Dystopian Dance Party

Tag: new york city

  • Dystopian Book Club Podcast: Ace Frehley’s No Regrets

    Our series of Book Club podcasts on the autobiographies of KISS continues with No Regrets, the 2011 memoir by the band’s original guitarist Ace Frehley. Listen to us talk about Ace’s propensity for driving under the influence and analyze the similarities and differences between his and Gene Simmons’ sides of the story–or, put another way, just listen to us bash Gene for another 90 minutes. We’re pretty sure Ace would approve. Show notes are below, and we’ll be back in the New Year with the next installment: Makeup to Breakup by Peter Criss.

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  • Dystopian Book Club Podcast: Gene Simmons’ Kiss and Make-Up

    38 years ago this month, the four original members of KISS did the unthinkable and released four separate solo albums on the same day. Now, Dystopian Dance Party is following in their footsteps, and doing something even less thinkable: we’re reading all four KISS members’ autobiographies and recording our thoughts on them in a series of “Book Club” podcasts. First up is–who else–Gene Simmons, and his 2001 memoir Kiss and Make-Up. The conversation that follows is arguably the snarkiest thing we’ve ever posted on this website (and that’s saying something). You wanted the best, you got the…well, “best” is probably a stretch, but you get the idea. Show notes are below.

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  • Jheri Curl June: The B.B. & Q. Band’s “(I’m a) Dreamer”

    Probably the best thing about having a girlfriend whose mother is Black and lived through the 1980s is that I’m never short on jheri curl music recommendations. Just last week, in fact, Kia (via her mom) hipped me to a track I’d never heard before: the très-jheri 1986 single “(I’m a) Dreamer” by Italo-post-disco act the B.B. & Q. Band.

    “B.B. & Q.” stands for “Brooklyn, Bronx, and Queens,” but to be fair there probably should have been an extra “B.” in there–for Bologna, Italy, the home base of Franco-Italian svengali Jacques Petrus, who assembled the “band” from a crew of New York-based singers and session musicians to follow up on the success of his previous, Luther Vandross-fronted studio project, Change. In the U.S., at least, the B.B. & Q. Band never quite reached the heights of their predecessor; but “Dreamer” did hit #35 on the U.K. charts, and its parent album, 1985’s Genie, helped launch the career of then-lead singer Curtis Hairston.

    Unfortunately, however, it didn’t last: the B.B. & Q. Band dissolved in the most bizarre way possible in 1987, when Petrus was murdered under mysterious circumstances while on the run from tax evasion charges in the French West Indies. Somewhere, though, there’s a Tarantinoesque crime movie waiting to be made out of the life and death of Jacques Petrus. And fortunately, thanks to tracks like “Dreamer,” its soundtrack will be perfect.

    Listen to “Dreamer,” and the rest of our Jh3ri Curl Jun3 selections thus far, on the Spotify and YouTube playlists below:

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