Reflections on ... David Hurles of Old Reliable (12 September 1944 – 12 April 2023)

“David Hurles, the photographer and filmmaker whose models were plucked from the obscurity of the seedy streets and onto rolls of film shot for his small company Old Reliable, has died today, April 12. Hurles’ longtime friend, author and editor Dian Hanson announced his passing to The Bob Mizer Foundation this afternoon. Hurles acted as the sole employee of Old Reliable, a pornographic media company that he founded in the 1970s in San Francisco. Prior to its founding, Hurles shot his first professional model in 1968. As a photographer, Hurles focused his lens on the unsavory dregs of society – notably, tattooed, shaggy-haired, and sneering drug addicts and convicts – a far cry from the cleaner-cut models who had appeared throughout the magazine pages and film loops until that time ...” 

/ From the latest Bob Mizer Foundation e-newsletter dated 14 April 2023 / 

“Danger is a turn-on for Mr. Hurles. Marines aren’t butch enough or scary enough. No, David likes psychos. Nude ones. Money-hungry drug addicts with big dicks. Rage-filled robbers without rubbers. And of course convicts – his ultimate Prince Charmings. In the last three decades David Hurles has picked up rough trade off the streets of California, out in front of Doggie Diner and Flagg Brothers shoes in San Francisco and the Oki-Dog in Hollywood. Bars like the Old Crow and the Spotlight were his own personal Schwab’s Pharmacy. Only David wasn’t looking for an unknown Lana Turner in a tight sweater to turn into a star; he was looking for handsome criminals … Hurles took these outlaw studs, who may have never even realized they could be sexy, to his home like a fool-saint, paid them money and photographed them for your sick, self-loathing enjoyment. Old Reliable models snarled at the camera nude. They gave you the finger, bent over with their assholes showing, looking through their legs. And in what became Mr. Hurles’ signature photo pose, they smoked a big steaming cigar, nude, with an angry leer … All glaring into the camera looking like they wanted to rough you up … Without these pioneering Old Reliable photographs, homoeroticism in the art world couldn’t have existed. Robert Mapplethorpe was a pussy. Mr. Hurles is the real thing.” 

/ From the book Role Models (2010) by John Waters / 

Adieu to maverick “outsider pornographer” David Hurles (12 September 1944 – 12 April 2023). The gentle-faced model above is not typical of Hurles’ oeuvre, but it’s the only image I could find safe for social media! To really explore Hurles' work, this lovingly maintained blog is an essential starting point. 

Lobotomy Room at Fontaine's DJ Set List 28 April 2017

/ Ann-Margret's Back! /

From the Facebook events page for the 28 April 2017 Lobotomy Room club: 

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

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 28 April!

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! Punk! White Trash Rockers! Kitsch! Exotica! Curiosities! 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 grainy flickering black-and-white 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 ”blue” 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!

/ You! If you come to Lobotomy Room /

I'm elated to say this was probably the best and most crowded rock’n’roll booze party Lobotomy Room yet! It got off to a slow-ish start …. and then actual groups of people rocked-up! By midnight the Polynesian-style Bamboo Lounge was thronging! And they danced until 1:30 am! Earlier that same week the Lobotomy Room Goes to the Movies film club screened John Waters’ 1974 trash epic Female Trouble (on Wednesday 26 April) and that was packed-out too. Maybe Lobotomy Room has finally turned a corner?

Everything really came together: grainy flickering black-and-white vintage homo porn projected on the big screen accompanied by a soundtrack of greasy rhythm and blues, desperate rockabilly and furious punk tirades all stirred together into one rancid cocktail. And there was no stoppin’ the cretins from hoppin’! It was really gratifying to look onto the packed dance floor and see people flailing, thrashing and contorting themselves to tunes by the likes of Mae West and Mrs Mills! (Note: I wound up playing two songs by La West in a row when my bolt for a piss took longer than anticipated! That wasn’t deliberate).

And playing a track by quintessential sex kitten-gone-berserk (and Lobotomy Room staple) Ann-Margret (born 28 April 1941) was de rigueur – she turned 76 that Friday! I’d hoped that Ann-Margret’s birthday coinciding with Lobotomy Room would be a positive omen – and it was! Re pic at top of this post: I’m judging this pin-up dates from early seventies when A-M was regularly headlining in Vegas; the sparkly bell-bottomed outfit is almost certainly by maestro of sequined glitz Bob Mackie. (Read my account of seeing Ann-Margret perform at the Stardust Casino in 2005 here!).

/ Get your wig on, love! It's time for Lobotomy Room /

Here's what I was laying down:

Tall Cool One - The Wailers
Beatnik - The Champs
Drive Daddy Drive - Little Sylvia
It's a Gas - The Rumblers
Ain't That Good? George Kelly and Orchestra
Slow Walk - Sil Austin
Hot Licks - The Rendells
Killer - Sparkle Moore
Wild Wild Party - Charlie Feathers
Adult Books - X
Sweet Little Pussycat - Andre Williams
Punks Get off the Grass - Edith Massey
Do You Remember Rock'n'Roll Radio? The Ramonetures
Can't Stop Thinking About It - The Dirtbombs
Vampira - Bobby Bare
Money Money - Big John Taylor
Where's My Money? Willie Jones
Welfare Cheese - Emanuel Laskey
I Love the Life I Live - Esquerita
Savin' My Love - Wanda Jackson
Road Runner - The Fabulous Wailers
Woo-Hoo - The 5,6,7,8s
Bombora - The Original Surf-aris
Wiped-Out - The Escorts
The Shag - Link Wray
Ah! Poor Little Baby - Billy "Crash" Craddock
Let's Go, Baby - Billy Eldridge
Jukebox Babe - Alan Vega
Surfin' Rat - The Rumblers
Your Phone's Off the Hook - The Ramonetures
Atomic Bongos - Lydia Lunch
Viva Las Vegas - Nina Hagen
Bop Pills - The Cramps
Be Bop a Lula - Alan Vega
Rock Around the Clock - The Sex Pistols
Treat Me Right - Mae West
You Really Turn Me On - Mae West (played in error when I didn't get back from men's room in time)
Vampira - The Misfits
Breathless - X
Wood Pecker Rock - Nat Couty and The Braves
Batman Theme - Link Wray
Muleskinner Blues - The Fendermen
Shortnin' Bread - The Readymen
Surfin' Bird - The Trashmen
Lucille - Masaaki Hirao
Hanky Panky - Rita Chao and The Quests
These Boots Are Made for Walkin' - Mrs Mills
Lightening's Girl - Nancy Sinatra
Touch the Leather - The Fat White Family
Harley Davidson - Brigitte Bardot
Margaya - The Fender Four
Jim Dandy - Ann-Margret
Gostaria de Saber - Wanderlea
He's the One - Ike and Tina Turner
Party Lights - Claudine Clark
You're Driving Me Crazy - Dorothy Berry
Wipe-Out - The Surfaris
C'mon Everybody - Sid Vicious
I Wanna Be Sedated - The Ramonetures
Somebody Put Something in My Drink - The Ramones
Year 1 - X
I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield - The 5,6,7,8s
That Makes It - Jayne Mansfield
Ultra Twist - The Cramps
I'm a Woman - Peggy Lee
My Way - Nina Hagen

/ As usual, I didn't have time to snap many shots of the gorgeous Lobotomy Room attendees. I did manage to snatch these photos of Grant and Pal from the DJ booth /

/ Top: Pal in the eye-popping tangerine suit he bought in Dalston. (We'd attended a wedding earlier and he didn't bring a change of clothes!). Bottom: me. Both photos by Glamorous Matt) /

Upcoming Lobotomy Room-related dates for your social calendar!

Lobotomy Room Goes to the Movies presents Mahogany (1975) on Wednesday 17 May 2017

“There’s only one word to describe rich, dark, beautiful and rare. I’m going to call you … Mahogany!” 

Lobotomy Room Goes to the Movies is the FREE monthly film club downstairs at Fontaine’s devoted to Bad Movies We Love (our motto: Bad Movies for Bad People), specialising in the kitsch, the cult and the queer! This month’s presentation is Mahogany (1975) starring pop diva Diana Ross. And boy does Ross seize the opportunity to emote! It’s an outrageous, unintended so-bad-it’s-GREAT camp classic in the tradition of Valley of the Dolls, Mommie Dearest and Showgirls particularly beloved by drag queens. Find out why on Wednesday 17 May!

Poor Diana Ross’s film career began so promisingly (she earned an Academy Award nomination for 1972 Billie Holiday biopic Lady Sings the Blues). Unfortunately, the combination of Mahogany and 1978 mega-flop The Wiz definitively wrecked any hopes of enduring movie stardom.

Mahogany is a lurid rags-to-riches melodrama starring Ross as Tracy, a poor but determined girl from the gritty Chicago slums dreaming of becoming a fashion designer. Instead, she winds up transformed into international supermodel Mahogany. But is success - and her decadent Euro-trash existence in La Dolce Vita Rome - all it’s cracked up to be? Note: your enjoyment of Mahogany will depend how much you like the number one Diana Ross song “Do You Know Where You’re Going To?” (It’s played over and over again in the film).

Throw on a chiffon cape, drip candle wax all over yourself and embrace the sequined madness of Mahogany on 17 May! Doors to the Bamboo Lounge open at 8 pm. Film starts at 8:30 pm.

Events page

The next Lobotomy Room club night is Friday 26 May 2017

Events page

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, 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!

Cockabilly at Bloc Bar DJ Set List 11 May 2016

From the Facebook events page:

Drag a comb through your quiff, swallow a fistful of bop pills and rock around the cock – at COCKABILLY! Wednesday 11 May 2016 in 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!

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

/ This month has been an emotional roller-coaster for fans of the fabulous Bronze Liberace, Little Richard. Prompted by a perhaps hasty Facebook update from Bootsy Collins (“Lil-Richard needs our love & understanding right now … he is not in the best of health so I ask all the Funkateers to lift him up”) on 28 April 2016, the internet was abuzz with speculation the 83-year old Georgia Peach was gravely ill. Certainly when I saw a frail Little Richard perform at the Viva Las Vegas rockabilly weekender in 2013 he was visibly (and audibly) ailing. On 3 May, Little Richard’s attorney was forced to make an official statement assuring everyone that in fact his client was most definitely not on his deathbed.  “I don’t perform like I used to”, an aggrieved Richard is quoted. “But I have my singing voice, I walk around, I had hip surgery a while ago but I’m healthy.’“ Phew! Still, it was gratifying to see the outpouring of love, concern and affection for Little Richard – the freakiest and queerest of rock’n’roll’s original pioneers. Little Richard is, of course, one of the essential faces and voices of Cockabilly. (I played his his version of "Rip It Up" at this installment of Cockabilly). All hail the kween! /

Second Wednesday of the month can only mean one thing – Cockabilly at Bloc Bar! Between us Mal and I whipped-up a menacing roar of rockabilly psychosis and my vintage beefcake homo porn looked sin-sational projected on Bloc Bar’s big screen.

I won’t lie: the crowd this month was small. But it was interesting! Some attendees in particular caught my attention from the DJ booth.  A middle-aged black guy sporting a baseball cap and faded eighties-style double denim entered. My initial impression was: no gay vibe, but a definite authentic sleaze vibe. I noticed he was alone, but ordered three drinks.  Within minutes he was joined by two tough-as-nails, been-around-the-block women in short skirts and heavy make-up. I kept glancing at the trio as I DJ’d and finally the nature of their relationship dawned on me: they were two “working girls” and he was their pimp (or john).  Finally – my kind of clientele! They were like escapees from one of my favourite New Orleans dive bars, The Double Play. Very John Rechy, very City of Night! At one point I cranked up a frantic surf instrumental and the two women jumped up and began gyrating to it, right in front of the flickering homoerotic sixties physique porn. Later - when Mal was DJ'ing - their hipness quotient dropped substantially when one of them requested some Pink or Lily Allen.

Anyway, here is what I played:

Jane in the Jungle - The 5,6,7,8s
Tough Bounce - The Fabulous Wailers
Ain't That Loving You, Baby - The Earls of Suave
I Will Follow Him - Little Peggy March
Little Miss Understood - Connie Stevens
Wipe Out - The Surfaris
Dragon Walk - The Noblemen
Tornado - Dale Hawkins
Here Comes the Bug - The Rumblers
Jim Dandy - Ann-Margret
Vesuvius - The Revels
Lucille- Masaaki Hirao
Rip It Up - Little Richard
Boss - The Rumblers
Year One - X
The Swag - Link Wray
Goodbye So Long - Ike and Tina Turner
Rockin' the Joint - Esquerita
Bombora - The Original Surf-aris
Drive Daddy Drive - Little Sylvia
Wiped Out - The Escorts
Chicken Grabber - The Nite Hawks
Chicken - The Cramps
Viva Las Vegas - Nina Hagen
Johnny Hit and Run Pauline - The Ramonetures

/ As usual, you get a reward for reading this far /

Upcoming Lobotomy Room dates for your social calendar:

Wednesday 25 May 2016: As host and DJ 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 film club selection in May is … The Valley of The Dolls! Wednesday 25 May!

“You have to climb Mount Everest … to get to The Valley of The Dolls.” Before Mommie Dearest … before Showgirls … the original “What the hell were they thinking?” Bad Movie We Love was The Valley of the Dolls. (Or Vallée des poupées if you want to get all French about it). A perennial favourite of drag queens and a cult classic for connoisseurs of kitsch, the unintentionally hilarious and wildly entertaining 1967 film adaptation of Jacqueline Susann’s lurid 1966 bestseller took the already trashy source material – and went even tawdrier with it! (At the film’s premiere, an outraged Susann reportedly called the film “a piece of shit!”).

A cautionary tale about the perils of show business, it follows the travails of three ambitious casualties of the glamour jungle: friends Anne, Neely and Jennifer. (The “dolls” of the title refer to the fistfuls of uppers and downers the characters pop like Tic Tacs throughout – usually washed down with booze).The Valley of The Dolls packs everything discriminating thrill-seekers demand in its lunatic two hours: hammy performances, pill-popping, bouffant wigs, catfights, slurring drunken scenes, rehab, drug-fueled meltdowns and crap-tastic musical numbers.

This screening is dedicated to the memory of Dolls’ recently deceased-leading lady Patty Duke (14 December 1946 – 29 March 2016). Former child star Duke is rivetingly awful rampaging through the role of Neely O’Hara, a scenery-chewing performance so berserk it can be favourably likened to Ann-Margret’s in Kitten with a Whip. Get yourself a stiff drink and strap yourselves in for a wild ride when Lobotomy Room Goes to the Movies presents The Valley of The Dolls!

As usual: arrive circa 8 pm to order your drinks and grab the best seats. The film starts at 8:30 pm prompt. The Bamboo Lounge seats about 22 people. If you’re feeling proactive, contact Fontaine’s to reserve a seat in advance: email ruby@fontaines.bar or call 07718 000546. Events page

Friday 27 May 2016: Oh god, it's happening again ... the next Lobotomy Room club night. Events page. 

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 and here.

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

I'm also on twitter!

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