20 November 2013 DJ Set List for Dr Sketchy

Phew! I am whoppingly behind with my blogging. Life has got in the way in recent months: Iwas in Canada for two weeks over Halloween and since getting back I've been DJ’ing a lot and started a very demanding new job. So I'm exhausted and distracted a lot of the time, but if I don’t document my DJ’ing misadventures, no one else is going to do it for me! And besides, I have overwhelming OCD about these things. So this blog will be a speedier than usual catch-up.

As you can see, I eased into the November 2013 Dr Sketchy at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern with some ethereal and pagan mondo exotica via the magic of Martin Denny, Les Baxter and the genre’s ululating high priestess Yma Sumac. I think exotica’s last real hey day was in the easy listening "loungecore" revival of the early nineties, but I’m determined to bring it back again!  Those jungle noises, cawing birds and ominous tribal chanting sound effects are like aural catnip for me. I also suspect I’m the only DJ currently playing calypso on a regular basis. Not the genuine article, but the gloriously ersatz and kitsch variety of faux novelty calypso performed by jive honky white crackers (in this case, Robert Mitchum – who invented the genre with his classic 1957 album Calypso is Like So, Mamie Van Doren and First Lady of Rockabilly Wanda Jackson).

Otherwise: I continue to be obsessed by the angel-faced “Japanese Elvis” Masaaki Hirao. (I try to sprinkle in some other songs by him, but I’m addicted to his version of “Lucille” – in fact I think I love it even more than Little Richard’s original!). It wouldn't be a Dr Sketchy without some Las Vegas Grind-style sleazy, bump'n'grind tittyshaker instrumentals. While the evening’s featured performer Frankie von Flirter modelled, I sound-tracked her poses with cooing sex kittens (Julie London, Bardot, Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield).

Speaking of international vintage sex kittens, I played a track by ultra-sultry "ooh la la" French actrice et chanteuse Denise Darcel for the first time in ages (her wonderfully camp 1958 Banned in Boston album used to be one of my staples at Dr Sketchy. She croons in a thick comedic French accent – imagine a sexy female Pepe le Pew). The Parisian beauty pageant winner turned Hollywood starlet (specialising in playing characters named Fifi, Gigi and Lola in films like Tarzan and the Slave Girl and Seven Women from Hell) turned nightclub songbird turned (when legitimate show biz offers dried up) stripper was never exactly a household name. You’d be forgiven for thinking Darcel would be dimly-remembered today by only the most rabid of old movie junkies. In fact, her name tops the all-time most popular search engine entries for my blog! So she is clearly a cult figure out there who gets Googled a lot! Darcel died aged 87 on 23 December 2011 – meaning the second anniversary of her death is fast approaching.  Read her obituary here. (I have written about Darcel before in more detail here).  Merci, Denise Darcel - you made the world a more divoon place.

/ Satan's Angel and I at Viva Las Vegas in 2010 / 

Another fabulous babe and source of inspiration is doyenne of exotic dance and true burlesque royalty, Satan’s Angel (the savagely-pouting and bouffant-haired pin-up featured at the top of this blog). I got to see Satan’s Angel perform and briefly meet and talk to her at Viva Las Vegas in 2010. She was great – a raspy-voiced, hard-boiled but sweet tough cookie and a true old-school broad. Since then I've befriended her on Facebook and am always entertained by her straight-talking status updates. Just two of the reasons I love this woman: as an out and proud lesbian on the Mafia-ruled burlesque scene in the 1960s she defiantly endured her share of prejudice. (Apparently her female lovers included Hedy Lamarr and Janis Joplin). Satan’s Angel also used to play bass in a topless all-girl rock’n’roll band called The Hummingbirds who used to do a residency at the nite spot Tipsy’s in San Francisco’s North Beach. (How Beyond the Valley of the Dolls / Russ Meyer-esque! Oh, for a time machine!). Now 69, she’s still performing, teaches her patented “fire tassel twirling” technique to today's neo-burlesque performers – and still stirs up trouble! Welcome to her wild, wild world!

Satan's Angel with her friend and peer, the late great Tura Satana (1938-2011)

/ Candid snap of a very young Satan's Angel at home at Christmas time in the early 1960s. Now that is a killer bullet bra! /



/ Trailer for an intriguing-looking 2013 documentary about the life and career of Satan's Angel /

Jungle Madness - Les Baxter
Taita Inty (Virgin of the Sun God)- Yma Sumac
Misirlou - Martin Denny
Anohi Kara - Masaaki Hirao
Sleep Walk - Henri Renee and His Orchestra
Caravan - 80 Drums Around the World
Kismiaz - The Cramps
Monkey Bird - The Revels
La-bas c'est naturel - Serge Gainsbourg
Champagne Taste - Eartha Kitt
Cocktail for Two - Cliff Dauphiney
The Whip - The Originals
Tonight You Belong to Me - Patience and Prudence
Long Distance - Garnell Cooper and The Kinfolks
All of Me - Mae West
Honey Rock - Barney Kessel
Here Comes the Bug - The Rumblers
I'm a Bad, Bad Girl - Little Esther
The Coo - Wayne Cochran
Intoxica - The Centurions
Leave Married Women Alone - Jimmy Cavallo
Bombora - The Original Surf-aris
Nosey Joe - Bull Moose Jackson
Coconut Water - Robert Mitchum
Dona Wana - Wanda Jackson
Go Calypso! Mamie Van Doren
Vesuvius - The Revels
Save It - Mel Robbins
Night Scene - The Rumblers
Ain't That Lovin' You, Baby - The Earls of Suave
Serenata - The Jonah Jones Quarter
Give Me Love - Lena Horne
Sexe - Line Renaud
Some Small Chance - Serge Gainsbourg (Strip-tease soundtrack)
What is a Man? Denise Darcel
I Want a Boy - Connie Russell
Crazy Vibrations - The Bikini
You're the Boss - Elvis Presley and Ann-Margret
Bewildered - Shirley and Lee
Intoxica - The Revels
Tina's Dilemma - Ike and Tina Turner
Little Queenie - The Bill Black Combo
Jailhouse Rock - Masaaki Hirao
Margaya - The Fender Four
Suey - Jayne Mansfield
Pass The Hatchet - Roger and The Gypsies
Handclapping Time - The Fabulous Raiders
Sometimes I Wish I Had a Gun - Mink Stole
Black Coffee - Julie London
Je me donne à qui me plaît - Brigitte Bardot 
You'd Be Surprised - Marilyn Monroe
Lucky - Lizabeth Scott
The Beast - Milt Buckner
Torture Rock - Rockin' Belmarx
Je t'aime moi non plus - Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot
The Whip - The Frantics
Love is Strange - Johnny Thunders and Patti Palladin
Kool Kat Walk - Julee Cruise
La Javanaise - Juliette Greco
Last Call for Whiskey - Choker Campbell

11 September 2013 Dr Sketchy Set List

/ Cult movie actress / burlesk artist / convicted felon / naive outsider painter / gangster's moll ... the fabulous Liz Renay (1926 - 2007) /

For this Dr Sketchy, Frankie Von Flirter and Violet Strangelove performed and modeled, and the cadaverously elegant Dusty Limits injected a bit of Weimar Republic decadence into proceedings as emcee.

As usual, when the Royal Vauxhall Tavern was dark, candle-lit and gradually filling-up I cast a pagan and taboo spell with some ethereal Mondo Tiki tropical lounge music (the operatic ululations of Peruvian high priestess Yma Sumac, Les Baxter, Martin Denny), gradually cranking up the tempo (and lowering the tone) with bump-and-grind titty shakers and greasy rhythm and blues.  

At Dr Sketchy I also aim for a touch of Continental sophistication, and love to drop in some foreign language exotica. On this night the musical globe-trotting encompassed Japanese (Eartha Kitt’s ultra-kitsch Japanese language version of Rosemary Clooney’s "Come-On-A My House" from her essential 1965 Eartha Kitt in Person at The Plaza live album; a Little Richard cover by the Japanese Elvis, Masaaki Hirao) and even more French chansons than usual, via Brigitte Bardot, Anouk Aimee, Juliette Greco and gravel-voiced German diva Hildegard Knef crooning en francais.

Elsewhere, I also amused myself by weaving in some conceptual / thematic musical connections. For example, I paid tribute to two of my favourite filmmakers: John Waters (by playing a track each by two of his wonderful character actress stalwarts Edith Massey and Mink Stole) and David Lynch (a song from his ghostly angel-voiced chanteuse Julee Cruise; Milt Bruckner’s sleazy instrumental “The Beast” featured in Lynch’s 2001 film Mulholland Drive).  Later on I offered a musical valentine to the divine Jayne Mansfield (my patron saint) by playing “I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield” by Japanese girl band The 5,6,7,8s followed by “That Makes It!” by Mansfield herself (she coos this song in the 1966 B-movie The Las Vegas Hillbillys).

/ "Oooh baby that makes it!" I've almost certainly posted this clip from The Las Vegas Hillbillys already but hell - it's a rancid classick! /

/ The regal Queen Mutha of Rock'n'Roll Little Richard in the 1960s /

I also worked in a topical honour to the perennially fierce Bronze Liberace Little Richard (the king and queen of rock’n’roll) by playing Masaaki Hirao’s Japanese language interpretation of “Lucille” (it rocks!) followed by perhaps the Georgia Peach’s own definitive statement, “The Girl Can’t Help It.” As you've probably already heard, Little Richard announced his retirement last week and reportedly intends to spend his remaining days praying and designing clothes. I revere Little Richard as one of rock’s true pioneering wild men (and someone who injected an unapologetic queer sensibility into rock’s DNA). But when I saw him headline at the 2013 Viva Las Vegas rockabilly weekender (you can read my account here) it was a mesmerising but messy and bittersweet car crash of a concert. 80-year old Little Richard (wheelchair-bound and visibly and audibly ailing) was clearly a performer in decline. For me, this announcement is therefore a relief. His legacy is certainly secure. Let’s hope Little Richard is able to enjoy a serene and well-deserved retirement. 

/ Masaaki Hirao: The face of Japanese Rockabilly /

Back to Masaaki Hirao: I recently acquired an Ace compilation CD of his material called Nippon Rock’n’Roll: The Birth of Japanese Rokabirii 1958 – 1960, containing what the liner notes accurately describe as “raw late 50s live and studio rockers from Japan’s answer to Elvis.” Backed by his crack band All Stars Wagon, Hirao certainly tears through desperate and genuinely tough cover versions of rock’n’roll standards like “Lawdy Miss Clawdy”, “Jailhouse Rock”, “Little Darling” and “Jenny Jenny” with verve, style and conviction (usually with the verses in Japanese and the choruses in English), while on heartbreak ballads his teen idol voice soars and throbs sweetly. I live for shit like this! The liner notes give a concise and fascinating social history of the rise and rise of the rockabilly (or rokabirii as it's called in Japanese) subculture in late 1950s Japan.  (I've learned some useful phrases: for example, rokabirii buumu means “rockabilly boom”; rokabirii zoku means “rockabilly tribe”). The Japanese variation of rockabilly was inevitably distinctive due to both social and musical factors, shaped by its own unique challenges. How, for example, to rebel in a tradition-steeped, conformist culture with a great emphasis on respecting your elders? In terms of roots, Japan obviously had no black American Rhythm & Blues tradition to draw on – but it did have jazz, and a surprising amount of Country and Western bands clad in cowboy garb that had formed to entertain American GIs during the post-WWII occupation, ready to be pressed into action as rock’n’roll combos once popular tastes changed. Wanda Jackson’s “Fujiyama Mama” had been a surprise Japanese hit in 1957 (surely Japanese audiences would have found that song tasteless?); American juvenile delinquent films like Blackboard Jungle and Rebel without a Cause caused a sensation amongst the teen-aged Japanese rokabirii zoku – all paving the way for Masaaki Hirao’s emergence as the face of Japanese rokabirii (and a very pretty face at that). Anyway, I can’t recommend the CD highly enough. Read more about it and listen to some snatches of it on the Ace website. 

Further reading: An attendee of this Dr Sketchy posted this lovely blog about the night. Check it out - it incorporates some great photos of Frankie Von Flirter and a scantily-clad Violet Strangelove (Minnie Mouse has never looked kinkier!). For regular injections of NSFW kitsch, homoerotica and vintage sleaze, follow me on tumblr. 

Jungle Madness - Martin Denny
Tuma (Earthquake) - Yma Sumac
Misirlou - Martin Denny
Monkey Bird - The Revels
Lust - Les Baxter with Bas Sheva
Kizmiaz - The Cramps
Mamma's Place - Bing Day
Egg Man - Edith Massey
Sometimes I Wish I Had a Gun - Mink Stole
Drive-In - The Jaguars
One Monkey Don't Stop No Show - Big Maybelle
Little Queenie - The Bill Black Combo
Where's My Money? Willie Jones
Night Walk - The Swingers
Eight Ball - The Hustlers
I Can't Sleep - Tini Williams and The Skyliners
Wiped Out - The Escorts
I Love the Life I Live - Esquerita
Treat Me Right - Mae West
Night Scene - The Rumblers
Mambo Baby - Ruth Brown
She Wants to Mambo - Johnny Thunders and Patti Palladin
Bombora - The Original Surfaris
You're Driving Me Crazy - Dorothy Berry
Here Comes the Bug - The Rumblers
Little Miss Understood - Connie Stevens
Je Me Donne a Qui Me Plait - Brigitte Bardot
Accentuate the Positive - The Bill Black Combo
Come-On-A My House - Eartha Kitt (in Japanese)
La Java Partout - Juliette Greco
La fille de Hambourg - Hildegard Knef
Hand Clapping Time - The Fabulous Raiders
I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield - The 5,6,7,8s
That Makes It - Jayne Mansfield
Welfare Cheese - Emanuel Laskey
Tina's Dilemma - Ike and Tina Turner
Boss - The Rumblers
No Good Lover - Mickey and Sylvia
Lola - Anouk Aimee
Lazy - The Nuns
You're My Thrill (instrumental) - Chet Baker
Up in Flames - Julee Cruise
The Beast - Milt Buckner
Bachelor in Paradise - Ann-Margret
Angel Face - Billy Fury
Whistle Bait - Larry Collins
Lucille - Masaaki Hirao
The Girl Can't Help It - Little Richard
Dragon Walk - The Noble Men
Jim Dandy - Sara Lee and The Spades
Cooler Weather (Is A-Comin') - Eddie Weldon
The Big Bounce - Shirley Caddell

21 March 2012 Dr Sketchy DJ Set List

Hungarian glamour puss Zsa Zsa Gabor, at the height of her plastic surgery-enhanced pulchritude in the 1950s. Now a 94-year old bed-bound recluse and married to a seriously dodgy ersatz Euro-trash “prince”, Gabor’s life these days is a welter of lawsuits, health problems and accusations of abuse, neglect and exploitation - like something out of Sunset Boulevard or Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Vanity Fair memorably explored the whole macabre and sordid story in 2007. It’s gotten even weirder since then.

Another great (sold-out!) night for Dr Sketchy at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern, this time featuring vampirically elegant emcee Dusty Limits and two seriously impressive new models / performers, Hotcake Kitty and Rose Thorne.

I’m pretty voluble about The RVT being officially my favourite venue to DJ at: the sound is thunderously loud (which is good, because the music is punctuated on a regular basis by police sirens screeching past outside. Vauxhall must be one dangerous neighbourhood!), and as an added bonus there is a big pump-top bottle of hand sanitizer gel in the DJ booth. I’m a pretty obsessive-compulsive hand washer and having this bottle of hand washing gel there is almost orgasmic for me. (I think I probably scrub my hands between changing each CD. If the management wonders about the rate of this bottle being decimated, now they know!).

For her performance the brunette Kitty (or should that be “Hotcake”?) wore an orange chiffon harem girl ensemble with Siouxsie Sioux/Cleopatra eye make-up and Bettie Page bangs. Music-wise, this raised a whole realm of possibilities. It was a fun opportunity to delve into Eastern belly dancer exotica kitsch and I really seized it. Eartha Kitt’s campy Turkish delight “Uska Dara” obviously seemed de rigueur. Every time I play Les Baxer’s apocalyptic, sex-wracked "Lust", everyone understandably assumes the astonishing multi-octave female voice wordlessly growling, grunting and screaming is Yma Sumac. Instead it belongs to the deeply obscure operatic chanteuse Bas Sheva (as in “Bathsheba”). “Lust” comes from Baxter’s 1954 album The Passions, on which he and Bas Sheva dramatically explore a different emotion on each song (the other titles include “Despair”, “Ecstasy”, “Hate”, “Terror”, “Jealousy” and “Joy”). Unfortunately, The Passions was a flop, Bas Sheva never recorded again and would die aged only 34 from diabetes-related causes. Tragic – as judging by this, she was the equal of Yma Sumac. Anyway, every time I play "Lust", I like to think Bas Sheva lives again! Even after Kitty's pose, I continued the exotica vibe into the break with a bossa nova version of "Misirlou" and Yma Sumac's delirious mambo, "Taki Rari."

/ Hotcake Kitty. Photo by Andrew Hickinbottom /

I've posted this before, but hell, it's a good excuse to post it again: Eartha Kitt slithering her serpentine way through "Uska Dara" in a 1967 TV special



Rose Thorne’s act, meanwhile, saw her costumed as an Indian squaw (complete with black braided wig and Adam Ant white stripe painted across her nose) -- think Pocahontas with massive knockers! Thematically, this posed more of a challenge than Kitty’s outfit – but I did play “Commanche” by The Revels! If only I had “Apache” by The Shadows! Otherwise, I tried to evoke a sinister atmosphere for the rest of her poses with songs that could maybe the soundtrack to a Santeria or Candomblé voodoo ritual: think of Esquerita’s wailing and knuckle-dragging piano, unearthly Theremin (“Sinner” by Freddie and The Hitchhikers), a deranged version of "She is My Witch" (The Earls of Suave), Edith Piaf’s vibrato at full-throttle (“Jezabel”).

/ Rose Thorne. Photo by Andrew Hickinbottom /

Elsewhere, I went heavy on the grinding tittyshakers and frantic rhythm and blues – both of which are always rowdy/sleazy crowd-pleasers. I always say that even if the audience don’t know who, say, Big Maybelle, LaVern Baker or Ruth Brown is, they instinctively respond to the gritty earth mother warmth, sex appeal and soulfulness of the great female black American rhythm and blues voices.

That definitely applies to Etta James. I’ve meant to write something about the former Jamesetta Hawkins ever since her death on 20 January 2012 (just short of her 74th birthday). I’ll come straight out and admit am not a massive fan of James’s best-known music (“At Last”, “I Just Wanna Make Love to You”, forever tarred by association with that awful Diet Coke ad). The only album of hers I ever owned was her 1968 classic Tell Mama, which I had when I was still a university student, and I either sold or gave it away long ago. I’m just not keen on polished 1960s soul music as a whole – I’m more of a desperate 1950s rhythm and blues man. But I can’t fail to be moved by James’s belting heartbreaker voice and her hard-bitten, tough-as-nails, heroin-ravaged life story fascinates me (I need to snap up a used copy of Rage to Survive, her 1995 autobiography on Amazon at some point). Obviously I need to delve deeper into James’s discography as she had a long career and there are inevitably gems I’m missing out on. I do regularly play her raunchy 1955 breakthrough hit “Roll with Me, Henry” at Dr Sketchy. (I also like to play Ann-Margret’s poppy, cotton candy-fluffy cover version “Dance with Me, Henry” – it’s enough to horrify any rhythm and blues purist!).

Justifiably, there have been some glowing appraisals of James’s career since her death. The two best, most heartfelt obituaries I’ve read were in London’s The Guardian and New York’s The Village Voice. The Guardian’s Garth Cartwright nicely summarizes James’s life and career thus:

“Her approach to both singing and life was throughout one of wild, often desperate engagement that included violence, drug addiction, armed robbery and highly capricious behaviour. James sang with unmatched emotional hunger and a pain that can chill the listener. The ferocity of her voice documents a neglected child, a woman constantly entering into bad relationships and an artist raging against an industry and a society that had routinely discriminated against her.”

He also astutely notes that perhaps the reason James never enjoyed much mainstream commercial success was because “perhaps her voice, so raw and emotionally expressive, was too fierce for the general public. Indeed, hurt, anger and self-destructive behavior boiled beneath the surface of her vocals. Once asked to describe her style, she responded that singing allowed her to vent "all this bitch shit inside of me"”. “All this bitch shit inside of me” – how succinct and beautiful is that? I expect that angst was also what motivated the likes of Nina Simone and Lydia Lunch, similarly volatile and turbulent artists.

In The Village Voice, Carol Cooper’s account of the very young James, at the start of her career, being advised by the doomed Billie Holiday (from “fatherless wild child to fatherless wild child”) when her life and career were circling the drain, gives me goose bumps. Cooper is also great on nailing what an “intimidating package of jailbait mojo” the gutsy and talented mixed race teenager must have been when she was discovered by visionary R&B kingpin Johnny Otis aged just 14. (James lied to Otis, telling him she was 18. Her own mother, Dorothy Hawkins, had given birth to Etta when she herself was only 14. When she was still just 16, James dated BB King and she later believed she was the inspiration for his song “Sweet Sixteen”).

Cooper argues that with the timing of the sassy “Roll with Me Henry”, “Otis coincidentally established James as a rock and roll rebel alongside the likes of Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and Jerry Lee Lewis.” Reading this passage in particular brought a tear to my eye:

“Sexually active long before cutting her first single, James had both the pipes and the real-life experience to play a bad girl with a heart of gold on record. No aspect of street life was a mystery to her; her entourage often included drag queens, gangsters, gang chicks and prostitutes. Married to the same man since 1969, and a supportive mother to her two adult sons, Etta was also a student of bourgeois propriety and understood the thin line between sin and salvation better than most. She adored Little Richard, with whom she did her first national tour and who she respected for having "the guts to be a king and queen all at the same time.""

Can you imagine what it must have been like hanging out with Etta James and Little Richard backstage in the 1950s – the debauchery?! And James also never mellowed: even as a 60-something blues mama pensioner when her health was shot and she used crutches to walk, she continued to do stripper squats and grab her crotch onstage. What a woman. It’s wrenching to think that for her last album (2011’s The Dreamer), James pulled herself together while suffering from both the leukaemia that would kill her and dementia to make one powerful final statement worthy of her reputation. Performers this tough and durable simply don’t exist anymore.

But I’m also deeply superficial, so I also love Etta James for her signature 1960s look. The artifice of the blonde bouffant wigs, the wild black eyeliner and weird eyebrows and the feather boas were deliberately trashy, almost drag queen-y and punk before its time. She was also frankly, defiantly fat (which makes the idea of Beyonce portraying her in the 2008 film Cadillac Records so risible. At one point James weighed 300 pounds. Much later in life -- once she'd finally kicked her heroin addiction -- she had a gastric band operation and slimmed down dramatically). In short, Etta James had freak appeal: she looked like a character from a John Waters film. Obviously Waters cast Ruth Brown as Motormouth Maybelle in Hairspray, but Etta James could just have easily played the role.

A blonde-wigged Etta James ripping it up on TV in the 1960s. A nice way to remember her


(The original video I posted here was better, but got deleted from Youtube! Here's a replacement that fits!)

I Just Don't Understand - Ann-Margret
Unchain My Heart - Florence Joelle's Kiss of Fire
Oui je veux - Johnny Hallyday
Little Ole Wine Drinker Me - Robert Mitchum
Good Grief - The Revels
Oo Ba La Baby - Mamie Van Doren
Woman Love - Gene Vincent
Iced Tea - The Capers
Last Night - Lula Reed
Yogi - The Bill Black Combo
Tidal Wave - Sonny Gee & The Standels
Here Comes the Bug - The Rumblers
He's The One - Ike and Tina Turner
The Sneak - Jimmy Oliver
Pass the Hatchet - Roger and The Gypsies
The Flirt - Shirley and Lee
Greasy Chicken - Andre Williams
Wino - Jack McVea
No More, No Less - Carmen Taylor
Sweetie Pie - Eddie Cochran
I Was Born to Cry - Johnny Thunders and Patti Paladin
Tear Drops from My Eyes - Ruth Brown
I'll Drown in My Own Tears - Lula Reed
Directly from My Heart - Little Richard
Fool I Am - Pat Ferguson
Night Scene - The Rumblers
Mexican - The Fentones
La Bamba - Eartha Kitt
Peter Gunn Twist - The Jesters
Catwalk - Jack Constanzo
Uska Dara - Eartha Kitt
Caravan - John Buzon Trio
I Love How You ... Lydia Lunch
Shangri-La - Spike Jones New Band
Monkey Bird - The Revels
The Maharajah of Megador - The Blue Echoes
Lust - Les Baxter
Misirlou - Laurindo Almeida and The Bossa Nova All-Stars
Taki Rari - Yma Sumac
La Javanaise - Serge Gainsbourg
Love for Sale - Hildegard Knef
Drums A Go-Go - The Hollywood Persuaders
La Java - Juliette Greco
Commanche - The Revels
Esquerita and the Voola - Esquerita
She's My Witch - The Earls of Suave
Jezabel - Edith Piaf
Boss - The Rumblers
Sinner - Freddie and the Hitchikers
Boots - Nero and The Gladiators
Crawlin' - The Untouchables
Black Tarantula - Jody Reynolds
Drummin' Up a Storm - Sandy Nelson
Hulla Hulla Lulu - Beecher Hickman
When Love Goes Wrong - Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell
The Beast - Milt Buckner
Hand Clapping Time - The Fabulous Raiders
Roll with Me, Henry - Etta James
Beat Party - Ritchie and The Squires
Tornado - Dale Hawkins
Begin the Beguine - Billy Fury
Tall Cool One - The Wailers
You Can't Stop Her - Bobby Marchan
The Girl Can't Help It - Little Richard
Fever - Timi Yuro

23 November 2011 Dr Sketchy Set List

/ The astonishing burlesque queen Tempest Storm (judging by her bouffant hairstyle, circa the early sixties) /

It’s fair to say everyone at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern was blown away by this Dr Sketchy's featured performer, chanteuse and comedienne Sabrina Chap visiting from New York. Accompanying herself on keyboard, Sabrina sang three twisted, scabrous and funny torch songs so filthy they shocked even me. Afterwards Sabrina also posed: at one point she came onstage with her hair in Lolita-esque pigtails (or “bunches” as Brits insist on calling them) and posed giving the audience the finger. I wish I’d had something more aggressive and confrontational cued up to match her punk-y pose (it was Lizabeth Scott's heartbroken version of the jazz standard “Can’t Get Out of This Mood”, with its great campy and dramatic spoken introduction. Our eternally soigné emcee Dusty Limits reassured me the contrast between the music and Sabrina’s pose worked in spite of itself!).

The other model was Dr Sketchy veteran Mam’zelle Celine with the Bardot-like waterfall of long blonde hair. At the end of the night, Sabrina and Celine posed together. For one pose, Sabrina bound a startled-looking Celine’s hands behind her back – it was like something out of a 1950s Bettie Page-Irving Klaw bondage photo session! When two females model together at Dr Sketchy, I often pull out a Marilyn Monroe-Jane Russell duet from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Considering Sabrina is brunette and Celine blonde, it seemed particularly apt.

/ Mam'zelle Celine and Sabrina Chap (well, Bettie Page and victim as photographed by Irving Klaw. You get the general idea) /



I threaded a subtle gynaecological theme throughout the night: "My Pussy Belongs to Daddy", "Poon-tang", "Eager Beaver Baby", "Beaver Shot", etc. Classy, huh? Not sure if anyone noticed, but I found it amusing. On a more elegant note, I also gave things a bit of Continental je ne sais quoi by playing some songs by two great 1960s European pop divas: France’s Francoise Hardy (singing in German) and Italy’s Mina. Both songs are from arthouse cinema soundtracks. Hardy’s “Traume” (which means “Dream” in German) is from the deeply strange and kinky black tragicomedy Water Drops on Burning Rocks (2000) by Francois Ozon (in a nice cross-European twist, it’s a film by a French director adapted for the screen from a play by a German (my hero the late, great maestro Rainer Werner Fassbinder) and the song is sung in German by a French chanteuse), while Mina’s “Un Anno D’Amore” (“A Year of Love”) is used in Pedro Almodovar’s High Heels (1991). “Traume” almost becomes a running joke in Burning Rocks: the film is set in the early 1970s (Hardy recorded “Traume” in 1970) and every time someone puts a record on the stereo, it always seems to be this. Listening to Hardy’s spellbinding performance of this sublimely morbid and tragic song, it’s easy to understand why she’s become a cult figure in even non-French speaking countries. Enigmatic, lush-lipped, ash blonde and fashion model beautiful, with a wispily alluring crystal tear drop voice awash in melancholy, Francoise Hardy is like a French equivalent of Nico or Marianne Faithfull without the troublesome heroin addiction.


France's exquisite Francoise Hardy singing "Traume" in German -- and channelling Marlene Dietrich as Lola Lola in The Blue Angel with her top hat, cigarette and mesh stockings

“Un Anno D’Amore” is the perfect encapsulation of the artistry of Mina (aka the Tiger of Cremona). She specialises in lush, swirling ballads surging with tension and romantic agony: think of Dusty Springfield in “I Close My Eyes and Count to Ten” / “I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself” mode with added Italian passion. (Like Dusty, Mina had a penchant for thick black eyeliner and false eye lashes. Unlike Dusty, Mina took things a few steps further by entirely plucking-out her eyebrows for extra impact). Extremely dramatic and intense, “Un Anno D’Amore” is a slow-burning heartbreak ballad that begins measured and restrained and keeps building to crescendos of raw emotion until Mina is finally wailing the chorus; the piercing sadness of her astonishingly emotive voice creates an almost operatic sense of tragedy. Needless to say, Mina’s songs and persona are a natural fit for the films of Spain’s Pedro Almodovar. In one of High Heels’ most memorable segments, the drag queen Letal portrayed by Miguel Bose (son of beautiful Italian actress Lucia Bose – the Italian Ava Gardner, check her out in Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1953 film Le Signora Senza Camelie – and Spanish bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguin) lip-synchs to “Un Anno D’Amore” in his nightclub routine. In fact, it’s rumoured Almodovar’s next film is due to be a biopic of Mina. It sounds like a marriage made in heaven.


Italy's Mina in full cry. Goose bumps! (I actually prefer this version, but annoyingly the person who uploaded it on Youtube disabled embedding! Make sure to check it out).


Miguel Bose in High Heels (note: this version is "Un Ano de Amor", sung in Spanish instead of Italian. Drag-tastic!)

Love Me or Leave Me - Nina Simone
Let's Get Lost - Chet Baker
When I Get Low I Get High - Florence Joelle's Kiss of Fire
One More Beer - The Earls of Suave
Trash Can - Ken Williams
Mi Palomita - Yma Sumac
Mama, Looka Boo Boo - Robert Mitchum
Go, Calypso! - Mamie Van Doren
De Castrow - Jaybee Wasden
St Louis Blues - Eartha Kitt
The Whip - The Originals
Follow the Leader - Wiley Terry
Greasy Chicken - Andre Williams
Baby I'm Doin' It - Annisteen Allen
I Love the Life I Live - Esquerita
Love Letters - Ike and Tina Turner
Poon-tang - The Treniers
Beaver Shot - The Periscopes
Save It - Mel Robbins
Elle est Terrible - Johnny Hallyday
8 Ball - The Hustlers
Fever - Ann-Margret
Anasthasia - Bill Smith Combo
I'm a Bad, Bad Girl - Little Esther
Drive-In - The Jaguars
My Pussy Belongs to Daddy - Faye Richmonde
Womp Womp - Freddy and The Heartaches
Traume - Francoise Hardy
Mondo Moodo - The Earls of Suave
Un Anno D'Amore - Mina
Harlem Nocturne - Martin Denny
Caravan - The John Buzon Trio
Jealousy - Billy Fury
It's Legal - Shirley Anne Field (Beat Girl soundtrack)
Yogi - The Bill Black Combo
Fever - Nancy Sit
Tall Cool One - The Wailers
Teardrops from My Eyes - Ruth Brown
You'd Better Stop - LaVerne Baker
Shangri-La - Spike Jones New Band
I Love How You ... Lydia Lunch
Love - Eartha Kitt
Look-a There, Ain't She Pretty - Bill Haley (Pink Flamingos soundtrack)
Little Things Mean a Lot - Jayne Mansfield
Can't Get Out of This Mood - Lizabeth Scott
You're Crying - Dinah Washington
Let There Be Love - Diana Dors
Blockade - The Rumblers
I Can't Give You Anything But Love - Marlene Dietrich
L'appareil a sous - Brigitte Bardot
Pauvre Lola - Serge Gainsbourg
Just Two Little Girls from Littlerock - Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell
Bikini with No Top on the Top - Mamie Van Doren and June Wilkinson
The Whip - The Frantics
Revellion - The Revels
Bombie - Johnny Sharp and The Yellowjackets
Eager Beaver Baby - Johnny Burnette
All of Me - Mae West
Daddy Daddy - Ruth Brown
Chicken Grabber - The Nite Hawks
Witchcraft - Elvis Presley

19 October 2011 Dr Sketchy Set List

/ And God Created ... Brigitte Bardot /

Happily, my jinxed period at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern has definitely has come to an end – this Dr Sketchy was smooth sailing and a really enjoyable night. My friend Jim (who I go to Viva Las Vegas most years with) turned up with a surprise guest: his Staffordshire bull terrier Daisy. Daisy was beautifully-behaved, nestling on the floor in the corner of the DJ booth. It was an added, unexpected bonus to get to kneel down and kiss a dog on the forehead while DJ’ing.

/ Sweet face: Daisy photographed at my place in February 2011. She's a bit bigger now. Who's a good girl? Who's a good girl? You are, Daisy /

The emcee this time was Dusty Limits (Weimar Republic decadence personified), and we had two burlesque performers/models: brunette Australian minx Sarina del Fuego and the frankly very fit Spencer Maybe. For once I kept the tone a bit classy and elegant (relatively-speaking), at least during Sarina’s pose. After her performance, Sarina had stripped down to just black lace lingerie and a kinky black lace eye mask. Her musical selection for her striptease was the dreamy finger-snapping instrumental “Perdita” by Angelo Badalementi, from the soundtrack to the 1990 David Lynch film Wild at Heart. Inspired by the song and Sarina’s outfit, rather than crank-up the sleaze and tittyshakers, I played some moodily lingering 1950s cool jazz-inflected make-out music: Dolores Gray's minimalist bongo drum-propelled "You're My Thrill", Julie London, Chet Baker, Eartha purring “I Want to Be Evil.”



Later I compensated when our male “boylesque” performer Spencer Maybe posed, and then he and Sarina posed together, spinning my raunchiest single-entendre novelty songs like “Tony’s Got Hot Nuts” by Faye Richmonde and Filthy McNasty’s “Ice Man”. I also incorporated exotica (Yma Sumac, Martin Denny), rockabilly, rhythm and blues and some 1960s French pop (Brigitte Bardot, more than one song by Johnny Hallyday!).

During Spencer’s pose I also played a track by Lizabeth Scott, the most haunting and enigmatic of 1940s and 50s film noir actresses. Because of Scott’s languid mane of ash blonde hair, smoky eyes, sultry and insolent demeanour and raspy low voice “that sounded as if it had been buried somewhere deep and was trying to claw its way out” (John Kobal) she’s been frequently (and unfavourably) compared to the more famous Lauren Bacall. In fact, Scott was a much stranger, more intense and harder-working actress than Bacall, and made more interesting choices.

A true actrice maudite, Scott has traditionally been disparaged or overlooked by mainstream film historians. An all-too typical assessment is writer Penny Stalling’s: “Scott ... churned out twenty-two films between 1945 and 1953, but few are memorable.” In fact Scott’s filmography between 1945 and 1957 (when she abruptly retired), is studded with obscure gems, and virtually all of them are films noir, partnering her with many of the greats of the genre: Humphrey Bogart, Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Mitchum, Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan. It’s only in recent years that Scott has emerged as a genuine cult figure for old film obsessives (like me!) and her career has been more generously reappraised. In particular, search out 1949’s Too Late for Tears (aka Killer Bait) to see Lizabeth Scott at her most mesmerising, almost serpentine as a suburban Los Angeles housewife with a treacherous and homicidal dark side.

/ Separated at birth: Lauren Bacall and Lizabeth Scott /

By the mid-50s the film noir cycle was coming to an end as public tastes changed, and so were Scott’s days as a leading lady. What certainly was a contributing factor to her abrupt and premature retirement was scandal magazine Confidential “outing” her as lesbian in 1955 – making her what must be one of the first victims of tabloid homophobia. In the article Confidential gloated “In recent years Scotty’s almost nonexistent career has allowed her to roam further afield. In one jaunt to Europe she headed straight for Paris and the left bank where she took up with Frede, the city’s most notorious lesbian queen and operator of a nightclub devoted exclusively to entertaining deviates just like herself.” (In fact the shadowy Frede was the proprietoress of the posh Parisian nightclub Carroll’s, where key figures of French show business performed to a presumably mixed clientele. A very young Eartha Kitt, for example, launched her singing career there in the late 1940s. In her 1989 memoirs Kitt describes Frede (a former lover of Marlene Dietrich’s) as “the most beautiful manly-looking lady in the world”).

/ An intriguingly butch study of Lizabeth Scott. The safety pin makes a punk statement /

Scott took legal action against the magazine, but the damage was done and shortly afterwards she quit the film industry – and withdrew from public life. To date, Scott has never publicly acknowledged the gay rumours – certainly the general consensus was that she had been the mistress of (married) film mogul Hal B Wallis, who’d guided her career in the 1940s at Paramount. Now 89, the elusive Scott never married and lives in deep seclusion in her palatial Hollywood Boulevard mansion, declining all interview requests as the enigma around her grows. We can only hope Scott writes an autobiography before she dies or gives one last genuinely revealing interview – but at this point it looks likely she’s taking her secrets to her grave.

After completing her last major film role (in the 1957 Elvis Presley musical Loving You, incongruously enough!), Scott’s one last gasp at a show business career was re-launching herself as a torch singer with the album Lizabeth in 1957. (Weirdly, Scott frequently played nightclub singers in her films – but always lip-synched over another singer’s dubbed voice!). It’s an alluring and credible album, with Scott warbling jazz standards like “Willow Weep for Me” and “Can’t Get Out of This Mood” in a husky 40 cigarettes-a-day voice over stylish arrangements courtesy of Henri Rene and his Orchestra (he’d previously collaborated with Eartha Kitt, so knew a thing or two about chanteuses with idiosyncratic voices). Sadly, Lizabeth wasn’t a hit, and Scott didn’t pursue singing but I love to drop in an occasional track from it when I DJ.

/ The cover of Lizabeth Scott's 1957 album Lizabeth /



/ Lovely and dramatic: Lizabeth Scott singing "He is a Man" on television in 1958 from her album Lizabeth. The guy leaning against the lamp post in a trench coat whistling is such a nice touch /

Watermelon Gin - Florence Joelle's Kiss of Fire
Town without Pity - James Chance
Pas Cette Chanson - Johnny Hallyday
Because of Love - Billy Fury
Early Every Morning - Dinah Washington
Beauty is Only Skin-Deep - Robert Mitchum
Too Old to Cut the Mustard - Marlene Dietrich and Rosemary Clooney
Virgenes Del Sol - Yma Sumac
Exotique Bossa Nova / Quiet Village Bossa Nova - Martin Denny
Monkey Bird - The Revels
Contact - Brigitte Bardot
Rockin' Bongos - Chaino
Greasy Chicken - Andre Williams
Follow the Leader - Wiley Terry
Love Letters - Ike and Tina Turner
Whisper Your Love - The Phantom
I'll Drown in My Own Tears - Lula Reed
The Fire of Love - Jody Reynolds
It - The Regal-Aires
Miss Irene - Ginny Kennedy
Give Me a Woman - Andy Starr
Don't You Feel My Leg - Blue Lu Barker
Night Scene - The Rumblers
Woh! Woh! Yeah! - The Dynamos
Drive-In - The Jaguars
You're My Thrill - Dolores Gray
Shadow Woman - Julie London
Sexe - Line Renaud
I Want to Be Evil - Eartha Kitt
Lonely Hours - Sarah Vaughan
Shangri-La - Spikes Jones New Band
Little Girl Blue - Chet Baker
Crawfish - Johnny Thunders and Patti Paladin
I Learn a Merengue, Mama - Robert Mitchum
Go, Calypso! - Mamie van Doren
Rock-a-Hula - Elvis Presley
Honalulu Rock'n'Roll - Eartha Kitt
Elle est terrible - Johnny Hallyday
L'appareil a sous - Brigitte Bardot
You Can't Stop Her - Bobby Marchan
Roll with Me Henry - Etta James
Man's Favourite Sport - Ann-Margret
Cat Man - Gene Vincent
Tiger - Sparkle Moore
Hot Dog! That Made Him Mad - Betty Hutton
He Is a Man - Lizabeth Scott
The Strip - The Upsetters
Tony's Got Hot Nuts - Faye Richmonde
Ice Man - Filthy McNasty
Ford Mustang - Serge Gainsbourg
Seperate the Man from the Boys - Mamie van Doren
Beat Party - Ritchie & The Squires
Kruschev Twist - Melvin Gayle
Wino - Jack McVea
Summertime - Little Esther
La Javanaise - Juliette Greco
Fever - Hildegard Knef
Work Song - Nina Simone
Beat Girl - Adam Faith
You've Changed - Billie Holiday

/ For all you glove freaks out there, as modelled by stripper and bondage / fetish model Tana Louise, aka "The Cincinnati Sinner" /

18 May 2011 Dr Sketchy Set List

/ Jayne Mansfield with a totally impractical surf board /

This was my first post-Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekender Dr Sketchy. I scored some great CDs in Vegas: a Ruth Brown greatest hits package and two wonderfully seedy compilations of freaky rockabilly and garage punk oddities -- Twisted Tales from the Vinyl Wastelands volume 8: Please Don’t Go Topless Mother and You Better Believe It 1955-1969: White Trash Rockers! Both of these more than live up to the promise of their lurid titles. I also recently acquired volume three of the Las Vegas Grind titty shaker series, which represent the bedrock of my DJ sets. It was about time I’d refreshed my music and I drew heavily on these new CDs at this Dr Sketchy. Music this sleazy and abrasive is like oxygen to me.

The night (which was at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern this time) featured Dusty Limits as emcee and two great performers / models: Trixi Tassels and Chocolat (aka Ruka. Alongside Dr Sketchy promoter Clare Marie, she's one of the proprietors of red-hot new lingerie emporium Sugarlesque). Unfortunately poor Chocolat’s performance occasioned the worst technical glitch of my DJ’ing career thus far! Both Trixi and Chocolat gave me their CDs of music for their acts, I tested them beforehand (as per usual) and both worked just fine. After the break, Dusty was to introduce Chocolat, I'd have her song cued, and she’d go straight into her act. Dusty announced her; I pressed “play” and ... nothing. I frantically yanked the CD out and tried another CD player and – still nothing! And then a message I’d never seen before came up on the little monitor: Disc Error! I was well and truly bugging out (my blood pressure was exploding, sweat beads were popping) and the crowd was murmuring impatiently wondering what the hell was going on. Luckily these people are total pros and swung into action: Dusty brought Trixi back out to pose some more and keep things moving while we sorted out the music crisis. Rising burlesque starlet Slinky Sparkles was in attendance and worked out with Chocolat backstage some potential alternative songs for her performance – except I had none of them! But Slinky herself had one of the songs on her iPod. We were able to hook up her iPod to the decks and use it for Chocolat’s number. Phew! I’m forever in Slinky’s debt! It was a relief to get everything back on track, and Chocolat’s act was great: she came out covered in balloons and gradually popped them one by one with a cigarette.

/ Sophia Loren sneaks a peek at Jayne Mansfield /

Anyway, in a sense the night was my delayed tribute to Jayne Mansfield. (Although in truth every time I DJ is a bit of a valentine to Jayne Mansfield, anyway – just like it is for other heroes like Esquerita, Little Richard and Eartha Kitt). I’d read the month before that Jayne’s birthday is 19 April -- so if she hadn’t been killed (aged 34) in her 1967 car crash, Mansfield would have turned 78 this year. Because she’s been dead for so long, Mansfield feels like a distant figure from a bygone age but it’s certainly feasible she could still be alive: her contemporary Elizabeth Taylor just died in March aged 79; Sophia Loren and Brigitte Bardot are both alive and well at 77. It’s fascinating to speculate what Mansfield would be like if she’d lived to see old age -- her personal life and career seemed to be circling the drain when she died. Maybe she'd be like her closest living equivalent Mamie van Doren, who's still posing for softcore nude photoshoots and partying at the Playboy Mansion aged 80. I’m not sure if anyone even noticed, but to honour her I played “I Walk like Jayne Mansfield” by the wondrous all-girl Japanese surf band 5,6,7,8s and then “That Makes It” by La Mansfield herself. RIP, Jayne.

/ Two fun couples: Mamie van Doren and date. Mickey Hargitay (Mr Universe 1955) and Jayne Mansfield. Jayne's eyes look like they're clocking Mamie's cleavage /




Shame the audio quality is so muffled

Otherwise: when Ruka / Chocolat models at Dr Sketchy I tend to go heavy on the great rhythm & blues divas: Dinah Washington, Little Esther, Eartha purring “Mack the Knife". I ended things on a defiant note with the wounded / wounding “I Hold No Grudge” by the angrily politicised High Priestess of Soul Nina Simone. “I’m the kind of people you can step on for a little while,” she snarls. “But when I call it quits, baby, that’s it! I’m the kind of people you can hurt once in a while. But crawling just ain’t my style!” Sing it, sister! Belt it out! (The 1966 song is by the great Angelo Badalamenti, long before he became David Lynch’s soundtrack composer. You can already discern the signature ominous / brooding 1950s Cool Jazz keyboard sound he’d later bring to the music for the likes of Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks, an atmospheric sound so essential to Lynch's cinematic vision).

Heartbreakin' Special - Duke Larson
Leave Married Women Alone - Jimmy Cavallo
Whisper Your Love - The Phantom
Teardrops from My Eyes - Ruth Brown
The Fire of Love - Jody Reynolds
The Flower of My Heart - Sparkle Moore
De Castrow - Jaybee Wasden
Love Letters - Ike and Tina Turner
Khrushchev Twist - Melvin Gayle
The Sneak - Jimmy Oliver
Out of Limits - The Marketts
Stampede - The Scarlets
Snow Surfin' Matador - Jan Davis
Scorpion - The Carnations
Vesuvius - The Revels
Rockin' Bongos - Chaino
Pas C'est Chanson - Johnny Halliday
Because of Love - Billy Fury
Go Calypso - Mamie van Doren
Rum and Coca Cola - Wanda Jackson
Try It No More - Genbe Marcum
I Just Don't Understand - Ann-Margret
Fool I Am - Pat Ferguson
The Chase - Chaino
Hillbilly Surfer - Whitey White
Oh Baby - Esquerita
Nightscene - The Rumblers
Cherry Pink - Bill Black's Combo
Drive In - The Jaguars
Womp Womp - Freddy and The Heartaches
Bad, Bad Girl - Little Esther
I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield - The 5,6,7,8s
That Makes It - Jayne Mansfield
Beat Party - Ritchie & The Squires
She's My Witch - The Earls of Suave
The Coo - Wayne Cochran
Rigor Mortis - The Gravestone Four
Devil in Disguise - Elvis Presley
The Bee - The Sentinels
L'il Lil - Mel Dorsey
Mambo Baby - Ruth Brown
She Wants to Mambo - Johnny Thunders and Patti Paladin
Anasthasia - Bill Smith Combo
Go Slow - Julie London
You're Crying - Dinah Washington
Aged and Mellow Blues - Little Esther
Crawlin' - The Untouchables
Mack the Knife - Eartha Kitt
Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby? Ann Richards
My Daddy Rocks Me - Mae West
Happy, Happy Birthday Baby - The Tune Weavers (in honour of Dr Sketchy Clare Marie's birthday)
I Was Born to Cry - Dion
Begin the Beguine - Billy Fury
La Javanaise - Juliette Greco
You Can't Stop Her - Bobby Marchan
The Girl Can't Help It - Little Richard
I Hold No Grudge - Nina Simone

When Mansfield’s Hollywood career fizzled out by the late 1950s, she resorted to low-budget European films – like ultra-obscure 1963 German film Heimweh nach St. Pauli (known as Homesick for St Pauli in North America). Mansfield’s speaking voice is dubbed by a German actress, but the singing in the musical numbers is obviously all her! The film looks irresistibly trashy – dig Mansfield’s cotton candy bouffant wig. I love it when she serenades the sailors. I’ve been reassured by German friends her accent and pronunciation are appalling.






Update! It turns out there was a journalist in attendence at this Dr Sketchy, and he wrote a great article online about it. Some great photos of Chocolat in action in her balloon costume.

13 April 2011 Dr Sketchy Set List

/ An intoxicated and bleary-eyed Jayne Mansfield parties with Mamie van Doren (check out Mamie's outrageously fake wighat). Jayne looks the way I feel /

This might be a bit of a rush job: I fly to Vegas for the annual Easter rockabilly weekender Viva Las Vegas early morning on 20 April and want to blog this set list while it's still fresh in my mind.

I’m the first to admit this night wasn’t one of my better ones: lots of technical glitches to feel anxious about (i.e. with the microphone, the decks themselves, and will I ever work out how the stage lights at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern work?!). Plus the RVT is synonymous with still-agonising romantic disappointment for me (don’t worry, I’ll spare you the details) and as a result I drink one helluva lot more there while DJ’ing, which probably impacts on things. Hopefully the music didn’t come across as too disjointed and erratic.

Musically what I’m really feeling at the moment is moody, atmospheric 1950s heartbreak ballads, the kind with lots of echo on the singer’s voice and ghostly rockabilly guitar: think Eddie Cochran’s "Half Loved", “The Strangeness in Me” by The Runabouts and the eerie “Flower of My Heart” by Sparkle Moore. (I’m kicking myself for not packing “The Fire of Love” by Jody Reynolds – something I’ll rectify next time). "Mess of Blues" is one of my favourite Elvis ballads. “Nobody Knows” by The Earls of Suave packs a boozy sense of regret I can certainly relate to these days.

I wrote recently about my love for the turbulent Turners, but I didn’t realise Ike and Tina ever did a version of “Love Letters” until recently. The song is something of a pop standard, covered by everyone from Elvis, Peggy Lee, Julie London and of course Kitty Lester, whose hushed, gospel-inflected version was used so hauntingly by David Lynch in Blue Velvet. Ike and Tina's rendition couldn't sound less like a typical Ike and Tina number: it opens with a swirl of sugary strings and the Ikettes sound almost angelic, contrasting nicely with the sandpaper rasp of Tina's voice. Her delivery initially starts quite measured but within no time she’s in full roar, tearing the song apart with her bare hands – you’ll never hear a more urgent version of “Love Letters!”

The inimitable Ophelia Bitz was the emcee again this time. This night featured a burlesque performer (Lady Cave, who’s Australian and sports a black patent leather Louise Brooks bob) and the model Tiffany Chin-Sim. For her pose Tiffany wore a spangled belly dancer costume, so needless to say I played Eartha Kitt’s “Uska Dara” and exotica like “Camel Walk” by The Saxons and “Lust” by Les Baxter, featuring the Yma Sumac-like wails, growls and screams of Bas Sheva.



Nobody Knows - The Earls of Suave
The Flower of My Heart - Sparkle Moore
Mess of Blues - Elvis Presley
Reconsider Me - Margaret Lewis
Love Letters - Ike and Tina Turner
Love Oh Love - Little Esther
Two-Timing Loser - Johnny Thunders and Patti Paladin
The Strangeness in Me - The Runabouts
Harbour Lights - Dinah Washington
Sea of Love - The Earls of Suave
Stop and Listen - Mickey and Ludella
Fury's Tune - Billy Fury
Tiger - Sparkle Moore
Half-Loved - Eddie Cochran
Willow Weep for Me - Lizabeth Scott
Ebb Tide - Al Anthony
Solitude - Eartha Kitt
Les Amours Perdue - Serge Gainsbourg
If I Should Lose You - George Shearing
The Thrill is Gone - Chet Baker
I'm Through with Love - Marilyn Monroe
I Almost Lost My Mind - Bill Black Combo
Night Scene - The Rumblers
The Beast - Milt Buckner
Monkey Bird - The Revels
Fever - Nancy Sit
Comin' Home - The Delmonas
No Good Lover - Mickey and Sylvia
Mondo Moodo - The Earls of Suave
Aged & Mellow - Little Esther
Jungle Walk - The Dyna-Sores
Makin' Out - Jody Reynolds
I Wanna See You Dance - Hank Stirrup and Chet Tendon
Gizmo - Jimmy Heaps
Suey - Jayne Mansfield
Baby Doll Mambo - Belmonte and His Afro-American Music
Catwalk - Jack Constanzo
Uska Dara - Eartha Kitt
Camel Walk - The Saxons
Frenzy - The Hindus
Lust - Les Baxter
You Know I'm No Good - Wanda Jackson
That's Why I'm Askin' - Carl Dobkins Jr
Salamander - Mamie van Doren
Wait a Minute, Baby - Esquerita
Snow Surfin' Matador - Jan Davis
Nicotine - The Vikings
Tu veux ou tu veux pas - Brigitte Bardot
Fever - Timi Yuro
Teach Me Tonight - Dinah Washington
Harlem Nocturne - Martin Denny
I Feel So Mmmm - Diana Dors
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes - Mallet Men
C'est si Bon - April Stevens
Bachelor's Paradise - Ann-Margret
Crawlin' - The Untouchables
Torture Rock - The Rockin' Belmarx
One Night of Sin - Elvis Presley
Shangri-la - Spike Jones New Band
Beat Girl - Adam Faith (Beat Girl soundtrack)
Like a Baby - Wanda Jackson
Mack the Knife - Hildegard Knef
Jealousy - Billy Fury
Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood - Nina Simone

16 March 2011 Dr Sketchy Set List

/ Early sixties Ike and Tina Turner: I love Ike's mighty processed conk and sleazy little pencil-line mustache. Tina's painted-on eyebrows are worthy of Divine /

This night (at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern) represents one of my angrier and tenser sets that definitely required more alcohol than usual to endure (tense, angry tittyshakers – maybe that’s my new forte?). It all relates to still-raw agonising, mortifying romantic disappointment, but this isn’t that kind of blog so don’t worry, I’ll stop there.

I guess the set list is a bit of a glimpse into a DJ’s inner torment, though: especially the first few songs of desperate rhythm and blues awash in heartache (Little Richard, Lula Reed drowning in her own tears). The two Ike and Tina Turner songs are particular favourites. The lyrics to “You Got What You Wanted” really nails my mindset at the moment. The song (surely Ike and Tina’s finest moment?) has slayed me since I first heard it as a teenager on crackling vinyl: two minutes and 26 seconds of simmering, contained tension that keeps escalating. Tina initially delivers the words of heartbroken lament in a pained snarl, as if through clenched teeth (with the Ikettes cooing their support) until finally lashing out in a full desperate wail. Forget everything you think you know about her admittedly awful post-1980s comeback stadium rock: in the 1960s, Tina truly was the tigress of R&B!

/ Below: cruelly brief fragment of Tina on blistering form, singing "You Got What You Wanted" in 1968. I'd kill to see the entire performance /



The great irony of the Turners' music is that Ike himself wrote for Tina these incredible despairing lyrics to sing - and yet he was the cause of her despair, the reason she can sing them with such turbulent, wrenching conviction. One of the best analyses I’ve ever read of the tortured psychology that makes Ike and Tina’s best music so riveting is in Jimmy McDonough’s biography of sexploitation auteur Russ Meyer (Big Bosoms and Square Jaws, 2005). He shrewdly notes that ...

“... the sexual tension in Meyer’s movies is not dissimilar to that within such classic Ike and Tina Turner records as “You Got What You Wanted” or “I’m Gonna Find Me a Substitute.” Ike Turner – another infamous control freak who worried every detail down to the fringe on the Ikettes costumes – crafted tense, tough, tightly constructed songs for Tina, with melodramatic and often masochistic lyrics that portray a mythical dream woman willing to subjugate herself to Her Man at any expense. At times she struggles to stay on top of the number, singing like there’s a gun at her head. The song is a cage, built for Tina to bust loose from. Her desperate, impassioned, angry vocals often seem at odds with words, adding a layer of divine complexity to one very bizarre and moving puzzle.”

/ Ike and (pre-wig?) Tina: the early years /

Otherwise: the great Tricity Vogue made her very assured debut as a Dr Sketchy emcee and she’s always a blast. She accompanied herself on ukulele on a rendition of “Put the Blame on Mame” (the sultry Rita Hayworth striptease song from the film Gilda) – definitely the evening’s highlight. And Bettie Bottom Dollar (who’s becoming a bit of a Dr Sketchy stalwart) made for a scintillating performer and model.

You Got What You Wanted - Ike and Tina Turner
Drown in My Own Tears - Lula Reed
Directly from My Heart - Little Richard
A Mess of Blues - Elvis Presley
A Cheat - The Earls of Suave
Hurt - Timi Yuro
Snow Surfin' Matador - Jan Davis
Camel Walk - The Saxons
Torture - Kris Jensen
Dragon Walk - The Noblemen
Fools Rush In - Ricky Nelson
You Win Again - Bill Black Combo
Blue Kat - Chuck Rio & The Originals
I'm a Bad Girl - Little Esther
Intoxica - The Centurions
Comin' Home - The Delmonas
Stranger in My Own Hometown - The Earls of Suave
Beat Girl - Adam Faith (Beat Girl soundtrack)
Salamander - Mamie van Doren
Caterpillar Crawl - The Strangers
No Good Lover - Mickey & Sylvia
Baby, I'm Doin' It - Annisteen Allen
What is This Thing Called Love? Esquerita
Drums a Go Go - Hollywood Persuaders
Dansero - Don Baker Trio
Train to Nowhere - The Champs
Crawlin' (The Crawl) - The Untouchables
Like a Baby - Wanda Jackson
Womp Womp - Freddy & the Heartaches
Blues in My Heart - John Buzon Trio
Close Your Eyes - Dolores Gray
Willow Weep for Me - The Whistling Artistry of Muzzy Marcellino
Black Coffee - Julie London
Hiccups - The Empallos
Suey - Jayne Mansfield
Beaver Shot - The Periscopes
Sweet Little Pussycat - Andre Williams
Peter Gunn Locomotion - The Delmonas
Boss - The Rumblers
Chicken Grabber - The Nite Hawks
Revellion - The Revels
Esquerita & The Voola - Esquerita
Black Tarantula - Jody Reynolds
The Beast - Milt Buckner
The Stripper - John Barry (Beat Girl soundtrack)
Love - Eartha Kitt
I'm a Fool to Want You - Billie Holiday
Love Me or Leave Me - Lena Horne
Shadow Woman - Julie London
Sometimes I Wish I Had a Gun - Mink Stole
You've Got That Look That Leaves Me Weak - Marlene Dietrich
Let's Get Lost - Chet Baker
I Put A Spell on You - Nina Simone
If I Should Lose You - George Shearing
Misirlou - Laurindo Almeida
Strip-tease - Nico (Strip-tease soundtrack)
The Good Life - Ann-Margret
Begin the Beguine - Billy Fury

And finally ... perhaps the mother of all tittyshakers. This song ("Crawlin'" by The Untouchables) had become an obsession and it was proving impossible to find until Jorge (aka DJ Zorch) from Los Angeles came to the rescue. I'll be buying him plenty of cerveza when I see him at Viva Las Vegas in April!

/ Gracias, Jorge /

/ Jiggle jiggle: the dancer is the great Cherry Knight  /

19 January 2011 Dr Sketchy Set List

/ Sweater Girl: A sultry, hair-hopping young Violetta Villas working the projectile bullet bra look /

The second Dr Sketchy of the New Year: It was great to be back at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern where the sound system is loud and powerful, and I’m finally getting to grips with setting up the decks myself and working the stage lights (seriously, all the buttons in the DJ booth looks like the control panels of a helicopter!). And I didn’t once turn on the dry ice machine by mistake this time, which definitely represents progress. The only screw-up was the wrong music got played for our burlesque performer Annette Betty’s performance. I was told to play track one and I did, but it turned out it was the wrong song (there was more than one song burnt onto the CD). Fortunately, Betty is such a consummate pro that when she realised it was the wrong music, she just did the routine meant for that song, it looked spectacular and no one was any the wiser!

Annette Betty's Showreel:


As per usual, the emphasis musically was on creating a vibe somewhere between desperate vintage sleaze and punk lounge. Midway along the set list you may you notice a glut of sex-wracked female singers like Sparkle Moore, Ann-Margret and Mamie van Doren wailing about how they’re desperate for a man/boy/daddy, etc -- that was background music for our male model Luke’s pose.

Beaver Shot - The Periscopes
Baby, Scratch My Back - Slim Harpo
Intoxica - The Centurions
Bikini with No Top on the Top - Mamie van Doren & June Wilkinson
Vesuvius - The Revels
The Deacon Moves In - Little Esther
The Whip - The Originals
Fujiyama Mama - Annisteen Allen
Bewildered - Shirley & Lee
My Daddy Rocks Me - Mae West
Baby Come Back - Esquerita
Where Yo Is? Fat Daddy Holmes
Stop Talking, Start Walking - Annie Laurie
Hot Licks - The Rendells
Unitar Rock - Willie Joe & His Unitar
Honky Tonk - The Bill Black Combo
Harbour Lights - Dinah Washington
A Cheat - The Earls of Suave
Fever - Nancy Sit
Mack the Knife - Ann-Margret
Trash Can - Ken Williams
Suey - Jayne Mansfield
Blockade - The Rumblers
Crawfish - Johnny Thunders & Patti Paladin
Tall Cool One - The Wailers
Dansero - The Don Baker Trio
Tuxedo Junction - The Bill Black Combo
Tico Tico Samba - Don Swan & His Orchestra
Tiger - Sparkle Moore
Big Man - Carl Matthews
Jim Dandy - Ann-Margret
Daddy Daddy - Ella Mae Morse
I Need a Man - Barbara Pittman
Oh Honey - Gloria Wood
Seperate the Men from the Boys - Mamie van Doren
I Want a Boy - Connie Russell
Tony's Got Hot Nuts - Faye Richmonde
Her Love Rubbed Off - Carl Perkins
No Good Lover - Mickey & Sylvia
Chicken Grabber - The Nite Hawks
Boss - The Rumblers
Champagne Taste - Eartha Kitt
Lonely Hours - Sarah Vaughan
Harlem Nocturne - Martin Denny
Blondie's Strip - John Barry (Beat Girl soundtrack)
Do It Again - April Stevens
You're My Thrill - Chet Baker (instrumental)
Love Me or Leave Me - Lena Horne
Blues in My Heart - The John Buzon Trio
The Flirt - Shirley & Lee
Little Girl - John & Jackie
Intoxica - The Revels
That Makes It - Jayne Mansfield
Don't You Feel My Leg - Blue Lu Barker
Honey Rock - Barney Kessel
Kiss - Marilyn Monroe
Willow Weep for Me - The Whistling Artistry of Muzzy Marcellino
A Guy Who Takes His Time - Marlene Dietrich
Chattanooga Choo Choo - Denise Darcel
The Girl Can't Help It - Little Richard
Torture Rock - Rockin' Belmarx

/ Below: astonishing Polish diva Violetta Villas /

An artist who I didn’t play, but who’s become something of an obsession recently is the demented Polish diva Violetta Villas. I first read about her on the reliably excellent The Homoerratic Radio Show blog, was intrigued and did some Googling – and uncovered a treasure trove! Violetta Villas (nee Violetta Élise Cieślak, born 1938) is a real find and surely a cult figure (and kitsch gay icon?) in waiting. In the 1960s Villas was an international singing sensation, acted in Hollywood films and headlined at casinos like The Dunes in Las Vegas, where she did duets with the key superstars of the era: Frank Sinatra, Paul Anka, Barbra Streisand, Charles Aznavour, Sammy Davis, Jr., Eartha Kitt, Dean Martin. (Please God let there be footage somewhere of Villas and Kitt duetting!) But (outside of Poland) Villas seems almost completely forgotten today. Because of her astonishing operatic vocal range Villas is routinely and understandably described as the Polski Yma Sumac (she’s also been called "the singing toast of the continent", "a voice like French champagne” and my personal favorite, "the voice of the atomic age": Vallas certainly is explosive) – but that only hints at her strange allure. Judging by some of the clips on Youtube, Villas is a berserk outsider artist; a wild low-budget Eastern European hybrid of Jayne Mansfield/Anita Ekberg in La Dolce Vita / Brigitte Bardot / Charo; a punk (her image and un-hinged performances can suggest Nina Hagen or Jayne County); and a self-parodic possessor of a camp /kitsch drag queen sensibility (is it deliberate or naive? Certainly her persona evokes the films of the Kuchar brothers and John Waters. There’s something wonderfully grotesque about how Villas deliberately buries her own natural beauty under the matted bouffant wigs and thick transvestite/ clown-like make-up).

/ The divine Violetta at her make-up table: "the natural look?" Bollocks to that! /

/ This jaw-dropping video represents Violetta Villas (a vision in red chiffon) in full-throttle sex kitten mode. It’s from a 1971 Polish film called Dzieciol. The song she’s singing is “Oczy czarne”: I’ve been reliably informed it’s Russian, not Polish and it translates as something like “Black Eyes” or “Dark Eyes." Note: this essential video keeps getting deleted from YouTube. I'll replace it as frequently as I can! /


Wait! It gets even better. I work with a Polish woman called Marta and she’s been filling me in on what Violetta Villas is up to today. It turns out Villas actually lives in Marta’s village! According to Marta, Villas lives in a mansion with a menagerie of something like 70 dogs and 40 cats. Villas seems to have taken Brigitte Bardot as a role model: certainly in her youth Villas obviously styled herself to look like Bardot (or a parody of Bardot?), and now she’s an animal rights activist, too. Marta is obviously based in London now but visits Poland frequently; she says she hasn’t seen Villas in several years but every time she does, even when Villas is just going out to buy groceries, she’s always the diva, dolled up with her signature thick showgirl false eye lashes and long tousled bouffant wigs (or extensions or weave, whatever she’s got going on up there: it doesn’t look organic to any human scalp). I imagine the 72-year old Villas now as an Eastern European hybrid of Baby Jane Hudson / Barbara Cartland / Zsa Zsa Gabor – which may sound cruel, but I mean it with affection. Like many a show business diva, apparently over the years Villas has had issues with drugs, alcohol and romantic and career disappointments. Let's hope she's found serenity back in Poland surrounded by her pets.

Viva, Violetta Villas!

/ A tired and emotional Violetta Villas - perhaps after a few too many glasses of Polski Wodka? /

To end with, a lovely softcore clip of burlesque legend Blaze Starr having a bubble bath. I love how she inspects herself in the mirror afterwards, and how straight out of the tub her cotton candy bouffant hair and thick make-up are immaculate .