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 /