No AI – No Loops – No Samples
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This album is a themed tribute to a whole style of music that, despite influencing almost everything, goes all but unknown today. The style is Hi-NRG Disco. Commonly simply called Hi-NRG or under other tags like ItaloDisco or Eurobeat. These latter were regional carry-forwards of the root form from the USA.
If we are to pick that single root for Hi-NRG, it would be Patrick Cowley and his working partner, Marty Blecman of Megatone Records. Based in the Bay Area of San Francisco, Patrick Cowley drove a new form of Disco that was more synth-driven than the Funk-based form already en vogue*. Sylvester and Paul Parker were the best-known names, but Patrick Cowley’s solo work was driving a whole new feel.
Something similar was happening in New York, driven by Bobby Orlando. To many, the sounds became synonymous. Definitely, by the time Man To Man released “Energy Is Eurobeat” and “New York City Beat”, the sound was universal and well crossed over into almost every form of Pop music. Artists like Australia’s Pseudo Echo were even covering earlier tracks from the form with their storming take on Lipps Inc.’s “Funky Town”.
My album is not trying to nail anything about the style, but to pay homage to the roots, the things I loved, doing it through my own style. While my almost New Age music and Disco may seem a stretch in these rule-obsessed days, those Patrick Cowley records were already there. My album art leans heavily on Cowley’s first album cover to help people see what I am about. While Cowley is now dead (1982, AIDS), I would like to think he approves. I named the record for one of his pivotal tracks as well as his label.
Megatone Men
Here, I expose the ideas or influences for each track. Take what you want and drop the rest, because when you listen, it becomes yours. While Cowley’s work remains central, I carry not only other songs but broader ideas related to the form that everyone knew but couldn’t (or wouldn’t) name. Many of the names are pretty obscure to most, but formed part of the tapestry that sat behind what people did know and boogied to. You can YouTube all of these referenced tracks if you want to dig deeper.
- Souls of Lost Music – introduces the concept of a lost form of music that lives on in those of us who were there.
- Lights in The Fog – is a nod to the idea in “Flashlight On A Disco Night” by Rofo. The way that smoke machines pumped the floor full of (acrid chemical) smoke, and the lights pierced through. It was magic. CGI can’t do it justice.
- Megatone Men – is an elision of “Megatron Man” and Megtone Records. It seems apt as the scene was so incredibly gay. I am not, but I effectively lived in the local scene on & off for years. The first club I worked in, I was still seventeen. There was an energy and acceptance in those places I have never seen elsewhere.
- Atlantis Romance – refers to Modern Talking’s “Atlantis Is Calling (S.O.S. for Love)” and The Twins’ “A Wild Romance”. Past that, the piece is just a fantasy with sub-dancefloor electro stylings.
- Video Spy – is almost unashamedly stealing (like an Artist) from Trans X’s “Living On Video”, Mike Mareen’s “Love Spy”, and a bit from Ken Laszlo’s “Hey Hey Guy”. It was very common for Hi-NRG records to be very, very close to each other. This helped make the scene cohesive, as well as for DJs to mix any two (or more) songs together. The words (Text-to-Speech) create an idea like phone sex, only swapping naughty videos. As if that hasn’t already happened.
- Bodhisattva Boys – is again a fantasy piece. It relies on the homoerotic “Menergy” thing, fusing a few thoughts that included a discussion with a friend about angels & bodhisattvas, which of course made me think of the film “Point Break” with Patrick Swayze (Bodhi) & Keanu Reeves in wetsuits. No doubt the Heaven 17 song “Geisha Boys & Temple Girls” intruded on that thought a bit too.
- Caravan Home – another fantasy piece. As I started this one, I wasn’t sure it would fit the theme at all. It didn’t seem to relate to any of the records or ideas. It reminded me of Kitaro. Initially, I used sampled drum machine sounds, which were a total killer. A few days later, I trashed those and made new sounds from scratch, and it came into its own with electro-Disco underpinnings.
- Smalltown Dreams – refers to how the unknown became known yet remained hidden from the masses. The name hopefully fairly obviously points to the Bronski Beat (Jimmy Sommerville) song “Smalltown Boy”. A few years later, I would be kind of doing that myself in those bars with “interesting” people who were so welcoming despite my not being exactly like them. We were our own small town in an otherwise hostile world.
Please support me by purchasing the album
the only way that Indie artists like me get paid
*To be fair, we must acknowledge that Giorgio Moroder was already working on synth-Disco and having hits with his dramatic sounds as early as 1977. The most famous being his bassline in Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love”, which honestly was the moment that changed the world. Moroder was an Italian working in Germany, commonly with English & American artists. One of Moroder’s alumni, Keith Forsey, went on to be the man who made Billy Idol. Listen to Moroder and Cowley, and while there are similarities, there is also a massive difference in vision between the two. Moroder made Disco different with his sounds and frothy hypnotic feeling. Cowley remade Disco into something different again; deeper and darker, stripped and rebuilt. Both were Masters.
Benedict Roff-Marsh 