19 February 2014 Dr Sketchy DJ Set List

/ She's a brick ... house /

The first Dr Sketchy of the New Year was quite simply one of the best ever. In fact last Wednesday night at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern felt like Dr Sketchy being plunged back to its classic golden age (or age d’or, if you prefer).

First of all, hostess with the mostest (or should that be “moistest”?), emcee Ophelia Bitz was back in charge of proceedings and on raunchy form. Think of her as the toilet-mouthed and debauched Tallulah Bankhead du nos jours. Bad girl of cabaret Ophelia and her boyfriend upped sticks and re-located to Bristol a while back, so this was a rare London appearance (I’m pretty sure I hadn't seen her since Bestival 2012).  Boy, do we miss her at Dr Sketchy. Resplendent in gold sequins, at one point she apologised to the crowd for not having washed beforehand and explained Febreeze is the patron saint of cabaret. Later, circulating through the crowd and glancing at their drawings, she stopped at one, exclaimed, “That’s disgusting!” and gave a filthy cackle.

/ Filthiest Woman Alive? Ophelia Bitz channeling Divine in Pink Flamingos /

Both of the night’s guest performers / models, Amelie Soleil and Fancy Chance, were cabaret crème de la crème and Dr Sketchy doyennes who hadn't performed for us in ages. I’d only ever seen “Britain’s Tiniest Tease” Soleil once before (at the May 2012 Dr Sketchy at The Old Queen’s Head) and didn't recognise her at first at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern: she’s since shuttled from blonde to Ann-Margret not-found-in-nature red. (Needless to say I slipped in an Ann-Margret track while Soleil modeled – not that I need much excuse).

/ Totally gratuitous cheesecake bathing suit “glamour shot” of Fancy Chance at Bestival 2012 – just for the hell of it /

Like with Ophelia, I hadn't seen maverick burlesque comedienne Fancy Chance since Dr Sketchy and Time for Tease at Bestival 2012.  Chance’s routine was certainly au courant: Prince has been causing a sensation in London lately, playing tiny intimate gigs that instantly sell out.  The savvy Chance dusted off her Prince tribute act (she howls along and strips to “Kiss”) and was probably far more entertaining than the genuine article himself these days. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I don’t have any Prince tracks in my collection. But figuring Chance in male drag (with her tousled pompadour bouffant wig and pencil-line pimp mustache) looked just as much like Little Richard, Esquerita or Masaaki Hirao as Prince, I cranked-up songs by them during her poses instead.



/ Sadly, we never seem to get people taking and submitting photos at Dr Sketchy anymore, but to give you a flavour, here is the sublime Fancy Chance doing her Prince act at the Time for Tease tent at Bestival 2012 /

Musically, as usual at Dr Sketchy I sought to induce a sleazy atomic era nightclub ambiance (DJ’ing at an old-school darkened cabaret venue with red velvet curtains and candles on the tables is certainly inspiring) via greasy rhythm and blues (Ike and Tina, Big Maybelle), bump’n’grind titty shaker instrumentals, cooing sex kittens (Eartha, Jayne, Ann-Margret) songs swiped from John Waters, Kenneth Anger and David Lynch soundtracks, discordant post-punk death-jazz skronk (Lydia Lunch) and just plain weird shit (Edith Massey slaughtering “Fever”).

Of course primitive, pagan and taboo exotica lounge music will always hold a special place in my heart. Whether it’s Dr Sketchy or my own night Lobotomy Room, I like to ease into things early on by playing atmospheric and eerie exotica by the likes of Martin Denny and Les Baxter just as people are arriving, probably making them wonder, “Where the hell am I?” I've written before about my admiration for the mesmerising and enigmatic Korla Pandit, but only just recently started incorporating his weird and wonderful music into my sets. He is the high emperor of exotica to Peruvian diva Yma Sumac’s high empress. Playing two tracks back-to-back by these two is spine-tingling and intoxicating.

/ Historic Encounter Between Exotica High Royalty: Yma Sumac (1922-2008) and Korla Pandit (1921-1998) crossing paths in the early 1980s. We are not worthy ... / 

/ Korla Pandit (and a very pretty Asian male dancer) in action in his 1950s prime. Look deep into his eyes /

Love Song of the Nile - Korla Pandit
Ataypura (High Andes) - Yma Sumac
Voodoo Dreams / Voodoo - Les Baxter
Kizmiaz - The Cramps
Cafe Bohemian - The Enchanters
Monkey Bird - The Revels
Mamma's Place - Bing Day
Fever - Edith Massey
One Monkey Don't Stop No Show - Big Maybelle
Ain't That Good? George Kelly and Orchestra
Night Scene - The Rumblers
A Cruise to the Moon - Lydia Lunch
One Mint Julep - Sarah Vaughan
Not Me - Robert Mitchum
Go Calypso - Mamie Van Doren
The Coo - Wayne Cochran
I'm a Bad, Bad Girl - Little Esther
Here Comes the Bug - The Rumblers
Mambo Baby - Ruth Brown
She Wants to Mambo - Johnny Thunders and Patti Palladin
Little Darlin' - Masaaki Hirao
Love Letters - Ike and Tina Turner
Blue Velvet - Bobby Vinton
Bombora - The Original Surfaris
Nobody Taught Me - Eartha Kitt
Where Flamingos Fly - Linda Lawson
Dream Lover - The Paris Sisters
Shangri-la - Spike Jones New Band
You're My Thrill - Dolores Gray
The Stripper - John Barry (Beat Girl soundtrack)
Heartbreak Hotel - Ann-Margret
Black Tarantula - Jody Reynolds
Slow Walk - Sil Austin
The Flirt - Shirley and Lee
Welfare Cheese - Emanuel Lanskey
You're Driving Me Crazy - Dorothy Berry
Kruschev Twist - Melvin Gayle
Margaya - The Fender Four
Jaguar - The Jaguars
Esquerita and The Voola - Esquerita
Jailhouse Rock - Masaaki Hirao
Lucille - Little Richard
My Boy Lollipop - Sakura and the Quests
I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield - The 5,6,7,8s
That Makes It - Jayne Mansfield
Hiasmina - Jean Seberg
Crazy Vibrations - The Bikinis
Sexe - Line Renaud
Je t'aime moi non plus ... Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot
Begin the Beguine - Lynn Rockwell
Mack the Knife - Hildegard Knef
Kool Kat Walk - Julee Cruise
Intoxica - The Revels
Chicken Grabber - The Nite Hawks
Cry-baby - The Honey Sisters
Roll with Me, Henry - Etta James
Tina's Dilemma - Ike and Tina Turner
The Girl Can't Help It - Little Richard
Bossa Nova Baby - Elvis Presley
Moi je joue - Brigitte Bardot

20 September 2012 Dr Sketchy Set List

/ Bettie Page demonstrating how to fill out a pair of fishnet tights /

This Dr Sketchy (held at the ever-dissolute and nicotine-stained Royal Vauxhall Tavern) represents my first time DJ’ing since 1) Bestival and 2) getting back from my long weekend in Paris. (I might well do a separate blog on my Parisian misadventures). I’d gone straight into work on the Monday morning after getting back from Paris late Sunday night, and had a really draining week. So I was pretty dead on my feet and mellow at this Dr Sketchy.

For this night, Dr Sketchy’s own glamorous promoter / stage manageress Clare Marie was on emcee duties. The burlesque performer was curvaceous redhead Violet Strangelove (who doesn't appear to have a website for me to point you towards, sadly). And as an added bonus, the bill included a special musical guest: Gracie and The G-Spots. With effervescent blonde Gracie on smoky vocals (she can really belt it out!) accompanied by keyboardist and saxophonist, they tore through some great jazz and cabaret standards (“Whatever Lola Wants”, “Stormy Weather”, “Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps”) plus some more raunchy material I assume was original compositions (songs about lesbian sex, and how to not lose your page in Fifty Shades of Grey while masturbating!).

Early on when the RVT was still filling up and I was easing my way into things with exotica and lounge music, I played “Misirlou” by Martin Denny and “Les amours perdues” by Serge Gainsbourg. Just to be perverse, am posting videos for two different interpretations of these tracks!



/ Korla Pandit performing "Misirlou" on his TV Show Korla Pandit's Adventures in Music in the fifties /

I’ve got to thank Moses Longpiece for turning me onto Korla Pandit (I have no CDs by him, which I clearly need to rectify). Eerie, sensual and hypnotic, the enigmatic Pandit was one of the pioneering godfathers of exotica, to be mentioned in the same breath as Denny, Les Baxter and Yma Sumac. In the early 1950s he created a sensation on American TV with his own daily 15-minute programme Korla Pandit’s Adventures in Music. Every episode featured Pandit (sporting his signature jewelled-turban) seated at his Hammond organ (often playing piano simultaneously), inscrutably silent but wielding his dreamy liquid doe eyed-gaze at the viewer while he played. Apparently the sight and sound of this mysterious Indian musician cast a potent spell on his audience, especially love-struck housewives. It’s not hard to see why: in surviving clips, the dusky and androgynously pretty Pandit packs a genuine erotic charge. (Thankfully, an amazing amount of Adventures in Music seems to have survived; you can find a treasure trove of Pandit in performance on Youtube).

All of this is already fascinating enough. In 2001, though, Los Angeles Magazine published an article entitled “The Many Faces of Korla Pandit” which tore the lid off the facade Pandit had scrupulously maintained until his death in 1998. The piece revealed that Pandit was in fact a light-skinned African-American born John Roland in Missouri in 1921. To bypass the racism of the period, he re-christened himself as the Mexican “Juan Rolando” and played Latin music. Later on, he found fame by adopting the jasmine-scented persona of New Delhi-born Indian organist Korla Pandit – and kept his secret intact for decades, even from close intimates. How incredible! In this regard, Pandit has much in common with Anglo-Indian Hollywood actress Merle Oberon, who denied her mixed race origins and would pretend her dark-skinned sari-clad Indian mother was her maid, or notorious literary hoaxster JT LeRoy.

In 1994, not long before his death, Tim Burton cast Pandit as himself for a memorable cameo appearance in Ed Wood. (The only Tim Burton-Johnny Depp film I’ve ever liked). It makes for a nice epitaph for Korla Pandit. 

 

Read more about Pandit here, or on his own official website.

My reverence for quintessential French beatnik chanteuse  Juliette Greco is pretty well-documented. Here is the high priestess of French chanson in 1959, at the height of her witchy Morticia Addams beauty, singing the great Serge Gainsbourg song “Les amours perdues” while reclining on a giant slowly-revolving record, her drowned Ophelia hair spread out like long black seaweed beneath her. Exquisite!


Juliette Gréco - Les amours perdues (1959) by sylvainsyl


Finally: I posted this blog using the new blogger.com interface. What a nightmare! Like Facebook with Timeline, the change to the new interface had long been threatened and wasn’t optional. It was simple, elegant, functional and user-friendly before. Creating this post took about five times longer than normal – ugh! I’d be curious to hear how other bloggers on here are finding it.

Moon Mist - Les Baxter
Xtabay - Yma Sumac
Misirlou - Martin Denny
Monkey Bird - The Revels
Les amours perdues - Serge Gainsbourg
Run - Jeri Southern
Cocktails for Two - Claude Duphiney
I Remember You - Chet Baker
Smoke Gets In Your Eyes - The Mallet Men
Drive-In - The Jaguars
Fever - Nancy Sit
The Mexican - The Fentones
Little Ole Wine Drinker Me - Robert Mitchum
One More Beer - The Earls of Suave
When I Get Low I Get High - Florence Joelle's Kiss of Fire
Frenzy - The Hindus
Madness - The Rhythm Rockers
Jim Dandy - Sara Lee and The Spades
Wiped-Out - The Escorts
You Done Messed Around and Made a Mean Woman Mad - Julia Bates
Screwdriver - Luchi
Night Scene - The Rumblers 8 Ball - The Hustlers
La valse des si - Juliette Greco
The Immediate Pleasure - John Barry (Beat Girl soundtrack)
Willow Weep for Me - Nina Simone
Night Walk - The Swingers
Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby? Ann Richards
The Beast - Milt Buckner
Love for Sale - Eartha Kitt
Margaya - The Fender Four
Caterpillar Crawl - The Strangers
Oo Ba La Baby - Mamie Van Doren
Scorpion - The Carnations
Sick and Tired - Lula Reed
I Walk like Jayne Mansfield - The 5,6,7,8s
That Makes It - Jayne Mansfield
Baby Blues Rock - Carl Simpson
Are You Nervous? The Instrumentals
Dance with Me, Henry - Ann-Margret
The Flirt - Shirley and Lee
Yogi - The Bill Black Combo
He's The One - Ike and Tina Turner
Let's Twist Again - Johnny Hallyday
Sweetie Pie - Eddie Cochran
Strollin' After Dark - The Shades
Mack the Knife - Hildegard Knef
Begin the Beguine - Billy Fury
One Mint Julep - Sarah Vaughan
I Was Born to Cry - Johnny Thunders and Patti Paladdin
Ain't That Lovin' You, Baby - Elvis Presley
Dragon Walk - The Noble Men
Beat Party - Ritchie and The Squires
Get Back, Baby - Esquerita