cowley/bobby "o" etc
matt, you'd have to figure I'd pop up when I found this thread. Bobby "O" and Patrick Cowley are like the twin pedestals of Hi-NRG. And of course the Evelyn Thomas song "High Energy". Bobby O's hilarious because his sound is so totally his own, and it's not really a sound, but a rhythm. I have records of his done with analog gear on a 4-track and records done on a fairlight and they're pretty much all the same song! They all have the same rim shot pattern and this one melodic hook that he uses constantly. There's a few more uptempo rock/new wave kind of songs as well, like Barbi and the Kens' Just a Gigolo or Don't Put Another Dime in the Jukebox by the Flirts. My favorite Bobby O song is called Love on Video by the NY Models and it took me a LONG time to find that. Last night I heard Voodoo Man by Roni Griffith, which was hot as well. He had a bunch of different record labels, but the later stuff, the more digital/hi-nrg stuff on Memo is worth checking out, I'm a big fan of a song called Aggression by Charlene Davis, but that's well, very hi-nrg. Don't pay more then a dollar for it, you know?
anyway, Patrick Cowley, on the other hand, is really a much more interesting producer. It's not the melodies that are all the same, but a quality to his programming that sets him apart from Moroder, Gino Soccio(a whole other thread for him...) or any other producer. Much of his stuff was done on a Prophet 5 for what it's worth. I have very romantic feelings about his music. Some of it definately is a bit too "menergetic"(to use a term derived from his own music) like his work with Paul Parker, the mustached muscleman with whom he put out a few records. But much of his solo stuff focuses more on the sci-fi, even the track Menergy. That and Megatron Man, Mindwarp etc are all killer tracks. This stuff is all mostly instrumental, electronic, occasionally vocoded or disco nonsense vocals (ahhhahhh) and has dated really well to my ears.
One really hot track to look for is the song Get A Little, a single and also on the Megatron Man record. It has a woman singing and is just a fantastic gem.
His 15 minute version of I Feel Love is essential, and the stuff w/ Sylvester is hit or miss. I mean, if you're a fan, you'll like it all, but if you're not a HUGE fan, Do You Want To Funk, You Make Me Feel Mighty Real, Stars etc are all pretty good. But let me reiterate something said above...I Need Somebody to Love Tonight, hidden away on the Stars ep, is the single most BEAUTIFUL moment of electronic music EVER! It's not on any of the repressings or best of, and for that reason I've bought 3 or 4 copies of the ep so far. Maybe I'll send you one.
But yeah, Cowley is god, and Gino Soccio is an underrated genius who's catalog is finally being appreciated beyond the ubiquitious Dancer. Go to the mixes on
http://alldisco.net and you can hear a few of his songs.
dan selzer