Taking Sides: Patrick Cowley vs Arthur Russell

I'm not familiar with Cowley's music. Is there more "out-there" stuff like Russell's 'World of Echo'?

Not that I don't like the dance stuff. I'll dance to it at least. Do people really dance to the kind of music on that Soul Jazz comp? If so, direct to the place, and I'll get the hell out of Athens, Ga.

I got to see Peter Zummo play once - an improv stuff. Only a few years later realized he'd recorded with Russell

oops meant it to be "an improv gig."

I love Patrick Cowley and agree that he's underrated, though perhaps not specifically on ILM. Not sure i'd really want to choose between him and Arthur TBH! It's a good question/discussion point though mt, I think there are some pretty clear reasons as to why Patrick hasn't been embraced by the critical cognoscenti the way Arthur Russell has, and it would be interesting to think about what it would take to convince everyone that Cowley was an "important figure" in the way that Russell is regarded as being.

Maybe a key issue is that Russell always seems like this wild musical sprite who 'passes through' disco but is not defined by it, whereas Cowley really blew it up from within.

Who do you prefer b/w Cowley and Robotnik, mt? I assume Cowley?

I have to go but want to come back and talk about this some more later.

Who do you prefer b/w Cowley and Robotnik, mt? I assume Cowley?

As far as a total career goes, I like Cowley better. Then again I don't know much about Maurizio Dami's career outside of the Fuzz Dance comp. I am not a huge italo/nrg head, my specialty is Detroit and Chicago and those scene keep me quite busy. Honestly, I like Check Out Five(b2) better than Problems. I think I almost cannot really hear Problems because it is so obscured by being a cannon track. I love the Designer Music Edit Carl Craig did.

I think the thing that kills Cowley is that he doesn't have any of the rock backstory so he can't grab cred by association. He doesn't have any good stories, he was just a brilliant studio guy that laid the groundwork for a whole bunch of great gay dance records that haven't been cannonized by hipster record nerds yet. I think his music might signify as being too strictly DANCE and too GAY to be fully embraced by hipsters. EXPERIMENTAL and GAY can work if Soul Jazz curates it, but underground GAY DANCE music that isn't being curated isn't real music in a lot of people minds. When there is a Hi-NRG Soul Jazz comp the tides will turn for this guy.

The other flip side is that people already jacked the italo vibe, and now it seems the hip music crush of the moment is Balearic instead of NRG. People still aren't digging for those records yet, at least from what I see on ILM.

sea hunt is definitely one of the most beautiful songs i've ever heard. i played it this one time and my friend was shouting at me "OMG THIS SOUNDS LIKE PORPOISES FUCKING IN OUTER SPACE!!!!" also, sylvester's i need somebody to love tonight is a favorite (cowley produced that).

That being said, I am not digging hard for those records either, but Cowley and Bobby O(to a lesser extent) seem like the goto guys if you want the heads up on the cream of the crop of that scene.

I used to do a night with guys who collected that stuff obsessively and really knew their shit. There is a lot of great music in that area if you know what to look for. The problem with it is that there isn't anybody out there that is selling this stuff to the sheep yet.

I remember when disco wasn't cool in Austin yet, and the same guys I am referring to above used to play disco records to me and which ever three random people happened to be at the empty bar that night. Anyway, Metro Area came through town and played a set of the same b-sides of these guys had been playing all along, and then all of a sudden disco became collectible in Austin. It was very weird to see people start liking something en mass because somebody with cred told them that they were allowed to like it.

Yeah, it's like that with anything, ain't it? I mean, if Soul Jazz dropped a Cowley comp next week every metro beardo type would be name-droppin Cowley like crazy (especially if they started calling Cowley an experimental artist).

But talkin music and not hype ... it's an interesting question you pose.

Cowley vs. Russell
DISCO vs. "disco-not-disco" (god, I hate that term)
artifice vs. art
synthetic vs. organic
bad-taste cheese vs. ever-so-tasteful chin-strokery

And obviously, I'm painting the picture in strokes that are way too broad and of course it's not anywhere near as simple as those binaries are ... (and maybe I'm responding too much to the after-the-fact cult of Russell because I'm not quite sure how Russell was perceived during his lifetime, btw ... anyone?).

Thinking with the dancefloor in mind, however, I'd choose Cowley any day over Russell. And I love Arthur Russell! Yet, aside from a few gems (e.g. "All Over My Face"), most Arthur Russsell tracks are not dancefloor-killers.

Cowley tracks are totally distinct yet still have a kind of anonymous quality that I find in a lot of the best dance music. Arthur Russell's tracks, on the other hand, are just so odd. And they're very upfront in showing their idiosyncrasies. Good for listening, studying, being amazed by, etc. ... but just not as good for moving asses.

Also, Cowley stuff has more of a proto-house and techno feel that I appreciate.

Russell was cannonized by record nerd hipsters not because of the Rock backstory but because he already had an art-music profile via the Point CD c/o Philip Glass and before that David Toop writing about World of Echo, all that while his dance stuff, while classic in dance scenes, weren't appreciated as part of a whole the way they are now.

Cowley was cannonized by dance music heads way before Russell was.

I say apples and oranges anyway.

And the Hi-NRG revival is on it's way, it'll be our backlash from the slow balaeric/cosmic trends, and will tie in neatly when all the dance-rock newbies get older and more comfortable with their sexuality.

i don't know why you would wish the deathless nerd-praise that arthur russell gets on an artist who has a spot in his own, more appropriate dance canon already. I love 'a little lost' and everything but can do w/out the beardo non-dancing twee fans who make him out to be a bigger deal than classic dance producers because of it

i mean beardo in the sense that 'i met someone like this who had a beard,' not a diss of fans of the beardo thread or something

replace "beardo" with "chin-scratchers" and things are more clear. Beardo comes from a dance fan's perspective, the idea was more about disco people growing beards in emulation of Mancuso and Harvey and dancing to classic rock, as opposed to bearded, chin-scratching, Wire magazine reading wallflowers.

^^^ok yes you get what i'm saying!

apples and oranges agreed, dan .. but interesting discussion nonetheless.

The Megatron Man CD is a good buy, right?

yes! of course

and Cowley does have some weird rock connections...see Indoor Life.

Display Name (or whoever else) you've definitely got to hear Cowley's Indoor Life record

http://e.discogs.com/release/524228

got this recently via jax0n (who pegged it as "james chance with synths"), it's been on really heavy rotation for me (and I was already listening to the betty botox version of "voodoo" a bunch). sounds a little like talking heads but on a darker punk vibe with nasty synth basslines. "archeology" and "gillmore of the fillmore" are just as good as "voodoo" ....

lol xpost!

Thanks for the tip, I will keep an eye out for that record.

If Cowley is underrated, the blame could fall squarely on dance culture, not Wire and Soul Jazz for failing to canonize him. The media machine surrounding dance music seems far bigger than the media machine surrounding chin-scratching experimental stuff.

it's all relative. Cowley is only underrated by the chin-scratchers, not in dance culture. In electronic dance music circles he's second only to Giorgio Moroder. The point isn't the size of the media machines, but the "cred" of the respective scenes. Anyway, as mentioned, I don't see the point of comparison so much, but in discussing their relative "ratings" and "cred", we're talking about amongst somewhat different fanbases.

Cowley is only underrated by the chin-scratchers, not in dance culture.

But why is he underrated by chin-scratchers? I mean, what did Cowley produce that should be acknowledged by chin-scratchers? Maybe his music simply doesn't speak to that crowd. And if that's the case, maybe he isn't underrated. Maybe he's just not their cup of tea. Russell, on the other hand, had one foot in chin-scratching and even his dance music sounds like it. I hope I'm making sense. I think we're on the same page, when you say they're apples and oranges.

'chin scratchers' probably do a better job of shaping music discourse as a whole, tho ... prioritizing 'thoughtful' over 'hedonistic' or whatever

The questions then would be...did Cowley do anything that would impress the chin-scratchers, and if so, why don't they appreciate. Is it because it's blatantly "dance" music in a way not all Russell is? Is it because it's so gay? I think it depends on the chin-scratchers and what they're looking for, I suppose. I think Cowley's music is rich enough that the chin-scratchers, if they got past the dance aspect, would appreciate his production, which is say, similar to Bobby O but several degrees deeper and more complex(and I say that as a Bobby O fan). But there's many other issues, I mean, Cowley's songwriting, even when couched in this amazingly beautiful electronic dance music, was usually pretty basic pop stuff, which tends to turn some people off. But I'm also not so sure there really are that many chin-scratchers out there who haven't come around to respecting dance music anyway. It's just timing, maybe Soul Jazz hasn't gotten around to it yet, or maybe it's too close to the Ian Levine style Hi-NRG that has always had less cred in UK dance circles, or maybe it's just a pain to license it all from Unidisc.

the other thing is that arthur russell was pretty much more obscure, right? i mean everyone knows 'is it all over my face' is dance canon material but for the most part he was kind of a new discovery when that soul jazz comp dropped ... and other records were reissued. or am i just projecting?

it wasn't a new discovery then, it was just the context. Being someone who had feet firmly planted in both dance and non-dance words, it was like there were two different people. All the disco heads loved Is It All Over My Face, but when buying Another Thought or World of Echo, it wasn't like a big deal was made that this guy was also involved with disco.

I dunno, I think Cowley is pretty obscure now too - it's pretty hard to find his albums!

I don't think it's as apples and oranges as people are claiming here. Put "Is It All Over My Face" and "I Need Somebody To Love Tonight" next to one another and it's not clear which one is necessarily gonna appeal to the "chin scratcher" contingent more. If I'd not heard either artist before and you told me that the latter was the song by Russell it wouldn't surprise me an awful lot. So it's interesting to think how the backstories and backcatalogues might play a role in changing the status and reception of such tunes.

(Actually i think this chin scratcher" vs "dance fan dichotomy is a bit bogus in this regard: fact is, a lot of dance music fans are chin-scratchers a lot of the time. Probably a lot more dance music fans have checked out Russell on account of his current reputation than non-dancing chin scratchers, and these are the same dance music fans who may have only heard of Cowley in pasing if at all. Not all people into dance music are obsessed with gay post-disco and suspicious of rockist accreditation certificates!)

Also it's not a case of acceptance (Russell) versus rejection (Cowley) as it is where each artist falls in a process of generalised gentrification - the reputation of old music has a lot in common with property values actually. Cowley is being gentrified as we speak, this thread is a very small part of it, but it has yet to occur to the same extent of with the same momentum as for Russell, and obviously all the reasons people have listed go a long way towards explaining this

does patrick adams stand a chance??

Patrick Adams is totally under-rated as well.

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

to clarify on tim's point tho ... when i think 'cowley' i'm not thinking of his obscure solo stuff here, i'm thinking about the appreciation dance fans might have for certain tracks that they don't per se identify with 'cowley' - but that still counts, i think!

i.e. sylvester or what have you, stuff that is part of the dance canon even if its only folks reading the 12" labels that realize 'cowley' is directly responsible

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.

(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.

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)

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