Dystopian Dance Party

Tag: miami vice

  • Headbangers Book Club: Pamela Des Barres’ I’m with the Band (Part 2)

    Headbangers Book Club: Pamela Des Barres’ I’m with the Band (Part 2)

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    At long last, we’re finally concluding our two-parter on Pamela Des Barres’ epochal memoir I’m with the Band! In this episode, we get in some more digs at our nemesis Jimmy Page, with some bonus potshots at Don Johnson, and continue to gush about how nice it is to read a book where you don’t end up hating the protagonist by the end. The Book Club will be taking October off, but we’ll reconvene in November for a reader-selected book TBD–if you haven’t already suggested something, get your votes in now!

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  • Jheri Curl June: Dan Hartman’s “We Are the Young”

    Few artists exemplify the ability of jheri curl music to cross racial boundaries like Dan Hartman. This is a man who started his career as a sideman for the literal whitest musician of all time, Edgar Winter, and went on to co-write and produce for one of the Blackest, James Brown. So it should come as no surprise that he dabbled in that ultimate hybrid genre, Jheri Curl, in-between.

    Unlike our previous picks for White Boys’ week, however, Dan Hartman’s take on JCM is truly heterogeneous: roughly one part synthesized pop-soul to two parts classic 1980s butt-rock. If his 1984 hit “We Are the Young” wasn’t on the soundtrack to Miami Vice, the producers really missed a trick; this song is basically Don Johnson set to music.

    Tomorrow, sadly, is our last day of Jh3ri Curl Jun3. In the meantime, enjoy the Spotify and YouTube playlists after the jump.

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  • Jheri Curl June Special: Michael Jackson

    It’s only fitting, as we spend the last full week of Jheri Curl June discussing the twilight years of the genre, that we pay tribute to the man whose passing five years ago today helped spark a revived interest in the music he popularized: Michael Jackson. Though Jackson didn’t play as formative a role in the invention of jheri curl music as his onetime biggest rival, Prince, he damn sure might have perfected it with his string of early-to-mid-’80s crossover hits, both with and without his brothers in the Jacksons. He certainly sported a jheri curl for longer than any of the other artists we’ve discussed so far; posthumously, in fact, if we count his holographic performance at this year’s Billboard Music Awards, making him possibly the first person in history to be outlived by his jheri curl.

    So today, let’s celebrate the life and legacy of jheri curl music’s second most important figure. Just like with Prince, we’ll take a tour through the history of Jackson’s jheri curl music and fashion, and discuss his significance to the genre. Michael may be moonwalking with the angels now, but fortunately for us, his music still lives on.

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