Cockabilly at The Glory DJ Set List 4 February 2017

As I posted on Facebook on Saturday 4 February:

I know it’s ultra-short notice, but … calling all leather boys, gay greasers, cry-babies, prison wives and juvenile delinquents of all ages! We’re having a mini Cockabilly reunion TONIGHT at the fabulous Glory! Saturday 4 February! Mal Nicholson is DJ’ing upstairs and I will be joining him for a guest slot!   Expect 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! Why not drag a comb through your quiff, swallow a fistful of bop pills and rock around the cock? Tonight!

The Glory 281 Kingsland Road E2 8AS
10 – 2 (Free before 10 pm!) 

/ Classic beefcake model Cherokee (aka Everett Lee Jackson) photographed by Kris Studio circa 1955 /

I’d love to announce “Cockabilly is back!” In fact London’s only regular queer rockabilly club night (freaking out the squares since 2008!) is still on hiatus ever since we got unceremoniously turfed from our last venue (which shall remain nameless!). But for now at least, Saturday 4 February was a bit of a one-off Cockabilly reunion when Mal and I guest DJ’d at Haggerston’s epicentre of happiness and gay bohemia The Glory! 

It’s virtually impossible to not have a blast at The Glory (their generosity with the drinks tickets certainly helps) and I grab every opportunity to DJ there that I can. (In an ideal world, Cockabilly would re-launch in 2017 with The Glory as its new permanent base – hint, hint!).

/ Mal and I sweating to the oldies /

Anyway, I did a guest spot of about 90-minutes. Here’s what I was laying down: 

Rip it Up - Little Richard
Let's Have a Party - Wanda Jackson
Three Cool Cats - The 5,6,7,8s
I Wanna Be Sedated - The Ramonetures
Somethin' Else - Sid Vicious
Be Bop A Lula - Alan Vega
Viva Las Vegas - Nina Hagen
Margaya - The Fender Four
Atomic Bongos - Lydia Lunch
Bombora - The Original Surf-aris
Hanky Panky - Rita Chao and The Quests
Gostaria de Saber (River Deep Mountain High) - Wanderlea
Party Lights - Claudine Clark
He's the One - Ike and Tina Turner
Year 1 - X
Lucille - Masaaki Hirao
Rock Around the Clock - The Sex Pistols
Whistle Bait - Larry Collins
Jim Dandy - Sara Lee and The Spades
Boss - The Rumblers
The Swag - Link Wray
Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad - Tammy Wynette
Ultra Twist - The Cramps
I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield - The 5,6,7,8s
That Makes It - Jayne Mansfield
Beat Party - Ritchie and The Squires
Aphrodisiac - Bow Wow Wow
Let's Go, Baby - Billy Eldridge
Bossa Nova Baby - Elvis Presley
Jim Dandy - Ann-Margret
Roll with Me Henry - Etta James
Ring of Fire - The Earls of Suave
Road Runner - The Fabulous Wailers
Cry-baby - The Honey Sisters
How Much Love Can One Heart Hold? Joe Perkins and The Rookies
Under My Thumb - Tina Turner
Twistin' the Night Away - Divine
These Boots Are Made for Walkin' - Mrs Mills
My Way - Nina Hagen

Updated news for all your Lobotomy Room-related needs: there are two upcoming opportunities to get down and dirty later this month at Dalston sin bin Fontaine’s! Jump on them!

Wednesday 22 February is this month’s film club. Lobotomy Room Goes to the Movies is, of course, the FREE monthly film club downstairs at Fontaine’s devoted to Bad Movies We Love (our motto: Bad Movies for Bad People), specializing in the kitsch, the cult and the queer! (The January presentation of Russ Meyer's magnum opus Beyond the Valley of the Dolls was triumphant!).

Considering February is the month of Valentine’s, we’ll be embracing a romantic theme with … Sid and Nancy (1986)! Hey! It’s a love story! (Well, director Alex Cox himself describes the film as “a horrific love story”. Its original title was going to be Love Kills). It outlines the doomed tragicomic “amour fou” between punk’s Romeo and Juliet: Sex Pistols’ bassist Sid Vicious and his heroin-addicted groupie girlfriend Nancy Spungen … and let’s just say it all ends messily.

So – why not throw on a black leather jacket, stick a safety pin through your nostril and join us on 22 February for a quiet night with Sid and Nancy?

Added incentive: in honour of Valentine’s Day, Fontaine’s is being sponsored all month by the fancy French raspberry liqueur Chambord! So there will be special offer cocktails on the night – and they will be pink! Full details on the Facebook events page. Read more about my sin-sational monthly film club here. 

Friday 24 February 2017

“It’s just what you need when you’re down in the dumps / One half hillbilly and one half punk …”

It’s back! The first Lobotomy Room of 2017!

Revel in sleaze, voodoo and rock’n’roll - when incredibly strange dance party Lobotomy Room returns to the Polynesian-style basement Bamboo Lounge of Dalston’s premiere Art Deco vice den Fontaine’s! Friday 24 February!

Lobotomy Room! Where sin lives! A punkabilly booze party! Sensual and depraved! 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! White Trash Rockers! 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 big screen all night for your adult viewing pleasure! Come for the special offer cocktails - stay for the putrid music and dirty movies!

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!

Full sordid details on the Facebook events page

/ As ever, if you've read this far you get rewarded! /

Further reading:

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, here, here, here, here, here and here!

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

Follow me on twitter!

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

Baby Lame's Shit Show at The Glory on 9 September 2016

I was recently honoured to guest DJ at Baby Lame's first anniversary Shit Show at The Glory in Haggerston. As I posted on Facebook:

Punky alt-cabaret doesn’t get more twisted than Baby Lame's Shit Show! On 9 September sewer-mouthed hog princess extraordinaire Baby Lame celebrates the first anniversary of her residency at The Glory with this birthday extravaganza! Won’t you come and join us? It promises to be a rancid cavalcade of perversion! There won’t be another Lobotomy Room club night at Fontaine’s now until Friday 30 September, so in the meantime come and catch me DJ’ing in The Glory’s basement “pit” / sex dungeon afterwards! I’ll be playing all your sentimental classicks! Autumn 2016 just suddenly got a lot more putrid!

In case you’re unfamiliar with the oeuvre of drag terrorist Baby Lame (darling, where have you been?), when I profiled her for Beige website in 2015 I described Baby’s act as “twisted black comedic punk-drag-horror performance art a-go go, marinated in the bad taste midnight movie sensibility of John Waters.” If anything, since then with her raunchy monthly Shit Show club night at The Glory (the reigning epicentre of gay Bohemia in London’s East End), Baby Lame has gotten even filthier.  And for this special first anniversary celebration, Baby assembled a glittering selection of perverted and exhibitionistic special guests. Pal and I arrived in time to see the big finale featuring the notorious Mouse. If you’ve never seen Mouse in action before (I’ve only ever seen her perform once before at The Amy Grimehouse’s John Waters Filth Fest in March 2014 but it’s scorched on my retinas), let’s just say her act involves total stark nudity, dog food, a birthday cake, an enema kit and that the front row needs to protect themselves by holding up a clear plastic tarpaulin. The spirit of Leigh Bowery and The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black lived in the basement of The Glory!

/ Tara and I at The Shit Show /

This is only the second time I’ve DJ’d at The Glory. The first time was at their Easter Sunday 2016 bank holiday Barn Dance. That time went down a storm, but I have to admit I was apprehensive wondering if a packed Friday night crowd at The Glory would respond favourably to what I was laying down. I am quite niche after all. People do dance to my music but it certainly doesn’t qualify as most peoples’ idea of “dance music.” What if I had a steady stream of people requesting Britney or Beyonce? Or worse – complaining to the management! I needn’t have worried: at various times I had a virtual mosh pit slamming by the DJ booth! People at gay venues are definitely hungry for more aggressive, punkier and confrontational music when they hear it – they maybe just don’t know it ‘til they encounter it. I pretty much played my standard abrasive Lobotomy Room set encompassing punk, rockabilly, surf, rhythm and blues and tittyshakers with maybe a campier emphasis on diva worship for The Glory. It’s just that my pantheon of queer icon divas includes the likes of Nina Hagen, Jayne Mansfield, Ann-Margret, Lydia Lunch, Edith Massey and Mrs Miller! (This may have been the only time anyone ever sequenced hi-NRG disco-era Eartha Kitt next to Fat White Family, or followed Tina Turner with The Germs).  Anyway, the night was a triumph for Baby Lame and I was glad to be a part of it. Long may her Shit Show reign!

/ The Shit Show in action at The Glory on 9 September 2016. Pic swiped from Facebook! /

Here's what I played:

Do You Remember Rock'n'Roll Radio? The Ramonetures
Universal Radio - Nina Hagen
Wipe-Out - The Surfaris
Blitzkreig Bop - The Ramonetures
I Wanna Be Sedated - The Ramones
Hangin' On the Telephone - Blondie
Road Runner - The Fabulous Wailers
I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield - The 5,6,7,8s
That Makes It - Jayne Mansfield
Year One - X
Peter Gunn Locomotion - The Delmonas
Peter Gunn Twist - The Jesters
Gunnin' for Peter - The Fabulous Wailers
Be Bop A Lula - Alan Vega
Viens danser le twist - Johnny Hallyday
Twistin' the Night Away - Divine
Cha Cha Heels - Eartha Kitt
Touch the Leather - Fat White Family
Harley Davidson - Brigitte Bardot
Batman theme - Link Wray and His Wraymen
Shortnin' Bread - The Readymen
Muleskinner Blues - The Fendermen
Human Fly - The Cramps
Little Girl - John and Jackie
Viva Las Vegas - Nina Hagen
C'mon Everybody - Sid Vicious
Breathless - X
Funnel of Love - Wanda Jackson
Rock Around the Clock - The Sex Pistols
Surfin' Bird - The Trashmen
Juke Box Babe - Alan Vega
Atomic Bongos - Lydia Lunch
Margaya - The Fender Four
Dance with Me Henry - Ann-Margret
Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad - Tammy Wynette
Lucille - Masaaki Hirao
Gostaria de saber (River Deep, Mountain High) - Wanderlea
Under My Thumb - Tina Turner
Forming - The Germs
Surf Rat - The Rumblers
Hanky Panky - Rita Chao and The Quests
Three Cool Chicks - The 5,6,7,8s
Jailhouse Rock - Masaaki Hirao
You Sure Know How to Hurt Someone - Ann-Margret
Johnny Are You Queer? Josie Cotton
Fuck Off - Wayne County and The Electric Chairs
Big Girls Don't Cry - Edith Massey
I'm a Woman - Peggy Lee
Suey - Jayne Mansfield
Pass the Hatchet - Roger and The Gypsies
Vampira - The Misfits
Nausea - X
Intoxica - The Centurions
Aphrodisiac - Bow Wow Wow
Bossa Nova Baby - Elvis Presley
Shout - Johnny Hallyday
Contact - Brigitte Bardot
These Boots Are Made for Walkin' - Mrs Miller
Meu Bem Lollipop - Wanderlea
Fever - Nancy Sit
Somethin' Else - Sid Vicious
The Girl Can't Help It - Little Richard
Sweetie Pie - Eddie Cochran
The Swag - Link Wray
Jim Dandy - Sara Lee and The Spades
Whistle Bait - Larry Collins
Boss - The Rumblers
I Wish I Was a Princess - Little Peggy March
My Way - Sid Vicious

In related outsider art drag news: I touched visiting American skank goddess Christeene’s dick at The Soho Theatre on Saturday 17 September! It was a profound and religious moment! I was up-front with my friend Tara and her mother Paula. During one song early in her set Christeene made scary direct eye contact with me with those glowing ice-blue Children of the Damned contact lenses, reached out to me, I grabbed her hand – and she guided my hand straight to her crotch and squeezed. The whole night (the culmination of Christeene’s glorious two-week residency at The Soho Theatre) was pretty damn spectacular – grubby, sleazy, freaky and punky. It opened with him jumping up and dangling from a ceiling pipe above the stage doing flawless pole dancer moves and ended with the sentimental favourite “African Mayonnaise”, punctuated with deep stripper squats, crotch-thrusting dance routines, glimpses of genitalia, multiple costume changes, copious spitting and onstage rimming. And as an added bonus, doyenne of punk fashion Dame Vivienne Westwood was in attendance! (Westwood looked great: very chic with platinum blonde hair, approachable and friendly; Tara and Paula had their photo taken with her). Afterwards we were all standing around outside and Christeene was circulating through the crowd talking to people. I managed to tell him: I’m old enough to have seen artists like Lux Interior of The Cramps, Iggy Pop, Grace Jones and Jayne County perform multiple times and you are carrying on in their tradition. He replied, “Everyone you just mentioned is like family to me” - and kissed me on the lips. In fact Tara, her mother and I all got kisses on the lips from Christeene. Swoon!

/ Sadly, none of the photos taken Saturday night turned out terribly well. This shot of the radiant Christeene and I was snapped in summer 2014 the legendary night he and David Hoyle performed together at Vogue Fabrics in Dalston.  Please don’t judge me for the unsightly sweat patches on my t-shirt: it was packed in that basement and hotter than hell! Condensation was dripping from the ceiling! /

And finally: my next Lobotomy Room club night is coming up soon!

Wilder than you can imagine! Explicit beyond belief! Revel in sleaze, voodoo and rock’n’roll - when incredibly strange dance party Lobotomy Room returns to the Polynesian-style basement Bamboo Lounge of Dalston’s premiere Art Deco vice den Fontaine’s! Friday 30 September! With sensational special offer cocktails on the night!

Lobotomy Room! Where sin lives! A punkabilly booze party! Sensual and depraved! 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! White Trash Rockers! 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! Come for the £6 cocktails - stay for the putrid music and dirty movies!

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!

Event page

Easter Sunday Barn Dance at The Glory DJ Set List 27 March 2016

/ Giddy-Up, Cowboy: the gorgeous Wilde brothers Rory (top) and Gunner (bottom - and what a bottom!) photographed by Bruce of Los Angeles in the sixties /

I was a late addition to The Glory’s annual Easter Sunday Barn Dance on 27 March.  A day of beers, steers and queers – in gritty urban Haggerston! Think bales of hay on the floor, posters of mondo cleavaged patron saint Dolly Parton Blu-tacked everywhere and a crowd of yee-hawing gingham and denim-clad yokels (well, as interpreted by hip East London homosexualists).

/ I dug-out my old Hillbilly Hop t-shirt for the occasion. This t-shirt is so old at this point it must qualify as borderline vintage /

I’ve always wanted to play at one of these barn dances. After pleading, pouting, cajoling and stamping my foot, I finally managed to persuade John Sizzle that as someone who actually grew up on a pig farm in rural Quebec I’d be the closest thing to a hillbilly there - and won myself a sweet -DJ’ing guest spot from 7 pm. This night also represented my long-awaited Glory debut.

Anyway, at first I DJ’d between the cabaret acts. They included a drag queen (Miss Craig) lip-synching to a live recording of Cher singing “Walkin’ in Memphis” and “Just Like Jessie James” followed by a drag king Jesus (“Shesus”) complete with crown of thorns and luxuriant beard (who wailed Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball”) and finally Concertina Turner. The self-described "bearded hairy shit-kicker" in Tina Turner drag (with signature punk-bouffant wig and micro-mini skirt) accompanied himself on accordion while singing heartfelt versions of “Private Dancer”, “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” and “Simply the Best” – probably with more conviction than Turner herself has managed in decades. In other words – it felt like my spiritual home.

/ Below: All photos by Pal /

/ Shesus and Concertina Turner /



/ Shesus died for somebody's sins but not mine ... /



/ "She's got legs / She knows how to use them ..." Concertina Turner /



/ Pal and I /

Once the performers finished, I DJ’d straight through until the end.  Musically I aimed to deliver a hayride to hell. As a rural Canadian child of the seventies, kitsch old-school honky tonk Country & Western is embedded in my DNA. Early on I focused on the pantheon of hair hoppin' divas of the genre: think Bobbie Gentry, Wanda Jackson, Tammy Wynette’s “Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad”, “Fist City” by Loretta Lynn.  (I was kicking myself that I forgot to bring the CD with Loretta’s “The Pill” – what an omission!). Obviously Nancy Sinatra is a goddess to me.  From her 1967 album Country My Way – which I’d argue is her most consistent masterpiece - I played “Get While the Gettin’ is Good” and “Jackson”. (All due regards to Johnny Cash and June Carter’s original, but the poppier, stomping Nancy and Lee Hazlewood country exotica version is definitive).  

 As the night progressed things got punkier, messier and more sordid (I’d been drinking all afternoon by this point) and I resorted to my more usual assortment of putrid vintage sleaze.  To their eternal credit, the up-for-it and lively Glory crowd danced to whatever I flung at them. One young guy approached and asked if I could play Jessica Simpson’s cover of “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.” Needless to say I didn’t have it (I didn’t even have Nancy Sinatra’s on me) – so I played Mrs Mill’s version. And people actually danced to it! It was especially gratifying to see a full dance floor thrashing and flailing to The Knitters (Los Angeles punk band X’s occasional hillbilly side project), Ann-Margret, Nina Hagen and Divine. And once again, leather-clad, gap-toothed punk granny Edith Massey proved to be a surprising crowd-pleaser.

/ Your reward for reading this far: who doesn't love vintage homoerotic cowboy imagery? The delectable Rory Wilde photographed by Bruce of Los Angeles /

Gotta Lotta Rhythm in My Soul - Patsy Cline
Willie Joe - The Mystery Trio
Get While the Gettin's Good - Nancy Sinatra
Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad - Tammy Wynette
Oh Lonesome Me - Johnny Cash
Fist City - Loretta Lynn
Mississippi Delta - Bobbie Gentry
You Done Messed Around and Made a Mean Woman Mad - Julia Bates
Poor Little Critter on the Road - The Knitters
Seven Lonely Days - Bonnie Lou
Oh Lonesome Me - Ann-Margret
Jackson - Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood
Fools Rush In - Ricky Nelson
Ring of Fire - The Earls of Suave
Woodpecker Rock - Nat Couty and The Braves
Ballad of Thunder Road - Robert Mitchum
I Let the Stars Get in My Eyes - Goldie Hill
These Boots Are Made for Walkin' - Mrs Mills
Walk Like a Man - Divine
Big Girls Don't Cry - Edith Massey
Viva Las Vegas - Nina Hagen
Johnny Are You Queer? Josie Cotton
Funnel of Love - Wanda Jackson
Breathless - X
Rock Around the Clock - The Sex Pistols
Love Me - The Phantom
Sweetie Pie - Eddie Cochran
I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield - The 5,6,7,8s
That Makes It - Jayne Mansfield
Lucille - Masaaki Hirao
The Girl Can't Help It - Little Richard
Hanky Panky - Rita Chao and The Quests
Gostaria de Saber (River Deep, Mountain High) - Wanderlea
Under My Thumb - Tina Turner
Twistin' the Night Away - Divine
Viens danser le twist - Johnny Hallyday
Peter Gunn Twist - The Jesters
Peter Gunn Locomotion - The Delmonas
Ultra Twist - The Cramps
Bomb the Twist - The 5,6,7,8s
C'mon Everybody - Sid Vicious
My Way - Nina Hagen

Upcoming stuff to scrawl in your social calendar (ideally in blood). I’m the hardest-working woman in show biz in April!

Wednesday 13 April 2016: Drag a comb through your quiff, swallow a fistful of bop pills and rock around the cock – when COCKABILLY returns to the louche surroundings of Bloc Bar in Camden! And every second Wednesday night of the month thereafter!

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

/ Throw on a blonde wig! Borrow a chihuahua! Put a wiggle in that walk! Coo and squeal like a sex kitten-gone-berserk! /

Wednesday 27 April 2016: As host of the regular monthly Mondo Trasho punkabilly club night Lobotomy Room, I – Graham Russell - will occasionally crash Fontaine’s free weekly film night and screen a rancid title of my choice, with an emphasis on the cult, the queer and the camp! The Lobotomy Room Goes to the Movies selection this month is – The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield!

Rated “X” upon its release in 1968, the ultra-trashy faux documentary chronicles the kinky globe-trotting misadventures of Hollywood sex kitten-gone-berserk Jayne Mansfield.   Watch agog as kitsch icon Mansfield - the punk Marilyn Monroe, revered by John Waters and Divine (and “the face” of Lobotomy Room) -   visits the hedonistic “sin spots” of the world, encompassing topless go-go clubs, gay bars, drag queen beauty contests and nudist colonies, usually accompanied by her pet Chihuahua!

The low-budget Wild, Wild World was in production 1964 - 1968. Bear in mind Mansfield died in 1967. Part of the fun is spotting how the producers cobbled things together after Mansfield’s death in order to complete the film. Watch for the (many) shots of a body double filmed from behind wearing Mansfield’s disheveled blonde wig.  And the sound-alike who delivered the voice-over narration (nailing Jayne’s breathless babydoll coo) deserved an Oscar!

In an eerie unplanned coincidence, April marks Mansfield’s birthday (she was born 19 April 1933). Let’s make the night a celebration of all things Jayne! Come dragged-up as Jayne Mansfield and / or accompanied by a Chihuahua – get a free cocktail.

As usual: arrive circa 8 pm to order your drinks and grab the best seats. The film starts at 8:30 pm prompt!

Events page

Friday 29 April 2016: Revel in sleaze, voodoo and rock’n’roll - when incredibly strange dance party Lobotomy Room returns to the Polynesian-style basement Bamboo Lounge of Dalston’s premiere Art Deco vice den Fontaine’s! Friday 29 April! With sensational special offer cocktails on the night!

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! White Trash Rockers! 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! Come for the cocktails - stay for the putrid music and dirty movies!

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!

Events page

Vip Vop DJ Set List 3 May 2015

Since getting back from my US trip to Viva Las Vegas and New Orleans, I’m a good ten “art projects” behind. So I’m only just now getting around to blogging my set list from my DJ’ing guest spot at Vip Vop, DJ Gavin A GoGo’s vicious little rock’n’roll honky tonk night at The Stag’s Head in Haggerston.

Sunday 3 May 2015 fell on a bank holiday – bliss! That meant I could properly party and let it all hang out without worrying about having a hangover at work on Monday. And boy, did I! The festivities started at The Glory in Haggerston – London’s new epicentre of gay Bohemia and definitely one of my “happiest places” in London these days.  The Glory celebrated Bank Holiday Sunday with a trashy, boozy afternoon hillbilly barn dance. The proposed dress code was red and white gingham shirts (I dutifully wore mine!). Think people drinking beer while sitting on bales of straw, the DJs playing kitsch country and western music (as Pal and I entered, the first song I heard was by the sublime Bobbi Gentry; I just about jizzed), line dancing and the reliably anarchic and sewer-mouthed host John Sizzle dragged up as Dolly Parton.  

The most glamorous attendee was veteran New York cabaret artist Justin Vivian Bond, who I’ve revered since the Kiki and Herb days. It’s been a good few years since I’ve seen Bond perform and v [the pronoun Bond prefers over "him" or "her"] looks pretty sensational these days, with a long straight mane of blonde hair reminiscent of Nico on the cover of her 1967 Chelsea Girl album. After a few beers I plucked up the liquid courage to approach Bond and tell v about the first time I ever saw v perform: it was 1999 at the sadly defunct queer punk club Squeezebox in New York. Bond sang Marianne Faithfull’s “Broken English.” Bond’s eyes lit up at the memory of Squeezebox and asked, “Was I any good?”

From there, considerably refreshed after several hours at The Glory, Pal and I walked around the corner to The Stag’s Head for Vip Vop.  DJ Gavin AGoGo has an absolutely killer night and it was a pleasure to be a part of it. As you can see from the berserk photos, the night descended into a total rockabilly booze party bacchanal. (There’s no way I could have made it to work the next day). I played two sets alternating with Gavin. At one point the barmaid was threatening to close the place at 11 pm. Gavin found the manager and persuaded him to let us continue to play until midnight. That explains my second shorter set. I think I’ll let the photos do the talking now.




/ Bad Girls Go to Hell: The Women of Vip Vop



/ Pal and I /



/ These people are bad news /



/ The adorable Sarah /



/ DJ Gavin A GoGo /



/ Christophina wearing the Cramps t-shirt I bought him at Viva Las Vegas /

Here Comes the Bug - The Rumblers
Let's Have a Party - Wanda Jackson
Ah! Poor Little Baby - Billy "Crash" Craddock
Goin' Down That Road - Ersel Hickey
Let's Go, Baby - Billy Eldridge
Motorcycle Maniac - Bobby Warren
Beat Girl - ZZ en De Maskers
Vampira - Bobby Bare
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! The Bostweeds
Your Phone's off the Hook - The Ramonetures
We're Desperate - X
Esquerita and The Voola - Esquerita
Tough Bounce - The Fabulous Wailers
It's a Gas - The Rumblers
Like a Rolling Stone - Mamie Van Doren
Lucille - Masaaki Hirao
How Much Love Can One Heart Hold? Joe Perkins and The Rookies
The Girl Can't Help It - Little Richard
Jim Dandy - Ann-Margret
Rock-A-Bop - Sparkle Moore
I've Told Every Little Star - Linda Scott
Little Miss Understood - Connie Stevens
I Will Follow Him - Little Peggy March
Devil in Disguise - Elvis Presley
Fools Rush In - Ricky Nelson
Domino - Roy Orbison
Love Me - The Phantom
Whistle Bait - Larry Collins
Jim Dandy - Sara Lee and The Spades
Rawhide - Link Wray

Set 2

Blitzkreig Bop - The Ramonetures
Tina's Dilemma - Ike and Tina Turner
I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield - The 5,6,7,8s
That Makes It - Jayne Mansfield
Pass the Hatchet - Roger and The Gypsies
Breathless - Arlie Neaville
Muleskinner Blues - The Fendermen
Shortnin' Bread - The Readymen
Surfin' Bird - The Trashmen
Chicken - The Cramps
Chicken Walk - Hasil Adkins
Run Chicken Run - Link Wray
Chicken Grabber - The Nite Hawks

Further reading:

The next Cockabilly - the first since April! - is Wednesday 10 June 2015.

My next Mondo Trasho punkabilly Lobotomy Room club night - at its new home, opulent Art Deco vice palace Fontaine's - is Friday 26 June 2015.

For all your putrid retro, kitsch and vintage sleaze homo porn needs, follow me on tumblr!