Cockabilly at Bloc Bar DJ Set List 9 March 2016

/ The Queen, y'all: The majestic Little Richard - pure essence of Cockabilly /

From the official Cockabilly Facebook page:

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

Exciting news! COCKABILLY is triumphantly returning to a new venue on Wednesday 9 March 2016: the louche surroundings of The Bloc Bar in Camden! And every second Wednesday night of the month henceforth!

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 (Graham Russell) spinning all your favourite rancid vintage sleaze classicks! Think rockabilly, rhythm and blues, surf, punk and tittyshakers! Daring and virile! Chains, whips, knives and leather belts all swished around together in bone-jarring rock and roll! Way-out sex and sin for those who like it that way!

The Bloc Bar: 18 Kentish Town Road London NW1

8-midnight

FREE

/ Inspiration for your Spring / Summer 2016 wardrobe - Cockabilly-style! /

When the much-missed George & Dragon pub in Shoreditch (epicentre of East End gay bohemia!) closed end of last year, Cockabilly was plunged into limbo. Happily, last month we were welcomed into a new venue – The Bloc Bar in Camden Town.  Our debut there was Wednesday 9 March. (This was the first Cockabilly since the last-ever one at The George & Dragon in October 2015).

What I learned on the night: Mal and I need to do a helluva lotta promotion to spread the word and lure in some new faces to Cockabilly. I just know there’s a whole new Beat Generation of gay greaser malcontents out there ready to be corrupted! We just need to reach them. The biggest disadvantage was the Bloc Bar’s DVD player / big screen set-up being on the blink that night, so I wasn’t able to project my vintage beefcake homo porn.  I’m obsessed with presentation and creating ambiance.  Screening raunchy, grainy homoerotic footage of baby-oiled semi-naked fifties muscle boys flexing and wrestling compliments the music and never fails to entrance people. Fingers crossed it will be operational by the next Cockabilly in April. Ultimately, though, the new venue is a glorious and exciting development. The Bloc Bar fits Cockabilly like a tight wet t-shirt!

Towards the end of the night a group of early twenty-somethings arrived. A girl in the group approached me while I was DJ’ing, explained it was her birthday and requested I play some Britney Spears. (Requested? More like demanded! Oh those entitled millennials!).  I apologised, saying I love Britney too (the stark, grinding minimalism of “Gimme More” is on permanent heavy rotation on my iPod) but I didn’t have any of Spears' music on me and it didn’t really fit in with the rockabilly aesthetic of the night. (This produced a look of stony incomprehension). Still, I felt bad to disappoint her, so in honour of this chick’s birthday I played the doo-wop ballad “Happy, Happy Birthday Baby” by The Tune Weavers – even though it was the totally wrong tempo and jarringly killed the momentum of my set dead. I needn’t have bothered – she was outside in the smoking area at the time anyway. D’oh! 

Some "action shots" of the night courtesy of Pal. I love how hyperactive Mal is a blur of movement in most of them!












Do You Remember Rock'n'Roll Radio? The Ramonetures
Let's Go Baby - Billy Eldridge
Viva Las Vegas - Nina Hagen
Jailhouse Rock - Masaaki Harao
Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad - Tammy Wynette
Margaya - The Fender Four
Pinball Party - The 5,6,7,8s
Chicken - The Cramps
Chicken Walk - Hasil Adkins
Chicken Grabber - The Nite Hawks
Chicken Shack - Ike and Tina Turner
Here Comes the Bug - The Rumblers
Fool's Errand - Billy Fury
Gostaria de saber (River Deep Mountain High) - Wanderlea
My Boy Lollipop - Sakura and The Quests
Suey - Jayne Mansfield
Wiped-Out - The Escorts
Bombie - Johnny Sharp and The Yellow Jackets
Rock'n'Roll Waltz - Ann-Margret
Road Runner - The Fabulous Wailers
Funnel of Love - Wanda Jackson
Breathless - X
Deuces Wild - Link Wray
Somethin' Else - Sid Vicious
Big Bad Boss Beat - The Teen Beats
Happy Happy Birthday Baby - The Tune Weavers

Further reading:

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

Follow my tumblr blog (also called Bitterness Personified) for all your retro, kitsch and vintage homo porn needs! Warning - it contains adult situations!

Most importantly: the next Cockabilly at The Bloc Bar is Wednesday 13 April!

/ As per tradition: if you've read this far, you get rewarded with something a bit more hardcore /

Lobotomy Room at Fontaine's DJ Set List 26 February 2016

/ Can Your Pussy Do The Dog? This Lobotomy Room almost overlapped with the 63rd birthday of the ageless enigma Poison Ivy Rorschach (née Kristy Marlana Wallace, born 20 February 1953), guitarist-dominatrix of The Cramps. Why not mark the occasion by revisiting my epic 1990 interview with the inscrutable (and now very reclusive) Ivy? /

From the Facebook events page for the 26 February 2016 Lobotomy Room:

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

Yes! Leave all sense of shame and propriety at the door - when LOBOTOMY ROOM returns to the subterranean Bamboo Lounge of Dalston's premiere vice den Fontaine's! Friday 26 February!

LOBOTOMY ROOM! Where sin lives! A punkabilly booze party! A spectacle of decadence! Sensual and depraved! Bad Music for Bad People! A Mondo Trasho evening of Beat, Beat Beatsville Beatnik Rock’n’Roll! Rockabilly Psychosis! Wailing Rhythm and Blues! Twisted Tittyshakers! White Trash Rockers! Punk! 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! Now with vintage erotica projected on the wall for your adult viewing pleasure!

Admission: gratuit - that's French for FREE!

Lobotomy Room: Faster. Further. Filthier.

It's sleazy. It's grubby. It's trashy - you'll love it!

A tawdry good time guaranteed!

/ Hair hoppers are welcome - at Lobotomy Room! /

Well, the February installment of Lobotomy Room certainly started promisingly. The main ground-level bar was so rammed that Friday night I got the over-spill! Some Fontaine's customers had no choice but to come downstairs and be unwitting Lobotomy Room patrons until more tables became available upstairs. Seizing my opportunity, I swung into action in the DJ booth with a selection of alluring pagan, primitive and taboo Mondo Exotica lounge sounds and projected some grainy vintage burlesque smut on the big screen.

Sadly, I seemingly was unable to entice the crowds to stay downstairs once more tables became freed-up upstairs! At one point I virtually frog-marched a group of four hip, stylish lesbians down to The Bamboo Lounge.  (Believe me – a group of hip, stylish lesbians can salvage a night!). Unfortunately they were only swinging by for drinks before heading somewhere else in a completely different part of London. In the end - once The Bamboo Lounge well and truly emptied-out - I wound up shutting down and packing-up by 12:30 am. (As you can see below, my playlist is significantly shorter than usual!).

Ah, well: in the spirit of Scarlett O'Hara - March is another month! The next Lobotomy Room is Friday 25 March (here's the Facebook events page for it) and it's another opportunity to spread my corrupting message of filth! My Lobotomy Room Goes to the Movies film club selection for Wednesday 23 March is John Waters' twisted 1977 punk-y black comedy Desperate Living and if the Facebook numbers on that event page are anything to go by, it should be a buzzing night. Hopefully I can lure those attendees back to the Lobotomy Room "proper" club night on the Friday.

/ The mighty Jean Hill (15 November 1946 - 21 August 2013) as Grizelda Brown in Desperate Living (1977) /

And speaking of the corporate tax-avoiding, Data Protection Act-ignoring Facebook: last time I moaned about my travails trying to get my ad (to “boost” my event to a wider audience on there) approved. I kept tweaking, re-wording and re-submitting various potential ad campaigns for the March 2016 Lobotomy Room to Facebook and each time I’d get the exact same generic / robotic message back explaining the wording in my ad was defamatory / potentially offensive (as in profane, racist, sexist) and violated Facebook guidelines.  This lasted a good week and I was losing valuable time.  Finally I snapped and once again “appealed” their decision, asking them to please copy and paste the problematic wording for me so I could delete it once and for all.  Astonishingly, a Facebook underling (no doubt a glorified intern) responded - breezily agreeing in a two or three sentence email that upon investigation, my ad in fact did not violate any Facebook guidelines so it was approved and could go “live.” No explanation or apology!

The faux-caring, sharing Facebook like to give the impression they care about your views. That message was quickly followed by another email asking if I was happy with this customer service experience and what are my thoughts on how Facebook can improve. I fired off a response saying they had consistently rejected every single ad with the same message without once specifying what exactly the problem was – and then suddenly changed their minds and agreed there was nothing wrong.  In fact, the version they now approved was one I’d already submitted! Of course that did not get a response. It's so perverse - Facebook seems determined to make themselves as redundant as Myspace!

Anyway, this is what I played at the February Lobotomy Room: 

A Cruise to the Moon - Lydia Lunch
High Wall - The Fabulous Wailers
Sheba - Johnny and The Hurricanes
Virgenes del Sol - Yma Sumac
Misirlou - Martin Denny
Monkey Bird - The Revels
Taboo - The Shangaans
Kismiaz - The Cramps
The Maharajah of Magador - The Blue Echoes
Camel Walk - The Saxons
Mau Mau - The Fabulous Wailers
Go Calypso - Mamie Van Doren
Mama Look-a Boo Boo - Robert Mitchum
Dona Wana - Wanda Jackson
Beatnik - The Champs
Wimoweh - Yma Sumac
She Wants to Mambo - Johnny Thunders and Patti Palladin
Mambo Baby - Ruth Brown
Beaver Shot - The Periscopes
Little Darlin' - Masaaki Hirao
Fever - Nancy Sit
Mr Lee - The 5,6,7,8s
Fujiyama Mama - Annisteen Allen
I Live the Life I Love - Esquerita
Sweet Little Pussycat - Andre Williams
Eight Ball - The Hustlers
Tough Chick - The Rockbusters
The Flirt - Shirley and Lee
Blockade - The Rumblers
I Need Your Lovin' - Don Gardner and Dee Dee Ford
Drums A Go-Go - The Hollywood Persuaders
Ain't That Lovin' You Baby - The Earls of Suave
Night Scene - The Rumblers
How Much Love Can One Heart Hold? Joe Perkins and The Rookies
Wiped-Out - The Escorts
Revelion - The Revels
Adult Books - X
Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad - Tammy Wynette
Rock-A-Bop - Sparkle Moore
Ain't That Good? George Kelly and His Orchestra
Money, Money - Big John Taylor
Where's My Money - Willie Jones
Bacon Fat - The Triads
Twisting with Bad Boy Bubble - Shuggie Smith and The Cajuns
Twist Talk - Jack Hammer
Let's Twist Again - Divine
Viens danser le twist - Johnny Hallyday
Khruschev Twist - Melvin Gayle
Bomb the Twist - The 5,6,7,8s
Ultra Twist - The Cramps
Here Comes the Bug - The Rumblers
Do You Really Love Me Too (Fool's Errand) - Billy Fury
Universal Radio - Nina Hagen
Let's Go Baby - Billy Eldridge
Action Packed - Ronnie Dee
Whistle Bait - The Collins Kids
Jim Dandy - Sara Lee and The Spades

/ Fontaine's boss lady Emerald knocked-up this poster to list all the new special offers available at the next Lobotomy Room. I love how rough, lurid and punk-y it looks - it's like outsider art! /

Read about all the previous antics at Lobotomy Rooms to date here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here , here, here, here, here and here!

Follow me on tumblr for all your kitsch, camp, retro vintage sleaze needs!

"Like" the official Lobotomy Room page on Facebook if you dare!

Reflections on ... Gloria Grahame in Human Desire (1954)

/ The gloriously feline Gloria Grahame /

Last week I watched Human Desire (1954), the hard-boiled, fatalistic Fritz Lang-directed film noir starring Glenn Ford and the sensational (or should that be sin-sational?) Gloria Grahame (“born to be BAD, to be KISSED, to make TROUBLE!”). In fact I watched it twice. Human Desire represented a reunion for the trio of Lang, Ford and Grahame: the year before they made the more celebrated The Big Heat (1953). 

The film is a loose remake of the haunting, very different 1938 French film La Bête humaine  directed by Jean Renoir. Smouldering young heartthrob Ford (that deep growling voice! That dark pomaded hair!) plays a Korean vet returning to small town life and his job as a train engineer – who gets ensnared in the toxic, potentially murderous marriage of his violent colleague (Broderick Crawford) and frustrated wife (Grahame).

Human Desire isn’t a prestigious film. It’s considered a minor work in Lang's oeuvre, is overshadowed in peoples’ memories by The Big Heat and regarded as inferior to La Bête humaine. For Lang, Ford and Grahame Human Desire was probably just another routine job or contractual obligation and business as usual. But seen today – 62 years later – Human Desire looks like a paragon of tight craftsmanship and tough, absorbing noir storytelling.  The tale of tense, desperate lives played out in shadows and penned-in by smoke-belching trains and a bleak landscape of criss-crossing train tracks, it throbs with tension, claustrophobia and atmosphere.   

Certainly the lead performances give Human Desire an edge. Broderick Crawford as the abusive husband is nominally the story’s villain. But the remarkable character actor Crawford depicts him as so mired in self-loathing, weakness, jealousy and alcoholism, he’s ultimately pathetic and even tragic. If anyone owns the film, though, it’s Gloria Grahame. As always, the perma-pouting Grahame (1923 - 1981) injects her trampy, insolent vixen role with complexity, humanity, perversity and bruised soul. 

She was perhaps never better than giving her confessional monologue to Ford as the doomed, slapped-around  Vicki in Human Desire. (“It’s hard for a girl, drifting from job to job ... most women are unhappy, they just pretend they aren’t … I guess I’m not much of a woman – or a wife”).  And Grahame looks wild in the film: with crazily over-drawn lip-line (worthy of Divine) and a wardrobe of hoop earrings, seamed stockings, berets, tightly-belted trench coats, pencil skirts and some serious bullet bras under tight sweaters. 

/ Glenn Ford and sweater girl Gloria Grahame (and a killer bullet bra) in Human Desire /

The late film historian John Kobal (1940 - 1991) is far more eloquent on the subject of Grahame’s screen persona than me. Calling her the “fallen-blonde, pouty-lipped, sinful-eyed angel” of noir cinema, in his book Hollywood Colour Portraits (1981) he argues “nobody else was quite like Gloria Grahame – glittering with the barely controlled fires seething beneath the social veneer. While she herself was no criminal, her presence alone could incite men to criminal actions if only to attract her attention as she prowled big city streets – so sultry, so spiteful, so wanton, and so lethal if the mood took her and the man didn’t. She was the great bitch goddess, shedding her coats like snakes their skin, and tugging at the tight coils of her hair to conjure up a world of bedrooms in disarray. Her freezing looks were as memorable as her scalding actions, and whether she made only one film like that or fifty she would still have made her niche ... silk or sack, her clothes are only worn to be torn; for her all things are black or white, and anarchy is the roost she rules.”

Lobotomy Room at Fontaine's DJ Set List 29 January 2016

/ Lobotomy Room - it leaves a taste of evil in your mouth! Seriously - who is this woman? What film is this from? Anyone who knows, get in touch! /

From the Facebook events page for the 29 January 2016 Lobotomy Room:

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

Yes! Leave all sense of shame and propriety at the door - when LOBOTOMY ROOM returns to the subterranean Bamboo Lounge of Art Deco vice palace Fontaine's! Friday 29 January!

LOBOTOMY ROOM! Where sin lives! A punkabilly booze party! A spectacle of decadence! Bad Music for Bad People! 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! Now with vintage erotica projected on the wall for your adult viewing pleasure!

Admission: gratuit - that's French for FREE!

Lobotomy Room: Faster. Further. Filthier.

It's sleazy. It's grubby. It's trashy - you'll love it!

A tawdry good time guaranteed!

/ Ai chihuahua! Flyer (of Jayne Mansfield and canine companion) by Ego Rodriguez Illustration /

Yikes! I’m catastrophically behind with my “art projects”. I’m only getting around to posting about the January 2016 Lobotomy Room now. This one was actually pretty successful! Not thanks to any of my friends turning up or any promotion on my part – a girl opted to have her birthday party downstairs on a night that coincided with Lobotomy Room and her friends packed The Bamboo Lounge out! I asked beforehand, Will she be cool with the music I play? What if she requests stuff I don’t have? I’m pretty “niche” after all! Fontaine’s ultra glam boss lady Ruby assured me she already told the girl what to expect from Lobotomy Room – but perhaps I shouldn’t play any of my vintage fifties and sixties homo porn on the big screen this time! In fact, I needn’t have worried. As the night wore on and they consumed more and more cocktails, the crowd really loosened-up and they began to thrash, flail and contort themselves to some of my more hardcore and outré selections (they seemed to particularly love Edith Massey and The Germs!). 

As you may have gathered from my posts, endeavouring to do your own regular club night requires advanced masochism. I’m currently embroiled in an epic ongoing battle with faceless corporate behemoths Facebook. If you want your event to reach a wider audience (as in outside of your own circle of friends), it’s pretty much compulsory to pay capricious internet overlords Facebook to “boost” it (something I can ill afford to do!). Before your proposed ad goes “live” online, you submit it to Facebook for their approval. For my March Lobotomy Room (Friday 25 March! Downstairs at Fontaine’s!) I’ve so far submitted about six potential ad campaigns now - and each one has been rejected for the following official reason: “Your ad wasn't approved because it doesn't follow Facebook's Advertising Guidelines for language that is profane, vulgar, threatening or generates high negative feedback. Ads can't use language that insults, harasses or demeans people, or addresses their age, gender, name, race, physical condition or sexual preference.”

Now pretty much everything connected to my club nights like Lobotomy Room and Cockabilly is vulgar, “blue”, adult and overtly sexual by nature. That’s just how my mind and guiding aesthetic works – but I’m no moron! I ensure the ads are relatively tame while also giving a titillating flavour of what to expect.  In February I tried to use this striking portrait of a (clothed) bouffant-haired 1960s stripper. Facebook vetoed this image as being too “sexually explicit”. Bear in mind I cropped the picture so tight in landscape rather than portrait format it was essentially an extreme close-up of her beautiful face (not even a glimpse of her cleavage). It was essentially an examination of her thick liquid eyeliner and false lashes. But apparently her lolling tongue alone was so lewd it violated Facebook guidelines! So I withdrew that photo, substituted it with a brutally-cropped close-up of Divine’s acid-scarred screaming face as Dawn Davenport in Female Trouble – and that did get approved.

/ Unsafe for Facebook! Apparently her name was Aminta. I'd love to know more about her! Hopefully this image will wind up being a Lobotomy Room flyer at some point /

My initial attempt for the March club was this photo with the strap line:

“Lobotomy Room! Come for the cocktails, stay for the putrid music and dirty movies!”

That was instantly rejected. I suspected Facebook didn’t appreciate me flagging up that I show raunchy films in the ad. I re-submitted it again with the wording changed to: “Revel in sleaze, voodoo and rock’n’roll at Lobotomy Room!” Once again it was vetoed.

Next I tried again with this shot of a hillbilly offering beer to a chicken with the same wording. It was declined for language violations, too. (I thought maybe Facebook would reject the photo it for “animal cruelty”!). It dawned on me including the word “sleaze” in my blurb is potentially problematic for Facebook. So I kept the shot of the hillbilly and beer-drinking chicken, but changed the wording to just “Incredibly strange dance party Lobotomy Room! Downstairs at Fontaine’s! Free!” Unbelievably, that got refused for language violations. This time I’ve officially appealed their decision and asked Facebook to report back to me about what precisely is offensive about the wording “Incredibly strange dance party Lobotomy Room! Downstairs at Fontaine’s! Free!” Whose feelings could that possibly hurt?! I’ve had no response and I suspect won’t be getting one any time soon. Facebook is quick to reject, but not to actually respond! I also don’t know whether these decisions are made by an actual human individual or algorithm-based software.

/ Unsafe for Facebook! Beer-drinking chicken. Surely to reject this shows discrimination against hillbillies? /

Since then, I've experimented with a few more combinations of words and images and each one has been refused. Now what I’m increasingly thinking is the very fact my club night is called “Lobotomy Room” is the issue for Facebook. Does the word “lobotomy” breach their taste guidelines? (If so, this is a new development as previous ads for Lobotomy Room have been approved and I’ve stayed entirely consistent in my wording). In which case, any ad I possibly submit for Lobotomy Room will be refused – and a forum for reaching a new audience for my club will be closed to me.  It's scary how powerful Facebook is in 2016. For me to even attempt to promote Lobotomy Room there is no other equivalent to Facebook!  

Anyway - this is what I played at the January 2016 Lobotomy Room:

Night Scene - The Rumblers
Dangerous Lips - The Drivers
Beatnik - The Champs
Beat Generation - Mamie Van Doren
Monkey Bird - The Revels
Taboo - The Shangaans
Fujiyama Mama - Annisteen Allen
Sweet Little Pussycat - Andre Williams
Bohemian - The Twilights
Little Queenie - Bill Black's Combo
Sheba - Johnny and The Hurricanes
Point of No Return - Gene McDaniels
Jungle Drums - Earl Bostic
Slow Walk - Sil Austin
Mambo Baby - Ruth Brown
She Wants to Mambo - Johnny Thunders and Patti Palladin
Babalu - Yma Sumac
Misirlou - Bob Kames
Kismiaz - The Cramps
Mau Mau - The Wailers
Bossa Nova - Elvis Presley
Dona Wana - Wanda Jackson
I Learn a Merengue Mama - Robert Mitchum
Go Calypso - Mamie Van Doren
The Flirt - Shirley and Lee
Wiped Out - The Escorts
Bombora - The Original Surfaris
Dance with Me Henry - Ann-Margret
Black Tarantula - Jody Reynolds
The Coo - Wayne Cochran
Mama's Place - Bing Day
These Boots Are Made for Walkin' - Mrs Mills
Yummy Yummy Yummy - Rita Chao
I Wish I Were a Princess - Little Peggy March
Lucille - Masaaki Hirao
Meu Bem Lollipop - Wandrelea
These Boots Are Made for Walkin' - Lee Hazlewood
How Does That Grab You Darlin'? Nancy Sinatra
Wailin' - The Wailers
Let's Go - Billy Eldridge
Do You Remember Rock'n'Roll Radio? The Ramonetures
It's a Gas - The Rumblers
He's The One - Ike and Tina Turner
Dragon Walk - The Noblemen
I Live the Life I Love - Esquerita
Drummin' Up a Storm - Sandy Nelson
Booze Party - Three Aces and a Joker
Here Comes The Bug - The Rumblers
Heartbreak Hotel - Buddy Love
Jailhouse Rock - Masaaki Hirao
Love Me - The Phantom
Raging Sea - Gene Maltais
Wiped Out - The Escorts
I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield - The 5,6,7,8s
That Makes It - Jayne Mansfield
Beat Party - Ritchie and The Squires
Shortnin' Bread - The Readymen
Muleskinner Blues - The Fendermen
Batman - Link Wray
Surfin' Bird - The Trashmen
Rock Around the Clock - The Sex Pistols
Little Girl - John and Jackie
Funnel of Love - Wanda Jackson
Breathless - X
Sweetie Pie - Eddie Cochran
C'mon Everybody - Sid Vicious
Chicken Walk - Hasil Adkins
Jukebox Baby - Alan Vega
Atomic Bongos - Lydia Lunch
Viva Las Vegas - Nina Hagen
Howling at The Moon - The Ramones
Science Fiction - Divinyls
Contact - Brigitte Bardot
Your Phone's Off The Hook - The Ramonetures
Year One - X
Whistle Bait - The Collins Kids
Jim Dandy - Sara Lee and The Spades
Beat Girl - ZZ und der Maskers
Hanky Panky - Rita Chao and The Quests
Gostaria de saber (River Deep Mountain High) - Wanderlea
Under My Thumb - Tina Turner
Boss - The Rumblers
Chicken Grabber - The Nite Hawks
I'm a Woman - Peggy Lee
Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad - Tammy Wynette
Ah Poor Little Baby - Billy "Crash" Craddock
Lover Boy - Gene Wyatt
Ring of Fire - The Earls of Suave
Deuces Wild - Link Wray
Bottle to The Baby - Charlie Feathers
How Much Love Can One Heart Hold? Joe Perkins and The Rookies
You're Driving Me Crazy - Dorothy Berry
Krushchev Twist - Melvin Gayle
Twist Talk - Jack Hammer
Suey - Jayne Mansfield
Pass The Hatchet - Roger and The Gypsies
Harley Davidson - Brigitte Bardot
Forming - The Germs
Margaya - The Fender Four
Aphrodisiac - Bow Wow Wow
Intoxica - The Centurions
Twistin' The Night Away - Divine
Big Girls Don't Cry - Edith Massey
Can't Stop Thinkin' About It - The Dirtbombs
Johnny Are You Queer? Josie Cotton
Cry-baby - The Honey Sisters
I Wanna Be Sedated - The Ramones
Blitzkreig Bop - The Ramonetures
Somethin' Else - Sid Vicious
Action Packed - Ronnie Dee
The Girl Can't Help It - Little Richard
Can Your Pussy Do The Dog? The Cramps
My Way - Nina Hagen

Further reading:

Dates for your social calendar!

Time to start contemplating your Spring / Summer 2016 wardrobe?

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

COCKABILLY is triumphantly returning to a new venue on Wednesday 9 March 2016: the louche surroundings of The Bloc Bar in Camden! And every second Wednesday night of the month henceforth!

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 (Graham Russell) spinning all your favourite rancid vintage sleaze classicks! Think rockabilly, rhythm and blues, surf, punk and tittyshakers! Daring and virile! Chains, whips, knives and leather belts all swished around together in bone-jarring rock and roll! Way-out sex and sin for those who like it that way!

The Bloc Bar: 18 Kentish Town Road London NW1
8-midnight
FREE

The featured presentation of the next Lobotomy Room Goes to The Movies film club downstairs at Fontaine's is Wednesday 23 March. The featured presentation this month will be John Water’s ultra-twisted punk-y black comedy Desperate Living (1977). It's one of his relatively lesser known gems (probably because his usual muse and leading lady - three hundred pound drag queen Divine - isn't in it). The genuinely nasty Desperate Living has something to offend everyone! See the film that Variety lambasted as “amateur night on the psycho ward” and that Waters himself has called “the worst of all my films. And it’s the grimmest!” The events page.

/ Pictured: the fabulous Liz Renay (1926 - 2007) as Muffy St Jacques in Desperate Living /

The next Lobotomy Room club night in The Bamboo Lounge is Friday 25 March. Events page.

Follow me on tumblr for all your kitsch, camp, retro vintage sleaze needs!

"Like" the official Lobotomy Room page on Facebook if you dare!