Reflections on ... Tempest Storm (29 February 1928 - 20 April 2021)

Farewell to doyenne of burlesque, Rita Hayworth lookalike and undisputed Queen of Exotic Dancers Miss Tempest Storm (née Annie Blanche Banks, 29 February 1928 - 20 April 2021).

The death of “the torrid tornado from out West” aged 93 conclusively ends a chapter in striptease history (Storm outlived all her contemporaries including Russ Meyer, Bettie Page and Blaze Starr).

What a life! At her peak Storm earned $100,000 a year, making her the highest-paid striptease performer in history. Her last performance was in 2010. And she had a fling with young Elvis!

I used to love catching glimpses of bouffant-haired eternal showgirl Storm at the annual Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekenders over the years, consistently looking immaculately groomed and fiercely glamorous. This shot of Storm and I was taken at Viva Las Vegas 2017 at the car show. I call this "touched by a goddess" because when we posed together Storm placed her hand on my lower back! Tempest Storm was a woman and a half!

For my social media tribute posts to Storm today, I really wanted to post these glamour shots taken by sexploitation maestro Russ Meyer in 1952 - but I was afraid they were too "boob-tastic" and would instantly send me to Facebook (or Instagram) jail!

Read the New York Times obituary for Tempest Storm here.

Reflections on ... Blaze Starr Goes Nudist (1962)

Recently watched: Blaze Starr Goes Nudist (1962), also known as Blaze Starr Goes Back to Nature, Blaze Starr Goes Wild, Blaze Starr the Original and Busting Out.

Blaze Starr is frazzled! In fact, her nerves are shot from the high-pressure rigors of being a famous sought-after actress. Flame-haired and buxom sex goddess Starr (1932 - 2015) plays herself and was of course one of the top striptease headliners of the post-war era (billed as "The Hottest Blaze in Burlesque”), but weirdly, her occupation throughout the film is referred to as “actress” rather than dancer. Happily, the stressed-out Starr unexpectedly finds ecstatic serenity in nudism - naked as nature intended! - at the Sunny Palms Lodge retreat, a sun-kissed nudist camp in Homestead, Florida. To paraphrase Starr herself: she swaps the hot lights of the film studio for fresh air and sunshine, heavy make-up for suntan lotion and the hectic social whirl of glitzy show biz cocktail parties for al fresco picnics! (As the film’s trailer exclaimed: “Yes, it’s finally happened! One of the most beautiful women in the world let’s down her hair and finds relaxation at a nudist camp! In blazing Eastman colour!”). But how will Starr’s suavely-moustached fiancé and manager respond to this new lifestyle choice? Will she lose her film contract if the studio finds out? And is she developing romantic feelings for the nudist camp’s bronzed and hunky director?

Understandably, director Doris Wishman (1912 -2002) is often likened to her b-movie contemporary, boob-fixated trash maestro Russ Meyer (1922 - 2004). Thematically and stylistically their careers overlapped during the atomic-era while both were working in the disreputable realm of low-budget grindhouse and drive-in sexploitation titillation. But by any standards Meyer was a virtuoso filmmaker: his absolute mastery of composition and editing ensure his films zip-along fast and are always exquisite to look at.  By comparison, the endearingly clunky and pedestrian style of Wishman – responsible for lurid titles like Bad Girls Go to Hell (1965) and Another Day, Another Man (1966) - is more like “the female Ed Wood Jr.” Like Wood, I’d describe Wishman as a genuine naïve outsider low-brow artist. (Note: Wishman makes a fleeting cameo appearance as one of Starr's agents. Her acting ability pretty much equals her directing ability). Wishman's approach to storytelling and film-making is painfully literal and plodding.  Wishman’s insistence on never “cutting away” when any other sane and competent director would is borderline avant-garde. (If you’re feeling generous, you’d describe it as “attention to detail”). Starr does loads of uninterrupted walking back and forth. For example, we repeatedly see Starr drive up to her mid-century moderne bungalow, get out and walk to the front door in real time. My boyfriend Pal pointed-out her house has a perfectly good paved driveway – why does she park on the curb and do the lengthy pointless journey? On plus side, this means we get to see Starr do her ultra-femme Jayne Mansfield-style hip-swaying, mincing bombshell sashay – breasts thrust forward and hobbled by her skin-tight clothing - over and over.

About that clothing: because of the film’s el cheapo budget, I suspect Starr is wearing her own personal wardrobe onscreen. And what a wardrobe! Think extreme fetishistic silver stripper heels, mink stoles, conical bullet bras, waist cinchers, sheer peignoirs and negligees, painted-on cocktail dresses with plunging necklines and best of all, a sensational pair of gold lamé  Capri pants – in fact, seemingly the exact same pair Starr wore when Diane Arbus photographed her in that famous 1964 portrait.

/ Burlesque entertainer, Blaze Starr, in her living room, Baltimore, 1964 by Diane Arbus / 

The stark early 1960s interior décor is gorgeous too. And once again, due to budgetary restraints this would have inevitably been filmed on location in someone’s actual home rather than in a studio. Watch for the curving wrap-around sofa and kidney-shaped Formica coffee table in the living room, and Starr’s powder-blue boudoir. At one point a fraught Starr calms herself by mixing a stiff drink and the ultra-desirable swanky cocktail bar (with a mural on the wall behind it) will make you gasp. 

/ Check out Blaze's minimalist living room. Is that a Klaus Nomi doll on the bar stool? /

Blaze Starr Goes Nudist belongs to the “nudie cutie” school (a genre which John Waters has affectionately reminisced about, a precursor to porn), but like most nudist films of its period, seen today it is resolutely un-erotic. The ultra-tame antics at the nudist colony include picnics, archery, splashing and frolicking in water, picking fruit and wildflowers, playing chess, sunbathing and the inevitable volleyball game. There is seemingly one man for every ten women at the Sunny Lodge: Wishman clearly knew that her target audience (horny hetero men hungry for female nudity) had zero interest in viewing naked flesh of the male variety. For example, Andy the camp director keeps his shorts on throughout.  (Bob Mizer of Athletic Model Guild had the homoerotic baby-oiled beefcake / posing pouch market sewn-up anyway). Female boobage and buttage abounds, but no full-frontal, pubic hair or reproductive organs – which means everyone must always unnaturally contort their bodies to ensure there is never a fleeting glimpse of genitals. 

And to make the film feel even more stilted and weird, Wishman’s technique was to film without audio and then “dub” dialogue in afterwards. (To compensate for this, one of her trademarks is to cut to the person being spoken to during dialogue scenes rather than the speaker, which presumably made dubbing easier. In one hilarious instance, Starr makes an urgent telephone call and angles the phone to conceal her mouth while she talks the entire time.  The effect is jarring).

/ Hell-o? Yes, this is Blaze speaking! /

Voluptuous showgirl deluxe Starr (whose measurements at the time were reportedly 38-24-37) is undisputed burlesque royalty, possesses star quality and charisma, and certainly looks gorgeous (albeit a bit heavy-handed with the powdered blue eye shadow). Like her peer Liz Renay, Starr resembles a Frederick's of Hollywood catalogue illustration come to life. It’s a pleasure to watch her disrobe (her flesh has the texture of white marshmallow), swivel her hips, pout and luxuriate in bubble baths. But as an actress she is gloriously wooden and inept. Called upon to emote, she grimaces, rolls and bulges her eyes in the broad style of a particularly pungent early silent movie star. Things reach a kind of zenith (or nadir, depending on your point of view) in a scene where Starr and two female fellow-nudists stop to “converse” at a clothesline. Except none of them bother to even pretend to talk or even mumble “rhubarb, rhubarb” in the accepted style, so Wishman cuts back and forth between the three of them standing and smiling at each other awkwardly and silently for an interminable amount of time. The purpose of this sequence is for Starr to indicate how joyously abandoned and liberated she feels at the nudist colony, worshiping the sun naked. Starr expresses this by throwing her head back, roaring with life-affirming laughter, and stretching her arms outward. You must see it for yourself! Suffused with innocence, Blaze Starr Goes Nudist is an oddity with genuine charm. 

Postscript: Starr was long synonymous with The Block (Baltimore’s gritty neon-lit red-light district) since the 1950s. In 1968 she bought The Two O'Clock Club where she regularly performed until retiring in 1975. John Waters has spoken and written with great fondness about skipping school to sneak-in with Divine when they were both still underage teenagers to watch Starr’s routines (when I attended Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekender this April, Waters emceed the Burlesque Showcase and in his introduction he reminisced about being fortunate enough to have seen old-school legends like Lily St Cyr, Irma the Body and Blaze Starr perform in the 1960s).  Starr was a beloved figure in Baltimore (in her obituaries Waters described her as "the best tourist attraction Baltimore ever had"). Asked later in life if she regretted anything, Starr concluded "Not a thing. I would just do a lot more of it and try a lot harder – and seduce a lot more men."

/ Note: all of the screen grabs above are via / 

/ Below: the trailer for Blaze Starr Goes Nudist /

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

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

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

Dr Sketchy at Fontaine's DJ Set List 12 December 2015

/ Stripper, Miss Sata Lyte, in her dressing room, 1962. Photo by Diane Arbus /

After an ultra-lengthy absence, Saturday 12 December 2015 found me back behind the DJ decks for Dr Sketchy. Checking my records, the last time I DJ’d at a Dr Sketchy’s Anti-Art School (“where life drawing meets cabaret”) was May 2014. Since then, Dr Sketchy has continued at various venues after the residency at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern ended but none of them had DJ’ing facilities so my services weren’t required.  Now it looks like Dr Sketchy has re-located to the bijou Mondo Tiki basement Bamboo Lounge of Fontaine’s in Dalston (hopefully permanently!) so happily I was back on board.

To paraphrase my patron saint Jayne Mansfield, it felt divoon to be DJ’ing at Dr Sketchy’s again. For one thing, I had accumulated a backlog of bump’n’grind tittyshaker stripper music I was dying to play and I finally had a context for it! The plush and intimate Polynesian surroundings of the Bamboo Lounge provided the ideal setting for Dr Sketchy. Intoxicated by Fontaine’s potent cocktails, the enthusiastic sold-out crowd were ripe for an afternoon of adult "blue" humour, anything-goes drawing, cheeky onstage virtual nudity and daytime drinking.

Best of all was the glittering line-up of talent on the bill. Effervescent mistress of the ukulele Tricity Vogue was the tightly-corseted, blue-wigged mistress of ceremonies. A real trooper, Tricity battled-on despite being struck down with a cold and laryngitis. She told me at one point she had two more gigs later that day where she had to sing.  With her hoarse and raspy croak of a voice, I helpfully proposed Tricity change her act into a tribute to Marianne Faithfull.  

The two featured models and performers for this Dr Sketchy were Marianne Cheesecake and Trixie Malicious.  Two equally great burlesque artists with completely different contrasting personas and approaches,  which inspired the music I played for their poses. I’d never had the pleasure of working with Trixie – aka The Blonde Who Really Does Have More Fun – before. She evokes platinum blonde 1950s rock’n’roll bad girls (think bullet bra'd Russ Meyer starlets or the vixens from sordid pulp novel front covers come to life). Tracks by sex bombs like Mamie Van Doren, Jayne Mansfield and Brigitte Bardot, The Cramps and the opening theme tune from Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! therefore felt obligatory.

Dr Sketchy veteran Marianne Cheesecake, meanwhile, conjures a classical 1920s or 30s Folies Bergère / Art Deco vibe (think Josephine Baker-meets-Anna May Wong). One of the advantages of DJ’ing at Dr Sketchy as opposed to, say, Lobotomy Room or Cockabilly is that I can drop the volume and play quiet, eerie, delicate songs and create a whole different ambiance.  For Marianne’s poses, I went for a ghostly spine-tingling David Lynch-ian feel: multiple versions of “Blue Velvet” and ghostly, heartbroken torch ballads by the likes of long-forgotten 1950s cool jazz chanteuse Linda Lawson and the Nico-like strains of San Francisco punk band The Nuns’ icy front-woman Jennifer Miro. When Trixie and Marianne posed ensemble at the end, I cranked-up Little Richard’s “The Girl Can’t Help It” (a Dr Sketchy staple) and Eartha Kitt’s “Santa Baby” (it was, after all, the lead-up to Christmas and it occurred to me I hadn’t packed any campy festive tunes! Luckily that song was already on one of Eartha’s greatest hits compilations in my bag).

/ Trixie Malicious and Marianne Cheesecake. Photo swiped from Facebook! /

Noteworthy date: 11 January 2016 represents the first anniversary of the death of the truly statuesque and Amazonian Swedish-Italian actress Anita Ekberg (29 September 1931 – 11 January 2015). In truth few of Ekberg’s 1950s Hollywood films are memorable (with the exception maybe of the lurid 1958 exploitation B-movie Screaming Mimi in which Ekberg plays a stripper menaced by a serial killer). Her appearance in Federico Fellini’s decadent masterpiece La Dolce Vita (1960), though – frolicking in Rome’s Trevi fountain - ensured Ekberg immortality.  I wonder if this revealing glamour shot squeaked past the Hollywood censors in the 1950s? (It's got to be said - those are great raspberries!).

Love Song of the Nile - Korla Pandit
Wimoweh - Yma Sumac
Kismiaz - The Cramps
Quiet Village - Martin Denny
Monkey Bird - The Revels
La-bas c'est naturel - Serge Gainsbourg
Mau Mau - The Fabulous Wailers
Lust - Bas Sheva
Coconut Water - Robert Mitchum
Don' Wanna - Wanda Jackson
Go Calypso - Mamie Van Doren
Beatnik - The Champs
Fujiyama Mama - Annisteen Allen
Vesuvius - The Revels
One Monkey Don't Stop No Show - Big Maybelle
Honey Rock - Barney Kessel
Tonight You Belong to Me - Patience and Prudence
Little Things Mean a Lot - Jayne Mansfield
Life is But a Dream - The Harptones
I Want Your Love - The Cruisers
Night Scene - The Rumblers
Bombora - The Original Surf-aris
Drive Daddy Drive - Little Sylvia
Sometimes I Wish I Had A Gun - Mink Stole
Tough Chick - The Rockbusters
Beat Girl - ZZ und der Maskers
What's Inside a Girl? The Cramps
Harley Davidson - Brigitte Bardot
It's a Gas - The Rumblers
Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! The Bossweeds
Ooh! Look-a There Ain't She Pretty? Bill Haley and His Comets
The Girl Who Invented Rock'n'Roll - Mamie Van Doren
I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield - The 5,6,7,8s
That Makes It - Jayne Mansfield
Wiped-Out - The Escorts
Here Comes the Bug - The Rumblers
No Good Lover - Mickey and Sylvia
Sheba - Johnny and The Hurricanes
The Flirt - Shirley and Lee
Sittin' in the Balcony - Masaaki Hirao
Love Potion # 9 - Nancy Sit
How Much Love Can One Heart Hold? Joe Perkins and The Rookies
Boss - The Rumblers
Chicken Grabber - The Nite Hawks
Night Flight - The Viscounts
Hiasmina - Jean Seberg
Blue Velvet - Isabella Rossellini
Where Flamingos Fly - Linda Lawson
Lazy - The Nuns
Blue Velvet - Lana Del Rey
Perdita - Rubber City
I'm a Woman - Peggy Lee
The Girl Can't Help It - Little Richard
Santa Baby - Eartha Kitt
Mack the Knife - Hildegard Knef
La Javanaise - Juliette Greco
Chattanooga Choo-Choo - Denise Darcel

Further reading:

The next Dr Sketchy at Fontaine's is likely to be circa Valentine's Day in February 2016. I'll post the details once they're confirmed.

Upcoming Lobotomy Room-related antics for your social calendar:

Hey! Did you know about Fontaine’s free weekly film club? As winter draws in, how better to break the monotony on a Wednesday night than watch a free film, drink cocktails and eat canapés in the plush and intimate environs of Fontaine’s basement Bamboo Lounge? As host and DJ of the regular monthly Mondo Trasho punkabilly club night Lobotomy Room (last Friday of every month downstairs in the Bamboo Lounge!), I – Graham Russell - will occasionally crash the proceedings and screen a rancid film of my choice!

The featured presentation this (Wednesday 27 January) month will be the ultra-lurid 1964 juvenile delinquent exploitation psychodrama Kitten with a Whip (1964) – starring quintessential atomic-era sex kitten-gone-berserk Ann-Margret. This sleazy little black and white B-movie urgently poses the question: why do the sweetest kittens have the sharpest claws?  Fresh from cavorting with Elvis in Viva Las Vegas, red-headed vixen Ann-Margret plays a vicious teenage sociopath escaped from her high-security juvenile detention centre – who then takes hostage and torments straight-laced local politician John Forsythe in his palatial suburban dream house. (Yes – a cardigan-wearing and still dark-haired John Forsythe as in Dynasty’s silver fox Blake Carrington). From there, Ann-Margret’s gang of thug friends turn up – and things just get wilder!

Don’t miss this rare opportunity to catch this should-be cult classick and genuine curiosity: Kitten with a Whip is not available on DVD in this country and never crops up on TV. It’s got it all: a genuinely feral wild child performance from Ann-Margret at the height of her bad girl beauty, dramatic shadowy film noir photography, a finger- snapping Henry Mancini-style cool jazz score and cringe-worthy faux beatnik hepcat dialogue galore. (Samples: “Ooh! Everything’s so creamy! Kill me quick, I never had it so good!” “How come you think you’re such a smoky something when you’re so nothing painted blue?” “Now cool it, you creep, and co-exist!” “Hands off, buster! Don’t you ever bruise me ... God knows what I might do to you if you ever bruise me.”).

Perhaps the highest compliment of all? Kitten with a Whip is a sentimental favourite of John Waters’. (In 2011 he introduced a screening of it at Anthology Film Archives in New York).  He’s described it as “almost like a Russ Meyer movie, an early one, only without as much tits” and reminisced, “Divine and I saw this movie together, definitely. Several times, actually. And he loved it, too. It was very much a big influence on us. And in 1964, I was a senior in high school, so on LSD, so angry, so insane, and so it came at one of the most insane periods of my life as far as being a disturbed teenager. I mean, we wanted to be Ann-Margret! Divine was my Kitten with a Whip, in a weird way.”

Facebook events page

/ Look deep into my eyes ... you will come to the next Lobotomy Room ... /

Revel in sleaze, voodoo and rock’n’roll - when LOBOTOMY ROOM returns to the subterranean Bamboo Lounge of Art Deco vice palace Fontaine’s! Friday 29 January!

LOBOTOMY ROOM! Where sin lives! A punkabilly booze party! A spectacle of decadence! Bad Music for Bad People! A Mondo Trasho evening of Beat, Beat Beatsville Beatnik Rock’n’Roll! Rockabilly Psychosis! Wailing Rhythm and Blues! Twisted Tittyshakers! Punk Cretin Hops! Kitsch! Exotica! Curiosities and other Weird Shit! Think John Waters soundtracks, or Songs The Cramps Taught Us, hosted by Graham Russell (of Dr. Sketchy London and Cockabilly notoriety). Expect desperate stabs from the jukebox jungle! Savage rhythms to make you writhe and rock! Now with vintage erotica projected on the wall for your adult viewing pleasure!

Admission: gratuit - that’s French for FREE!

Lobotomy Room: Faster. Further. Filthier.
It’s sleazy. It’s grubby. It’s trashy - you’ll love it!
A tawdry good time guaranteed!

Facebook events page

Read about all the previous antics at Lobotomy Rooms to date here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here , here, here, here and here.

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.

19 March 2014 Dr Sketchy Set List

/ Showtime for the Rita Hayworth of Burlesque, the regal Tempest Storm /

For the 19 March 2014 Dr Sketchy at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern, eternally naughty emcee Ophelia Bitz kicked off proceedings with the musical number “Red Riding Hood” by the late Brit drag legend Danny La Rue (her spiritual show biz father).  Bad girl of cabaret Ophelia was feeling particularly juicy this night. Indicating her sparkly red showgirl dress, she declared, “I’m dressed as Mae West’s vagina.”  After featured burlesque artiste Bettsie Bon Bon departed the stage stripped down to g-string and pasties, Ophelia picked up Bettsie’s discarded bra from the floor, held it to her face and inhaled deep (think Dennis Hopper and his gas mask in Blue Velvet).

/ Ophelia's lingerie-sniffing was reminiscent of this, too: Shelley Winters in What's the Matter with Helen? (1971). Via /

The two featured guest performers and models this time were the pretty damn dazzling Bon Bon and Amelie Soeil. (I hadn't seen Ms Bon Bon since Bestival 2012). I was struck by what seasoned pros both of them are. In both of their acts, things went wrong – it was impressive how they rolled with it without breaking stride. Poor Bettsie Bon Bon suffered a wardrobe malfunction – she couldn't get her corset off. Eventually she managed to virtually wrestle herself out of it - and injure herself in the process. (“I made myself bleed trying to get my tits out for you,” she later informed the audience). Soleil, meanwhile, did an eye-watering act that involved eating razor blades. Yikes! Freaky! It was like something out of an old school carnival sideshow. I’m one squeamish mofo and I had to watch bits of it between my fingers. At one point Soleil whipped out a cigarette lighter or some matches (I forget which) to apparently do some fire-eating but they wouldn't light because of the onstage fans. She swiftly abandoned that idea and continued to blow our minds with the razor blade-eating.

/ Last month I posted a photo of Korla Pandit (1921-1998) with Yma Sumac. Here he is with Poison Ivy and Lux Interior of The Cramps, looking suitably reverent to be in his presence /

It probably sounds perverse, but my favourite part of DJ’ing at a Dr Sketchy at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern is early on, just as people start arriving, I’m am playing tinkly exotica lounge music and the venue is darkened and lit just by candles (once Dr Sketchy properly starts, the house lights come up so that people can see their drawings!). My new ritual is opening with a track by the turbaned high potentate of exotica, the enigmatic Korla Pandit.  From there, I went in a swirling Middle Eastern belly dancer direction (obviously playing “Uska Dara” by Miss Eartha Kitt was obligatory). “Taita Inty (Virgin of The Sun God)” by high priestess of exotica Yma Sumac ends with the sound of a gong being struck. Martin Denny’s “Girlfriend of the Whirling Dervish” begins with the sound of a gong – playing them back-to-back segued seamlessly! I always play the Marilyn Monroe-Jane Russell duet “A Little Girl from Little Rock” from the 1953 film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes when two women model together – maybe a bit predictable, but it always gets a laugh. Everyone loves that film.

Love Song of the Nile - Korla Pandit
Taita Inty (Virgin of the Sun God) - Yma Sumac
Girlfriend of the Whirling Dervish - Martin Denny
The Maharajah of Megador - The Blue Echoes
Uska Dara - Eartha Kitt
Kizmiaz - The Cramps
Tonight You Belong to Me - Patience and Prudence
Some of These Days - The Kordt Sisters with Swing Accompaniment
Mama's Place - Bing Day
Fever - Edith Massey
Ain't That Good? George Kelly and Orchestra
Wiped-Out - The Escorts
I'm Blue - The Ikettes
Night Walk - The Swingers
I Ain't in the Mood - Helen Humes
Long Distance - Garnell Cooper and The Kinfolk
Where's My Money? Willie Jones
Don't Blame It On Me - Ike and Tina Turner
Here Comes the Bug - The Rumblers
Uptown to Harlem - Johnny Thunders and Patti Palladin
I Live the Life I Love - Esquerita
Night Scene - The Rumblers
Handclapping Time - The Fabulous Raiders
Catwalk - Jack Constanzo
Aged and Mellow - Little Esther
Willow Weep for Me - The Whistling Artistry of Muzzy Marcellino
Basin Street Blues - Julie London
Where Flamingos Fly - Linda Lawson
Lazy - The Nuns
Beat Party - Ritchie and The Squires
Little Queenie - Bill Black's Combo
Mama Looka Boo Boo - Robert Mitchum
Rum and Coca Cola - Wanda Jackson
Go Calypso - Mamie Van Doren
Delilah Jones - The Thunderbirds
Lovin' Spree - Ann-Margret
My Pussy Belongs to Daddy - Faye Richmonde
Champagne Taste - Eartha Kitt
Give Me Love - Lena Horne
L'eau a la bouche - Serge Gainsbourg
A Little Girl from Little Rock - Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell
Hiasmina - Jean Seberg
Hot Licks - The Rendells
Sexe - Line Renaud
Pass the Hatchet - Roger and The Gypsies
Suey - Jayne Mansfield
Lucille - Masaaki Hirao
Dragon Walk - The Noblemen
I Got Stung - Elvis Presley
Scorpion - The Carnations
The Girl Can't Help It - Little Richard
One Monkey Don't Stop No Show - Big Maybelle
Wipe Out - The Surfaris
Last Call for Whiskey - Choker Campbell
Hit The Road Jack - Ray Charles

22 February 2014 Dr Sketchy Set List

/ Behind the Candelabra: Insanely beautiful young Catherine Deneuve /

Saturday 22 February was a gloriously sunny early spring day in London. I spent the whole afternoon of it inside a darkened windowless boozer (the sublimely seedy Royal Vauxhall Tavern, to be precise) playing a putrid assortment of vintage musical sleaze and necking pints of lager. (I find inspiration in liquid form). While women took their clothes off onstage.

The reason for the daytime drinking was a Saturday afternoon Dr Sketchy. The first Dr Sketchy of 2014 was a triumph – and this one pretty much matched it. We’re on freaking fire at the moment! Dr Sketchy has most definitely got its mojo back.

It helped that toilet-mouthed bad girl of cabaret Ophelia Bitz was emceeing again and in filthy “blue” mode (she made a great “fanny fart” joke – you really had to be there). The audience (including a hen party) were raucous and up for a laugh. (In fact, I stuck around DJ'ing for longer than I strictly needed to because the crowd was so fun and appreciative). And the two guest burlesque performers were top-notch. Showgirl deluxe Annette Bette did a vivacious bunny girl routine: she entered to Bugs Bunny intro music clad in a white old-school Playboy Bunny outfit complete with powder puff rabbit tail, wielding a carrot. At a climactic moment she invited a guy from the front row to unfasten her corset– and received the most stony-faced and mortified reaction to audience participation I've ever seen at a Dr Sketchy! (Like Jayne Mansfield with her Chihuahua, Annette was accompanied by her adorable little dog Dorothy. She’s a real scene-stealer: at one point, while Ophelia was speaking, Dorothy poked her head through the curtains and the entire audience ooohed and aaahed).

The glamorous Amelia Kallman made her Dr Sketchy London debut at this one. She did an elaborate and spectacular Bride of Frankenstein act. I was sweating bullets over her ultra-detailed stage directions, with nerve-wracking music and lighting cues. (One cue was to kill the stage lights as soon as the Frankenstein puppet reached for her crotch!). The scale for things going wrong was huge and there was no time to rehearse it beforehand – but it came off seamlessly! All the 1950s and 60s macabre Halloween novelty -style tracks were for her pose (I didn't even know about her number beforehand – it’s just sheer luck I like ghoulish graveyard rock music and had it packed in my DJ bag already. My only regret is I didn't have any songs by Tarantula Ghoul handy).

Intermezzo - Korla Pandit
Chuncho (The Forest Creatures) - Yma Sumac
Quiet Village - Martin Denny
La-ba c'est naturel - Serge Gainsbourg
Monkey Bird - The Revels
Church Key - The Revels
Not Me - Robert Mitchum
Accentuate the Positive - The Bill Black Combo
Beat Generation - Mamie Van Doren
Wiped-Out - The Escorts
I Can't Sleep - Tini Williams and The Skyliners
Chop Suey Rock - The Instrumentals
Fujiyama Mama - Annisteen Allen
Uptown to Harlem - Johnny Thunders and Patti Palladin
Little Miss Understood - Connie Stevens
Intoxica - The Centurions
Lucille - Masaaki Hirao
Beat Girl - Adam Faith (Beat Girl soundtrack)
Wiped-Out - The Escorts
Night Scene - The Rumblers
That's a Pretty Good Love - Big Maybelle
Tall Cool One - The Wailers
Cadillac Jack - Andre Williams
Fever - Nancy Sit
Drums A-Go Go - The Hollywood Persuaders
Bop Pills - Macy "Skip" Skipper
I Was Born to Cry - Dion
Train to Nowhere - The Champs
Caterpillar Crawl - The Strangers
Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby? Ann Richards
Where Flamingos Fly - Linda Lawson
Let Me Entertain You - Ann-Margret
Petite Fleur - Chet Baker
Do It Again - Eartha Kitt
Some Small Chance - Serge Gainsbourg (Strip-tease soundtrack)
Little Queenie - Bill Black's Combo
Party Lights - Claudine Clark
Welfare Cheese - Emanuel Lanskey
No Good Lover - Mickey and Sylvia
What Do You Think I Am? Ike and Tina Turner
She's My Witch - The Earls of Suave
Rockin' in the Graveyard - Jackie Morningstar
Goo Goo Muck - Ronnie and The Gaylads
Blood Shot - The String Kings
Rigor Mortis - The Gravestone Four
Alligator Wine - Johnny Thunders and Patti Palladin
Hiasmina - Jean Seberg
A Little Girl from Little Rock - Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell
Torture Rock - Rockin' Belmarx
Summertime - Little Esther
Begin the Beguine - Billy Fury
La Javanaise - Juliette Greco
Work Song - Nina Simone
I Love the Life I Live - Esquerita
Sweetie Pie - Eddie Cochran
L'appareil a sous - Brigitte Bardot
The Girl Can't Help It - Little Richard
Hit the Road, Jack - Ray Charles
Roll with Me, Henry - Etta James
Fools Rush In - Ricky Nelson
Devil in Disguise - Elvis Presley
Rock'n'Roll Waltz - Ann-Margret
Jim Dandy - LaVerne Baker
I Would if I Could - Ruth Brown