Author: zachary.hoskins@gmail.com

  • Jheri Curl June Special: Jesse Johnson

    For the past three years, we’ve commenced our Jheri Curl June festivities with profiles of major figures in the style we call Jheri Curl Music, timed to line up with their birthdays in the beginning of June. In 2014, it was Prince (born June 7); in 2015, it was Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (the former born June…

  • Jheri Curl June: One Way’s “Cutie Pie”

    This year, we’re kicking off Jheri Curl June with Detroit R&B group One Way, formerly known as the Soul Partners. Although not exactly a household name, One Way has made a significant impact on music. Between One Way and Zapp, you pretty much have the sound of West Coast G-funk down pat: Everyone from Too $hort and DJ…

  • Introduction: The New Jheri Curl June IV U

    Ladies and gentlemen, it’s finally here: the holiest month on the Dystopian Dance Party calendar, Jheri Curl June. We’ve done this song and dance a few times before, so I’ll keep it brief this time; suffice to say, if you need a primer on what Jheri Curl Music is, you can check out our somewhat…

  • Dystopian Listening Party Podcast: Memorial Day, 2016-2017

    Well, here we are: for the second consecutive year, we’re turning Memorial Day weekend into a time of remembrance for the many great artists we lost since last May. But because this is still Dystopian Dance Party, and we’re constitutionally incapable of being reverent for more than a few minutes at a time, please be aware that…

  • Dystopian Book Club Podcast: Paul Stanley’s Face the Music

    The last installment of our Dystopian Book Club miniseries on the memoirs of KISS is finally here, and we’re going out in a big way. Paul Stanley’s Face the Music: A Life Exposed isn’t the best KISS biography we’ve read (or the second best…or even the third), but it’s certainly fertile ground for discussion. Join us for…

  • From the Vault: Interview with Beth Ditto of the Gossip, 2006

    Editor’s Note: Back in my past life as an extraordinarily small-time freelance music writer (as opposed to whatever the fuck I am now), I had the opportunity to interview Beth Ditto of the Gossip for this article in my local “alternative” weekly, the Lansing, Michigan City Pulse. The interview was, to be honest, the main reason why I…

  • Women’s History Month: Trina’s “Da Baddest Bitch”

    First and foremost, I love Trina. Trina is my shit. She’s a bossy, nasty, fellow Sagittarius woman who is obsessed with her own ass: sounds like a role model to me. In high school I was constantly listening to “Look Back At Me,” and for better or worse, the confrontational line “yeah you runnin’ now, you…

  • Women’s History Month: Wanda Jackson’s “Hard Headed Woman”

    Wanda Lavonne Jackson was not the first woman to sing rock and roll music; but she very likely was the first white woman to release a rock and roll single, and that was an achievement in and of itself. One barely needs to scratch the surface of 1950s moral panic to recognize that the “danger” of rock and…

  • Women’s History Month: Grimes’ “Venus Fly” (featuring Janelle Monáe)

    We begin women’s month with Canadian producer Claire Boucher, the singer, songwriter, and visual artist (among other things) better known as Grimes. As a self-made songwriter and musician, Grimes is especially notable for her unrelenting do-it-yourself work ethic, which allows her to be in complete control of every aspect of her work: from the creation…

  • Dystopian Art Party Podcast: Happy Birthday, Yoko Ono

    Last Saturday, Yoko Ono turned 84 years old; so we’ve decided to take the opportunity to shout out one of our favorite visual and musical artists, who has been fucking shit up for five decades and is still going strong in 2017. If you’re a Yoko neophyte and want to know what the fuss is about,…