Dystopian Dance Party

Tag: time

  • Jheri Curl June: dáKRASH’s “Wasn’t I Good to Ya?”

    Jheri Curl June: dáKRASH’s “Wasn’t I Good to Ya?”

    In one of the first posts for Jheri Curl June this year, Callie talked about how the Minneapolis Sound sprawled out from its chief originator, Prince, to encompass all kinds of solo and side projects by his ex-associates. Today, we close our last full week of the month with one of those side projects: a little-known group called dáKRASH, assembled and produced by the Time‘s Jesse Johnson.

    Johnson was a rare quasi-equal during his stint in the Prince camp; he was, for one thing, the only actual member of the Time to play on the studio tracks for their 1984 album Ice Cream Castle, laying down the classic “sexy solah” for Purple Rain hit “Jungle Love.” So it should come as no surprise that dáKRASH puts a recognizably “Jesse Johnson” spin on their own 1988 slice of Minneapolis jheri curl, “Wasn’t I Good to Ya?”

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  • Jheri Curl Cinema: Purple Rain (1984)

    Jheri Curl June is, of course, first and foremost about the music. But, as I wrote in this year’s introductory post, jheri curl is also a profoundly visual form; it is, after all, the only genre of music to my knowledge named after a hairstyle. And so it only makes sense that we should also take some of the imagery associated with the music into consideration. That’s why this year, I’m happy to announce an entirely new feature dedicated to Jheri Curl Cinema. And there’s no other film more qualified to launch such a feature than Prince’s and Albert Magnoli’s 1984 cult classic Purple Rain.

    There are a few reasons why Purple Rain is so perfect for our inaugural Jheri Curl Cinema post. First, yesterday was of course Prince‘s 57th birthday–and while His Royal Badness presumably hasn’t celebrated his birthday since he became a Jehovah’s Witness in 2001, that just means we have to celebrate it twice as hard. But second, and more to the point, Purple Rain is an important film because it captures the essence of the Minneapolis scene in the early 1980s–and thus, by extension, the essence of jheri curl music itself.

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  • Jheri Curl June Special: Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis

    The main reason we celebrate Jheri Curl June in June is because, let’s face it, we are only human, and are as susceptible to the siren song of alliteration as the next group of hack Internet writers. But there’s also a pretty good justification for the timing, because the birthdays of two of jheri curl music’s most important innovators fall in the first week of June. We covered the first of those innovators, Prince, in last year’s inaugural Jheri Curl June Special.  So this time around, we’ll be discussing the other one: James “Jimmy Jam” Harris, born June 6, 1959.

    If Prince was jheri curl music’s architect, then Jimmy Jam and his longtime musical partner Terry Lewis were the brilliant engineers who shaped the structure to its fullest potential. Their take on the “Minneapolis Sound” developed by their former mentor added a new level of polish and sophistication; and when Prince shifted his own music away from traditional jheri-curl and toward neo-psychedelia in the mid-’80s, Jam and Lewis went in the opposite direction, crafting ever-more-flawless pop-friendly tracks that kept JCM in the top of the charts and, ultimately, evolved into the next dominant R&B sound, New Jack Swing.

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  • Jheri Curl June: The Time’s “Jerk Out”

    Well, here we are: the last day of Jheri Curl June, and I don’t think there could be a better band to go out with than the greatest band in the world, the muthafuckin’ Time. Today’s selection, “Jerk Out,” comes from the earliest of the Time’s many reunion albums, 1990’s  Pandemonium: their first release as a group since 1984’s Ice Cream Castle, and the first time the supremely talented live band were allowed to play their own instruments on record. Like Full Force, the Time during this period represented a transitional moment, bridging the last gasps of jheri curl with the rise of New Jack Swing: just check out singer Morris Day’s hair in the video below, an unholy combination of a flat-top and a pompadour with a tiny rat-tail in the back that would never have passed muster in the first half of the ’80s. But the song itself dates from 1981, when ghostwriter Prince recorded a demo for the band’s second and greatest album, What Time is It? In a way, then, we’re taking “Jheri Curl June” full circle, with a song from the golden age of one of the genre’s greatest innovators, brushed off and updated by his most accomplished disciples to mark the end of an era.

    And what a way to go out: “Jerk Out” isn’t just a standout track on Pandemonium, it’s one of the best jheri curl songs ever. It perfectly captures both the Time’s smooth-as-silk funkiness and Day’s ludicrous persona of a squawk-laughing pimp daddy who coordinates the color of his suit with the color of his BMW (though not, it must be said, in the video, which is maddening if you’re even the slightest bit OCD). The song’s glossy production demonstrates all the tricks Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis learned during their (then) seven years as hitmaking producers for the likes of Janet Jackson and the Human League. The video, too, has everything a Time fan could possibly ask for: Morris preening in a selection of smoking jackets, a bewildering cameo by a Jack Nicholson impersonator in a Batman T-shirt, and of course, the obligatory post-48 Hrs. scene of Jesse Johnson playing one of his sexy solahs in a country and western bar while angry rednecks pelt the stage with beer bottles. And yes, of course, Jerome brings Morris a mirror before it’s all over.

    So there we have it: the end of Jheri Curl June. There are a lot of great jheri curl artists we have yet to cover, and we both had a lot of fun doing this, so I’m happy to announce that we’ll be doing it all over again next year. Yep, you heard it here first: I’m committed to keeping this blog up and running for at least another year, if only to give myself an excuse to spend another month writing about jheri curl music next summer. In the meantime, we hope you’ve enjoyed this maiden voyage of the S.S. Jheri Curl. Check out the now-finished Spotify playlist after the jump, and we’ll see you again next summer! (Or…you know, later this week, since we do post other things throughout the year. Seriously, don’t wait a whole year before coming back to this blog.)

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  • Jheri Curl June: Mary Jane Girls’ “All Night Long”

    The Mary Jane Girls were essentially Rick James’ answer to Vanity 6: the girl group Prince constructed as the prostitute foil to The Time‘s pimp image. In this case, though, Rick James might have actually one-upped his longtime rival; for their 1983 American Bandstand performance of “All Night Long,” the girls look like they were literally picked up off the corner on the way to the studio.

    James originally conceived of the Mary Jane Girls project as a solo act for his backup singer, JoJo McDuffie. The other members of the group couldn’t sing: hence why this clip is a lip-synced performance of the studio recording. Check out that choreography, though!

    The Spotify playlist continues to grow after the jump:

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  • Jheri Curl June: The S.O.S. Band’s “Tell Me If You Still Care”

    Friday was the 55th birthday of James Samuel “Jimmy Jam” Harris III: former keyboardist for The Time and, with partner Terry Lewis, one of the main architects of the “Minneapolis Sound”–or, as we call it in these parts, good old-fashioned jheri curl. As usual, though, Mr. Jam was overshadowed by his almost-birthmate and former boss Prince, who turned 56 on Saturday and was the subject of Friday’s Jheri Curl June special article. But I wanted to make amends, so to make up for last week’s snub, we’re kicking off Week Two of Jheri Curl June with one of the earliest projects by Jam and Lewis’ Flyte Tyme Productions: “Tell Me If You Still Care,” a classic cut from the S.O.S. Band’s 1983 album On the Rise, and a shining example of the jheri-curl ballad.

    The S.O.S. Band originates from Atlanta, not Minneapolis; though you’d never know from the song, a Jam/Lewis original that brings the same smooth, pristine, soulful yet eminently radio-friendly sound that would soon drive bigger hits by the likes of Janet Jackson and the Human League. Unlike those later hits, though, “Tell Me If You Still Care” is still fully rooted in the R&B sound: it’s basically quiet storm with a nice, slick, dreamy sheen, and singer Mary Davis’ vocals are the perfect combination of soulful and ethereal. Plus, there’s that bizarre slow-motion video, which is so pop-surreal I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me it was directed by a moonlighting David Lynch. And the male lead sports a rare example of the white man’s jheri curl–what more could you ask?

    Apparently, though, not everyone was pleased by Flyte Tyme’ work with The S.O.S. Band: during work on the album, Jam and Lewis were grounded in Atlanta by a blizzard, which caused them to miss a Time concert in San Antonio and led to their being fined and then fired from the group by Prince. But look at it this way: their replacements, Mark Cardenas and “St. Paul” Peterson, went on to play with Jesse Johnson’s Revue and front The Family, respectively; Jam and Lewis proceeded to become one of the most successful musical production teams of the ’80s and ’90s. No disrespect to Jesse or The Family, but I think it’s pretty clear who got the short end of that stick.

    As always, the Jheri Curl June Spotify playlist can be found after the jump. And hey, since Callie is out of town until Wednesday, I decided to make an executive decision and deem this week of Jheri Curl June Ladies’ Week, since the S.O.S. Band is just the first of several female-fronted acts I plan to highlight. Who said jheri curls were just for men? See you tomorrow!

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