In 1975 Patrick Cowley and Jorge Socarras began a friendship and musical partnership that spanned several years and the end result was an LP's worth of material that saw the light of day in the United States for the first time just yesterday. The story of how things got to this point is an interesting slice of San Francisco history. It all started when DJ Ken Vulsion of Honey Soundsystem spun some records with legendary SF producer/ DJ John Hedges at Cafe Flore about 3 years ago. Hedges took over running Megatone Records with Marty Blecman after Cowley's death in 1982 from a mysterious and deadly new virus called GRID. Hedges was already a legendary disco DJ since the mid 70's at this point having been the house DJ at The Mineshaft and the City Disco. When Marty Blecman passed due to complication from the Aids virus in 1991, Hedges became the steward of the huge Megatone back catalog.

About a year after the gig, Kenvulsion received a call from Hedges informing him that he was selling his old studio and house in Buena Vista Park and moving to Southern California. He would be giving away a huge chunk of his personal record collection and all of the Megatone back catalog. Several of the honey guys found their way over to John's house with a large truck and raided the basement storage space they came to call the Mineshaft. After digging through over 4,000 records, Ken and co. discovered 4 boxes of quarter inch tapes. Half were session copies, others were totally unreleased masters by Cowley. One of the reels ended up being the pre-Megatone full length recording entitled Catholic produced with Jorge.

Fast forward to 2009, the honey guys did a few parties to celebrate their massive record score and easily persuaded German label Macro to issue Catholic for the very first time. The beauty of this recording is that it displays Cowley as much more than just a disco producer. This early period shows him in another pioneering mode: Post Punk. Before the genre even existed. The seemingly timeless Catholic sessions would fit nicely as a DFA release or could have been a celebrated gem on 4AD or Mute back in the day. These recordings further solidify the fact that Cowley may have been the most important and groundbreaking producer San Francisco has ever seen.

This Sunday, Honey Soundsystem hosts two events to commemorate Patrick's 59th birthday and the release of Catholic. All of the details are here and suffice to say there will be special guests (Paul Parker and John Hedges!) in attendance and one can expect these events to delve much more deeply into Cowley's backstory and the history of SF disco than I have been able to explain today.

You can preview tracks off of Catholic on their myspace page. Here I have posted the 1987 Megatron Man 12" version remixed by Joseph Watt.

Patrick Cowley - Megatron Man '87

Let me start off by saying I am not the biggest fan of San Fran-Disco. The two biggest SF labels were Moby Dick Records and Cowley's own Megatone. Although Megatone was the far superior of the two, both labels were mostly responsible for that over the top pre-hi nrg sound that makes me cringe. Now with that being said Patrick Cowley was a brilliant songwriter and producer. His early synth work was reminiscent of his obvious hero, Giorgio Moroder.

Released in 1981, Get A Little was the lead single off of his first solo LP Megatron Man. Also his most sought after 12" single, Get A Little had that perfect blend of late period disco and early synth pop. Sadly Cowley was an early aids casualty, passing away in 1982. Although he was in the prime of his career when he passed, Cowley left behind an impressive body of work.


Patrick Cowley - Get a Little (Extended 12" Version)