Cockabilly at The Queen Adelaide DJ Set List 18 May 2017

From the Facebook events page:

Drag a comb through your quiff, swallow a fistful of bop pills and rock around the cock – for the return of COCKABILLY! Thursday 18 May 2017 in the louche surroundings of The Queen Adelaide!

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 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 Queen Adelaide
483 Hackney Road London E2 9ED
10 - late
FREE

Yes! You heard right! Cockabilly – the intermittent queer rockabilly club night that’s had more comebacks than Cher, flying the freak flag since 2008 – is back! Well, let’s not get carried away. So far it was back for one night at The Queen Adelaide of Cambridge Heath on 18 May. But - fingers crossed – it will become a new regular monthly gig.

I am whoppingly behind with my blog posts (or my “art projects” as I call them). I still need to obsessively-compulsively document my sentimental journey to Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend in April 2017 (the first one I’d been to since 2015) and do “scene reports” for my monthly Lobotomy Room Goes to the Movies film club (specialising in the kitsch, the cult and the queer!). To recap: so far this year we’ve screened Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (January), Sid and Nancy (February – for Valentine’s Day!), Mommie Dearest (March – for Mother’s Day!), Female Trouble (April) and Mahogany (May).

But anyway, back to Cockabilly. When DJ Mal Practice (the founder / big boss man / brains behind Cockabilly) contacted me to say The Queen Adelaide in Bethnal Green had invited us to do Cockabilly there and asked if I’d be interested – I freaking jumped at the chance! Aside from a one-off Cockabilly at The Glory in Haggerston in February 2017, the whole Cockabilly concept had been on mothballs for what felt like ages.

Some context. As some regular readers may know, one of Cockabilly’s previous homes was the truly great bohemian queer boozer The George and Dragon in Shoreditch. After thirteen glorious years at 2 Hackney Road, it permanently shut its doors in December 2015 (another casualty of London’s ruthless gentrification and rising property prices). But there’s a happy ending: rather than mope, the sassy and defiant team behind The George & Dragon re-located to a new venue further up Hackney Road and opened The Queen Adelaide (or The Queen Adelaide of Cambridge Heath to give its fancy full name) later that same year. It’s really gratifying to see all my favourite objets d’art and bric-à-brac from The George & Dragon (like the huge gilt-framed portrait of Divine in Pink Flamingos and the straw-chewing horse head) intact at the new venue.

Mal and I DJ’d in the basement. In a previous incarnation, The Queen Adelaide was a lap dancing club called Images and – thankfully – they’ve pretty much left that vibe and décor untouched. It still feels like a sleazy old-school East End lap-dancing venue down there. In fact, the basement suggests a low-ceilinged concrete sex dungeon. In other words - heaven! Needless to say Mal and I felt instantly at home!

This Cockabilly was fairly last minute and we didn’t get chance to do much promotion. We had a handful of peeps there to see us, but it mainly wasn’t our own crowd. Looking out from the DJ booth, there were a few stonily indifferent faces but I never mind that – in fact, I like a challenge! It motivated me to get confrontational. When I took over from Mal for my guest spot, I endeavoured to take things in a punky and freaky direction.  

/ View from the DJ booth at The Queen Adelaide for the return of Cockabilly. I had these two punk bitches thrashing and pogoing right in front of me! My friends Christopher (aka Christophina) and Chris. That's Mal at the bar /

Your Phone's Off the Hook - The Ramonetures
Let's Go - Billy Eldridge
Tough Bounce - The Fabulous Wailers
Be Bop A Lula - Alan Vega
Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad - Tammy Wynette
Surf Rat - The Rumblers
Woo-Hoo - The 5,6,7,8s
That Makes It - Jayne Mansfield
Wipe-Out - The Surfaris
Vampira - The Misfits
Media Blitz - The Germs
Viva Las Vegas - Nina Hagen
Scorpion - The Carnations
Tina's Dilemma - Ike and Tina Turner
Lucille - Masaaki Hirao
Love Potion # 9 - Nancy Sit
Gostaria de Saber - Wanderlea
Year 1 -  X
Deuces Wild - Link Wray
Do The Clam - Elvis Presley
Fools Rush In - Ricky Nelson
Chicken - The Cramps
Johnny Are You Queer? Josie Cotton
Party Lights - Claudine Clark
How Much Love Can One Heart Hold? Joe Perkins and The Rookies
Margaya - The Fender Four
Jim Dandy - Ann-Margret
Big Girls Don't Cry - Edith Massey
Atomic Bongos - Lydia Lunch
What's Wrong with Me? X
Hot Pearl Snatch - The Cramps
Whistle Bait - Larry Collins
Boss - The Rumblers
Fuck Off - Jayne County and The Electric Chairs

Postscript: apparently the management of The Queen Adelaide does want us back! I'll post the next date for Cockabilly as soon as it's confirmed!

As usual: your reward for reading down this far is a slab of stark naked vintage beefcake homo porn!

Further reading:

Cockabilly has its own Facebook page

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!

The incredibly strange Lobotomy Room booze party downstairs at Fontaine’s returns on Friday 30 June!