Alice Echols is Professor of History, and the Barbra Streisand Chair of Contemporary Gender Studies, at the University of Southern California.

[2] While in graduate school at the University of Michigan, Echols visited the Rubaiyat, a since-closed[4] predominantly gay bar where the "music just stunk."

After persuasion from friends, she got a trial gig and then was hired, beginning her career as a Disco DJ.

[2] She authored Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America 1967-1975 (with foreword by Ellen Willis);[6] Scars of Sweet Paradise: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin; Shaky Ground: The Sixties and Its Aftershocks; and Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture.

[7] Her book Shortfall: Family Secrets, Financial Collapse, and a Hidden History of American Banking was published by The New Press on October 3, 2017.