Dystopian Dance Party

Tag: prince

  • The Prince Issue Podcast with Guest Erika Peterson

    As you may have heard, we recently launched a physical magazine, the first issue of which is dedicated to eclectic art and writing inspired by the music of Prince. So, to celebrate a successful launch–and to get us back in podcasting mode after an unplanned six-month leave of absence–we invited Erika Peterson, a friend and contributor to the magazine, to talk about her work and the most funny/surreal moments of Celebration 2018 at Paisley Park. We also talk about Dystopian Dance Party’s ongoing beef with Questlove, and do our best to try and beat him at his own game of guessing Prince songs from their opening seconds. It doesn’t go well.

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  • Podcast: (Zoloft) Zombie Nightmare

    Oh, hey, remember when we said we would watch the 1987 Jon Mikl Thor sorta-vehicle Zombie Nightmare and discuss it in time for Halloween? Well, here it is, just in time for…Thanksgiving. Yeah, we kinda screwed the pooch on that one, but bear with us, because we also have a lot to share about Zach’s 15 minutes of infamy with Team Breezy, the bizarre public meltdown of actor/model/singer/relationship guru/visual artiste Tyrese Gibson, and the forthcoming debut of Dystopian Dance Party in physical form! Also, we talk about our embarrassing physical and mental health ailments.

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  • Podcast: Allow Us to Reintroduce Ourselves

    The Dystopian Dance Party podcast is back, and we’re out for blood. This episode, we catch up on what’s been going on during our two-month hiatus and talk about Gene Simmons (naturally), the 20th anniversary of Final Fantasy VII, and the 70th anniversary of Marc Bolan. Please look out for more in the next couple of months–we have a lot of exciting stuff planned for the future!

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  • Jheri Curl June: Terence Trent D’Arby’s “Let’s Go Forward”

    The fact that Sananda Maitreya, the artist formerly known as Terence Trent D’Arby, was not considered for Jheri Curl June until our fourth year is surprising. Of course, his music isn’t Jheri Curl proper–few artists were, by the end of the ’80s–but the influence of Michael Jackson and Prince is particularly obvious.

    © Columbia Records

    Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D’Arby is a debut album with a title as cumbersome as you would expect from the man who once claimed that it’s the most important album since Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band. I will neither support nor dispute that claim, but I will say that for a late ’80s R&B album, Hardline has certainly held up–and while we’re making comparisons, I’d much rather fuck with D’Arby’s album in the background rather than “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” I doubt even the most devoted Beatles stans can argue with that.

    Anyway, Hardline also garnered D’Arby’s several hit singles, including “Wishing Well” and “Sign Your Name.” But it was the lesser known track “Let’s Go Forward” in which D’Arby was at his most Jheri Curl. The sad robot-like atmosphere of the song sounds like a more mature version of Jesse Johnson’s “I Want My Girl.”

    We’re nearing the end of Jheri Curl June, but there are still a few posts left; meanwhile, check out the playlists below!

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  • Jheri Curl June: Jermaine Stewart’s “Jody”

    This month is of course not only the holiest month on the Dystopian Dance Party calendar, but also Pride Month for the LGBT community, commemorating the Stonewall uprisings of June 1969. So I thought today was as good a time as any to talk about one of our favorite LGBT Jheri Curl artists (LGBTJC?), Jermaine Stewart.

    Stewart is best known for his 1986 hit “We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off”–which is, for the record, the fucking jam–and for having quite possibly the most iconic blowout-and-thin-moustache combo in the game. But he had an illustrious career behind the scenes, as well: starting out as a dancer on Soul Train, then just missing a place in the group Shalamar, for whom he went on to dance and sing backing vocals; he can also be heard singing backup on Culture Club’s 1984 hit “Miss Me Blind.”

    It was the Soul Train/Shalamar connection that led to “Jody,” Stewart’s second-best-known solo song, inspired by his close friend and former Shalamar frontwoman (/previous JCJ profilee), Jody Watley. It’s also a jam, with a dark electro-funk vibe reminiscent of 1999-era Prince.

    Sadly, Jermaine Stewart’s life ended in a way his ebullient spirit didn’t deserve: he died of AIDS-related liver cancer in 1997, at just 39 years old. His passing echoes that of many other gay men who came of age before treatment and prevention of HIV were widely accessible–a reminder of one of the many reasons why Pride Month is important. Which, I realize, is a bummer of a way to end this post, but hey: if listening to Jermaine Stewart can’t put a smile on your face, what else can? You can hear him, and the rest of this month’s artists, on the playlists below.

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  • Jheri Curl June: The Girls’ “Girl Talk”

    We’ve talked a fair amount on this blog about the, ahem, interesting similarities between Rick James’ Mary Jane Girls and Prince’s Vanity 6: a concept James always maintained he came up with first, only for the Paisley Bandit to swoop in and summarily bite it. But if other stories are to be believed, Prince was actually biting from someone much closer to home: his first bass player and one-time surrogate brother, André Cymone.

    The rocky relationship between Prince and Cymone is another thing we’ve discussed in Jheri Curl Junes past, and it should be noted that Prince had a history of “borrowing” from his friend and collaborator: “Do Me, Baby,” among other early songs, was by all accounts an André Cymone joint. So it wasn’t exactly a shock to hear that Prince got the idea for a girl group after catching wind of Cymone’s own side project, creatively named “the Girls.” At some point, according to the excellent (and sadly out of print) biography Dance Music Sex Romance,  André and Prince even combined their ideas for the group, then known as “the Hookers”; André, however, walked away after realizing that Prince wanted him to do the work without taking any of the credit. And the rest was history: the Hookers became Vanity 6, who became Apollonia 6, and Cymone’s “Girls” released their debut album in 1984, to commercial and critical indifference.

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  • Jheri Curl June: Pennye Ford’s “Change Your Wicked Ways”

    Penny Ford (a.k.a. Pennye Ford, for reasons unknown) began her musical career as a backup singer for Zapp in 1979 and went on to become a session singer at Motown in Los Angeles before signing to Total Experience Records, home of Gap Band and Yarbrough & Peoples. So, needless to say, her Jheri Curl credentials were set when she embarked on her solo career in 1984. But, holy shit people… not even a résumé like that could prepare us for this video:

    If anyone ever asks me what Jheri Curl June is all about, this is the video I will show them. The mirrors, the outfits, Penny’s unfaithful boyfriend is a blatant ripoff of the Kid in Purple Rain... But, most importantly, look at this fucking curl.

    Just like we do every year, we’re dedicating one week this month to the women of Jheri Curl Music–see you tomorrow for more JCJ Ladies’ Week! Playlists below.

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  • Dystopian Book Club Podcast, Jheri Curl June Edition: The Memoirs of Rick James

    It didn’t take a stroke of genius to come up with the idea for this year’s Jheri Curl June podcast. Rick James may be the most important architect of the genre we call Jheri Curl Music who we hadn’t already commemorated with a long-term feature. He also has a hell of a story: one he told in not one, but two posthumous memoirs–2007’s Confessions of Rick James: Memoirs of a Superfreak and 2014’s Glow–which makes him a perfect candidate for the Dystopian Book Club. A “habitual line-stepper” in both life and art, James was vital in bridging the gap between 1970s P-Funk and 1980s Jheri Curl; his later decline into drug addiction and imprisonment was unfortunate, but could only somewhat dampen his boundless talent and charisma. So join us on this most sacred of occasions as we celebrate Mr. Cold Blooded himself: a man whose artistic potential was the only thing bigger than his larger-than-life personality and appetites. Gimme some ganja!

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  • Jheri Curl June: Junie Morrison’s “Show Me Yours”

    Back in May when we did our Memorial Day podcast, I was sorely unaware of Junie Morrison’s music. Sure, I had heard the Ohio Players’ albums from the early ’70s, of which Junie played a seminal part; I had heard Funkadelic’s late ’70s music, particularly “(Not Just) Knee Deep” (I mean obviously, I’ve watched Good Burger enough times). But, while I was technically familiar with Junie’s contributions, up until about a month ago I couldn’t have told you who he was. Even after I heard Kanye’s “No More Parties in L.A.” Even after I heard Solange’s “Junie.” Even after I heard that he’d died earlier this year.

    I like to think that I’ve made up for some lost time in the past month, however, because I’ve been unapologetically obsessed, and will spread the gospel of Walter “Junie” Morrison as much as possible.  The man easily deserves as many accolades as Prince, and in many ways is very similar: Junie was a multi-instrumentalist who played every instrument on his solo albums; he joined the Ohio Players at only 16 years of age and was largely responsible for writing and arranging many of their earlier records. Matter of fact, after becoming familiar with Junie’s solo stuff from The Westbound Years, I can’t imagine Prince’s first two albums–much less his entire career–without Junie Morrison’s music.

    Hell, Jheri Curl June as we know it would not exist without Junie. Give another listen to “(Not Just) Knee Deep,” with its triumphant synth line (one of Junie’s signature sounds), and tell me that is not a rudimentary form of Jheri Curl Music. Furthermore, Junie, along with yesterday’s JCJ inductee Stevie Wonder, predated Roger Troutman’s usage of the keyboard talkbox by several years. So, there you have it, folks: Junie Morrison is the unsung architect of our sacred Jheri Curl Music. Until now, that is.

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  • Jheri Curl June: O’Bryan’s “Lovelite”

    I stumbled upon O’Bryan sometime last year, in one of my annual trawls through the underbelly of the Internet looking for fresh Jheri Curl Music. Born O’Bryan McCoy Burnette II, he cut his teeth in the 1970s Philadelphia soul and disco scene, before a fortuitous meeting with Soul Train creator Don Cornelius resulted in his being signed to Capitol Records. A singer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist with an exotic, ethnically ambiguous look, O’Bryan was a shoo-in to be Capitol’s answer to the rising star Prince.

    The problem was that O’Bryan took things a little too far. While Prince was blowing up MTV with the low-key erotica of his videos for Purple Rain, O’Bryan was getting banned from MTV for actually showing titties in the video for “Lovelite.” Turns out that embracing a soft-porn aesthetic can make you a star, while literally putting soft porn in your videos will just make you a historical footnote. Still, there are definitely boobs in the video above, so enjoy!

    We’ll see you again tomorrow–Spotify and YouTube playlists, as always, are below.

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