Tag Archives: music

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Julius Eastman: Femenine


He contained so much art and vision as to be a scene unto himself. Then he faded from view.

After alienating lovers and collaborators alike, Eastman was evicted from his apartment in the mid-’80s. Most of his scores were bagged and carted away—eventually lost to history. Details from his homeless period are sketchy (or contested), but it’s generally agreed that he lived in Tompkins Square Park and also suffered from some form of addiction. After he died, alone in a Buffalo hospital at age 49, it took eight months for an obituary to be published. Continue reading →

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[GOSPEL] San Fran-disco: How Patrick Cowley and Sylvester changed dance music forever


Sylvester was San Francisco’s biggest star and Cowley’s muse – a larger-than-life presence around town, dressed to the nines and often carrying multiple shopping bags as he walked down Castro Street. Cowley most famously worked with Sylvester on the ecstatic mega-hit You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) and was a pioneer of the genre known as hi-NRG, a relentlessly uptempo variant of disco that gained serious traction, especially in the UK and Europe.

Mighty real: Sylvester, right, and Patrick Cowley pose for a portrait at the mixing board in a recording studio in circa 1980. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives)

Sylvester, and Patrick Cowley (left) pose for a portrait at the mixing board in a recording studio in circa 1980. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives)

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