I found myself DJ’ing at The Retro Bar for vintage trash queer club night Wild Thing again on 18 July 2012. It was a last-minute gig: my friends Christopher Raymond and Paul Kennedy were meant to be guest DJ’ing alongside Joe Pop (the brains behind Wild Thing) that night, but Paul had to drop out at short notice. I was planning to go just to hang out, anyway, when Christopher texted me asking if I’d be interested in co-DJ’ing with him. To paraphrase the late, great Gore Vidal (a timely reference! RIP), I never turn down the opportunity to have sex, appear on television or DJ – so I quickly packed my DJ bag and rushed to the venue.
If the set list below looks exceptionally short, it was because our set was only an hour long and we “alternated” as a tag team, me on CDs and Christopher on vinyl. (I don’t have Christopher’s tracks to add to the set list, but his were more modern / post-punk: I definitely recall some Boss Hog, Holly Golightly, The Cramps, Babes in Toyland, “Atomic Bongos” by Lydia Lunch, "White Mice" by The Mo-dettes). The partnership worked well, and the flowing pints of icy lager only added to the inspiration. Both of us chose Link Wray for our opening tracks, which meant back-to-back Link Wray songs – but how can you possibly have too many twang-y, ominous Link Wray instrumentals? (Mine, “The Shag”, is of course the opening theme tune to John Waters’ Pink Flamingos – ensuring it will always hold a special place in my heart).
/ Black T-Shirt Convention: Christopher and I (double chin alert) photographed at The Retro Bar on 18 July 2012. Une photo originale par Joe Pop /
As ever, I endeavoured to pack in a varied selection of urgently sleazy music: some punk (X, Sid Vicious), hillbilly (Hasil Adkins), surf (The Fender Four), titty-shaking stripper instrumentals (The Hustlers), cooing / purring sex kittens (Ann-Margret, Mamie Van Doren) and weird Satan-worshipping voodoo shit (Esquerita).
I also worked in a mini-tribute to Kenneth Angers’s 1963 experimental / avant-garde homoerotic short film Scorpio Rising. I know I bang on about this film a lot, but I saw it at an impressionable age and it definitely had a transformative effect on me – it contributed to making me the twisted fuck I am today! I frequently dip into the songs Anger used on the soundtrack to Scorpio Rising when I DJ as a bit of an homage to the master - on this occasion, Elvis’s “Devil in Disguise” and Ricky Nelson’s “Fools Rush In.” Which is a nice excuse to post a photo of Ricky at the height of his beauty. (Sigh).
Here’s a tantalising fragment of Scorpio Rising to whet your appetite: you just hear the tail end of Ricky Nelson’s “Fools Rush In” before the music fades into “Wind Up Doll” by Little Peggy March. Now make it your mission to track down Kenneth Anger: The Complete Magick Lantern Cycle on DVD (easy enough on Amazon). You will thank me later.
Christopher has also asked me to point out he spun a track off a weird Halloween novelty compilation record on the Crypt label entitled Monster Rock’n’Roll, with truly inept but heartfelt “outsider art” cover art of Frankenstein jiving with a pony-tailed girl in a graveyard (I think it was done by a violent psychobilly prisoner in solitary confinement. See for yourself here).
Afterwards, while Joe Pop himself DJ’d I caught up with my work colleague, American ex-pat Eric. We bonded by reminiscing wistfully about our mutual all-time favourite rancid dive bar in the world: The Hole in the Wall in San Francisco. (Eric used to live in San Francisco). By then I was very drunk.
OK, enough of my wittering. Time for naked vintage beefcake – and I’m not feeling particularly “safe for work” today. I’ve mentioned before how Joe Pop’s designs for Wild Thing flyer images are nice mini-masterpieces of pop art. Unsurprisingly, gay icon / Warhol superstar Joe Dallesandro is a frequent source of inspiration.
/ In the shower with Little Joe: a relatively un-corrupted (pre-junkie, anyway) teenage Dallesandro in his nude modelling days /
The Shag - Link Wray and His Ray Men
She Said - Hasil Adkins
Little Boy / Little Girl - John and Jackie
Fools Rush In - Ricky Nelson
Devil in Disguise - Elvis Presley
Oh Lonesome Me - Ann-Margret
Somethin' Else - Sid Vicious
Dancing with Tears in My Eyes - X
8 Ball - The Hustlers
Go Calypso - Mamie Van Doren
Ballad of Thunder Road - Robert Mitchum
Big Bounce - Shirley Cadell
Esquerita and The Voola - Esquerita
I Stubbed My Toe - Bryan "Legs" Walker
Margaya - The Fender Four
Stranger in My Own Home Town - The Earls of Suave
/ I don't blame him. I wouldn't be able to stop staring, either /
“Actor often cast in sleazy, raunchy roles.” That was the headline for The Guardian’sobituary of the maverick cult movie actress Susan Tyrrell (18 March 1945 – 16 June 2012), who died last month aged 67 after a very tough life. Seriously: what greater career summary could an actress possibly hope for?
Since her death I’ve devoured all Tyrrell’s obituaries and found the outrageous anecdotes about this tempestuous outlaw / outsider actress so fascinating, it prompted me to do my own (belated) tribute. I hadn’t thought of Susan Tyrrell much since reading the tragic news of her losing both her legs in 2000 (they had to be amputated when she was stricken with a rare blood disease; considering her health problems, Tyrrell's death wasn’t entirely unexpected) or kept abreast of her subsequent film appearances. It’s sad when it takes death for someone to be reappraised, but there’s been a genuine outpouring of affection for Tyrrell online in the past month – a recognition we’ve lost a true original. I hope I can do justice to Tyrrell’s weird charisma.
Prior to her death, I mainly knew Tyrrell from just two films. Like many people of my generation, she made a vivid impression as raspy-voiced, gum-snapping hillbilly matriarch Ramona Ricketts in the John Waters juvenile delinquent rockabilly musical Cry-baby (1990). Many years later, I saw her as Carroll Baker’s mousey, tremulous and down-trodden daughter-in-law in Andy Warhol’s BAD (1977). (I know I’ve seen Big Top Pee Wee (1988) at some point, but it’s been so long I need to re-visit it to refresh my memory of Tyrrell in that).
Polaroid of Tyrrell as Ramona Rickettes and Iggy Pop as Belvedere Rickettes in John Waters's Cry-baby (1990). I want to look like them when I grow up
Tyrrell as Mary in Andy Warhol's BAD (1977). You can read my blog about this film and Tyrrell's performance in it here
Since then, I’ve loaded my LOVEFiLM request list with Susan Tyrrell films (not many of which are available on DVD in the UK, sadly) and seen Forbidden Zone (1982). But what all of Tyrrell’s obituary writers unanimously agree on is that her crowning achievement was her performance as the volatile alcoholic Oma in Fat City (1972).
When people lament wistfully about the golden age of gritty, small-scale 1970s character-driven American films, they mean films precisely like Fat City, John Huston’s downbeat and soulful study of melancholy losers. Set in a peeling, shabby vision of skid row Stockton, California, Huston’s tone is hard-boiled but sensitive and compassionate if ultimately pessimistic (“Life is a beeline for the drain,” one of the characters despairs towards the end). The action mostly shuttles between boxing gyms, derelict welfare hotels and dark dive bars where the characters chain-smoke and drink away their troubles while mournful Country & Western music emanates from a Wurlitzer jukebox. (The Kris Kristofferson ballad “Help Me Make It through the Night” plays under the opening credits and sets the mood for the ensuing film).
Fat City contrasts the stories of two couples: Jeff Bridges as a promising teenage boxer on the ascent and his naive girlfriend Candy Clark, and the stoical, battered Stacy Keach as a past-his-prime boxer and Tyrrell as his booze-sodden love interest Oma. (The older pair is far more interesting).
Tyrrell as Oma in John Huston's Fat City (1972)
The role of juicehead Oma was originally intended for Faye Dunaway, then at her zenith. No doubt Dunaway would have been fascinating in the part, but Tyrrell invests it with a totally idiosyncratic frowsy, bleary-eyed kewpie doll strangeness. (Dunaway would eventually get to interpret a similar role much later in her career, as the drunken Wanda Wilcox in the 1987 film Barfly).
It’s jarring to realise Tyrrell was only 26-years old in Fat City: with her matted rat’s nest hair, face screwed into a mask of misery and slumped, defeated body language she could pass for someone a good fifteen years older. (Tyrrell always looks vaguely forty-something in all of her films, regardless of her actual age). Her performance is the quintessential study of the jaundiced bar stool mama, the kind of drunk you pray doesn’t spark up a conversation with you at a bar while you’re waiting for someone (and they always do). She’s such a hardened barfly that when Oma makes a rare sojourn outside in daytime, the jolting unfamiliarity of sunlight makes her blink and turn unsteady. Tyrrell nails the stormy mood swings of an alcoholic: sherry-swilling Oma is alternately tearful, petulant, maudlin, raucous, self-pitying and needy. When angered she turns shrewish, a harridan. “Screw everybody!” she slurs. She and Keach have a piquant argument at one stage (Him: “Screw you!” Her: “Up yours, cowboy!”). She’s also prone to drunken philosophising: “The white race has been in decline since 1492 when Christopher Columbus discovered syphilis!”
Once Keach’s initial infatuation with Oma wears off, he realises what exactly he’s lumbered with. “Every time she opens her mouth, I think I’m going to go crazy!” he despairs. Yes, Oma is a nightmare, but Tyrrell scalds the screen every time she appears. While the rest of the cast give low-key naturalistic performances, Tyrrell is on an entirely different register – out-sized, bravura, Bette Davis-ish intensity. She’s an actress out on a limb, risking embarrassment. Tyrrell was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance, but rather than herald greater things Fat City sealed her fate and set a bar she’d never be able to reach again for various complex reasons -- perhaps her own tumultuous personality, or maybe Tyrrell was so convincing as an unstable drunk it scared off producers?
Fat City certainly guaranteed Tyrrell would never be a conventional leading lady (probably not her destiny anyway). Luckily she saw herself as primarily a character actress: she was beautiful enough to be a mainstream star (sculpted cheekbones, feline eyes, heart-shaped mouth), but instead opted to embrace her inner freak. (One of the defining characteristics of Tyrrell's career was her willingness to look grotesque).
But looking back at Tyrrell's wayward, erratic filmography, she deserved better films. Tyrrell probably belongs to the elite tradition of actresses too uncompromising, eccentric, decadent and individual for Hollywood to know what to do with: think of loose cannons / trouble makers like Louise Brooks or Tallulah Bankhead (and more recently, Sandra Bernhard). In fact, in Barry Paris’s essential 1989 biography of silent cinema’s wild child Louise Brooks he quotes a friend of hers recalling asking Brooks how – when she was almost overburdened with beauty, potential and star quality – she wound up exiled from Hollywood and unemployable. Brooks admitted, “I like to fuck and drink too much.” I suspect that’s equally true of Tyrrell (who could swear like a truck stop prostitute). And it clearly rankled her: in interviews Tyrrell repeatedly bewails the quality of her films. In 1992 she starred in an avant-garde one-woman performance art stage piece about her career disappointments entitled My Rotten Life: A Bitter Operetta. You can watch it here: it’s like David Lynch meets Kurt Weill and Tyrrell is on scathing form.
The other Tyrrell film I’ve seen since her death is Forbidden Zone. Very deliberately striving for cult movie status, this zany musical looks great and has some amazing moments (it’s remarkable what was achieved on a clearly small budget) – but it’s also frequently shrill and annoying, and the music of Oingo Boingo is pretty much nails on a blackboard for me. As the vicious Queen Doris of the Sixth Dimension, Tyrrell walks off with the film. Boiling with sexual energy and fury, gleefully luxuriating in her own evil (Eartha Kitt's Catwoman in the 1960s Batman TV series would appear to be her template), Tyrrell demonstrates (for a heterosexual woman) a profound understanding of camp in this performance. In fact her only potential threat in the film is the superbly deadpan former Warhol superstar Viva, who makes a cameo appearance and delivers with peerless nonchalance the killer line, “See you guys later – I need to change a Tampax.” (In a climactic moment, Tyrrell and Viva roll around on the ground in a cat fight. It needs to be seen to be believed).
Once you’ve seen this clip, you’ve pretty much seen the highpoint of Forbidden Zone. Tyrrell clearly knew how to deliver a musical number with real verve. A definite added bonus in this song is The Kipper Kids in go-go boys mode shaking their asses in jock straps. Damn, those two were built like tanks! One of them is now married to Bette Midler. Boy did she luck out!
In Forbidden Zone, the sadistic Queen Doris is married to King Fausto of the Sixth Dimension, played by dwarf French actor Herve Villechaize (yes, Tattoo from Fantasy Island). In one of the extra features on the Forbidden Zone DVD, Tyrrell is interviewed and discusses her relationship with Villechaize (they’d been romantically involved, but split by the time they co-starred in the film). She reminisces about the first time she ever saw Villechaize, onstage in a play. As the play progressed, Tyrrell found herself drawn to him and it gradually dawned on her: “I want to fuck a midget!” When the interviewer splutters with nervous laughter, Tyrrell clarifies, “In a very loving way!”
As a nice postscript, this is Tyrrell interviewed in Lee Server’s excellent 2006 biography of Ava Gardner, recalling her encounter with the ailing veteran actress in Spain in 1984. It reveals much about Tyrrell's warmth, generosity, hedonism and ribald sense of humour.
“I was in Spain doing a film ... had two fabulous lunches with (Gardner). She had saddlebags of vodka on the sides of her eyes. But what a beauty. You’re just in awe, it’s like taking in the Taj Mahal of beauty. But she was a real girl. “Honey honey” and smoking smoking and the beauty of this face and drinking and laughing our asses off. She was trying to get me out of Madrid. She said I had to get out of there – get the fuck out of the country. And she leaned over the table, and she said, “You need to get the fuck out of Spain, because the guys all have little dicks and they’ll fuck you in the ass before you can get your panties off.” I loved her so much. We laughed so hard ... What a genius. She had a lot of vodka in her, boy, that’s for sure.”
I think I want to go to for a boozy, debauched lunch with Susan Tyrrell and Ava Gardner ...
Tyrrell is survived by her mother, but sadly they were estranged and hadn't reconciled by the time of her death. In 2000 Tyrrell recalled, "The last thing my mother said to me was, 'SuSu, your life is a celebration of everything that is cheap and tawdry.' I've always liked that, and I've always tried to live up to it." “A celebration of everything that is cheap and tawdry”: talk about words to live by. RIP Susan Tyrrell.
Further reading:
Tyrrell’s leading man in Fat City, Stacy Keach pays her a sensitive and lyrical eulogy in the Huffington Post online. “I loved her whiskey voice, always reeking of soul and sweetness,” Keach recalls. “She was like the Billie Holliday of the dispossessed. She sang the blues with every word she spoke, and the unique colors she brought to the behavior of the characters she played always embraced a vivid portrait of a highly sensual woman. Sexy and vulnerable, not unlike the qualities of a battered Marilyn Monroe.”
Michael Musto (doyen of the downtown NYC nightclubbing scene and Village Voice gossip columnist) has posted some hilarious recollections of the times he interviewed Tyrrell in the 1980s (once for Soho Weekly News and then for Details magazine, when it was still hip). Read some scathing excerpts from the 1983 Details interview here and here.
Nice, thoughtful piece on Dangerous Minds, praising Tyrrell's ability to "ignite flicks that strained to be weird with flashes of her eccentric brilliance, often salvaging otherwise unwatchable pieces of crap" and calling her "Cinema's Gonzo Goddess."
It was Dennis Cooper’s typically excellent blog about Tyrell (a treasure trove of photos, clips and juicy info) that prompted me to do my own in the first place.
Susan Tyrrell's own website (check out the outrageous photo gallery!)
Finally, the mother of all Susan Tyrrell interviews is Paul Cullum’s insightful and incendiary masterpiece from The LA Weekly News in 2000, subtitled “Susan Tyrrell’s Sentimental Journey through Money, Fame, Sex and Amputation.” Against a soundtrack of rap music (“Thank God for rap music — without it, I would slit my throat”), Cullum meets Tyrrell (accompanied by her geriatric poodle Willie) right after her legs have been amputated and finds her in a remarkably sassy, un-self pitying frame of mind – what a resilient tough cookie. I especially love Tyrrell tenderly reminiscing about her friendship with the doomed Warhol drag queen superstar Candy Darling. Less happily, her account of how she got the role in Fat City will forever tinge your opinion of John Huston (the man, not the director) and make you recall his sinister role in Roman Polanski's Chinatown.
/ 1960s Hair Hopper – Swiss style! Photo by Swiss cult / outsider photographer Karlheinz Weinberger from his book Rebel Youth /
Since starting my half-assed, harebrained DJ’ing “career” all those years ago (actually, not that many years ago), I estimate I’ve DJ’d pretty much everywhere in London: South (Vauxhall), North (Angel and Stoke Newington), West (Kensal Green) and best of all, East (Dalston and Shoreditch) – but never before in the actual West End. So this gig at the club night Wild Thing at The Retro Bar in Charing Cross officially represented my glittering West End debut. I’ve arrived! “Won’t you come and give me a warm hand on my big opening?” I urged everyone on Facebook. “Give me the clap I so richly deserve?” (Yes, I will keep recycling those jokes).
Retro queer record hop Wild Thing is the brainchild of artist, club promoter and DJ Joe Pop. Sprung on the world in January 2011 (first on a monthly basis, then weekly – it’s currently every Wednesday at the Retro Bar), the Wild Thing music policy is essentially (in the words of its Facebook page) “raunchy rock’n’roll, girl group melodramas, retro pop wonders and snot nosed punk of every type ... It’s got great hair, a bad attitude, a stuffed bra and possibly a switchblade in its back pocket! It’s the soundtrack to a John Waters / Tarantino / Warhol movie starring YOU!”
Needless to say, Wild Thing fits my own squalid musical aesthetic like a tight (wet) t-shirt, so when I was invited to guest DJ I leapt at the chance.
(Joe Pop has a real flair for creating striking iconic flyers for Wild Thing. Here are some of my favourites)
/ Tribute to Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising /
/ Tribute to Jayne Mansfield /
/ Tribute to Little Richard /
For this night I DJ’d as part of a duo with Phil Clark. He did the first hour; I had an hour solo, and then for the last hour we were an alternating tag team. The space behind the decks is tiny. Two people crammed back there is pretty intimate. A certain amount of lager was drunk. There may have been times when my tongue might have been in Phil’s mouth and my hand jammed down the back of his jeans; after a few drinks I get wandering “party hands”. But hey, the Retro Bar patrons are worldly and broad-minded adults and it all added to the night’s louche, anything goes, Max's Kansas City ambiance.
My set was pretty much a variation of what I used to play at London’s gay greaser night Cockabilly: think sleazy titty-shaking instrumentals, wailing rhythm and blues (Little Richard and Esquerita are, after all, the mothers – muthas? – of us all), white trash hillbilly rockers, punk and assorted confrontational / abrasive kitsch.
/ Me - DJ'ing at Wild Thing on 4 July 2012. Eine foto von my glamorous friend Lauren Jones. That Hillbilly Hop t-shirt is now so old it qualifies as vintage /
Speaking of Cockabilly: it’s been on hiatus since The George and Dragon kicked it out (well, refreshed their club night policy if you prefer) at the beginning of January 2012. The good news is Cockabilly is back, back, BACK! Tenacious and resilient promoters Mal and Paul have found a new venue in Dalston and they re-launched Cockabilly on Thursday 5 July. The timing was unfortunate: I was way too hung over from Wild Thing the night before to even contemplate going, but I’ll definitely report back after the August Cockabilly.
And now -- finally an excuse to post some vintage beefcake ...
Deuces Wild - Link Wray
Heartbreakin' Special - Duke Larson
Muleskinner Blues - The Fendermen
Jim Dandy - Sara Lee and The Spades
Hand Clapping Time - The Fabulous Raiders
Ain't That Lovin' You, Baby? The Earls of Suave
Beat Party - Ritchie and The Squires
Breathless - X
Chop Suey Rock'n'Roll - The Instrumentals
Bombie - Johnny Sharp and The Yellow Jackets
Funnel of Love - Wanda Jackson
Bottle to the Baby - Charlie Feathers
Crawfish - Johnny Thunders and Patti Paladin
Dance with Me Henry - Ann-Margret
Kruschev Twist - Melvin Gayle
C'mon Everybody - The Sex Pistols
Booze Party - 3 Aces and a Joker
Willie Joe - The Mystery Trio
Duck Calling Boogie - Gene Price
Chicken Walk - Hasil Adkins
Boss - The Rumblers
Chicken Shack - Ike and Tina Turner
Chicken Grabber - The Nite Hawks
Comin' Home, Baby - The Delmonas
Peter Gunn Twist - The Jesters
Sweetie Pie - Eddie Cochran
Elle est terrible - Johnny Halliday
Salamander - Mamie Van Doren
I Love the Life I Live - Esquerita
Tiger - Sparkle Moore
You Done Messed Around and Made a Mean Woman Mad - Julia Bates
Cry-baby - The Honey Sisters
I Stubbed My Toe - Bryan "Legs" Walker
Little Miss Understood - Connie Stevens
Can Your Pussy Do the Dog? The Cramps
The Girl Can't Help It - Little Richard
Margaya - The Fender Four
Fever - Nancy Sit
I'm a Bad, Bad Girl - Little Esther
Dynamic duo Penny Arcade and David Hoyle onstage causing chaos at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern
On 21 June 2012 I attended the final night of David Hoyle's triumphant latest residency (entitled Pandregina: a programme of 'entertainment' for the post-political, pre-apocalyptic age) at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern. I went with Rachael Halliwell, Allan Taylor (who "transcends gender", by the way. At least that’s what Hoyle announced from the stage when he saw him) and Steve Millar. Bravely, we sat right by the front.
It was a spectacular night of performance art royalty. As well as Hoyle (on typically ferocious and scathing form) there were several special guests: porn star Ashley Ryder (who screened an eye-popping / eye-watering hardcore short film), Sjaak van Der Bent (who merits comparison to Klaus Nomi) and Al Pillay (who sang some spine-tingling torch songs).
I was especially keen to see New York underground theatre legend Penny Arcade again, who’s currently in town with her one-woman show Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore! I’ve long been a fan of this tiny, volcanic force-of-nature – she’s the she-wolf/ earth mother / Anna Magnani of performance art. (Last Spring when Penny was in town sorting out the red tape for bringing Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore! to London we liaised about me interviewing her for Nude magazine. Sadly in the end her schedule didn't permit it).
Afterwards, Hoyle invited Penny back again and it was just the two of them riffing onstage together. They were brilliant and lacerating. Hoyle was asking her about how New York has changed for her over the decades, which led to a discussion about gentrification. New York hasn’t been the edgy centre of bohemia now for years, Penny argued. She sang the praises of London, saying this is now the artistic world centre. Hoyle talked about how the middle classes all want to move into the city centres because they’re buzzing, cosmopolitan and happening – and then they complain about the noise of bars and nightclubs keeping them and their children awake, and campaign to get them closed! This led to a lamentation about middle class people and their precious children. Penny explained when she sees them on the street she wants to scream, “Your children AREN’T special!”
At the end for the finale everyone came back out and sang “Where Have All The Flowers Gone?” together. Then Hoyle serenaded each of them with a long, drawn-out and eerie “You Made Me Love You” (when he sings that jazz standard, he makes it sound like the music a stalker hears in their head).
Viva the avant-garde!
I managed to snap a few photos ...
Further reading: check out some photos I took of Penny Arcade onstage at the club night Duckie at The Royal Vauxhall in April 2011 here
/ The sublime Jayne Mansfield looking as understated as ever in Too Hot To Handle (1960) /
This Wednesday night Dr Sketchy at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern featured two Dr Sketchy doyennes: bad girl of cabaret emcee Ophelia Bitz and bump-and-grind artisteCherry Shakewell. The outrageous Ophelia was on especially raunchy form. “I am and probably will Ophelia Bitz,” she introduced herself. Sporting an especially short micro mini-dress, she apologised in advance to the audience members by the front of the stage if they copped an eyeful of more than they bargained for. Truly, she is the Tallulah Bankhead du nos jours.
Cherry Shakewell’s act incorporated a bubble machine, and her spectacular green and gold outfit and headdress evoked an under-the-sea vibe, implying sexy mermaids, a Sea Queen or (as Cherry herself described it) Lady Neptune. (Unfortunately there was no one taking photos tonight, but Cherry looked a lot like this ... in fact, this tune was the cue for the bubble machine to start).
Ophelia used this as inspiration for suggesting themes when people drew Cherry. She paraphrased a line from a song in The Little Mermaid (“It’s better down where it’s wetter”) in a way that Disney almost certainly didn’t have in mind. Another of her suggestions was “Something Fishy, Starring Cherry Shakewell.”
I haven’t made any serious technical blunders in a while, so I guess I was overdue for one. There was a horrifying moment at the beginning of the night when I botched Ophelia’s music cue. Because there was just one model and burlesque performer this night, Ophelia treated the audience to a few songs from her cabaret repertoire. When she arrived and said her musical backing was on her iPhone rather than on a CD, my heart sank. I don’t have an iPhone myself so am panicky and unfamiliar with operating ‘em. And even at the best of times, I screw up musical cues (just ask poor long-suffering Claire Benjamin/Freuda Kahlo!). Ophelia quickly ran through with me what her musical cue would be but I still completely misunderstood it (I thought she was singing a song at the end of the night, not right after she introduced herself at the start!). So she stood there staring at me from the stage when her music was due to kick in, and I was staring back at her blankly before I realised, Oh! She means now! Luckily, Ophelia is such a seasoned and unruffled pro we quickly got back on track and she rocked the house with her first song.
Musically, it didn’t occur to me until midway through Cherry’s first pose I should try to play some underwater/sea-related music. Doh! I quickly remedied that by slapping on "Atlantis" by high emperor of Mondo Exotica, Les Baxter. Elsewhere, while she posed I cranked up cooing sex kitten tunes by Cherry’s platinum blonde spiritual predecessors like Mamie Van Doren, Brigitte Bardot, Jayne Mansfield and (token redhead) Ann-Margret. I decided long ago that “Cherry” by The Jive Bombers is Cherry’s unofficial theme song. For me Cherry’s 1960s go-go dancer look (tousled blonde mane, frosted pale lipstick, false eyelashes like thick black tarantulas) always suggests Nancy Sinatra and Russ Meyer’s sexploitation masterpiece (and what John Waters calls “beyond a doubt, the best movie ever made”) Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (Of the trio of homicidal, vengeful go-go dancers, Cherry most resembles the fun-loving blonde femme one, Billie).
I corralled some friends into coming to this Dr Sketchy: Christopher, Paul (these two used to be in art-punk band Matron together) and Ilana. (Ilana in fact won one of the main prizes at the end. Ophelia couldn’t decipher the signature scrawled at the bottom of Ilana’s sketch and announced her as “Lana”). After Dr Sketchy itself was pretty much over, I dashed outside where the three of them were standing smoking cigarettes like a bunch of delinquents. I said I’d just play one or two more songs to wind things up then I’d be free to join them. They had the nerve to say No, they’re going back in and they want to listen to me play more. So I continued DJ’ing for another 25 minutes or so for their pleasure while they drank beer. What can you do with people like that, huh?
Simba - Les Baxter
Run - Jeri Southern
Cocktail for Two - Cliff Duphiney
If I Love Ya Then I Need Ya, If I Need Ya Then I Wantcha Around - Eartha Kitt
Love is Comin' My Way - Myrna March
Trash Can - Ken Williams
Madness - The Rhythm Rockers
What Do You Think I Am? Ike and Tina Turner
Rompin' - Jerry Warren
Jim Dandy - Sara Lee and The Spades
Leave Married Women Alone - Jimmy Cavallo
I Want Your Love - The Cruisers
Good and Bad - The Gauchos
Pink Champagne - The Tyrones
Heartbreak Hotel - Buddy Love
Surfing Snow Matador - Mickey and Ludella
Shomblar - Sheriff and The Revels
Intoxica - The Centurions
Fever - Nancy Sit
It - The Regal-Aires
Scorpion - Jimmy McConville
Miss Irene - Ginny Kennedy
Night Scene - The Rumblers
Mambo Baby - Ruth Brown
I Learn a Merengue, Mama - Robert Mitchum
Wimoweh - Yma Sumac
Esquerita and the Voola - Esquerita
Delilah Jones - The Thunderbirds
Little Miss Understood - Connie Stevens
Beaver Shot - Hollywood Hurricanes
Drummin' Up a Storm - Sandy Nelson
Suey - Jayne Mansfield
Atlantis - Les Baxter
Boots - Nero and The Gladiators
Let Me Entertain You - Ann-Margret
Harlem Nocturne - The Viscounts
Handclapping Time - The Fabulous Raiders
Margaya - The Fender Four
Chop Suey Rock'n'Roll - The Instrumentals
Kruschev Twist - Melvin Gayle
Ain't That Loving You, Baby - The Earls of Suave
Comin' Home, Baby - The Delmonas
Peter Gunn Twist - The Jesters
Sweetie Pie - Eddie Cochran
Bombie - Johnnie Sharp and the Yellow Jackets
I Was Born to Cry - Johnny Thunders
Lucille - Little Richard
Tall Cool One - The Wailers
I Gotta Get Out of This Town - Nancy Sinatra
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! The Bostweeds
Woman - Empress of Fur
Cherry - The Jive Bombers
Angel Face - Billy Fury
Je Me Donne A Qui Me Plait - Brigitte Bardot
Crawlin' - The Untouchables
The Girl Who Invented Rock'n'Roll - Mamie Van Doren
Beat Party - Ritchie and The Squires
Pass the Hatchet - Roger and The Gypsies
Vesuvius - The Revels
Beat Girl - Adam Faith
No Good Lover - Mickey and Sylvia
Breathless - Arlie Neaville
Torture Rock - Rockin' Belmarx
Drive, Daddy, Drive - Little Sylvia
Chicken Grabber - The Nite Hawks
The Chicken Scratch - The Commandos
Chicken Shack - Ike and Tina Turner
Over the recent Diamond Jubilee weekend I posted on Facebook a Youtube clip of archetypal punkette Jordan snarling / ineptly lip-synching her way through a a crotch-thrusting, panty-flashing performance of “Rule Britannia” from underground filmmaker Derek Jarman's 1978 cult art film Jubilee. “This is the closest I get to embracing the Jubilee spirit", I explained. Jarman’s nihilistic punk epic is pretty damn incomprehensible (and was loathed by most punks at the time), but has some vivid snatches and indelible images – the most memorable of which is probably Jordan (one of the true, pioneering movers and shakers of early UK punk, a muse to Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren as well as Jarman, and the original one-woman Sex Pistol) doing stripper squats in a novelty plastic union flag tabard, her white marshmallow thighs (think plump young Dietrich as Lola Lola in The Blue Angel) encased in green stockings.
Weirdly enough, just four days after posting that Facebook status update, I met Jordan herself at the launch party for Simon Barker’s exhibit and accompanying book, Punk’s Dead. For once in my life, I didn’t bring my bleedin’ digital camera, and I don’t have a smartphone – so there are no photos to document this historic encounter! But Jordan autographed a postcard for me. She turned me around and wrote it against my back, gripping my shoulder with her free hand – which melted my teenage punk heart! She’s 57-years old now, silver-haired, mumsy, looks a bit like Su Pollard and radiates unaffected charisma and easy-going, down to earth warmth. We only spoke briefly as she was surrounded by other admirers eager for her attention. I managed to ask her about the striking trademark Cubist mask of make-up she used to wear, saying it looked Picasso-esque. She smilingly explained that’s close, but her true inspiration was the painter Mondrian: she’d wanted to transform her face into a Mondrian painting. Simon Barker himself was in attendance (wearing an immaculate olive green Westwood suit), but the unofficial hostess seemed to be Jordan: everyone at the party gravitated towards her. Happy to stand in front of Barker’s smoldering portraits of her youthful self from 35 years earlier, pose for photos and sign autographs, you can see what would’ve entranced the likes of Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious in the 1970s. What a woman.
/ The postcard Jordan autographed for me. (No, I don't have a scanner) /
To briefly put her into context: If the 1970s London punk subculture had an “It girl”, it was Jordan. Born Pamela Rooke in 1955 in the seaside resort town of Seaford, East Sussex, her startling, idiosyncratic sense of style made her a natural employee selling kinky latex bondage wear at Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren’s outrageous boutique Sex on London’s King Road when they unleashed it in 1975. It was a perfect fit, as Jon Savage recalls in his definitive 1991 punk history England’s Dreaming. “(Jordan) was a living advertisement for the new shop, having turned her own body into an art object.” With her chalk-white face, no eyebrows, black raccoon-like eye liner, gravity-defying post-Bride of Frankenstein platinum blonde beehive and confrontational demeanour, Jordan was like the ethos of McLaren and Westwood’s Sex concept made voluptuous flesh. Amongst Barker’s photos are some stunning dual portraits of Jordan and Siouxsie Sioux together; by comparison, Jordan makes even stunning young ice princess Siouxsie look relatively normal. (The extremity of Jordan’s look is also almost Divine-like: I can remember John Waters admitting he used to keep a photo of Jordan pinned to the bulletin board above his writing desk for inspiration).
/ Punk pin-up Jordan (this photo not by Simon Barker) /
/ Bertie Berlin and Jordan by Simon Barker /
Sex was the epicenter of the emerging punk scene, from where McLaren engineered the creation of its “house band” the Sex Pistols. (Johnny Rotten famously auditioned for the band by caterwauling along to Alice Cooper’s “Eighteen” on the shop’s vintage jukebox). Jordan was virtually the fifth Pistol: at their riotous early gigs, her scantily-clad presence by the front of the stage attracted as much press attention as the band itself. From there, she parlayed her notoriety and striking appearance into roles in the Derek Jarman films Sebastian (1976) and Jubilee (1978). After a brief stint managing Adam and The Ants early in their career, Jordan then exiled herself from punk by the early 1980s, ultimately returning to her native South coast. (She’s been quoted as saying that punk died for her when The Pistols broke up). By then her niche as one of punk’s true fashion icons was already secure. (I hate the word "icon" and rarely use it, but it's fitting here). It was obviously a wise choice, as today Jordan exudes serenity and contentment. These days she works as a veterinary nurse and breeds Burmese cats. (I have friends who also breed pure-bred cats. They report Jordan is frequently sighted at cat shows).
About Simon Barker: As part of the Bromley Contingent, the early, stylish Sex Pistols acolytes who would take the train from the suburbs into central London to attend their gigs, Barker (then nick-named simply “Six”) was a key scene-maker and witness. Luckily for us he also took along his el cheapo, no-frills instant camera with him everywhere (mostly the St James Hotel in London, seemingly various grotty squats) documenting the embryonic punk milieu. At the time, Barker was simply taking shots of his friends at play. Seen today, the photos compiled in Punk’s Dead are compelling documents of the era and compare favourably with the portraits of Nan Goldin, or Billy Name’s 1960s shots of the Andy Warhol Superstars.
/ Mirror, mirror: Siouxsie by Simon Barker at the St James Hotel applying her trademark eye make-up /
Other faces from the party I recognized: Boy George (very aloof; he kept his dark sunglasses clamped on), Marco Pirroni from Adam and The Ants and fashion model Sara Stockbridge. (Stockbridge was pretty much the official “face” of Vivienne Westwood throughout the 1980s. She’s still strikingly beautiful all these years later, with legs like a race horse and punkily tousled pink hair. Read an interview with Stockwell and see some iconic photos of her modelling Westwood on this excellent fashion blog).
/ Photo by Antony Simpson: Simon Barker in the Westwood suit in the centre. That's me on the right texting my friends that they should be here /
Anyway, it was a great night: I drank PINTS of excellent free white wine (hey, I made some donations when I got a re-fill), Barker’s grainy and intimate photos are incredible artifacts (heaven in particular if you’re a hardcore Siouxsie and The Banshees fan like me) and the coffee table book itself is pretty damn covetable. Even better, my friend Antony Simpson was there telling me filthy insider gossip from back in the day. (And no, I’m not repeating it here!).
/ This guy looks too cheap to buy a book ... But now you know what to get me for Christmas this year. (Photo by Antony Simpson) /
Further reading: The official Punk's Dead website. Nice piece in The Independent. According to this great blog, Simon Barker was in a prickly and uncooperative mood. Punk antagonism lives on!
This Dr Sketchy (at The Paradise in Kensal Green for the first time in ages) boasted vampirically elegant Dusty Limits as master of ceremonies and two models and burlesque performers, Kiki Kaboom and Frankie Von Flirter.
I hadn’t DJ’d at the Paradise in so long it was like I’d developed amnesia: I’d forgotten everything I ever knew about using the decks there! At one stage I couldn’t work out why I couldn’t get any audio out of my headphones and called a Paradise employee over. Of course it was a simple thing I’d forgotten which I really should know by now – boy, was my face red! Luckily I got back on track after that.
Music for newcomer Frankie Von Flirter posed a bit more of a challenge: she did a drag king performance to a medley from the Top Gun soundtrack (1980s power ballads ahoy!). So for her poses, I went for a gender-fucked approach (songs about men by Denise Darcel, Mamie Van Doren and Lizabeth Scott; a military / sadomasochistic twist via Mildred Bailey’s “I’d Love to Take Orders from You”). Later on when Dusty was standing next to me in the DJ booth, he realised something was stuck to the bottom of his shoe -- it was Frankie's Tom Selleck-style fake moustache! How we laughed.
I have bad news about my own club night Lobotomy Room: it never happened, and it looks unlikely to happen at all now (at least for the foreseeable future). In a nutshell: the venue where it was supposed to happen had chronic licensing problems (no music licence and the local council seemed reluctant to issue them one), and my contact who wanted to put me on in the first place doesn’t work there anymore anyway! At some point I might think about approaching other venues, but for now, I’m putting the Lobotomy Room concept on mothballs and licking my wounds.
In the meantime, who doesn’t feel cheered up looking at photos of Jayne Mansfield? Like I’ve said before, Mansfield was the punk Marilyn Monroe who died for our sins. Check out At Home with Jayne Mansfield, in which we see a typical day (in 1956 when she was still on the ascent) in the life of a starlet. Her hectic schedule encompasses making breakfast (while pouting), kissing her pet Chihuahua on the lips, checking on her young daughter (whom she doesn't kiss), combing her platinum blonde hair, being interviewed, and then finally back in bed in her babydoll negligee answering fan mail and autographing photos. Phew! Exhausting.
More recommended reading: one of my all-time favourite blogs is Jim Linderman’s Vintage Sleaze. Read his haunting and melancholy account of the hard times of long-forgotten one-time Russ Meyer model and burlesque “lost girl” Lilly La Mont. “A slightly gap-toothed Half-Native American stripper, prostitute, model and B-girl from the 1950s ...”, La Mont declined into alcoholism and then seemingly vanished off the radar, a casualty of the glamour jungle. Hopefully someone will get in touch with Linderman and fill in the gaps with an update of whatever happened to Lilly La Mont. Maybe she’s someone’s grandma living happily in the suburbs. It seems more likely her days ended like an especially grim chapter of Hollywood Babylon or a James Ellroy novel.
Post modern tribute: pin-ups of Lilly La Mont as re-interpreted by Mexican tattooist and outsider artist Jeronimo Lopez Ramirez (aka Dr Lakra)
Voodoo Dreams / Voodoo - Les Baxter
Monkey Bird - The Revels
Babalu - Yma Sumac
Tequila - Stan Kenton and His Orchestra
I Learn a Merengue, Mama - Robert Mitchum
St Louis Blues - Eartha Kitt
Jungle Drums - Earl Bostic
Good and Bad - The Gauchos
It Ain't to Play with - Sheryl Crowley
House Party - The Instrumentals
You Can't Put Me Down - Esquerita
Whirlwind - Ray Morton and The Temp-Tones
Wine Spo-Li-Ol-Li - The 5 Strings
Can Your Hossie Do the Dog? Del Raney's Umbrellas
Work with It - Que Martin
When I Get Low, I Get High - Florence Joelle
One More Beer - The Earls of Suave
Yogi - The Bill Black Combo
Pink Champagne - The Tyrones
Intoxica - The Revels
The Flirt - Shirley and Lee
Margaya - The Fender Four
Makin' Out - Jody Reynolds
My Pussy Belongs to Daddy - Faye Richmonde
Crawlin' - The Untouchables
The Coo - Wayne Cochrane
Drive-In - The Jaguars
Give Me Love - Lena Horne
The Stripper - John Barry (Beat Girl soundtrack)
The Good Life - Ann-Margret
Baby, Baby All The Time - Julie London
Black Tarantula - Jody Reynolds
Jim Dandy - Sara Lee and The Spades
Chop Suey Rock - The Instrumentals
Drive Daddy Drive - Little Sylvia
Shomblar - Sheriff and The Ravels
Fever - Nancy Sit
Tall Cool One - The Wailers
Mondo Moodo - The Earls of Suave
I'd Love to Take Orders from You - Mildred Bailey
Drummin' Up a Storm - Sandy Nelson
Hand Clapping Time - The Fabulous Raiders
Every Man is a Stupid Man - Denise Darcel
Separate the Men from the Boys - Mamie Van Doren
Men - Lizabeth Scott
Love for Sale - Hildegard Knef
Boots - Nero and The Gladiators
Elle est terrible - Johnny Hallyday
The Girl Can't Help It - Little Richard
Sweetie Pie - Eddie Cochran
Beat Girl - Adam Faith
Devil in Disguise - Elvis Presley
Moi je joue - Brigitte Bardot
DJ. Journalist. Greaser punk. Malcontent. Jack of all trades, master of none. Like the Shangri-Las song, I'm good-bad, but not evil. I revel in trashiness
