30 May 2014 Cockabilly DJ Set List

/ Nice ass: James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) /

The May 2014 Cockabilly (London’s only regular queer punkabilly beer blast, last Friday of every month at epicentre of hip, The George and Dragon) was reliably divoon, to quote Saint Jayne Mansfield. As usual, Mal Nicholson (the brains behind Cockabilly) and I DJ’d our most putrid vintage sleaze selections to an eye poppingly sexy crowd. In fact, I was looking around like this from the DJ booth.

A while back in an older blog I posited, Was Billy Fury gay? It turned out to be pretty popular. This time (in the continuing spirit of Homer Simpson's maxim, "If celebrities didn't want people pawing through their garbage and saying they're gay, they shouldn't have tried to express themselves creatively"), let’s play: Was cinema’s bongo drum-playing archetypal 1950s bad boy James Dean (1931-1955) gay? Or bisexual? Hetero-flexible?  When asked, Dean himself reportedly replied, “No, I am not a homosexual. But I'm also not going to go through life with one hand tied behind my back.” Let's go there!

/ James Dean obliging us with a tantalising glimpse of the waistband of his white boxers /

The persistent rumours of Dean’s conflicted ambivalent sexuality add to rather than detract from his tormented, sensitive and brooding “rebel male” allure. When I was an old movie-addicted kid I would dutifully snap up and devour each new James Dean biography as fast as they appeared (and there have been loads; Dean ranks alongside fellow mid-century pop culture icons Marilyn and Elvis as catnip for biographers. My first was definitely 1974's Mutant King by David Dalton).  

/ James Dean at home in his tightie whities /

/ Justifies the invention of Photoshop: Fellow traveler Montgomery Clift and James Dean get intimately acquainted. From the 1997 Mark Rappaport film The Silver Screen: Colour Me Lavender. (I love how Monty looks so into it). Alongside Marlon Brando, Clift was one of Dean's essential influences. In her 1978 book Montgomery Clift: A Biography, Patricia Bosworth recalls director Elia Kazan telling Clift about upcoming rival Dean: "He's a punk and a helluva talent. He likes racing cars, waitresses - and waiters. He says you're his idol." Clift’s assessment: “Dean is weird.”  /

/ Masterpiece of Photoshop, part two: Dean also hero-worshiped Brando. When director Elia Kazan (again!) introduced them during the making of East of Eden, a tense Dean “was so adoring that he seemed shrunken and twisted in misery.” (James Dean: Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Paul Alexander) /

The subject of Dean’s sexuality has definitely been reappraised over the decades.  As most recent Dean biographer Val Holley notes, “There's been quite an evolution in the thinking since Dean's death in 1955, moving from "James Dean was straight" to "Dean had sex with men but only to advance his career" to "Dean had sex with women but only to advance his career.””

It’s interesting to compare the different slants Dean’s various biographers have taken on the issue. For example, everyone agrees a key influence on Dean’s proto-beatnik sensibility growing up in Indiana was his teenage friendship with local Methodist minister Reverend James DeWeerd.  Initially this was depicted as innocuous: it was older bohemian, unmarried mentor DeWeerd who encouraged young Dean’s non-conformity and interest in high culture. According to James Dean: Little Boy Lost (1992) by Joe Hyams, the relationship was more sinister: DeWeerd sexually molested him. In James Dean: Boulevard of Broken Dreams (1994), meanwhile, Paul Alexander argues Dean and DeWeerd were consensual lovers and it was more akin to an affair.

If so, it set a pattern. Dean’s sugar daddy liaisons with older men are well-documented and beyond dispute. Like many a female starlet before him, calculating and opportunistic Dean was seemingly agreeable to sleeping with influential male show biz figures who could further his career. (See also heartthrob of 1960s European art cinema, French actor Alain Delon.  The “protégé” of Italian director Luchino Visconti was widely perceived to have slept his way to the top – something the present-day ultra-conservative elderly Delon would probably prefer everyone to forget). In particular the hungry young actor was the “kept boy” of New York ad executive Rogers Brackett. “The fan magazines spoke of their father-son relationship,” Kenneth Angers writes in a typically acid aside. “If so it was touched by incest.”

/ Homoerotic tension: Dean and cute chicken co-star Sal Mineo in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) /

This brings us to Anger’s gleefully malicious book Hollywood Babylon II, the 1984 sequel to his legendarily scabrous original Hollywood Babylon. Anger’s chapter on Dean (“The Trouble with Jimmy”) begins, “During production of Rebel Without a Cause James Dean was host to a colony of crabs. He acquired the critters from a binge of sleeping around” and just gets more sordid from there. The origins of “The Human Ashtray” legend can probably be found here:

“Dean had taken to hanging out at the Club, an East Hollywood leather bar. The predatory night prowler, who dug anonymous sex, had recently discovered the magic world of S&M. He had gotten into beating, boots, belts and bondage scenes. Regulars at the Club tagged him with a singular moniker: the Human Ashtray. When stoned, he would bare his chest and beg for his masters to stub out their butts on it."

“After his fatal car crash,” Anger continues, “the coroner made note of the “constellation of keratoid scars” on Jimmy’s torso.” Much as I revere Anger’s underground art films and treasure both volumes of Hollywood Babylon for his deliciously bitchy writing style, his stories should always be taken with a heaping grain of salt: Anger never let the truth get in the way of a juicy sin-sational good story. One by one many of Anger’s assertions have been disproven over the years: Frances Farmer never had a lobotomy. Jayne Mansfield wasn't decapitated in her 1967 car accident. Lupe Velez didn't drown face-down in her own toilet. Clara Bow never had an orgy with the entire USC football team. Certainly Dean was frequently filmed and photographed bare-chested throughout his career with no obvious disfiguring third degree burn scars visible. I suspect the utterly amoral Anger enjoyed spreading these lurid urban myths out of sheer perversity.

/ James Dean on the set of his last film Giant (1956) /

A few years ago I was very briefly involved with a gloomy Dutch quasi-rockabilly guy. I hate national stereotypes, but he definitely conformed to Dennis Cooper’s appraisal of Dutch guys in his 1991 novel Frisk: “Dutch guys are impossible, even the hustlers. They have these childishly beautiful faces that lead you to think they’ll be open and sweet and so on, but it’s a fluke because they’re actually closed, repressed, insecure arrogant people ...” Anyway, he definitely had a James Dean fixation (a bit adolescent for a 35-year old, you might argue). In particular he really embraced the Human Ashtray story. When I told him my theory it was probably wishful thinking on Anger’s part, I suspect that’s the moment he decided he really didn't want to pursue things with me. (Having said that, considering what we know of his proclivities, Anger almost certainly would have been au fait with the underground gay bondage scene of 1950s Hollywood – so maybe the Human Ashtray rumour is true!). 

Anyway, as Anger ultimately concludes, “Jimmy may have had crabs, but he also had durable charisma.” That no one can dispute.

/ Modern biographers now acknowledge Jack Simmons (left) as one of Dean's key boyfriends /

/ In the 1970s this famous grainy black and white nude photo supposedly of Dean surfaced in The Advocate magazine.  “A couple of years ago (the) alleged photo of Dean was selling in New York like hotcakes, purported to be a scene from a gay porno movie that Dean made before he became a star,” the caption leered. Paul Alexander, author of Boulevard of Broken Dreams, argues that if it is Dean, it probably dates from 1952. I’d ask: does it really look like him, or is it the power of suggestion? /

/ As usual, if you read this far down you're rewarded with a totally gratuitous nude vintage beefcake pin-up. Find more like this here /

Mau Mau - The Wailers
Rocket in My Pocket - Jimmy Lloyd
Little Darlin' - Masaaki Hirao and His All Stars Wagon
I Want Your Love - The Cruisers
Chicken Grabber - The Nite Hawks
Khrushchev Twist - Melvin Gayle
Viens danser le twist - Johnny Hallyday
Peter Gunn Twist - The Jesters
Peter Gunn Locomotion - The Delmonas
Twistin' the Night Away - Divine
The Swag - Link Wray
Harley Davidson - Brigitte Bardot
I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield - The 5,6,7, 8s
That Makes It - Jayne Mansfield
Whistle Bait - Larry Collins
Rock Around the Clock - The Sex Pistols
Jim Dandy - Sara Lee and The Spades
You're Driving Me Crazy - Dorothy Berry
Margaya - The Fender Four
Save It - Mel Robbins
Muleskinner Blues - The Fendermen
Shortnin' Bread - The Readymen
Boss - The Rumblers
Let's Go Sexin' - James Intveld
Handclappin' Time - The Fabulous Raiders
My Boy Lollipop - Rita Chao and The Quests
Drummin' Up a Storm - Sandy Nelson
Cry-baby - The Honey Sisters
I'm Not a Juvenile Delinquent - Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers
Juvenile Delinquent - Ronnie Allen
Beat Guitar - The Fabulous Wailers
Human Fly - The Cramps
Breathless - X
I Got Stung - Elvis Presley
Oo Ba La Baby - Mamie Van Doren
The Girl Can't Help It - Little Richard
Ooh Look-a There Ain't She Pretty? Bill Haley and His Comets
Pink Champagne - The Tyrones

Further reading:

Read about the squalid proceedings at previous Cockabilly nights here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here

If you don't already, follow my sensual and depraved tumblr page - for all your kitsch, retro and vintage homoerotic needs! NSFW and never will be!

7 May 2014 Dr Sketchy DJ Set List

/ Striptease icon, the cat-faced Lili St Cyr (1918-1999), aka the Anatomic Bomb. (The perfect cleft in her chin rivals Ava Gardner's). Read about her stormy life here /

In a celebration of red-headed mamas, all the performers this evening at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern were gingers: emcee Ophelia Bitz, burlesque performers / models Amelie Soleil and Sophia St Villier and even the DJ (my bad self!). In tribute, I could have played endless back-to-back tracks by ultimate atomic era auburn vixen Ann-Margret – but I didn't.

The night witnessed saucepot mistress of ceremonies Ophelia at her juiciest, most debauched and Tallulah Bankhead-esque. Barefoot in Capri pants, black sequinned beret cocked at a jaunty angle, she looked like an earthy 1950s beatnik poetess en route to an Allen Ginsberg reading. “Draw with your non-dominant hand,” Ophelia challenged the crowd. “If you’re right-handed, draw with your left hand. If you’re left-handed, draw with your right hand. If you’re ambidextrous please see me after the show. I have plans for you.” At one point she invited the audience to stub out their cigarettes on her body, James Dean human ashtray-style. Following Sophia St Villier’s stunning performance, Ophelia picked up her discarded bra from the stage floor, sniffed it, inhaled deeply and purred something about “the moist patch spreading towards my knees.” 

Ophelia introduced the first act of the night with, “Welcome to the stage my dear friend and wank fantasy, Amelie Soleil.” This time the stage fans were switched off beforehand and Amelie successfully did the same macabre carnival freak show act from last month. It incorporated some nonchalant fire-eating (Amelie shrugged like it was no big thing) and then she “ate” some razor blades as casually as if they were Pringles. (I was torn between watching Amelie and the frozen, aghast expression of one of the guys in the front table).

Happily, the night also featured the return of statuesque (5’10”) showgirl deluxe Sophia St Villier. Jessica Rabbit lookalike Sophia (New Zealand’s finest export) used to be a Dr Sketchy stalwart but these days she’s occupied with her own ventures, like Naked Girls Reading.  Anyway, her serpentine old-school burlesque performance was totally bewitching and left the audience awe-struck.

/ Children of the Damned: the ghostly harmonies of sisters Patience and Prudence /

Musically, I shook-together disparate elements like exotica, greasy rhythm and blues, grinding burlesk tittyshakers and sophistiqué Continental divas like Hildegard Knef and Juliette Greco - and then stood back to see how they landed. As the night progressed I veered toward an eerie spine-tingling David Lynch-ian noir vibe, especially when Amelie and Sophia were posing. The evocative soundtracks of both Lynch and Kenneth Anger are eternal sources of inspiration for me. Considering Sophia’s spectacular stage outfit was iridescent royal blue, playing versions of “Blue Velvet” felt apt – and of course the 1963 Bobby Vinton classic is where Lynch and Anger overlap (it features in Anger’s homoerotic experimental Scorpio Rising (1963) as well as the 1986 Lynch masterpiece). Isabella Rossellini as abused masochistic nightclub chanteuse Dorothy Vallens in the latter, crooning an endless (tuneless) Nico-like rendition of “Blue Velvet” in her bouffant wig is goose bump-inducing. The brushed drums, melancholy trumpet and prowling basslines of 1950s Cool Jazz (the sound of one finger snapping – in a morgue) is as synonymous with Twin Peaks as backward-talking midgets. (Doomed Cool Jazz icon Chet Baker’s instrumental version of the jazz standard “You’re My Thrill” from his 1965 album Baker’s Holiday: Plays and Sings Billie Holiday is one of my Dr Sketchy staples). The crystalline, ethereal voices of Julee Cruise, Francoise Hardy and The Paris Sisters (sighing and cooing about their elusive “Dream Lover” in Kenneth Anger’s 1965 film Kustom Kar Kommandos) are angelic verging-on-ghostly. Hell, even the sugary harmonies of 1950s novelty act Patience and Prudence have a blank-eyed Children of the Damned quality.

/ "She wore Bluuuuue Velvet ..." Kenneth Anger's underground homoerotic classick (sic) Scorpio Rising (1963) /

/ "I like to sing "Blue Velvet" ..." Isabella Rossellini in David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986) /


KUSTOM KAR KOMMANDOS - KENNETH ANGER (1965) from Tanya Muzanovic on Vimeo.

/ Essential viewing /



/ I know I've posted this clip before, but screw it! Another Dr Sketchy perennial: France's Francoise Hardy crooning in German and channeling Marlene Dietrich with her top hat, cigarette and mesh hose. Haunting /

Ebb Tide - Al Anthony (Wizard of the Organ)
Love Song of The Nile - Korla Pandit
Virgene del Sol - Yma Sumac
Intoxica - The Revels
Egg Man - Edith Massey
Mamma's Place - Bing Day
Ain't That Good? George Kelly and Orchestra
Letter from Tina - Ike and Tina Turner
The Coo - Wayne Cochran
Tonight You Belong to Me - Patience and Prudence
I Learn a Merengue, Mama - Robert Mitchum
Fujiyama Mama - Annisteen Allen
Anasthasia - Bill Smith Combo
All of Me - Mae West
Jungle Drums - Earl Bostic
Tear Drops from My Eyes - Ruth Brown
The Flirt - Shirley and Lee
It- The Regal-aires
Strolling After Dark - The Shades
No Good Lover - Mickey and Sylvia
Khrushchev Twist - Melvin Gayle
Night Scene - The Rumblers
Fever - Nancy Sit
Esquerita and The Voola - Esquerita
Kiss Me Honey Honey - The Delmonas
Scorpion - The Carnations
A Cheat - The Earls of Suave
Your Love is Mine - The Ikettes
I Love How You ... Lydia Lunch
If I Should Lose You - George Shearing
Champagne Taste - Eartha Kitt
Crawlin' - The Untouchables
C'est Moi, C'est Lola - Anouk Aimee
Blues in My Heart - The John Buzon Trio
Hot Toddy - Julie London
You're My Thrill - Chet Baker (instrumental)
Give Me Love - Lena Horne
The Stripper - John Barry (Beat Girl soundtrack)
Heartbreak Hotel - Ann-Margret
Bombora - The Original Surfaris
I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield - The 5,6,7,8s
Sweet Little Pussycat - Andre Williams
Beat Party - Ritchie and The Squires
Love Potion # 9 - Nancy Sit
Revellion -The Revels
Black Tarantula - Jody Reynolds
Mon coeur n'était pas fait pour ça - Juliette Greco
Where Flamingos Fly - Linda Lawson
Blue Velvet - Bobby Vinton
Traume - Francoise Hardy
Up in Flames - Julee Cruise
L'eau à la bouche - Serge Gainsbourg
Hiasmina - Jean Seberg
Wind Up Doll - Little Peggy March
Little Darlin' - Masaaki Hirao
Dream Lover - The Paris Sisters
Kiss - Marilyn Monroe
Blue Velvet - Isabella Rossellini
Love for Sale - Hildegard Knef
Chattanooga Choo-Choo - Denise Darcel
The Girl Can't Help It - Little Richard
Hit The Road, Jack - Ray Charles
Drive Daddy Drive - Little Sylvia
Wipe-Out - The Surfaris
Little Queenie - The Bill Black Combo

Obviously I can't miss an opportunity to plug my own club! The international sin set has been waiting - and I can confirm the first Lobotomy Room of 2014 is Saturday 31 May 2014 in the subterranean basement sex dungeon of Ryan's Bar in Stoke Newington (call it "the fringes of Dalston." I do). Cram a lifetime of squalid thrills into one night - at LOBOTOMY ROOM! Full details on the Facebook events page.

New Boots and Panties

Received delivery of a sparkling new pair of black leather engineer boots earlier this week — just like these as modelled by the delectable vintage physique/beefcake model Rock Granger (sadly, wearing them doesn't make me look like him. Granger is one of my favourite male pin-ups; I used a photo of him in a mesh posing pouch to illustrate my 6 February 2013 Wild Thing DJ set list -- and perhaps unsurprisingly, it became one of my most popular blog entries of all time!). 

As many of you know, I freaking refuse to wear anything else (give me engineer boots or give me death!) and they’re increasingly hard to find. (In the 1990s, I’d just head to The Girl Can't Help It in Camden Market!). I always have to have two pairs: I need a spare pair while one is being re-heeled. Anyway, I got my last two pairs from Rockers England in Manchester: highly recommended. Here’s their website.

Which brings us to ...

Young Marlon Brando as sullen and defiant Johnny in The Wild One (1953) remains such a potent image (or as Camille Paglia would call it, “sexual persona”). As I've said before, the clothes Brando and his biker gang members in The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club wear are so covetable they have me virtually drooling. The buckled black leather engineer boots, the perfect dark indigo Levis with the perfect turn-ups, the t-shirts, the leather jackets, the caps, the sunglasses, the quiffs, the sideburns ... Brando and his gang remain the absolute visual / sartorial ideal for male rockabillies today in the way that, say, Bettie Page or Mamie Van Doren do for female rockabilly kittens.

Unwittingly, Brando in The Wild One also set a template or archetype for the enduring and essential homoerotic biker image (perhaps second only to the homoerotic sailor image in ubiquity). Browse through any collections of 1950s / early 1960s-era vintage male physique / beefcake / early gay pornography on tumblr like this one or this one (and I highly recommend you do!) and so many of the luscious male models are sporting tough guy / bad boy variations of the black leather jacket, rakishly cocked biker cap and engineer boots ensembles that seem directly swiped from The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. (Here -- I've saved you the trouble!). And of course in his eerie 1963 queer underground film classic Scorpio Rising (a true cinematic flower of evil!) Kenneth Anger would drag the gay biker persona up from the subterranean world of porn. Anger also deliberately spliced in a flickering black and white TV clip of Brando in The Wild One, implying his speed freak anti-hero Scorpio (played by Bruce Byron) is modelling himself on Brando. In fact he links Scorpio’s corrupt homoerotic narcissism with his identifications with James Dean and Brando. Beautiful!

Now I need to listen to Turbonegro. 

Wild Thing DJ Set List 18 July 2012

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 /

Reflections on Henry and June (1990)

/ Maria de Medeiros as Anais Nin and Uma Thurman as June Miller in Henry and June /

I would have first seen the 1990 film Henry and June as a 21-year old university student in Ottawa, Ontario. At the time, Philip Kaufman’s exploration of the romantic and literary triangle between Anais Nin, Henry Miller and his wife June and his supremely seductive depiction of 1930s Parisian bohemia seemed to me to be the ne plus ultra in decadence. The film was transformative, firing my imagination of what a creative beatnik life ideally should be. I watched it over and over again, dragging friends, and started dipping into the sexually-charged works of Miller and Nin.

This weekend I re-watched Henry and June for the first time in about two decades. Risky: would I be disillusioned? Would it be as good as I remembered? Or maybe my tastes had simply changed in the intervening twenty years (bear in mind, I once thought Siesta (1987) was a profound art movie. Hey, I was 18 when I saw it and I soon learned better). The film was notoriously sexually explicit for its time (it was the first film to receive the NC-17 rating – one step away from an X). Since then, films have become far more explicit and Henry and June’s sex scenes – while still undeniably steamy – don’t pack the same shock value they once did.

It’s also easy to roll your eyes dismissively over the long scenes of Nin and Miller having heated debates about the merits of D H Lawrence and declaiming about poetry and literature in Parisian cafes in between bouts of athletic bonking, or Nin’s breathless narration about her inner musings about liberation and promiscuity – plenty of critics did at the time, and people probably still do now. Any film that can be summarised as “one woman’s erotic awakening” threatens comparison to the cheesily softcore 1970s Emmanuelle films, and Henry and June’s tone of highbrow erotica borders on pretentious – but it’s attempting to convey ambitious, weighty ideas about art, sex and life and doing it in a very stylish way. And for me, all these years later Henry and June still casts a spell.

The film covers the years 1931-1932 (when Nin first met the Millers), and Kaufman offers a swooningly romantic evocation of 1930s Art Deco Paris: every single shot is lovingly composed and art-directed to the hilt to look like a Brassai photograph or a Tamara de Lempicka painting come to life. The soundtrack is equally redolent, marrying 1920s and 30s jazz with accordion-laced French chanson. (The key songs are "Parlez-Moi D'Amour" by Lucienne Boyer and Bing Crosby’s “I Found a Million Dollar Baby" and there is especially haunting use of Josephine Baker’s "J'ai deux amours" in a brothel scene). The combined effect is as intoxicating as an absinthe cocktail. This is clearly a personal labour of love for Kaufman, and it shows.

/ Tamara de Lempicka painting /

The film is about the erotic and intellectual / literary initiation of Anais Nin; the screenplay is derived from her diaries and told from her point of view. Certainly the camera is enthralled by Portuguese actress Maria de Medeiros’s elfin heart-shaped face (her features are simultaneously sharp and bird-like and delicate; with her tendrils of black hair and dark almond-shaped eyes, she looks remarkably like Anias Nin). Fred Ward is charismatic and brash as literary bad boy Henry Miller - and he does a mean Popeye impersonation. But the film is utterly stolen by Uma Thurman, then only 20-years old, as Miller’s predatory and volatile bisexual wife, toxic beauty June Miller.

(This is a potentially disillusioning aside, but Nin, her diaries and Kaufman’s film shouldn’t be regarded as strictly truthful. Nin was a skilled self-mythologiser and massager of facts. Read this interview with Nin biographer Deirdre Bair on Salon.com: she blows apart some of the key aspects of the film. Much of Henry and June’s humour derives from Richard E Grant’s comic turn as Nin’s bumbling, clueless husband Hugh. In real life he was far more urbane and fully aware of Nin’s affairs. Bair also suggests Nin and June probably never actually had a sexual relationship: June was genuinely bisexual, Nin wasn’t).

Seeing it again, it’s surprising how relatively small the role of June is considering her impact. Her name may be 50% of the title, but it really is a supporting role. (Someone on imdb estimates Thurman’s screen time in Henry and June only amounts to about 25 minutes, and the film is over two hours long). Long before she properly enters the film, the characters talk about June and we see glimpses of her in flashbacks – the effect is tantalising. Her delayed arrival builds up anticipation, giving her a proper “star” introduction when she finally arrives.

And what an arrival: Nin wrote of her first encounter with June, “A startlingly white face, burning eyes ... As she came towards me from the darkness of my garden into the light of the doorway I saw for the first time the most beautiful woman on earth.” To their credit, Kaufman and Thurman nail this moment. Kauffman typically introduces June as emerging out of mist or shadows, behind screens of cigarette smoke, a nocturnal vampiric creature in shabby black velvet. When June vanishes back to the US for the movie’s whole middle section, she still haunts the film like a spectre and we (like Nin) crave her return.

As portrayed by Thurman, June exudes low-life allure and ruined glamour like luxurious perfume that’s curdled. Her inscrutability and kohl-smudged smoky eyes hint at exciting depravity. (In real life, June would have looked almost like a punk. As well as powdering her face a cadaverous chalk-y white, she typically wore lipstick in shades of either black or green. She must have looked like she was decomposing! The film shies away from this extreme). Her origins are mysterious and disreputable – complicated by the fact she’s a compulsive liar. The film hints June resorted to borderline prostitution to finance Henry Miller’s nascent writing career; certainly she was a 10 cents a dance “taxi dancer” when they first met. In an inspired and apparently true-to-life touch, June sometimes carries around an eerie male marionette like a kinky accessory. Called Count Bruga, in close-up his angry face feels German Expressionist and genuinely sinister. The imagery of June and her devilish puppet would appear to have inspired Madonna, who cavorts with a similar male “devil doll” in her "Erotica" video two years later.

/ Uma Thurman as June Miller /

/ The real June Miller /

A particular highlight: June lures Nin to a dissolute subterranean lesbian nightclub full of butch / femme couples (the butches wear men’s tuxedos with short pomaded hair; the femmes wear glittering bias-cut 30s evening gowns). June and Anais slow-dance to a sultry, blues-y instrumental rendition of the song "Moi Je M'Ennuie", one of Marlene Dietrich’s sexiest standards, performed by an all-female jazz band (the song’s suggestion of Dietrich injects a whiff of Weimar Berlin decadence). This is probably the most erotic lesbianic dancing scene since Dominque Sanda and Stefania Sandrelli in Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist (1970). June exhales huskily into Nin’s ear, “There’s so much I wanted to do with you ... I wanted to take opium with you ...” then purrs, “I’ve done the vilest things ... the foulest things. But I’ve done them superbly ...” It gave me goose bumps when I was 21. It still does now!

(I must mention the appearance of Brigitte Lahaie in the mostly mute small role of a prostitute in the brothel scenes, who seems to mesmerise Nin because of her resemblance to June. In a dream sequence in which Nin and June make love, Lahaie appears as June’s doppelganger. Lahaie was a former actress in French porn films, and she’s certainly at ease in her nude scenes here. She makes a powerful impression in Henry and June: smouldering, almost scary, strangely androgynous and sexually voracious).

Thurman/June’s mere appearance instantly injects turbulence, tension and high drama into the film. (Especially towards the end, when the tempo begins to sag – June’s return salvages it). Tough but vulnerable and unpredictable, June is less cerebral than Miller and Nin, more emotional. When June belatedly realises Miller and Nin have been having an affair behind her back, suddenly the film feels like it has urgent emotional content, something is at stake. The final confrontation between the trio is wrenching. June is a muse to both of them, but she’s a critical one, recognising how precarious her role is, and vocal in her in disappointments. She’s the one who’s done the desperate living and taken the risks – they’re the ones who reap the kudos for writing about it. “I wanted poetry!” she wails at Miller after reading how she’s represented in his Tropic of Cancer manuscript. “I wanted Dostoevsky!” Being their inspiration leaves her unfulfilled. When Nin tries to reassure her, “I worship you!” June snaps, “I don’t want worship – I want understanding.”

(June was right to be suspicious of Miller and Nin cannibalising her life for their literary works. The film ends in 1932. After Henry and June divorced in 1934, both Miller and Nin seemed to abruptly lose interest in their shared muse, pretty much abandoning June to a squalid and despairing life ravaged by extreme poverty and mental and physical illness. When Miller encountered June for the first time in years in the 1960s, he was reportedly shocked by her deterioration. The woman praised by Nin for her "tantalizing somber beauty" was now a withered crone. June’s later years are shrouded in mystery and mostly undocumented, but they are recently beginning to come into sharper focus. Her Wikipedia page and this excellent blog fill in some of the blanks. She apparently died in 1979 aged 77).

In her exquisitely-lit, dreamy close-ups, Thurman as June can suggest a Tamara de Lempicka painting, Ingrid Thulin in Luchino Visconti’s The Damned (1969) or Warhol superstar Candy Darling at the height of her 1930s-style, Harlow-inspired glamour (not to imply Thurman looks like a drag queen, but she is Amazonian in stature and I’ve always thought she shares Darling’s sculpted bone structure) – or an escapee from a Josef von Sternberg film. Imagine Marlene Dietrich’s shady demimondaine Shanghai Lil from Shanghai Express (1932) with a tough Brooklyn accent (Thurman’s hard-boiled Depression-era Brooklyn accent as June is perfection). Thurman’s beguiling way of lowering her head and looking up through hooded half-closed eyes is pure Dietrich (in the 1940s the insolent young Lauren Bacall adopted this stance, too. When she did it, it was called “The Look”). If anyone could have played Dietrich in a biopic, based on this film, it’s Thurman. In fact the great French auteur Louis Malle was planning to make a film about the early life of Dietrich starring Thurman – but when he died in 1995, the project was abandoned.

/ Candy Darling. I mean Uma Thurman. I mean Candy Darling /

/ You've got that look ... that look ... that leaves me weak: Uma Thurman as June Miller /

/ Marlene Dietrich /

Henry and June captures Thurman early in her career: with the benefit of hindsight, Thurman’s subsequent filmography is decidedly patchy. It’s not Thurman’s fault, but she never quite had the opportunity to live up to the potential Henry and June suggested (and certainly she’s had plenty of roles since that have found her wanting). She’s probably best-loved for her collaborations with Quentin Tarantino (who’s been quoted as saying he sees Thurman as the Dietrich to his von Sternberg), but neither Pulp Fiction (1994) nor the Kill Bill films (2003-2004) challenged her dramatically the way June Miller did. (Funnily enough, Pulp Fiction reunites her with Maria de Medeiros, but I don’t recall them having any scenes together in it). These days she’s more regarded as a great beauty than a great actress. But while the proposed Dietrich film starring Thurman is a great cinematic “what-if”, Henry and June remains a testament to what a riveting screen presence Thurman can be.

Finally, you can watch the actual Anais Nin onscreen in glorious colour in Kenneth Anger’s hallucinatory experimental art film Inauguration of The Pleasure Dome (1954). This is just a snippet, showing the 51-year old Nin looking great in black fishnet tights, with a gilded birdcage on her head. Warning: watching this might turn you into a Satanist! (Kenneth Anger would probably like that).

11 June 2011 Dr Sketchy Set List

/ Photo of me, selecting what records to play at Dr Sketchy. No, seriously it's 1950s vintage beefcake physique model (winner of Mr Muscle Beach 1951) and sometimes actor (his filmography includes Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953), Wild Women of Wongo (1958) and Colossus and The Amazon Queen (1960) Ed Fury: he looks like a right laugh, huh? I wonder if he's a distant relation of Billy Fury's? /

This was a typically raucous and laidback Saturday afternoon Dr Sketchy at The Old Queen’s Head in Angel. The emcee was the suave-tastic Hooray Henry Higgins and the model/performer was the ultra-glamorous Annette Bette. A very talented member of the audience took some great moody and dramatic photos of the afternoon. Here are two shots of Annette Bette in action where the photographer accidentally managed to get me looking gormless in the frame. (I love the detail of the martini glass in the foreground).

See the full set on the photographer's flickr page.

Musically I launched straight into raunch mode with the single entendre smut of “Ice Man” by Filthy McNasty. Later on just to amuse myself, I paid homage to one of my all-time favourite films (Kenneth Angers’s 1964 avant-garde homoerotic biker / occult art movie Scorpio Rising. That film really warped me at an impressionable age!) by playing a cluster of songs from its soundtrack (“Devil in Disguise" by Elvis, “Fools Rush In” by Ricky Nelson and “Torture” by Kris Jensen, in case you’re curious).

Ice Man - Filthy McNasty
Cooler Weather is A-Comin' - Eddie Weldon
Nobody But You - Mamie van Doren
The Grunt - The 50 Milers
Love Potion No 9 - Nancy Sit
Monkey Bird - The Revels
Kiss Me Honey Honey - The Delmonas
The D-Rail - The Flintales
Drive Daddy Drive - Little Sylvia
Club Delight - Jack Jolly
The Swag - Link Wray
I Only Have Eyes for You - The Flamingos
Blame it On My Youth - Ann-Margret
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes - The Mallet Men
Dancing on the Ceiling - Chet Baker
Let There Be Love - Diana Dors
The Bouelvard of Broken Dreams / Fever - Sam Butera
Work Song - Nina Simone
Intoxicated Man - Serge Gainsbourg
Makin' Whoopee - Marlene Dietrich
A Week from Tuesday - The Pastels
Work with It - Que Martin
The Squeezer - Big Bob Dougherty
Cherry Pink - The Bill Black Combo
Anasthasia - The Bill Smith Combo
Summertime - Little Esther
Love Me or Leave Me - Lena Horne
Drive In - The Jaguars
Shangri-La - Spike Jones New Band
Yes, Sir That's My Baby - Ann Richards
Crawlin' - The Untouchables
Beat Party - Ritchie & The Squires
Close Your Eyes - Dolores Gray
Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend - Eartha Kitt
Womp Womp - Freddie & The Heartaches
Rigor Mortis - The Gravestone Four
Go Slow - Julie London
Sexe - Line Renaud
Town without Pity - James Chance
Teardrops from My Eyes - Ruth Brown
I Live the Life I Love - Esquerita
De Castrow - Jaybee Wasden
Devil in Disguise - Elvis Presley
Fools Rush In - Ricky Nelson
Fujiyama Mama - Annisteen Allen
Torture - Kris Jensen
Dragon Walk - The Noblemen
Last Night - Lula Reed
Jezabel - Edith Piaf
Strip-tease - Juliette Greco
Kiss - Marilyn Monroe
Caravan - John Buzon Trio
Wondrous Place - Billy Fury
The Beast - Milt Buckner
All of Me - Mae West
Night Walk - The Swingers
Willow Weep for Me - The Whistling Artistry of Muzzy Marcellino
The Girl Who Invented Rock'n'Roll - Mamie van Doren
Sometimes I Wish I Had a Gun - Mink Stole
Tall Cool One - The Wailers
Daddy Daddy - Ruth Brown
The Girl Can't Help It - Little Richard
One Night of Sin - Elvis Presley
Beat Girl - Adam Faith (Beat Girl soundtrack)
Chattanooga Choo Choo - Denise Darcel
Sweet Little Pussycat - Andre Williams
The Whip - The Originals
Esquerita & The Voola - Esquerita
Take It Off - The Genteels
Suey - Jayne Mansfield
Groovy - The Groovers
Pussycat Song - Connie Vannett
The Stalk - The Giants

I don't think I've posted this tittyshaker already.

/ Ed Fury knocking up drinks behind the bar. Hmmm: Canada Dry Ginger Ale? I hope he’s making Moscow Mules /

28 May 2011 Dr Sketchy Set List

/ Nice cleavage shot of Dinah Washington, the great torch singer of R&B /

This Bank Holiday Saturday afternoon Dr Sketchy at The Old Queen’s Head was nicely mellow and boozy (well, I’m speaking for myself here) with no stressful technical glitches (apart from some last-minute drama about locating a microphone for emcee Ophelia Bitz, but nothing major).

The performer / model this time was Tallulah Tempest, making her Dr Sketchy debut. We were all dazzled by Tempest: A former ballerina-turned burlesque performer, she still wears her white satin ballet shoes and displayed her ballet skills by posing en pointe for long, tortuous stretches. Ophelia and I admired Tempest’s powerful calf muscles while she modelled – impressive! Tempest performed to The Doors's version of the Kurt Weill song "Alabama Song". Her costume was great, too: a sort of harlequin / Pierrot black and white diamond-patterned ballerina outfit, with black tear drops drawn coming out of the corner of one eye. She looked like an escapee from the 1950 Kenneth Anger film Rabbit’s Moon.


You can actually watch Kenneth Anger's wondrous Rabbit's Moon in its entirety on Youtube. I recommend you do. Or better yet, get it on DVD. The dream-like imagery, married to a doo wop soundtrack, is sublime

/ The vivacious Ophelia Bitz and I enjoying some sparkling repartee. How we laughed! Photos by Maria Depaula-Vazquez /

When I was in Vegas in April I spent a whole afternoon exploring the maze-like Charleston Antiques Market. One of the used books I skimmed and was tempted to buy was Queen: The Life and Music of Dinah Washington by Nadine Cohodas. (The other one I almost bought: a pristine edition of Funeral Rites by Jean Genet. I really should have snapped that up!). I’ve never read any biographies of the great Rhythm and Blues torch singer. Her life and career are fascinating. One of the true jazz and blues greats, Washington’s influence is incalculable: just as Washington as a young singer was initially indebted to Billie Holiday, you can recognize Washington's idiosyncratic phrasing in the like of Esther “Little Esther” Philips, Lula Reed and Timi Yuro. (When I play Timi Yuro’s swinging, finger-snapping version of “Fever”, people assume it’s Dinah Washington). Today, Amy Winehouse has declared she reveres Washington.

Washington’s life was short but tempestuous and decadent – qualities audible in her remarkable gritty, bluesy wailing voice. A dedicated boozer and pill-popper, she was dead by the age of 39 (in 1963) of an apparent accidental overdose when she unwisely mixed diet pills (which in those days were essentially amphetamines; Washington struggled with her weight) with sedatives and alcohol – a combination that proved lethal. What a loss, as Washington was still at the peak of her powers at the time of her death.

There was a great photo in the biography of Washington shortly before her death wearing a platinum blonde bouffant cotton candy wig, a mink coat and an outrageous pair of diamante-trimmed cat’s eye sunglasses: the caption says something like “Dinah wearing her two favorite accessories: a wig and a mink coat”. One of the first African-American superstars to enjoy crossover success on the white pop charts, Washington was financially able to indulge her love of bling. Luxuriating in jewelry, furs and sports cars, she embraced the ghetto fabulous ethos decades before hip hop. Washington was called The Queen of The Blues in her lifetime, and by all accounts her manner was definitely imperious. A defiant and willful tough cookie, she was known to pull out a gun in disagreements. During recording sessions she would pound back magnums of pink champagne (no wonder her vocals sound so relaxed and effortless!). By the end of her life Washington was married seven times.

Her career was as volatile as her private life. As a recording artist, Washington was very prolific and there wasn’t always the highest quality control (the liner notes to one of my CDs claims “Records were released that Dinah didn’t even remember making”). On the plus side, that means there are always more treasures to discover in La Washington’s oeuvre. Dinah Washington is definitely an artist I play a lot at Dr Sketchy. I know she’s most loved for classics like “What a Diff’rence a Day Makes” and “September in the Rain”, her duets with Brook Benton and her sumptuous, string-drenched version of Noel Coward’s “Mad About the Boy”, but I think I like her best at her most subdued and melancholy, when she drops the trademark bravado and sassiness to reveal a sensitive, bruised side. Check out these two stunning, goose-bump inducing heartbreak ballads I’ve recently discovered – to me they sound like Dinah Washington baring her soul. I’ve been playing both these a lot lately when I want to drop the tempo to something sultrier and dramatic.

"You're Crying" by Dinah Washington


"I Want to Cry" by Dinah Washington


Miss Irene - Ginny Kennedy
Cheesecake - The Nite Sounds
That's Why I'm Asking - Carl Dobkins Jr with Lew Douglas Orchestra & Chorus
Heartbreakin' Special - Duke Larson
Rock'n'Roll Waltz - Ann-Margret
Leave Married Women Alone - Jimmy Cavallo
Little Ole Wine Drinker Me - Robert Mitchum
Too Old to Cut the Mustard - Marlene Dietrich and Rosemary Clooney
Jungle Walk - The Dyna-Sores
Oui je veux - Johnny Halliday
Over the Rainbow - Gene Vincent
It's Only Make Believe - Billy Fury
Little Things Mean a Lot - Jayne Mansfield
Directly from My Heart - Little Richard
The Strangeness in Me - The Runabouts
Love Letters - Ike and Tina Turner
The Heel - Kay Martin
Bombie - Johnny Sharp
Out of Limits - The Marketts
The Coo - Wayne Cochran
The Chase - Chaino
Khrushchev Twist - Melvin Gayle
Stop Talking, Start Walking - Annie Laurie
Save It - Mel Robbins
De Castrow - Jaybee Wasden
That's a Pretty Good Love - Big Maybelle
Blockade - The Rumblers
Torture Rock - The Rockin' Belmarx
Salamander - Mamie van Doren
Please Don't Go Topless, Mother - Troy Hess
My Baby Cried All Night Long - Lee Hazlewood
Raunchy - Bill Black Combo
Do It Again - April Stevens
Anasthasia - Bill Smith Combo
The Beast - Milt Buckner
Screwdriver - Luchi
Willow Weep for Me - Nina Simone
Lullabye of Birdland - Eartha Kitt
Night Walk - The Swingers
I Want to Cry - Dinah Washington
Blues in My Heart - John Buzon Trio
Boulevard of Broken Dreams - Denise Darcel
The Sneak - Jimmy Oliver
I Need Your Lovin' - Don Gardner and DeeDee Ford
Everywhere I Go - Ted Taylor
Daddy Daddy - Ruth Brown
This Thing Called Love - Esquerita
Fever - The Delmonas
Stranger in My Own Hometown - The Earls of Suave
Beat Party - Ritchie & The Squires
Comic Strip - Brigitte Bardot and Serge Gainsbourg
Rigor Mortis - The Gravestone Four
Black Tarantula - Jody Reynolds
The Whip - The Frantics
A Guy Who Takes His Time - Marlene Dietrich
Bonjour Tristesse - Juliette Greco
Drums-a-Go-Go - The Hollywood Persuaders
Intoxica - The Centurions
Crawlin' - The Untouchables
Like a Baby - Wanda Jackson
The Stalk - The Giants
Blues in the Night - Julie London
Sleep Walk - Henri Rene & His Orchestra
What is This Thing Called Love? Lena Horne
Rollercoaster Blues - Diana Dors
Let's Get Lost - Chet Baker
The Lady is a Tramp - Hildegard Knef
Mambo Miam Miam - Serge Gainsbourg
Gopher - Yma Sumac
What is This Generation Coming To? Robert Mitchum
Lover - Peggy Lee
Bossa Nova Baby - Elvis Presley
You Know I'm No Good - Wanda Jackson