami" and "Spengo la Luce", two songs from "Goes to Little Italy", a skit addressing Catholic expectations of female chastity, performed in 1974 on top of the bar at the Stud. These songs were lifted from an Italian folk 7" found at a thrift store, and feature "improvised" Italian. The material on Boom-Boom shows Cowley flexing his synthesizer muscles to create curiously camp genre pieces. This is an essential document of a bygone era.https://patrickcowley.bandcamp.com/

More from the archive

https://patrickcowley.bandcamp.com/album/malebox

Recorded from 1979-1981, these six tracks illuminate what was one of Patrick’s most creatively exciting periods. “If You Feel It” and “Love Me Hot” were both early Paul Parker demos; the former is a peak hour hi-NRG bomb,while the latter dips into Cowley’s zoned-out space disco sound. Jeanie Tracy’s soulful vocals feature on the demo version of “Low Down Dirty Rhythm”, which was later re-recorded by Sarah Dash. The slower, less-varnished rendition here hits with a wild psychedelic edge. Meanwhile, Patrick’s gifts for careful orchestration and infectious melodies shine on “Floating” and “Love and Passion”, which were likely demo tracks for Loverde.

Dark Entries is opening a record store in San Francisco

https://thevinylfactory.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screenshot-2022-11-28-at-11.57.29.png

The store kicks off with a launch party on December 10.

Dark Entries Records is set to open a brick-and-mortar store in San Francisco on December 10.

Located at 910 Larkin Street, San Francisco, the store will host a special launch event on opening day with DJ sets by Carlos Souffront, Topazu and Jeremy Castillo from 6-9pm.

Founded in 2009 by Josh Cheon, Dark Entries’ aim is to release out-of-print and unreleased underground music and contemporary bands. Since then, the label has put out 100 releases from Severed Heads, Crash Course In Science, Patrick Cowley and more.

https://thevinylfactory.com/news/dark-entries-record-store/

Menergy: San Francisco's Gay Disco Sound by Louis Niebur

For most of the US, disco died in 1979. Triggered by the infamous "Disco Demolition" night at Comiskey Park in Chicago on July 12, 1979, a backlash made the word "disco" an overnight punchline. Major labels dropped disco artists and producers, and those mainstream musicians who had jumped on the bandwagon just as quickly threw themselves off. Gay men, however, continued to dance, and in the gay enclave of the Castro District in San Francisco, enterprising gay DJs, record producers, and musicians started their own small dance music record labels to make up for the lack of new, danceable music. Almost immediately this music reached far beyond the Bay, with Megatone Records, Moby Dick Records, and other labels achieving worldwide success, creating the world's first gay-owned, gay-produced music for a dancing audience. This music reflected a new way of life, a world apart and a culture of sexual liberation for gay men especially.

With Menergy, author Louis Niebur offers a project of reconstruction in order to restore these lost figures to their rightful place in the legacy of 20th-century popular music. Menergy is the product of years of research, with dozens of personal interviews, archival research drawing upon hundreds of contemporary journals, photographs, bar rags, diaries, nightclub ephemera, and, most importantly, the recordings of the San Francisco artists themselves. With its combination of popular music theory, cultural analysis, queer theory and gender studies, and traditional musical analysis, the book will appeal to readers in queer history, popular music history, and electronic dance music.

I'm about halfway through this book. Highly recommended if you are familiar with the source material.

I really think that “Disco Demolition” night had nothing to do with the decline of disco. It was a baseball promotion where you could go to a double header for free if you brought a record (and it didn’t have to be a disco record. No one was checking at the gate) That’s it. It wasn’t the catalyst for a zeitgeist change.

Bad Girls by Donna Summer was the number one Single on Disco Demolition night and remained so afterwards. Until it was replaced by Chic’s Good Times. Off The Wall came out the next month and had 2 number one “disco” singles. It’s such a lazy Forrest Gump style reference for a writer to make.

But that rant aside, I have always liked that Patrick Crowley made soundtracks for porn. Some of his stuff is on this mix of late 70’s/early 80s gay porn soundtracks

https://m.soundcloud.com/carparkrecords/montag-porn-archives-lo-fi

Ehh, it was a tipping point and a cultural touchstone. I don’t think the writer—or anyone—is saying it “caused” disco to die. But it was almost certainly big enough news that it made it okay to hate on it.

I would also venture a guess that there were a bunch of DJs—from bigots to rockists—who felt vindicated and empowered that this trend was getting its just desserts and thrilled they didn’t have to play it anymore.

i think at this point it's become said so much that it's become true in that sense where we access and construct history through everything that's happened between then and now. but also i think that it's useful and compelling shorthand for a fracturing point that broke along patriarchal lines to pretty strong degree, patriarchy that's always been in the music industry and always will be but has been on an interesting journey.

white supremacist lines too it should be said.

i think because it came from a sort of grassroots space, too what degree "actually" and "for real" i'm not exactly sure, but certainly as part of the story, it had some extra oomph.

also i think the rise of hip-hop plays into it. that's probably also been said a bunch.

i'm generally pro "electronic disco history being reclaimed and valorized by queers today" and absolutely love the music all-around but also feel like it can tip a little bit over into the monoculture of the mustachioed men of the time but transplanted into today. a minor gripe as i mime the poppers fueled buttsex crescendo in the soulwax remix of "you make me feel (mighty real)" for the hundredth time.

thanking u for my new screename

happy to help

Several vanguard NYC dance DJs interviewed by Tim Lawrence for Love Saves The Day: A History Of American Dance Music Culture 1970-1979 express lingering disgust for what the word disco came to stand for, as record labels big and small flooded the market with inferior product, and clubs new and old got shittier---one guy even says he agrees (20-odd years later) that disco sucks.
Nicky Siano didn't want Soul Jazz Records to put "Disco" in the title of his pre-fad comp, which is still worth checking out---I described it briefly in the Voice:

Siano the Times
Mercury rising as disco evolves out of prior knowledge x convictions
by Don Allred
January 11th, 2005 2:14 PM Issue 02

Blissed-out, but not always totally
photo: Courtesy of Nicky Siano
Nicky Siano's Legendary the Gallery: New York's Original Disco 1973-1977
Soul Jazz import

In the early '70s, a teenage DJ named Nicky Siano traveled the space-wise
dancefloor of David Mancuso's Loft---officially DM's lowercase residence, via invitation-only rent parties
---before launching his own Gallery.
Despite acid, balloons, and the food bar, the Gallery wasn't always
totally blissed-out. As described in his and Tim Lawrence's CD notes,
Siano's Mancuso-influenced (though more commercial) sound design for living was also logically
based on and changing with the rooms and scenes he mixed in,
as the feast moved around NYC, not always voluntarily.

(Galleryite Larry Levan later levitated Paradise Garage; he and Siano
also worked with disco mystic Arthur Russell.)

The Gallery first materialized in the summer of '73.
Post-Woodstock couch-potato arena rock ruled. There and elsewhere,
DIY DJs and dancers (especially blacks, Latinos, gays) were among those,
at times closely observed,
who chose to carve their own solar systems from the vinyl beast.
Spinning out of this disc, the Gallery is mercury still rising, through
crosstown funk, soul, roots rock, and one gospel song, personalized:
Gloria Spencer proclaims,
"I got it! I don't understand it! I got it!" A jet blasts (like, "Amen!") out
of Exuma's "Obeah Man." The Temptations lay down the "Law of the Land":
"You might not like who you are, but you better start. 'Cause you sure can't be
nobody else." Yet the music rumbles and clatters like a roulette wheel.
Meanwhile, turns out that Bonnie Bramlett's "Crazy 'Bout My
Baby" is crazy like a tambourine and a fox, shaking in wait for that slowhand
dobro.

Loleatta Holloway, Bobby Womack, Bill Withers, the Isleys,
and Undisputed Truth also make the most of prior knowledge and surprise.
Without waiting for the remix: These are original (full-length) LP tracks and
seven-inch singles, with built-in dynamics. Breaks burst out of
(and roll through)
good grooves, good songs. Often.
See http://www.nickysiano.com/ and http://www.timlawrence.info/.

also (listening companion to TL's book): https://reappearingrecords.bandcamp.com/album/love-saves-the-day-a-history-of-american-dance-music-culture-1970-1979-part-1 (pts 1 & 2 have sep bandcamp pages; 2-CD incl. both pts.)

.

Siano did mix, and chose some records later that did sound like what we typically think of as "disco"---hell, he even worked Studio 54 for a while, when the owners were running it from jail cells for the US Gov, I think---but this is where he came from, and wanted it known, Revolta and the Bee Gees aside.

i'm generally pro "electronic disco history being reclaimed and valorized by queers today" and absolutely love the music all-around but also feel like it can tip a little bit over into the monoculture of the mustachioed men of the time but transplanted into today. a minor gripe as i mime the poppers fueled buttsex crescendo in the soulwax remix of "you make me feel (mighty real)" for the hundredth time.

― ꙮ (map)

idk. i had some resentment for the guys with their BDE cavorting on the dancefloor in jockstraps four years ago, i admit. i felt like "menergy" didn't leave a lot of room for... like, there's femmes and there's women. all the backlash against the stereotype that "gay = femme" left me feeling a little bit out of place as someone who's a woman (but not particularly femme) who was, at the time, far more interested in femmes.

fuck it. i'm past carrying grudges. we're all in this together, is how i feel. also, while i still prefer femmes, goddamn some mascs are fucking hot. the dancefloor isn't the same without 'em.

fuck it. i'm past carrying grudges. we're all in this together, is how i feel.

yep. absolutely. i feel this way more and more. still have some remnants of grudge but it sure does feel great to shed them. meanwhile i'm in a relationship with a younger man who is generally very open-minded on these topics and has already been exposed to a wide variety of opinions, as is the case with young people today it seems. but the other day expressed some reservations about kids being exposed to kink in the context of pride. which, i wasn't prepared to respond in a constructive way, so i just let it slide. i do hope i can radicalize him a little bit. but without a particular agenda other than love. he's close to his family, who are decent but conservative. it's tricky. i feel like i'm always stretching myself when it comes to trying to find more gentleness and patience these days. but sometimes it's like, here i am, orphaned from my owm family of origin and on my own out here at sea making what feels like a wild and desperate voyage, just trying to survive and land occasionally on a beautiful island that always turns out to be hostile in some critical way, and the people i find along the way are always separated from all of that to a degree. part of that is living in a conservative, patriarchal place and wanting to connect anyway. part of it is being attracted to masc. i often feel like i'm in a riddle that deepens with each passing year. at this point i don't think there's a solution, and i'm not sure if i need or want one.

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

xp but anyway, 'menergy'. i always feel like it does that impossible thing so well, trying to outline and appreciate masc. i think about the phrase "laughing it up" a lot. there's a bit of menace to it. the real, honest laughing i do is silly, goofy, flip, sometimes acidic, doesn't have that gendered edge. i want to try to imagine what masc gendered laughing looks like and the faint trace of it i can conjure is unlikely, laughable, a tom of finland cartoon. does it even exist? i spent yesterday evening with two men who are very close to me. one sketched my portrait while we were listening to a scratchy record of 'court and spark' by joni mitchell. the me he drew was stately and masculine but gentle and lonely somehow. we shared a dinner of rigatoni and meatballs made by my partner of 5 years. the mode of conversation we had reflected that of brothers, fathers and sons, but also mothers and sisters. i think it's true that masc can't be real without all of non-masc. it feels really good for gender to be real, for the gender you want in your life to color and flesh out your relationships, to not be frightened of gender and all of its ingredients and complications.

really great posts map

<3