Dystopian Dance Party

Tag: washington dc

  • Jheri Curl June: Trouble Funk’s “Good Times”

    Last month, I bought a house in Columbia, Maryland–putting me, for the first time since I moved to the “DMV” region in 2014, closer to Baltimore than Washington, DC. So, now that I’m a safe distance from the erstwhile Chocolate City, I have a confession to make: I don’t particularly care for go-go, DC’s main musical export and a cornerstone of its cultural identity. Don’t get me wrong; I appreciate its rich heritage, its importance to the District’s Black community, and its proven ability to annoy gentrifiers when played at extreme volumes outside the Metro PCS store in Shaw. But, well, I have to agree with my Baltimore-born girlfriend and say that a lot of go-go kind of just sounds to me like somebody banging pots and pans and hoarsely yelling along to the radio. I’m not saying that it’s bad; just that–like Mambo sauce, another favorite of DC locals–it’s an acquired taste, and I never acquired it.

    I say all this, partly to get it off my chest after almost seven years of DC-adjacency, but also to acknowledge that Trouble Funk is different–specifically, their 1983 album In Times of Trouble, which blends go-go with nascent hip-hop and, yes, more than a little bit of Jheri-curled funk. Lead singer Tony Fisher may still be yelling hoarsely on a track like “Good Times”–and somebody, somewhere, definitely still sounds like they’re banging on pots and pans–but these go-go stand-bys are seasoned with liberal dashes of razor-sharp funk guitar and slippery, squealing synths courtesy of James Avery and the late Robert “Syke Dyke” Reed. I doubt I’ll ever be a true go-go convert, especially now that I’m inching further and further away from DC; but between this and E.U.‘s “Da Butt,” I’d say there’s hope for me yet.

    We’ll be back tomorrow with more classic Jheri Curl cuts. In the meantime, grab some pots and pans and hoarsely yell along with the playlists below:

  • Podcast: We Saw KISS ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    After devoting much of the last three years to our love-hate relationship with ’70s clown-rockers KISS, we felt it was only appropriate to catch them on their (alleged) farewell tour and pay our final (dis)respects. Here are our impressions. This is another short one, but we’ll be back in a few weeks to talk about the autobiography of P-Funk originator George Clinton, Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard on You? If you have any questions or comments about the book you’d like us to address on air, find us on on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube.

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  • Podcast: Dystopian Book Club vs. David Lee Roth’s Crazy from the Heat

    Heard ya missed us, we’re back! After a year-long absence, the Dystopian Book Club returns with an extensive look at Crazy from the Heat, the memoir/literary classic/deranged, barely coherent rantings of former Van Halen frontman, raconteur, and assless pants aficionado David Lee Roth. So limber up, slip into your comfiest Spandex, and maybe treat yourself to a powdered doughnut or two (wink, wink)–this may be our most fun book club since Peter Criss. Thanks to Matt from Toronto for sending in a question and making sure we didn’t take our shirts off for nothing.

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  • Jheri Curl June: Charlie Singleton & Modern Man’s “Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

    This is our fifth year of Jheri Curl June, and it continues to amaze me how little we have to search for new songs and artists to spotlight: even five years in, we still end each June with a backlog of tracks we weren’t able to cover. But, especially toward the end of the month, it doesn’t hurt to have a little help. That’s why I was grateful when a friend of the podcast, Berlin-via-DC DJ and nu-disco artist Snax, brought Charlie Singleton to my attention earlier this month.

    Not to be confused with the Charles Singleton who co-wrote “Strangers in the Night,” Charlie Singleton was a guitarist and songwriter who played a major role in the band Cameo’s early-’80s shift from George Clinton-style P-Funk to Jheri Curl Music–he contributed backing vocals and guitar to our 2014 Jheri Curl June inductee “Candy,” among many other tracks. But he was also the focal point of a few of his own groups, including the delightfully-named early-’80s boogie group Stargasm and his vehicle from later in the decade, Modern Man.

    The title track from Singleton’s second album with Modern Man, 1987’s “Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained” has all the makings of a late-period JCM masterpiece: Minneapolis-style synth hits, clean funk guitar, and backing vocals by Charlie’s pals in Cameo–including a healthy helping of Larry Blackmon’s signature “oww!”

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  • 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: Mr. Heat Blister

    This episode, we’re catching up on a few things we didn’t talk about last time, including Callie’s attendance at the Detroit Women’s Convention in October, plus some more recent events, like when she achieved our shared dream of meeting Jon Mikl Thor. We also share some thoughts on activism, Jay-Z, mosh pit etiquette, a smattering of recent films, and our favorite holiday viewing material (spoiler alert: it’s The Year Without a Santa Claus).

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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: Bootsy’s Rubber Band’s “Body Slam”

    When it comes to jheri curl music, Bootsy Collins probably isn’t the first name that comes to anyone’s mind. In fact, he and the rest of the Parliament–Funkadelic cohort were practically the antithesis of the Jheri-Curl ethos: their aesthetic was gritty, not glossy; psychedelic posters and underground comix, not neon and Patrick Nagel; weed and acid, not champagne and cocaine; unapologetically nappy, not permed and activated. But by the early 1980s, Bootsy saw the winds were changing, and gamely incorporated icy synths and sequencers into his trunk-rattling P-Funk sound.

    And, for the most part, the results were as awkward as might be expected. Bootsy’s 1982 album The One Giveth, the Count Taketh Away had its moments, but it wasn’t up to the standards of his work with the Rubber Band in the late ’70s; its use of polished, “modern”-sounding ’80s R&B markers–like the members of Midnight Star, who contributed backing vocals–felt more than a little shoehorned into Bootsy’s raw, “uncut” brand of funk. But have no dear, my fear: Bootsy had at least one bona fide jheri-curl classic up his sleeve in 1982, in the form of the 12″-only release “Body Slam.”

    What’s most remarkable about “Body Slam” is that it’s effectively an extended de/reconstruction of one of The One Giveth‘s weakest tracks: the manic, tiresome, yet mercifully short “Countracula (This One’s for You).” Bootsy salvages it by taking out the shrill call-and-response vocals from Godmama (sorry, ladies) and axing the whole “Countracula” conceit, giving the groove room to breathe and stretching out with some clean, yet indelibly funky bass solos and a muted chicken-scratch guitar riff straight out of Prince‘s Controversy album. If “Countracula” is the sound of an elder statesman of the funk taking a moment to play in the young upstarts’ toybox and not quite grasping how the parts fit together, then “Body Slam” is the sound of that same master coming back, getting his chops up, and showing them all how it’s done.

    Not surprisingly, “Body Slam” was a highlight of Bootsy’s shows on the 1983 Atomic Dog Tour with his longtime mentor and bandleader George Clinton. The sound quality isn’t great, but check out the video below for an extended jam on the song from their Washington, D.C. gig, featuring some generation-spanning synth work by the incredible Bernie Worrell.

    And of course, check below the jump for this and other tracks on our growing Spotify and YouTube playlists. I’m taking the rest of the week off to focus on my other blog; Callie will be back tomorrow and Friday for more Jheri Curl June.

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  • Dystopian New Year’s Party Podcast: Our Favorite Songs of 2015

    Well, here we are, at the cusp of the New Year: that sacred time when bloggers from all over congregate for one last chance to opine about the pop culture year that was. And we’re no exception–even though, as we note in the introduction, we’re barely up for the task, having spent most of 2015 listening to the same Ying Yang Twins records we’d been listening to since 2005. But what is pop-culture blogging, anyway, if not the chance to exercise one’s self-appointed, mostly illusory authority on an unwilling and mostly uncaring audience?

    I originally wanted this inaugural year-in-review podcast to include multiple forms of media, but quite frankly we’re even worse at keeping up with film, television, et. al. than we are at keeping up with music; and besides, seeing as music is 90% of what we write about on Dystopian Dance Party, it kind of makes more sense this way. So here, without further ado, are our favorite songs of 2015. Settle in, because this one’s gonna be even longer and more self-indulgent than usual!

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