Dystopian Dance Party

Tag: pee wee’s playhouse

  • 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.

  • Jheri Curl June: Full Force’s “Love is for Suckers (Like Me and You)”

    As we discussed in a previous post, by the middle of the decade the popularity of jheri curl music was waning, thus making room for both hip-hop and New Jack Swing.  Full Force, who released their first album in 1985, combine equal parts of all three genres, helping to bridge the gap between JCM and New Jack Swing that many other jheri curl musicians crossed. This is evident in “Love is For Suckers (Like Me and You),” the first single from Full Force’s third album, 1987’s Guess Who’s Comin’ to the Crib?

    The video, an unwatchable nearly five minutes of aggressive goofiness set in what appears to be Pee Wee’s Playhouse, features the group (with either a child or a midget in a full-face helmet… maybe it’s a play on words?) breaking down a white family’s door to eat all their fried chicken and otherwise terrorize them until they disappear into thin air, apparently going back to the fantasy world from whence they came. The one where white spandex fringed bodysuits are fashionable.

    We have only one day left of Jheri Curl June, but our playlist is at a whopping 48 songs! Check it out after the jump.

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