Dystopian Dance Party

Tag: jonzun crew

  • Jheri Curl June: Whodini’s “The Freaks Come Out at Night”

    Last December, hip-hop pioneer John “Ecstasy” Fletcher passed away at the age of 56; so it seemed long overdue to pay tribute to the group he co-founded, Whodini, with this year’s Jheri Curl June. “Freaks Come Out at Night,” from the group’s seminal 1984 album Escape, is a perfect example of an early hip-hop, electro Jheri Jam, complete with a bouncy synthesized beat and a horny robot talk box.

    Whodini now lives in the hallowed halls of the proverbial Jheri Curl Hall of Fame, in the same wing as the Egyptian Lover and the Jonzun Crew, with Ecstasy’s signature Zorro hat and tiny shorts on display right next to the Egyptian Lover’s leather suit and everyone’s fingerless gloves.

    We’ll be back tomorrow with more Late Era Jheri Curl Music; in the meantime, playlists are below.

  • Jheri Curl June: The Egyptian Lover’s “I Cry (Night After Night)”

    Like yesterday’s spotlight artist the Jonzun Crew, the Egyptian Lover is a pioneer of the Jheri Curl-adjacent hip-hop subgenre electro (or, as they liked to call it on the West Coast, electro-hop). Way back in our first-ever Jheri Curl June, we even called his 1986 club hit “Freak-a-holic” “the ultimate jheri curl track.” And certainly, the Lover himself (a.k.a. Greg Broussard) had one of the most impressive actual J.C.’s of JCJ history, as evidenced by the aforementioned track’s legendary video.

    But Broussard was more than just a mixin’, scratchin’, record-lovin’ son of a gun: he was also a sensitive soul, as evidenced by this slow jam from his 1984 solo debut On the Nile. In a 2016 interview with The Guardian, Broussard shared an unlikely source of inspiration for the song: Rat Pack crooner Dean Martin, specifically his 1969 cover of Buck Owens’ “Crying Time.” To be honest, I don’t hear it–partly because Martin sings the song in his indelible, boozy croon, while the Lover doesn’t “sing” so much as pout along with the music. But let’s face it: “Crying Time” also doesn’t feature a shit-hot guitar solo like the one session guitarist Chuck Gentry plays on “I Cry,” so it’s pretty much a wash.

    Join us again on Monday for Ladies’ Week, our annual celebration of woman-fronted Jheri Curl Music. In the meantime, you can listen to our picks so far on the playlists below.

    https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4DHwfbLgF2W2Xp2ZpqcDdg?si=22e52865759940ab

  • Jheri Curl June: Jonzun Crew’s “Space Cowboy”

    The Jonzun Crew’s 1983 debut album Lost in Space contains several electro staples, but more importantly for our purposes, it features the Jheri Jam (TM) “Space Cowboy.” All I have to say about this song is that it fuckin’ rules. Just listen to that silky synth and funky bassline. Marvel at Michael Jonzun’s glorious Jheri curl, shimmering in the light beneath his enormous white ten-gallon hat. Laurence Fishburne would rock a similar style three years later as Cowboy Curtis in Pee Wee’s Playhouse:

    The whistling sound from The Good, the Bad & the Ugly that features prominently in “Space Cowboy” would also later be used by Cameo all over their Word Up! album. So, I don’t know what this connection with Western stuff and Jheri Curl Music is, but I’m all for it.

    As always, Spotify and YouTube playlists are below. We’ll be back tomorrow to close out the week with another Jheri Jam (TM)… but it probably won’t have as much yodeling as today’s.