5/5 UNIDISC FINALLY RELEASES THE MEGATONE 12 Inch COLLECTIONS ON CD !!
  by T. West (LaWrEnCe, KaNsAs)
Megatone Records was created by Marty Blecman and Patrick Cowley in 1981, and the company continued until 1994. During those years a huge catalog of Megatone dance club 12" vinyl singles flooded the San Francisco dance club scene as well as clubs all over the world. When the cd format was invented in the 1980's, Megatone began releasing compilations of their catalog onto a series of 9 cd's:

1. "12 By 12: The Greatest Hits"- Black cover/catalog number # 1021.
2. "12 By 12: The Hits '82-'89"- White cover/cat. no.# 1025.
3. "12 By 12: The Singles 1990-1991"- Green cover/cat. no.# 1029.
4. "12 By 12: Megatone Classics Volume 1"- Red cover/cat. no.# 1031.
5. "12 By 12: Megatone Classics Volume 2"- Purple cover/cat. no.# 1032.
6. "12 By 12: The Singles 1991-1992"- Orange cover/cat. no.# 1033.
7. "X-RAVE: Techno Sampler"- Yellow/Black cover/cat. no.# 1035.
8. "X-RAVE 2: Techno Sampler"- Blue/Black cover/cat. no.# 1036.
9. "12 By 12: The Singles 1993-1994"- Dk. Blue cover/cat. no.# 1037.

The 9 cd's mentioned above are extremely rare and very hard to find these days, although very used copies show up here on Amazon as well as auction websites now and then- but to obtain these 9 in mint condition is virtually impossible. So imagine my surprise and happiness when I found out the Canada based record company Unidisc purchased the entire Megatone catalogue in 1990 and announced they would start releasing the former Megatone artists material onto cd's (Sylvester, Modern Rocketry, Patrick Cowley, etc.). Well it took awhile, but finally Unidisc has released their Megatone compilations- each volume is a packaged 2 cd set with nice slipcase cover and comes with very informative booklet with each set:

1. Megatone Records 12 Inch Collection: Volume 1"- 2 cd set of 19
classic 12" singles.

2. Megatone Records 12 Inch Collection: Volume 2"- 2 cd set of 19
more classic 12" singles.

3. Megatone Records 12 Inch Collection: Volume 3"- 2 cd set of 18
more classic 12" singles.


That's a total of 56 wonderful dance club songs on 6 cd's! Take my
suggestion and buy these real quick because you know they will be gone and out of print very soon.
So, what exactly is on this first volume? Here's the tracklisting:

Disc One-

1. Rock The Box (Purple Haze Acid House Mix)- Sylvester (5:55)
2. Right On Target- Patrick Cowley Feat. Paul Parker (6:17)
3. Do Ya Wanna Funk?- Sylvester (7:30)
4. Menergy- Patrick Cowley (6:22)
5. Low Down Dirty Rhythm- Sarah Dash (6:40)
6. Goin' Home (Remix Dub Version)- Patrick Cowley (8:38)
7. Don't Stop- Sylvester (6:51)
8. Shot in The Night- Paul Parker (6:03)
9. Tell Me (Remix)- Sylvester (6:28)

Disc Two-

1. I'm Not Your Stepping Stone- Modern Rocketry (5:29)
2. Lucky Tonight- Sarah Dash (6:06)
3. Band Of Gold- Sylvester (7:30)
4. Gimme A Little Sign- Kenny James (6:22)
5. Violation- JoLo (5:06)
6. La Cage Aux Folles- Le Jete (5:41)
7. Trouble In Paradise- Sylvester (6:33)
8. The Right Stuff- Modern Rocketry (4:13)
9. And Dance- Billy Preston (5:41)
10. Time Bomb- Jeannie Tracey (7:09)

There you go- and order yours off Amazon right now because these aren't going to be available for long and since the unidisc website no longer works, where else are you going to find these 3 volumes (56 songs)? Check out my review of Volume 2 and Volume 3 for the rest of the tracklisings. Enjoy!


5/5 Megatone Funk with Sarah Dash
  by gassy goon
I was looking for the 2 songs that SARAH DASH did with producer/write PATRICK COWLEY in the mid 80's and here they are on CD. " LOW DOWN DIRTY RHYTHM " is funky as hell, with an intense classic Dash vocal that illustrates where some of the high harmonies in Labelle came from. And " LUCKY TONIGHT " is another dance funk item with Sarah reaching for the high c's. I met Patrick Cowley's father in a Buffalo record store I worked at shortly after he passed away. What a shame. There was supposed to be a whole album planned for Sarah , but with Patrick's passing, only the 2 songs were done. Some funky stuff here for Sarah & Labelle diehards!