Patrick Cowley

Patrick Cowley served as a pivotal force in advancing dance music, with particular contributions to post-disco and Hi-NRG styles whose reach extended well past his primary years in the early 1980s. Groups such as Pet Shop Boys and New Order viewed him as a significant inspiration for their output. Far ahead of today's production aids, he ventured into unexplored areas of synthesizer tones and instrument programming. Extensive collaboration with Sylvester brought Cowley acclaim in the roles of producer, writer, and performer, while his continued experiments with electronic instruments produced landmark disco tracks like "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)," "Do You Wanna Funk," and "Megatron Man." He issued three solo albums during his lifetime, among them 1981's Menergy. Long after his death in 1982, new listeners encountered his catalog through multiple collections of scarce and unreleased material, such as the new wave album Catholic recorded with Jorge Socarras, experimental pornographic soundtracks including School Daze, and the funk, jazz, and disco covers collected on Some Funkettes.

Born in Buffalo in 1950, Cowley passed most of his early years in northern New York, performing with local rock groups. He attended the University of Buffalo, focusing his studies on English. After moving to San Francisco College in 1971, he immersed himself in synthesizer technique. Soon thereafter, local musician Sylvester noticed Cowley's efforts and invited him into the studio. The resulting synthesizer work shaped the album Step II, which propelled Sylvester to worldwide attention and secured Cowley a position as a touring musician. Over time his synthesizer contributions became inseparable from Sylvester's sonic identity and proved essential to hits such as "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)," "Dance (Disco Heat)," and "Can't Stop Dancing."

Although touring kept him away for extended periods, Cowley stayed connected to San Francisco's club environment. In 1981 he formed a close association with Marty Blecman, a producer and keyboardist formerly at Fantasy Records, a label known chiefly for jazz and rock. That summer the pair established Megatone Records. Cowley's initial solo success arrived with the single "Menergy," which entered Billboard's club chart in late October. Also in 1981, Megatone issued the single "Megatron Man," followed by the full-length album of the same name.

Further hits elevated Cowley's profile throughout the 1980s. Around the time of "Megatron Man," he partnered with San Francisco vocalist Paul Parker to write and produce the dance single "Right on Target," which topped the club charts. Additional chart success came from reuniting with Sylvester to create the Megatone single "Do You Wanna Funk." In 1982 Cowley completed his last album, Mind Warp, for Megatone. That year also brought the commercial release of his earlier remix of Donna Summer's "I Feel Love," previously unavailable to the public. He succumbed to what was then identified as AIDS on November 12, 1982.

Blecman recalled how Cowley manually constructed patches to realize the precise sound each track required. Originally a partnership, Megatone Records was formally incorporated in 1983 and relocated to Hollywood, California, in 1994; Blecman directed the label until his own death on September 20, 1991. Over subsequent decades, anthologies of Cowley material appeared, beginning with Catholic, drawn from late-1970s recordings made with Jorge Socarras, followed by a self-titled collection from Indoor Life, the band for which Cowley produced an EP in 1980, and School Daze, comprising adventurous instrumentals from the 1970s and early 1980s that Cowley supplied to John Coletti, proprietor of the gay-pornographic-film studio Fox Studio. Released by San Francisco's Dark Entries label, School Daze received particular acclaim, prompting the label to reissue Catholic on vinyl and later issue Muscle Up, another set of previously unreleased pornographic soundtracks. Affiliated imprint HNYTRX put out Kickin' In, a 12-inch EP of unheard disco tracks anchored by its 12-minute title cut. Candida Cosmica, an EP of experimental pieces Cowley recorded in the 1970s with filmmaker and sex educator Candida Royalle, surfaced in 2016. Afternooners, the third and final compilation of his soundtrack work, arrived in 2017. Mechanical Fantasy Box, gathering further unheard experiments spanning 1973 to 1980, appeared in 2019. Some Funkettes followed in 2020, presenting Cowley's instrumental covers of material by Donna Summer, Herbie Hancock, the Temptations, and others. Malebox, containing six primarily instrumental disco-funk pieces recorded between 1979 and 1981, emerged in 2022.