/ Fun couple: Elvis Presley and flame-haired burlesque icon, Tempest Storm in the 1950s. (According to her, they were lovers until Colonel Parker broke it up). Tempest is 83 now and still performs occasionally. She made an appearance at the Viva Las Vegas rockabilly weekender this year. I snatched a photo of her at the car show. See it here /
Wow. Just ... wow. This night at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern was the nadir of my DJ’ing career to date – I was completely overwhelmed by technical glitches.
It started well enough. Performance artist Claire Benjamin (in the persona of her character Obsessia Compulsia D’Sorda) did a great, strange, edgy piece. The burlesque performer for the evening was emergent Australian starlet Ava Iscariot, who’s performed at Dr Sketchy before. The song for her number was by Marilyn Manson. I tested her CD by playing a snatch of it early on, and it worked just fine. You’d think I would have learned from the debacle with Chocolat's CD the last time I DJ'd at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern!
Claire Benjamin in character as Obsessia Compulsia D’Sorda, filmed in performance at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern in 2009
Anyway, Ava’s track was ready and I pressed play when it was her cue. I stepped away from the decks to watch her perform. It was all going smoothly. Her track was 4-minutes long: about two minutes and 11 seconds into it, the CD abruptly stopped playing! Needless to say, as soon as anything audio-related goes wrong, every head in the venue swivels to stare at me! Poor Ava stopped dead in her tracks: she was standing with her back to the audience, about to unlace her corset and was looking at me wondering what the hell was happening. I was frantically jabbing “Play” and nothing was happening. The ever-unflappable emcee Dusty Limits swung into action and quickly brought Claire Benjamin back onto the stage to pose while I tried to work out what the hell was wrong with Ava’s CD. I tried to stick on another song to at least provide music while Clare was posing (the sound of silence and the audience murmuring was freaking me out! The multi-talented Claire played the musical saw, Dietrich-style, while she posed, by the way), but this time I couldn’t get anything to come out of the other CD deck either – and when I pressed the “Open” button, the CD drawer wouldn’t open!
By now sweat beads were popping out of my head and I was getting frenzied. The Royal Vauxhall Tavern manager came over: we established that Ava’s CD was simply faulty (I played it again through my headphones and it consistently stopped at the same point), and that the reason I couldn’t coax any music out of the decks or even open the CD drawers was because a fuse had blown! What are the odds of both these things happening at once? Could only happen to me! (And by the way: the night was being filmed, and apparently a Time Out journalist was in attendance).
Once the blown fuse was fixed, I was able to get back on track, although the rest of the night was a jittery blur. (My nerves were shot. I self-medicated with beer; had one mutha of a hangover the next day at work). Mercifully a friend of Ava’s had the song she needed on his iPod. We hooked up his iPod to the decks so Ava was able to come back out at the end of the night and do her (excellent) routine properly. Phew!
Now let’s never speak of this night again...
Follow the Leader - Wiley Terry
Bacon Fat - Andre Williams
Baby, I'm Doin' It - Annisteen Allen
Mambo Baby - Ruth Brown
She Wants to Mambo - Johnny Thunders and Patti Paladin
Mambo Miam Miam - Serge Gainsbourg
Unchain My Heart - Florence Joelle
I Was Born to Cry - Dion
Fever - The Delmonas
My Baby Does the Hanky Panky - Rita Chao & The Quests
Here Comes the Bug - The Rumblers
One More Beer - The Earls of Suave
Revelion - The Revels
Leave Married Women Alone - Jimmy Cavallo
Little Girl - John and Jackie
It - The Regal-Aires
Save It - Mel Robbins
Bikini with No Top on the Top - Mamie van Doren and June Wilkinson
The Flirt - Shirley and Lee
Maybe Baby - Esquerita
The Sneak - Jimmy Oliver
Heartbreakin' Special - Duke Larson
Jungle Walk - The Dyna-Sores
Bop Pills - Macy "Skip" Skipper
Shombalor - Sheriff and The Revels
Cheesecake - The Nite Sounds
Drive-In - The Jaguars
C'est si Bon - April Stevens
Some Small Chance - Serge Gainsbourg (Strip-tease soundtrack)
Kiss Me - Dolores Gray
Shangri-La - Spike Jones New Band
Beat Party - Ritchie & The Squires
Java Partout - Juliette Greco
Caravan - John Buzon Trio
Yogi - Bill Black Combo
Gimme a Pigfoot (And a Bottle of Beer) - Nina Simone
Work with It - Que Martin
Dragon Walk - The Noblemen
Snow Surfin' Matador - Jan Davis
8 Ball - The Hustlers
Love for Sale - Eartha Kitt
The Lonely Hours - Sarah Vaughan
Crawlin' - The Untouchables
Somewhere Over the Rainbow - Gene Vincent
Bossa Nova Baby - Elvis Presley
Jim Dandy - Ann-Margret
Beat Girl - John Barry (Beat Girl soundtrack)
Ne Me Laisse Pas L'Aimer - Brigitte Bardot
Tall Cool One - The Wailers
Womp Womp - Freddie & The Heartaches
Your Love is Mine - Ike and Tina Turner
The Bee - The Sentinels
The Coo - Wayne Cochran
I Walk like Jayne Mansfield - The 5,6,7,8s
Shombalor by Sheriff & The Revels
