Some Gigs From Memory

Patrick Cowley – Mechanical Fantasy Box (Dark Entries Press  9781942884545) Not merely the progenitor of the amyl nitrate pulse of Hi-NRG: the high octane synthetic disco that soundtracked cruising spots and backrooms from the Castro to the East Village to Soho (long before the fiercely gay and sleekly minimal electro sound was domesticated into the teen pop of Stock Aitken and Waterman); Patrick Cowley - teenage synth pioneer, soundtrack producer for such under-the-counter gems as ' Afternooners ' and ' Muscle Up ', and eventually producer of sublime anthems to queer ecstasy by Sylvester, Paul Parker and perhaps most famously his mind bending 20 minute psychedelic excursion on Donna Summer's ecstatic paean to the erotic sublime ' I Feel Love ' - was also, as we discover thanks to the archival efforts of Dark Entries press, the leading documentarist of fast flings, group fucks, stolen glances and silent meetings in the backrooms of the leather bars, saunas...