Next Lobotomy Room Film Club: Macao (1952) on 16 February 2023

  

There is no place like it on earth. Macao in the China Seas across the bay from British Hong Kong. Where gambling is the heavy industry and smuggling and dope peddling come as naturally as eating. To this island of commercial sin comes Nick, a young grifter wanted back in the States – and Nora, a girl who never got the breaks. Both hard as nails, cynical, strangers. And on the same boat, posing as a salesman, comes a hard-boiled New York cop, sent out to capture a fugitive-racketeer is now the Frankie Costello of Macao …

Into this hotbed of espionage, intrigue and murder, three people take refuge! 

Robert Mitchum - living on velvet … loving the same way! 

Jane Russell - whose song belies … the fear in her heart! 

William Bendix - whose stock in trade … is danger! 

Yes, this is Macao – port of peril. Where boy meets girl too late! The risks they run …  the chances they take … fighting to remain together in a dangerous paradise!

On 16 February the Lobotomy Room film club (motto: Bad Movies for Bad People) whisks you away to the steamy Portuguese colony of Macao for this sordid noir thriller! Sure, the Times’ critic reportedly dismissed Macao as “melodramatic junk”, but I side with deviant queer film scholar Boyd McDonald, who concluded “Macao is, arguably, perfect.” 

Macao’s major selling point is the sullen dream duo of Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell, who effortlessly match other for tough wry humour and torpid impudence. As McDonald notes in his volume of essays Cruising the Movies (2015), “out of habit rather than anything in the script, the stars of Macao – and under their spell, the supporting players and extras – loiter about leering and sneering at each other, giving attitude. The attitude is one of contempt mixed with lust – an insolent craving, a concupiscent scorn … the players look as though they can’t stand the sight of each other, yet want to suck each other off … Russell, gifted with articulate nostrils and some slight imperfection in the nerves or muscles about her lips, is especially good at competitive sneering.” Seriously – how can you resist? 

Adding to the intrigue: temperamental veteran filmmaker Josef von Sternberg (the visionary behind all those great 1930s Marlene Dietrich films) was exhumed from semi-retirement to direct Macao but when preview audiences grumbled the film was too art-y and weird, an uncredited Nicholas Ray (of Johnny Guitar (1954) and Rebel without a Cause (1955) fame) was assigned to shoot additional scenes! Watch as well for delectable bad girl Gloria Grahame in a supporting role! 

Lobotomy Room Goes to the Movies is the FREE monthly film club devoted to cinematic perversity! Third Thursday night of every month downstairs at Fontaine’s bar in Dalston! Two drink minimum (inquire about the special offer £6 cocktail menu!). Numbers are limited, so reserving in advance via Fontaine’s website is essential. Alternatively, phone 07718000546 or email bookings@fontaines.bar to avoid disappointment! The film starts at 8:30 pm. Doors to the basement Bamboo Lounge open at 8:00 pm. To ensure everyone is seated and cocktails are ordered in time, please arrive by 8:15 pm at the latest.

Facebook event page

Lobotomy Room DJ Set List 28 February 2020

/ Make new friends - at Lobotomy Room! Pictured: Bay Area chapter of the Hells Angels, 1964 via /

From the Facebook event page:

For your dancing pleasure, the strange’n’sleazy sounds of Lobotomy Room return to the basement Bamboo Lounge of Fontaine’s bar on Friday 28 February!

Lobotomy Room! Where sin lives! A punkabilly booze party! Sensual and depraved! A spectacle of decadence! A night of Vintage Sleaze-o-Rama! Beat, Beat Beatsville Beatnik Rock’n’Roll! Rockabilly Psychosis! Twisted Tittyshakers! Wailing Rhythm and Blues!! Punk cretin hops! White Trash Rockers! Kitsch! Exotica! Curiosities and Other Weird Shit! Think John Waters soundtracks, or Songs the Cramps Taught Us, hosted by Graham Russell. Expect desperate stabs from the jukebox jungle! Savage rhythms to make you writhe and rock!

Admission: gratuit - that’s French for FREE!

Wow - we are living through scary and gruesome times. This was the first Lobotomy Room club of 2020 and it's hard to gauge when there will be another one. (The next Lobotomy Room is meant to be last Friday of May 2020, but in this uncertain current COVID-19-ravaged hellscape, who knows?). Like all of London's bars and clubs, Fontaine's has shuttered for the time being. When life does return to some semblance of normality, please come back and show us some love.

/ Rat your hair up like a teenage Jezebel and come to incredibly bizarre rock’n’roll dance party Lobotomy Room! Photo by the great Swiss photographer Karlheinz Weinberger (1921 - 2006) /

What’s extra-bittersweet: this was one of the best Lobotomy Room clubs in ages! As you can see from the playlist, I DJ’d for hours because the krazy kittens on the dance floor were shakin’ their asses until about 2 am. And they were impressively hip and broadminded: no matter what freaky shit I threw at them (No Wave noise, greasy Ike and Tina Turner b-sides, surf obscurities, amphetamine-induced hillbilly rock’n’roll), they just kept dancing!

Anyway, here's what I was laying-down.

Twenty Thousand Leagues - The Champs
Katanga - Ike Turner and His Kings of Rhythm
Kismiaz - The Cramps
Intoxica - The Revels
Ocean's Devil - Hawaii's Samurai
Adult Books - X
Thunder Cloud - Al Casey
Surf City - The Ramones
Love Potion # 9 - Nancy Sit
Gostaria De Saber (River Deep, Mountain High) - Wanderlea
Jailhouse Rock - Masaaki Hirao
Three Cool Chicks - The 5,6,7,8s
Dangerous Charms - The Delmonas
Magneto - Messer Chups
Jukebox Babe - Alan Vega
Atomic Bongos - Lydia Lunch
Riding with a Movie Star - L7
Apache 95 - Satan's Cheerleaders
Strychnine - The Cramps
Black is Black - Big Maybelle
Here Comes the Bug - The Rumblers
Nothing Means Nothing Anymore - The Alley Cats
I Don't Need You No More - The 5,6,7,8s
Let's Go, Baby - Billy Eldridge and The Fireballs
Killer - Sparkle Moore
Wiped-Out - The Escorts
Be Bop A Lula - Alan Vega
I Can't Believe What You Say - Ike and Tina Turner
You're Driving Me Crazy - Dorothy Berry
Egyptian Shumba - The Tammys
Party Lights - Claudine Clark
The Swag - Link Wray and The Wraymen
Miserlou's Dream - Satan's Cheerleaders
Nausea - X
Your Phone's Off the Hook - The Ramonetures
Viva Las Vegas - Nina Hagen
Forming - Germs
C'mon Everybody - The Sex Pistols
Funnel of Love - Wanda Jackson
Cha Cha Twist - The Detroit Cobras
Ultra Twist - The Cramps
Bird Dance Beat - The Trashmen
They Call Me Zombie - Messer Chups
Chicken Grabber - The Nite Hawks
Shortnin' Bread - The Readymen
Muleskinner Blues - The Fendermen
Surfin' Bird - The Trashmen
Batman Theme - Link Wray and His Wraymen
That Makes It - Jayne Mansfield
I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield - The 5,6,7,8s
Train to Nowhere - The Champs
Woo-Hoo - The Rock-A-Teens
Little Queenie - The Bill Black Combo
You Give Me Worms - Turbonegro
Club Delight - Jack Jolly
Garbageman - The Cramps
Esquerita and The Voola - Esquerita
Boss - The Rumblers
Tina's Dilemma - Ike and Tina Turner
Jim Dandy - Ann-Margret
Juvenile Delinquent - Ronnie Allen
Wailin' - The Fabulous Wailers
Year 1 - X
Jim Dandy - Sara Lee and The Spades
Whistle Bait - The Collins Kids
Action Packed - Ronnie Dee
Rock Around the Clock - The Sex Pistols
Breathless - X
Wild, Wild Party - Charlie Feathers
I Wanna Be Sedated - The Ramonetures
Surf Rat - The Rumblers
Pedro Pistolas Twist - Los Twisters
Suey - Jayne Mansfield
Peter Gunn Twist - The Jesters
Gunnin' for Peter - The Fabulous Wailers
Bop Pills - Bill "Skip" Macy
Shucks Baby - Tiny Topsy

/ The mighty Ike and Tina Turner Revue freaking TEARING IT UP at The Skyliner Ballroom in Fort Worth, Texas in 1964. Check out the Ikettes' electric green cocktail sheaths, with shoes dyed to match. So fierce! /

I've knocked-together a Spotify playlist based on what I played, but the usual caveats apply: 1) the Spotify playlist isn't 100% representative, because not everything I DJ'd is on there. It pains me that Lydia Lunch's magnum opus Queen of Siam has been deleted from Spotify. How can the oeuvre of Masaaki Hirao (the Japanese Elvis) not be represented on there? Or atomic-era Brazilian pop siren Wanderlea's Portuguese language version of "River Deep, Mountain High"? For shame, Spotify - for shame! And 2) disable "shuffle" option and listen to it in sequence for the "you were there" experience. Anyway, you can listen to it here.

/ In the meantime, before signing off ... an urgent public service announcement from Francine Fishpaw. Via /

Further reading:

In August 2018 I spoke my brains to To Do List magazine about the wild, wild world of Lobotomy Room, the monthly cinema club – and my lonely one-man mission to return a bit of raunch, sleaze and “adult situations” to London’s nightlife! Read it - if you must - here. 

Follow me on twitter!

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

I have serious issues with the frankly homophobic, puritanical, hypocritical and censorious Tumblr these days, but you can follow me on there. 

And I'm now spreading my message of filth on Instagram!

Reflections on ... Viva Las Vegas (1964)

From the Facebook event page:

Elvis Presley died on 16 August 1977. In theory, Lobotomy Room should have organized a 40th anniversary tribute last year – but it totally slipped our minds until it was too late! Instead – ever perverse – we’re commemorating the 41st anniversary of The King’s death at the August film club on 15 August with a screening of Viva Las Vegas (1964)! 

Let’s face it: ALL Elvis Presley films are terrible - but Viva Las Vegas is easily the least worst! It’s filmed in glorious lurid Technicolour, features some sensational musical numbers and is set in glittering, neon-lit “old Vegas” in its kitsch atomic-era prime. (Trust me: Las Vegas does NOT look like this anymore!). Best of all, Viva Las Vegas co-stars Presley’s greatest leading lady – definitive sex kitten-gone-berserk, that red-headed vixen Ann-Margret! 

Lobotomy Room Goes to the Movies is the FREE monthly film club downstairs at Fontaine’s bar devoted to Bad Movies We Love (our motto: Bad Movies for Bad People), specializing in the kitsch, the cult and the camp! Doors to the basement Bamboo Lounge open at 8 pm. Film starts at 8:30 pm prompt. We can accommodate thirty people maximum on film nights. Arrive early to grab a seat and order a drink! There will be a special Elvis-themed peanut butter-and-banana cocktail on the night!

Yes, Elvis’ cinematic oeuvre is notoriously bad but this one is the best by a long shot. Viva Las Vegas was Elvis' most commercially successful film, it looks spectacular (it's got that luxe better-than-life, candy-coloured Technicolour look of the era.  Ann-Margret’s shade of orange-y pink strawberry blonde hair, for example, exists nowhere in nature), memorable songs (plus some undeniably mediocre ones) and it offers a glorious glimpse of what glittering Las Vegas looked like in the early 1960s. (Pretty much every casino glimpsed here has been razed long ago. Their neon signs are probably preserved in Vegas' neon graveyard). 

Most significantly, there is genuine smoldering chemistry between Elvis and his definitive leading lady Ann-Margret, who more than matches him for charisma, sensuality and wanton shake appeal. (His second greatest leading lady would be white-lipsticked pop siren Nancy Sinatra in Speedway (1968) four years later. Having said that, I’ve never seen Wild in the Country (1961) which intriguingly partners Elvis with pouty and perverse nymphette Tuesday Weld).

Elvis and Ann-Margret famously had a romantic relationship during the making of Viva Las Vegas. This has always put Ann-Margret in a tricky position: you get the impression she yearns to openly discuss their romance (and perhaps claim she was the great love of his life), but Elvis was engaged to Priscilla Beaulieu at the time, making Ann-Margret "the other woman" in this triangle. (Elvis and Priscilla would marry in 1967.  Elvis would apparently confess he regretted never marrying Ann-Margret. I wonder how that made Priscilla feel?). At the very least, Viva Las Vegas initiated a 14-year friendship that lasted until the end of Elvis' life. He would send Ann-Margret an elaborate guitar-shaped floral arrangement every time she opened a new show in Vegas for the rest of his life. Ann-Margret was also reportedly the only Hollywood co-star to attend Elvis’ funeral in 1977.

The plot of Viva Las Vegas feels perfunctory, an afterthought, something that could have been scrawled on the back of a cocktail napkin. Narrative strands are introduced and dropped. Elvis Presley is Lucky Jackson and Ann-Margret is Rusty Martin. (Those names!). It begins as a romantic triangle with Lucky and his suave rival Count Elmo Mancini (Cesare Denova) vying for the affections of pert swimming instructor Rusty. This is quickly forgotten: in an Elvis Presley film, there’s never any real doubt over who will get the girl and the Count seems to just shrug good naturedly in defeat. Rusty and Lucky’s first date montage is sublimely kitsch. It encompasses multiple costume changes, a helicopter ride over the Hoover dam, doing wildly dangerous death wish motorcycle stunts (Ann-Margret climbs atop her moving bike to do the Watusi!), having an inexplicable faux Western shoot-out and water-skiing (I cherish the ultra-fake rear projection behind them during the water-skiing segment!). Aspiring race car driver Lucky, though, urgently needs money to buy a new engine for his car, so he can compete in the upcoming Grand Prix Race. He hopes to win it by entering the hotel’s talent contest. (He’s been working as a waiter at the same hotel where Rusty gives swimming lessons. I forgot to mention that). But Rusty has entered it too, so they’re competing directly against each other, which in theory should threaten their burgeoning romance! SPOILER ALERT: Lucky wins and Rusty comes in second – but it doesn’t really impact their relationship in any meaningful way. (In the talent competition Elvis belts the glorious title tune surrounded by showgirls and Ann-Margret performs the jaw-droppingly camp “Appreciation” burlesque in white fur backed by male dancers. This is meant to be a lowly amateur talent contest for hotel employees, but their musical numbers are lavish, huge-budget extravaganzas!). The finale ramps-up the suspense by focusing on Lucky racing in the Las Vegas Grand Prix.  Gee – do you think Elvis will win?

It may sound surprising now, but in pop culture terms, Ann-Margret was a hotter property in ‘63 than Elvis himself. Viva Las Vegas was only her fourth film and there was a buzz of excitement over this incendiary emergent starlet (whose image then was a hybrid of "female Elvis" and "new Marilyn Monroe"). Elvis himself had made his film debut in 1956 and already had a slew of forgettable movies under his belt (Viva Las Vegas was already his 15th film. To give an indication of how fast Elvis was cranking ‘em out at the time, in the same year as Viva Las Vegas Elvis also released two more films: Kissin’ Cousins and Roustabout).

Elvis' corrupt manager Colonel Parker was keenly aware of Ann-Margret's "threat" to his client's primacy and resented director George Sidney including so many adoring, lingering close-ups of the female lead. (It didn’t help that Sidney had directed Ann-Margret in her triumphant breakthrough role in Bye, Bye Birdie the year before). Parker wanted to ensure Elvis was the centre of attention! This was meant to be an Elvis Presley film, not an Ann-Margret one! As Penny Stallings writes in her 1978 book Flesh and Fantasy: “Elvis Presley, for instance, was absolutely crazy for Ann-Margret while they were making Viva Las Vegas together till one of the film’s assistant directors became so smitten with the lady himself that he ended up virtually cutting Elvis out of the movie. Elvis eventually warmed up to his co-star again once the Colonel had the lovesick assistant canned.” Elvis may have been in love with Ann-Margret, but business is business and reportedly some of her screen time wound-up on the cutting room floor to restore balance. An example: we see Elvis croon the ballad “Today, Tomorrow and Forever” alone. That was originally meant to be a duet between them.

/ Above: the talent contest /

Some unexpectedly sexist moments in Viva Las Vegas: Rusty is introduced shapely legs first, rising to a brazen crotch and ass shot of Ann-Margret mincing past in tiny white hotpants. It’s a moment as lecherous as anything out of a Russ Meyer sexploitation film! (She’s taken her car into the garage where Lucky works. Her first line in the film is, “Excuse me. Can you check my motor? It’s whistling”). And for no good reason, Rusty’s whole demeanour changes mid-way through the film. When Lucky first pursues her, she’s sassy, smart and independent (in “The Lady Loves Me” duet, she pushes him in the swimming pool – guitar and all - for making advances!). Towards the end, with the big race impending, out of nowhere Rusty turns into a silly nuisance getting in the men’s way, the red-headed equivalent of the dumb blonde stereotype. Character consistency and development is not a priority in an Elvis film!

Really, I hadn’t re-visited Viva Las Vegas for many years before scheduling it for the Lobotomy Room cinema club in August and it’s much better than I remembered. In fact, it’s 85-minutes of escapist bliss! If you haven’t watched Elvis onscreen in a while, it’s a revelation what a good, relaxed and self-mocking comedic performer he can be given the chance. A particular highlight is when Elvis sings the Ray Charles rhythm-and-blues song' "What'd I Say?" in a nightclub where the dance floor is a giant roulette wheel. (It’s been noted that in this sequence Elvis plays an electric guitar which isn’t plugged-in). Elvis and Ann-Margret frolic wearing coordinated pale creamy lemon-yellow outfits (a suit and cocktail dress, respectively) and look so incomparably gorgeous together they single handedly give heteronormativity a good name. With her manic energy, Ann-Margret devours the screen! In particular, she attacks her musical numbers. Witness the unforgettably sexy spectacle of tigress Ann-Margret cavorting in complete abandon in nothing but a tight sweater and black leotard at her dance class. (This bit anticipates her freak-outs in Ken Russell's Tommy (1975)). It was interesting gauging the audiences’ reactions afterwards. Maybe it was the after-effects of Fontaine’s potent peanut butter-and-banana cocktails, but I think everyone left with a crush on Ann-Margret. The film vividly captures her when she just may have been the prettiest girl in the world. In fact, maybe Viva Las Vegas is an Ann-Margret film after all!

Further reading:

I saw Ann-Margret perform at The Stardust Casino in 2005 - one of the kitschiest, campiest experiences of my life! It was like a fever dream! She was 64 at the time and still every inch a sex kitten. She sang two Elvis songs: "A Little Less Conversation" and - yes! - "Viva Las Vegas." (She also sang Shania Twain's "Man I Feel Like a Woman" while go-go dancing around a Harley Davidson). Read the full scene report here.

In 2016 we screened the truly wild Ann-Margret juvenile delinquent b-movie Kitten with a Whip (1964). Read about it here.

I recently spoke my brains to To Do List website about Lobotomy Room, the cinema club - and my determination to return a bit of raunch and "adult situations" to London nightlife! Read it here.

Dates for your social calendar:

International supermodel. Warhol Superstar. Moon Goddess. Velvet Underground chanteuse. Heroin-ravaged punk diva. Possessor of the most haunting wraith cheekbones of the 20th century. The eternally enigmatic Nico (née Christa Päffgen) was all of these and more! 2018 represents a double anniversary for the inscrutable Marlene Dietrich of Punk: she was born 80 years ago (16 October 1938) and died 30 years ago (18 July 1988). On Wednesday 19 September the Lobotomy Room film club pays tribute to the doomed femme fatale’s memory with a screening of the 1995 documentary Nico Icon. 

Hosted by Graham Russell, Lobotomy Room Goes to the Movies is the FREE monthly film club downstairs at Fontaine’s bar in Dalston devoted to Bad Movies We Love (our motto: Bad Movies for Bad People), specializing in the kitsch, the cult and the queer! Doors to the basement Bamboo Lounge open at 8 pm. Film starts at 8:30 pm prompt. We can accommodate thirty people maximum on film nights. Arrive early to grab a seat and order a drink! NOTE: this screening is looking full already! Details.

Revel in sleaze, voodoo and rock’n’roll - when incredibly strange dance party Lobotomy Room returns to the basement Bamboo Lounge of Dalston’s most unique nite spot Fontaine’s! Friday 28 September!

Lobotomy Room! Where sin lives! A punkabilly booze party! Sensual and depraved! A spectacle of decadence! A Mondo Trasho evening of Beat, Beat Beatsville Beatnik Rock’n’Roll! Bad Music for Bad People! Rockabilly Psychosis! Wailing Rhythm and Blues! Twisted Tittyshakers! Punk cretin hops! White Trash Rockers! Kitsch! Exotica! Curiosities and Other Weird Shit! Think John Waters soundtracks, or Songs the Cramps Taught Us, hosted by Graham Russell. Expect desperate stabs from the jukebox jungle! Savage rhythms to make you writhe and rock! Vintage erotica projected on the big screen all night for your adult viewing pleasure! 

One FREE signature Lobotomy Room cocktail for the first twenty entrants! 

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! Details

Lobotomy Room DJ Set List at Fontaine's 29 June 2018

/ Hair hoppers are welcome at Lobotomy Room! /

From the Facebook event page:

Revel in sleaze, voodoo and rock’n’roll - when incredibly strange dance party Lobotomy Room returns to the basement Bamboo Lounge of Dalston’s most unique nite spot Fontaine’s! Friday 29 June!

Lobotomy Room! Where sin lives! A punkabilly booze party! Sensual and depraved! Bad Music for Bad People! A spectacle of decadence! A Mondo Trasho evening of Beat, Beat Beatsville Beatnik Rock’n’Roll! Rockabilly Psychosis! Wailing Rhythm and Blues! Twisted Tittyshakers! Punk cretin hops! White Trash Rockers! Kitsch! Exotica! Curiosities and Other Weird Shit! Think John Waters soundtracks, or Songs the Cramps Taught Us, hosted by Graham Russell. Expect desperate stabs from the jukebox jungle! Savage rhythms to make you writhe and rock! Vintage erotica projected on the big screen all night for your adult entertainment!

One FREE signature Lobotomy Room cocktail for the first twenty entrants! 

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!

I won’t lie - this post is a rush job! The next Lobotomy Room is fast-approaching (Friday 27 July! THIS Friday!). My broadband at home is on the blink (this will be the third EE engineer to come out to investigate since May), which makes me feel like I’m losing my mind. (Think of all the gay porn I’m currently NOT seeing on Tumblr! It won’t look at itself, you know!).  And I’m a sun-baked human wreck at the moment. (Pal and I went to the beach in Margate on Saturday and I am shocking lobster-pink over much of my body. Ouch! I also now have water trapped in one of my ears and am practically deaf on one side. If I was your pet, having the vet put me down would be the compassionate thing to do).  

The May 2018 Lobotomy Room felt like a triumph. The June 2018 one was much more challenging. None of my regulars or friends came, but we did get a group of middle-aged rockabillies. At one point the sole male of the group approached the DJ booth and requested I play some rockabilly so they could dance. At that moment I was actually playing hardcore rockabilly (“Let’s Go Baby” by Billy Eldridge), so I asked him if he had anything in particular in mind. He replied, “Elvis. Gene Vincent. Eddie Cochran.” So their knowledge of rockabilly didn’t extend far beyond the well-worn classics and their tastes were decidedly conservative. Trying to second-guess what they wanted was difficult! A lot of what I thought would please them met a dead response. If they liked and recognized a song, they’d jump-up and dance (or the women would stroll). To their credit, they danced to “Juvenile Delinquent” by Ronnie Allen. If they didn’t dig what I was playing, they’d whip-out their phones and start scrolling, radiating disapproval in my direction! When I’d drop a punk cover version of a rockabilly song, you could see their brains whirring in confusion. Tough crowd!  I have to admit, it stressed me out and cramped my style. I like to whip-together punk, surf instrumentals, rhythm and blues, tittyshakers and weird, abrasive kitsch novelty stuff as well as frantic, more obscure rockabilly but found myself compromising in order to please this contingent. There’s usually considerably more melanin in my playlists!

On the plus side, my friend Ejole (aka “Little E”) from San Francisco surprised me by turning up (I knew he was going to be in London but didn’t know he was coming to Lobotomy Room that night). Because I was DJ’ing, I didn’t get to actually hang out, though! 

/ I dropped this eternal camp classick ... /

/ What a glorious duo! I also played tracks by Jayne Mansfield (Patron Saint of Lobotomy Room) and Billy "Crash" Craddock /

Road Runner - The 5,6,7,8s
Drive, Daddy, Drive - Little Sylvia
Little Darlin' - Masaaki Hirao
Hey Little Star - Ann-Margret
Blue Velvet - Bobby Vinton
Adult Books - X
Savin' My Love - Wanda Jackson
Mau Mau - The Fabulous Wailers
Kismiaz - The Cramps
Monkey Bird - The Revels
Drummin' Up a Storm - Sandy Nelson
Fever - Nancy Sit
Jaguar - The Jaguars
Hot Licks - The Rendells
Wild Wild Party - Charlie Feathers
Jukebox Babe - Alan Vega
Atomic Bongos - Lydia Lunch
Here Comes the Bug - The Rumblers
Riding with a Movie Star - L7
Wiped Out - The Escorts
Ring of Fire - The Earls of Suave
I Don't Need You No More - The Rumblers
Let's Go Baby - Billy Eldridge
Bikini with No Top on the Top - Mamie Van Doren and June Wilkinson
Sweetie Pie - Eddie Cochran
Bop Pills - Macy Skip Skipper
Juvenile Delinquent - Ronnie Allen
Strychnine - The Sonics
Vampira - Bobby Bare
Save It - Mel Robbins
Boss - The Rumblers
Love Me - The Phantom
Rock Around the Clock - The Sex Pistols
Little Girl - John and Jackie
Fools Rush In - Ricky Nelson
Devil in Disguise - Elvis Presley
Bottle to the Baby - Charlie Feathers
Blitzkreig Bop - The Ramonetures
The Swag - Link Wray
Funnel of Love - Wanda Jackson
Breathless - X
C'mon Everybody - Sid Vicious
Be Bop a Lula - Alan Vega
Whistle Bait - Larry Collins
Action Packed - Ronnie Dee
Jim Dandy - Ann-Margret
Rock-A-Bop - Sparkle Moore
Domino - Roy Orbison
What's Inside a Girl? The Cramps
Chicken Walk - Hasil Adkins
Wood Pecker Rock - Nat Couty and The Braves
Poor Little Baby - Billy "Crash" Craddock
Margaya - The Fender Four
Viva Las Vegas - Nina Hagen
Surf Rat - The Rumblers
Pedro Pistolas Twist - Los Twisters
Suey - Jayne Mansfield
Treat Me Right - Mae West
Three Cool Chicks - The 5,6,7,8s
Woo-Hoo - The Rock-A-Teens
Hoy Hoy - The Collins Kids
Bombora - The Original Surfaris
Teenage Lobotomy - The Ramones
Nothing Means Nothing Anymore - The Alley Cats
Year 1 - X
Party Lights - Claudine Clark
He's The One - Ike and Tina Turner
One Night of Sin - Elvis Presley

In other news: there were no photos taken at the July 2018 installment of Lobotomy Room – but my friend Rachael (Yorkshire’s finest!) celebrated her birthday in The Bamboo Lounge the following night and I DJ’d there again! Here’s a bonus "glamour shot" of me with the fierce, fabulous and forty-year old Rachael (the TRUE “angel of the north!”).  See more paparazzi pics from her party here.

There’s a Lobotomy Room playlist on Spotify! You can finally hear the strange and sleazy sounds of Lobotomy Room online! I should have sorted this out myself years ago, but in the meantime my friend Louise (that red-headed vixen!) pieced this together based on my May 2018 Lobotomy Room DJ set list. 

/ Next Lobotomy Room club: Friday 27 July 2018! Full squalid details on event page! /

Further reading:

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

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

Reflections on ... Mansfield 66/67 (2017)

(I'm posting this particular blog entry  for several reasons: 1) I reviewed the documentary Mansfield 66/67 for queer art and culture website Hiskind when it had its theatrical release in May 2018. The piece is still online but I know from experience I'd better post it here as well in case it gets yanked down at some point. Loads of my online articles have vanished into the ether over the years! 2) Mansfield 66/67 was the Lobotomy Room film club's selection on 20 June, so this will serve as a bit of a "scene report" of that night, too. 3) This Friday - 29 June 2018 - represents the 51st anniversary of Jayne Mansfield's death, so it seemed like a timely valentine to her memory).

/ Did the devil make her do it? Jayne Mansfield and Anton LaVey /

Skulls. Pentagrams. Heart-shaped swimming pools. Chihuahuas. Mansfield 66/67 contains all the components essential for an irresistibly campy cult film-in-waiting. Think of Todd Hughes and P David Ebersole’s documentary as When the Sex Kitten met the Satanist. It speculates about just what happened when Hollywood’s doomed, bosomy platinum blonde starlet Jayne Mansfield (1933 – 1967) encountered charismatic young devil-horned founder of the First Church of Satan Anton LaVey (1930 – 1997) during the messy final year of her life – in particular, whether he placed a curse on Mansfield, causing her fatal 1967 car crash.

Even if you don’t buy into the central thesis about the satanic curse (Mansfield and LaVey were both voracious publicity seekers and self-promoters, and the film begins with the tongue-in-cheek disclaimer “a true story based on rumour and hearsay”), the wildly enjoyable Mansfield 66/67 plays out like a delirious hot-pink fever dream.  The story unfolds via vintage newsreel and film clips, animation, a twangy surf guitar soundtrack, the medium of interpretive dance and commentary from various talking heads. And what a roster of talking heads! The pundits are a kitsch / queer dream cast including John Waters (a life-long Mansfield devotee), drag performer Peaches Christ, underground filmmaker and occultist Kenneth Anger, Tippi Hedren from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, scary Warhol Superstar Mary Woronov, various Playboy playmates and Russ Meyer leading ladies and 1950s b-movie bad girl Mamie Van Doren (who at 87 gives a good indication of what Mansfield might have matured into had she lived to see old age). And for some reason Boy George’s 1980s gender bender pal and pop star manqué Marilyn. (Perhaps there’s a bit too much Marilyn, in fact).

The film works best simply as a celebration of Mansfield herself. Frequently dismissed by the unenlightened as a dime store Marilyn Monroe wannabe, today she looks modern and relevant. Mansfield approached her life and career like a twenty first century reality TV star. Her 1950s pin-ups are ubiquitous on Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest. Fifty years after her death, Mansfield can be reappraised as the punk Marilyn, the drag queen’s Marilyn, the anarchist Marilyn and a vivid precursor to what we now call camp. She also has considerable queer diva value: there’s a reason Kenneth Anger put her on the cover of Hollywood Babylon instead of Monroe, and John Waters deliberately fashioned Divine’s persona as a hybrid of “Jayne Mansfield-meets-Godzilla.” In a particularly brilliant piece of editing towards the end, Mansfield cavorting in 1959 is juxtaposed with Madonna as a peepshow performer in the 1986 “Open Your Heart” pop video. Jayne’s gleeful exhibitionism lives on.

Mansfield 66/67 gives Waters the last word: “I never thought of Jayne’s life as tragic, never. Her ending had blood. Guts. Headlines. A dead Chihuahua. It’s what she would have wanted!”

/ The devil has all the best tunes: Anton LaVey with acolyte / 

Scene report: It was gratifying to see the FULL-to-capacity house enthusiastically embrace the shocking-pink, ultra-kitsch vision of Mansfield 66/67 at the Lobotomy Room film club on Wednesday 20 June! (The night actually coincided with the DVD launch of Mansfield 66/67 - it's available now from Peccadillo Pictures!). Watching the antics of Jayne Mansfield and Anton LaVey over cocktails in Fontaine's Bamboo Lounge proved to be a devil worshipin' good time! As you can see, we even had our own Jayne lookalike on the night!

/ The girl can't help it! Cheyenne as Jayne /

/ Above: Cheyenne as Jayne and I /

/  Above: Vadim and Fenella /

Next date for your Lobotomy Room social calendar: the boozy, punky Mondo Trasho dance party returns on Friday 29 June in the basement Bamboo Lounge of Fontaine's! Admission is FREE and there is one complimentary signature Lobotomy Room cocktail on arrival for the first twenty entrants! Full putrid details on event page!

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