Thursday 27 August 2015

Lobotomy Room at Fontaine's DJ Set List 31 July 2015

Barbara Valentin

Barbara Valentin (1940 - 2002) - the Austrian Jayne Mansfield and later frequent actress in Rainer Werner Fassbinder films  - in her sixties pin-up heyday /

From the Facebook events page:

Revel in sleaze, voodoo and rock'n'roll - at LOBOTOMY ROOM!

Leave all sense of shame and propriety at the door - when LOBOTOMY ROOM returns to its new home, the subterranean Bamboo Lounge of East London Art Deco boîte de nuit Fontaine's! Friday 28 August 2015!

At last - a club night for the hillbilly beau monde! LOBOTOMY ROOM! Where sin lives! A punkabilly booze party! A spectacle of decadence for the permissive Continentally-minded! A Mondo Trasho evening of Beat, Beat Beatsville Beatnik Rock’n’Roll! Rockabilly Psychosis! Wailing Rhythm and Blues! Twisted Tittyshakers! Punk Cretin Hops! Kitsch! Exotica! Curiosities and other Weird Shit! Think John Waters soundtracks, or Songs The Cramps Taught Us, hosted by Graham Russell (of Dr Sketchy and Cockabilly notoriety). Expect desperate stabs from the jukebox jungle! Savage rhythms to make you writhe and rock!

Admission: FREE!

Lobotomy Room: Faster. Further. Filthier.

A tawdry good time guaranteed!

 photo Lobotomy_Room_Updated_zpsoimclhkw.jpg


/ Ai chihuahua! Lobotomy Room flyer (starring cover girl Saint Jayne Mansfield) designed by Ego Rodriguez Illustration /

Blimey! Let’s just say the second half of summer 2015 has been tumultuous. I think I’ve aged five years in the past six weeks or so from sheer stress. In brief: from July onward there was a painful restructure period at work – and I was officially made redundant.  My overheads living alone in central London are high - not having a regular incoming wage is not an option! In a panic, I launched myself into job hunting and within a week of getting the traumatic news of my redundancy, I landed a new role somewhere else. (I just found out earlier today, in fact). Thank God after all this agonising and despair, I can finally go back to being superficial again!

Anyway, it means I didn’t get around to posting my usual lurid tell-all scene report for the July 2015 Lobotomy Room at Fontaine’s until now – the night before the 28 August 2015 one! As a result, this last-minute entry will be a quickie one short on words and heavy on pretty pictures. Normal service will resume soon! 

Lobotomy Room: 31 July 2015 at Fontaine's

/ Eric and I /

Lobotomy Room: 31 July 2015 at Fontaine's

/ Andrew and friend /

Lobotomy Room: 31 July 2015 at Fontaine's

/ Pal and Eric /

Lobotomy Room: 31 July 2015 at Fontaine's

/ Pal and I /

Lobotomy Room: 31 July 2015 at Fontaine's

/ Brazilian Oscar and his friend visiting from Chicago /

Lobotomy Room: 31 July 2015 at Fontaine's

/ Mal (as in the brains behind Cockabilly, DJ Mal Practice) and Pal /

Lobotomy Room: 31 July 2015 at Fontaine's

/ Dance floor mania /

Fever - Edith Massey
These Boots Are Made for Walkin' - Mrs Mills
Treat Me Right - Mae West
Sheba - Johnny and The Hurricanes
Eight Ball - The Hustlers
Taboo - Red Garrison and His Zodiacs
Wimoweh - Yma Sumac
Monkey Bird - The Revels
Kismiaz - The Cramps
Bombora - The Original Surf-aris
Fever - Nancy Sit
Bop Pills - Macy "Skip" Skipper
Gunnin' for Peter - The Fabulous Wailers
Peter Gunn Locomotion - The Delmonas
Peter Gunn Twist - The Jesters
Twist Talk - Jack Hammer
Viens danser le twist - Johnny Hallyday
Here Comes the Bug - The Rumblers
Jukebox Babe - Alan Vega
Wiped-Out - The Escorts
No Good Lover - Mickey and Sylvia
Don't Be Cruel - Bill Black Combo
Jailhouse Rock - Judy Nylon
Intoxica - The Centurions
I'm a Woman - Peggy Lee
Little Ole Wine Drinker Me - Robert Mitchum
Dona Wanna - Wanda Jackson
Go Calypso - Mamie Van Doren
Margaya - The Fender Four
Johnny Lee - Faye Adams
It's a Gas - The Rumblers
Vampira - Bobby Bare
Goo Goo Muck - Ronnie and The Gaylads
Black Tarantula - Jody Reynolds
You're Driving Me Crazy - Dorothy Berry
Money Money - Big John Taylor
Where's My Money? Willie Jones
Welfare Cheese - Emanuel Laskey
The Flirt - Shirley and Lee
Tina's Dilemma - Ike and Tina Turner
I Love the Life I Live - Esquerita
Jim Dandy - Ann-Margret
Love Potion # 9 - Nancy Sit
Lucille - Masaaki Hirao
Rip It Up - Little Richard
How Much Love Can One Heart Hold? Joe Perkins and The Rookies
Rock A Hula Baby - Elvis Presley
Honolulu Rock'n'Roll - Eartha Kitt
Beat Girl - Adam Faith
Woo-Hoo - The Rock-A-Teens
I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield - The 5,6,7,8s
Suey - Jayne Mansfield
Pass the Hatchet - Roger and The Gypsies
Do You Remember Rock'n'Roll Radio? The Ramonetures
Let's Go, Baby - Billy Eldridge
Poor Little Baby - Billy Crash Craddock
Lover Boy - Gene Wyatt
Big Bad Boss Beat - The Teen Beats
Shortnin' Bread -The Readymen
Muleskinner Blues - The Fendermen
Surfin' Bird - The Trashmen
She Said - Hasil Adkins
Breathless - Arlie Neaville
Heartbreak Hotel - Buddy Love
Jailhouse Rock - Masaaki Hirao
Whistle Bait - Larry Collins
Jim Dandy - Sara Lee and The Spades
The Big Bounce - Shirley Caddell
Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad - Tammy Wynette
Boss - The Rumblers
Johnny Hit and Run Pauline - The Ramonetures
Year 1 - X
Fools Rush In - Ricky Nelson
You're the Devil in Disguise - Elvis Presley
Funnel of Love - Wanda Jackson
Rock-A-Bop - Sparkle Moore
Tongue Tied Gill - Charlie Feathers
Chicken Grabber - The Nite Hawks
Chicken Rock - Fat Daddy Holmes
Chicken - The Cramps
Rock Around the Clock - The Sex Pistols
The Swag - Link Wray
Blitzkreig Bop - The Ramonetures
We're a Happy Family - The Ramones
Viva Las Vegas - Nina Hagen
Female Trouble - The Melvins
I Stubbed My Toe - Bryan Legs Walker
Beat Party - Richie and The Squires
What Do You Think I Am? Ike and Tina Turner
I Got Stung - Elvis Presley
Crawfish - Johnny Thunders and Patti Palladin
Ain't That Lovin' You Baby? The Earls of Suave
Walk Like a Man - Divine
You Give Me Worms - Turbonegro
Pillowcase - The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black
Downtown - Mrs Mills

Further reading:

See the full album of all the photos from the July 2015 Lobotomy Room on flickr.

Read about all the previous Lobotomy Rooms to date here,here,here,here,here,here,herehereherehere and here.

Follow me on tumblr for all your rancid vintage sleaze, kitsch and homo porn needs!














Tuesday 4 August 2015

Cockabilly 28 July 2015 DJ Set List


/ Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die. Photo via /

From the Cockabilly Facebook group:

Drag a comb through your quiff, swallow a fistful of bop pills and rock around the cock – at COCKABILLY!

COCKABILLY returns to the louche surroundings of The George & Dragon in Shoreditch on Tuesday 28 July 2015! Leather boys, gay greasers, cry-babies, prison wives and juvenile delinquents of all ages are welcome at Cockabilly - London’s only regular queer rockabilly night! With DJ Mal Nicholson and I spinning all your favourite rancid vintage sleaze classicks! Think rockabilly, rhythm and blues, surf, punk and tittyshakers!

The George & Dragon: 2-4 Hackney Road London E2 7NS

8-midnight

FREE


In his definitive literary statement, 1981’s Shock Value: A Tasteful Book about Bad Taste (which I revere as a sacred text), cult cinema’s Pope of Trash John Waters describes his early film Mondo Trasho (1969) as “a gutter film. “ (“It was filmed in alleys, gutters, Laundromats and deserted areas around Baltimore…”).



/ Embryonic young starlet Divine in her first starring role in Mondo Trasho (1969) /

In a similar vein, when I DJ at either Cockabilly or my own punkabilly booze party club night Lobotomy Room I endeavour to exhume and play the most rancid “gutter music” possible. Hopefully in my hour-long set at the July 2015 Cockabilly I succeeded.


As a friend of mine present pointed out (not entirely approvingly, I suspect!) “Your set got quite Country in the middle!” I've indeed recently re-visited and incorporated some old-school Country and Western tracks that I vividly remember from my seventies rural Quebec childhood. A particular strain of white trash / trailer park hillbilly Country music – the kind that conjures images of women with teased hair and frosted lipstick (think Karen Black as Rayette in Five Easy Pieces) lamenting about adultery, men with werewolf sideburns and big cowboy belt buckles crying into their beers at neon-lit honky tonks – is part of my musical DNA. I definitely recall my mother singing along to Loretta Lynn’s tough-talking 1968 single “Fist City”, in which the earthy no-nonsense coalminers daughter threatens some tramp to steer clear of her man. “If you don’t want to go to Fist City / You’d better detour around my town / ‘Cause I’ll grab you by the hair of the head and I’ll lift you offa the ground!” Lynn warns her would-be rival.




/ There's an even better clip of Tammy Wynette belting out "Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad" (sporting a beehive wig, sequinned mini-dress and go-go boots) on Youtube, but whoever posted it disabled embedding, damn it! So watch it here instead /

“Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad”, meanwhile, is the title track of the 1967 début album of Lynn’s contemporary Tammy Wynette. In a variation of the Kitty Wells Country & Western standard “It Wasn't Go Who Made Honky Tonk Angels”, the bouffant-haired First Lady of Country casts herself as a virtuous Christian housewife who’s “never seen the inside of a barroom / Or listened to a jukebox all night long” vowing to become a hardened bar stool mama if it wins back her straying husband. “I'll even learn to like the taste of whiskey,” Wynette wails over rousing quasi-rocabilly guitar twangs (there's a sob trapped in her voice, even on a defiant and sassy number like this). “In fact, you'll hardly recognize your wife / I'll buy some brand new clothes and dress up fancy /For my journey to the wilder side of life.”

A journey to the wilder side of life – that’s the Cockabilly way.


Your Phone's off the Hook - The Ramonetures
Let's Go, Baby - Billy Eldridge
Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad - Tammy Wynette
It's a Gas - The Rumblers
Goodbye So Long - Ike and Tina Turner
Money, Money - Big John Taylor
Where's My Money? Willie Jones
Wiped-Out - The Escorts
Love Potion # 9 - Nancy Sit
Jailhouse Rock - Judy Nylon
Little Darlin' - Masaaki Hirao
Big Bad Boss Beat - The Teen Beats
I'm a Woman - Peggy Lee
Chicken Grabber - The Nite Hawks
Sweet Little Pussycat - Andre Williams
Vesuvius - The Revels
Fist City - Loretta Lynn
Year 1 - X
Rock the Hula - Elvis Presley
Honolulu Rock'n'Roll - Eartha Kitt
Here Comes the Bug - The Rumblers
Viens danser le twist - Johnny Hallyday
That Makes It - Jayne Mansfield
I Wish I Were a Princess - Little Peggy March
Somethin' Else - The Sex Pistols
Viva Las Vegas - Nina Hagen
Twistin' the Night Away - Divine
The Girl Can't Help It - Little Richard
Cretin Hop - The Ramonetures

Lobotomy Room: 31 July 2015 at Fontaine's

/ The twisted minds behind Cockabilly: Mal (on the right) and I at my Lobotomy Room club night at Fontaine's on Friday 31 July 2015 /

Further reading:

Read all about the sordid antics at previous Cockabillies hereherehereherehereherehereherehereherehere,  here, hereherehereherehere and here. 

Follow my tumblr blog (also called Bitterness Personified) for all your retro, kitsch and vintage homo porn needs!



A nice appreciation of the irresistibly kitsch vintage homoerotic art of illustrator George Quaintance (1902-1957) cropped up on the Dangerous Minds blog today. Read it here. Quaintance is definitely a precursor of Tom of Finland and would appear to be an influence on the campy queer vision of French artists Pierre et Gilles. One of the most popular pics I’ve ever posted on tumblr is Quaintance’s painting “Shore Leave.”

I'm next guest DJ'ing on Sunday 16 August 2015 at the free all-day Elvis-o-Rama tribute event A Date with Elvis in Shoreditch. See the Facebook events page for details. If you're London-based, why not come and wriggle and cavort like Ann-Margret in Viva Las Vegas?

And finally: my next putrid punkabilly booze party Lobotomy Room club night in the basement Bamboo Lounge of Fontaine's is Friday 28 August 2015! Revel in sleaze, voodoo and rock'n'roll at Lobotomy Room! In the meantime, read about the June 2015 one here.


/ Lobotomy Room flyer (of Jayne Mansfield and chihuahua) by Ego Rodriguez Illustrations /