6 September 2013 Lobotomy Room Set List

/ Pure distilled essence of Lobotomy Room in human form: cult film actress, burlesque icon and convicted felon Liz Renay (1926 - 2007) /

/ Flyer by Joe Pop: Divine as unrepentant bad girl and career criminal Dawn Davenport in the John Waters classick Female Trouble (1974)  /

From the Facebook events page:

Luxuriate in sleaze, voodoo and rock’n’roll ... at the fifth ever LOBOTOMY ROOM!

A Mondo Trasho evening of Bad Music for Bad People! Rockabilly Psychosis! Beat, Beat Beatsville Beatnik Rock’n’Roll! Wailing Rhythm and Blues! Twisted Tittyshakers! Punk Cretin Hops! Kitsch! Exotica! Curiosities and other Weird Shit! 

Think John Waters soundtracks, or Songs The Cramps Taught Us, hosted by Graham Russell (Dr Sketchy London’s resident DJ). Expect desperate stabs from the jukebox jungle! Savage rhythms to make you writhe and rock!

With special musical guests the ferocious early Sixties-style Beat band JANEY and THE RAVEMEN (line-up including ex-members of The Kaisers and The Rapiers, and fronted by alluring beehive-with-a-voice rhythm & blue angel Janey). With their raucous Joe Meek-drenched sound, these winkle pinkered Beat merchants will rock you back to 1964 and make you dance your ass off in the process, you krazy kittens!

And admission is gratuit! (That’s French for FREE!)

For this Lobotomy Room (the fifth!), Janey and The Ravemen and support band The Teamsters jet propelled everyone back to Hamburg’s gritty early 1960s neon-lit Star-Club with their frantic, twang-y amphetamine-induced rhythm-and-Beat hullabaloo. And the audience reacted by contorting themselves into a twisting frenzy! How could they not? Resistance was futile!

/ Beauty and The Beat: Janey and her Ravemen  /

/ Beehive-with-a-voice: First Lady of Beat, Janey /

Like any club promoter would say, the night would have been improved by a few more people (the usually thronging Curtain Road was weirdly deserted that night. I usually do Lobotomy Rooms at Paper Dress Vintage on a Saturday night; maybe Fridays are a bit more low-key? Due to the early start, I was anticipating after work drinkers!). And I needed a group of drunk girls dancing to make things properly ignite, and the drunk girls I can usually rely on were seemingly disoriented and confused or at least MIA this Lobotomy Room. Ah, well. The loyal hip elite in attendance certainly embraced the spirit of things, so I can’t truly complain.

With two bands on the bill this time, my DJ’ing set was shorter than usual. I mostly alternated between sleazy, grinding titty shaking instrumentals and raw 1950s and 60s rhythm and blues. Obscure foreign language cover versions (a Singaporean girl group rampage through Millie’s “My Boy Lollipop”? Johnny Hallyday’s franglais attack on Lulu’s “Shout”? Why not?!), a desperate Ike and Tina Turner wig-out and at least one song by white lipsticked and bullet bra’d atomic-era sex kitten Ann-Margret are compulsory for any Lobotomy Room. (BTW: Janey and The Ravemen earn extra hipness points by covering Ann-Margret’s “I Just Don’t Understand” on their debut CD Stay Away from Boys – so it all comes full circle!).

Now look at the pictures. With your eyes ...





/ Janey and I /



/ They look like trouble, but they're OK really. L-R: Simon (seated under the vintage hair dryer), DJ, artist and club promoter Joe Pop (who designed this Lobotomy Room flyer) and James /



/ Bad boys for life: Christopher and Pal /



/ The Teamsters /



/ Janey and Johnny of The Ravemen /



/ Author, man-about-town and all-round silver fox Jonathan Kemp and Joe Pop /



/ Janey and The Ravemen in action /



/ Twisting frenzy!/



/ Artistically blurred twisting frenzy! (My geriatric digital camera can't cope with available light) /




/ This stylish, bearded and enigmatic heartthrob had a few admirers! And one of 'em (a friend who shall remain nameless) took this grainy surreptitious photo with his phone /

Further reading: see more photos from the night on my flickr page. For regular updates of raunch, homoerotica, kitsch and vintage sleaze, follow me on tumblr. Read about earlier Lobotomy Rooms here, here, here and here.

Slow Walk - Sil Austin
Boots - Nero and The Gladiators
One Monkey Don't Stop No Show - Big Maybelle
Wiped-Out - The Escorts
You're Humbuggin' Me - Lefty Frizzell
Scorpion - The Carnations
The Ballad of Thunder Road - Robert Mitchum
Sweet Little Pussycat - Andre Williams
Sick and Tired - Lula Reed
Snow Surfin' Matador - Mickey and Ludella
Bombora - The Original Surfaris
Hoy Hoy - The Collins Kids
Vesuvius - The Revels
Beat Generation - Mamie Van Doren
Beaver Shot - The Hollywood Hurricanes
Rawhide - Link Wray
Suey - Jayne Mansfield
Pass the Hatchet - Roger and The Gypsies
Khrushchev Twist - Melvin Gayle
Intoxica - The Centurions
The Mexican - The Fentones
Makin' Out - Jody Reynolds
Lover Boy - Gene Wyatt
Love Potion # 9 - Nancy Sit
Don't Be Cruel - The Bill Black Combo
Peter Gunn Twist - The Jesters
Comin' Home, Baby - The Delmonas
Where's My Money? - Willie Jones
You're Driving Me Crazy - Dorothy Berry
Whistle Bait - Larry Collins
Welfare Cheese - Emanuel Laskey
Tina's Dilemma - Ike and Tina Turner
Margaya - The Fender Four
Jim Dandy - Ann-Margret
Chicken Grabber - The Nite Hawks
Harley Davidson - Brigitte Bardot
Teenage Lobotomy - The Ramones
Ring of Fire - Earls of Suave
Shout - Johnny Hallyday
My Boy Lollipop - Sakura and The Quests
Last Call for Whiskey - Choker Campbell