Lobotomy Room DJ Set List at Fontaine's 30 November 2018

/ Early line-up of the glorious bad girls of rhythm and blues, the Ikettes from the Ike and Tina Turner Revue: Jessie Smith, Robbie Montgomery and Venetta Fields. I played the Ikettes' song "I'm Blue" in my set / 

From the Facebook event page:

Revel in sleaze, voodoo and rock’n’roll - when incredibly bizarre dance party Lobotomy Room returns to the basement Bamboo Lounge of Dalston’s most unique nite spot Fontaine’s! Friday 30 November!

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

Admission: gratuit - that’s French for FREE!

Lobotomy Room: Faster. Further. Filthier.

It’s sleazy. It’s grubby. It’s trashy - you’ll love it!

A tawdry good time guaranteed!

/ “There’s no stoppin’ the cretins from hoppin’ / You gotta keep it beatin’ for all the hoppin’ cretins …” /

Following our insane, triumphant and vomit-splattered Halloween spectacular in October, incredibly bizarre dance party Lobotomy Room returned to the Polynesian splendor of Fontaine’s basement Bamboo Lounge on Friday 30 November 2018. Could we maintain that urgent, desperately frantic momentum? Oh, hell yeah! Mainly thanks to birthday girl Kit and her group of friends!  Wild, uninhibited, hungry-for-kicks – they were the ideal Lobotomy Room crowd! 

And for once we have documentary evidence! Justyna did double-duty on the night as bartender and nightclub photographer!

Here's what I played ...

Mau Mau - The Fabulous Wailers
Exotic - The Sentinels
Katanga - Ike Turner and His Kings of Rhythm
Monkey Bird - The Revels
Kismiaz - The Cramps
I Wanna Be Sedated - The Ramonetures
I'm Blue (The Gong-Gong Song) - The Ikettes
Party Lights - Claudine Clark
I Don't Need You No More - The Rumblers
Drive Daddy Drive - Little Sylvia
I Live the Life I Love - Esquerita
I'm Comin' Over - X
Chicken Grabber - The Nite Hawks
Chicken Rock - Fat Daddy Holmes
Run Chicken Run - Link Wray
Chicken Walk - Hasil Adkins
Chicken - The Cramps
Jukebox Babe - Alan Vega
Atomic Bongos - Lydia Lunch
Media Blitz - The Germs
Teenage Lobotomy - The Ramones
Riding with a Movie Star - L7
Woo-Hoo - The Rock-A-Teens
I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield - The 5,6.7.8s
That Makes It - Jayne Mansfield
Wiped-Out - The Escorts
Pedro Pistolas Twist - Los Twisters
Peter Gunn Twist - The Jesters
Peter Gunn Locomotion - The Delmonas
Bombora - The Original Surfaris
Here Comes the Bug - The Rumblers
Jane in the Jungle - The 5.6.7.8s
Road Runner - The Fabulous Wailers
Vampira - The Misfits
Forming - The Germs
Viva Las Vegas - Nina Hagen
Be Bop a Lula - Alan Vega
Breathless - X
Let's Have a Party - Wanda Jackson
Wild, Wild Party - Charlie Feathers
Rock Around the Clock - The Sex Pistols
Jailhouse Rock - Masaaki Hirao
My Baby Does the Hanky Panky - Rita Chao and The Quests
Bang Bang - Betty Chung
Gostaria de Saber (River Deep, Mountain High) - Wanderlea
Harley Davidson - Brigitte Bardot
Touch the Leather - The Fat White Family
Somethin' Else - Sid Vicious
Whistle Bait - Larry Collins
Jim Dandy - Sara Lee and The Spades
Juvenile Delinquent - Ronnie Allen
Garbage Man - The Cramps
Rockin' Bones - Ronnie Dawson
Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On - Big Maybelle
Let's Go Baby - Billy Eldridge
Fools Rush In - Ricky Nelson
Devil in Disguise - Elvis Presley
He's the One - Ike and Tina Turner
You're Driving Me Crazy - Dorothy Berry
Sweet Little Pussycat - Andre Williams
The Pussycat Song - Connie Vannett
Scorpion - The Carnations
Suey - Jayne Mansfield
Pass the Hatchet - Roger and The Gypsies
Year 1 - X
Boss - The Rumblers
Muleskinner Blues - The Fendermen
Shortnin' Bread - The Readymen
Batman Theme - Link Wray
Love Me - The Phantoms
I Stubbed My Toe - Bryan "Legs" Walker
Revelion - The Revels
Steel Pier - The Impacts
Black Tarantula - Jody Reynolds
Margaya - The Fender Four
Tina's Dilemma - Ike and Tina Turner
Esquerita and The Voola - Esquerita
Intoxica - The Revels
Ultra Twist - The Cramps
Twistin' the Night Away - Divine
Cretin Hop - The Ramones
C'mon Everybody - Sid Vicious
Blitzkreig Bop - The Ramonetures
Nothing Matters Anymore - The Alley Cats
Heartbreak Hotel - Buddy Love
Ring of Fire - The Earls of Suave
Comin' Home, Baby - The Delmonas
Lucille - Masaaki Hirao
The Girl Can't Help It - Little Richard
Treat Me Right - Mae West
Roll with Me Henry - Etta James
Shake Appeal - Iggy and The Stooges
Nausea - X
Your Phone's Off the Hook - The Ramonetures
Steppin' Stone - The Sex Pistols
Jim Dandy - Ann-Margret
Woman - Peggy Lee
These Boots Are Made for Walkin' - Mrs Miller
How Does That Grab You Darlin'? Nancy Sinatra
Aphrodisiac - Bow Wow Wow
Let's Go Sexin' - James Intveld
Bossa Nova Baby - Elvis Presley
Don't Be Cruel - Bill Black Combo
Cry-baby - The Honey Sisters
Johnny Are You Queer? Josie Cotton
What Do You Think I Am? Ike and Tina Turner
My Way - Nina Hagen
One Night of Sin - Elvis Presley

/ Booze party! Wild! Wild! Wild! /

Listen to the strange’n’sleazy sounds of Lobotomy Room from the safety of your own home! I’ve knocked together a Spotify playlist based on what I played at the November dance party.  (For accuracy, disable the shuffle function!). It’s only approximate because some tracks were unavailable on Spotify: The Revels are barely represented on there at all! Other missing songs include Betty Chung’s Mandarin language cover of “Bang Bang”, Josie Cotton’s immortal “Johnny Are You Queer?” Nina Hagen’s berserk rendition of “My Way” and Bryan “Legs” Walker’s drunken hillbilly rant “I Stubbed My Toe.” Spotify – sort out these glaring omissions! Anyway, explore the Wild, Wild World of Lobotomy Room here. 

Upcoming events: at Lobotomy Room, we have all your festive needs covered in December 2018! 

Next film club:

Lobotomy Room Goes to the Movies is the FREE monthly film club downstairs at Fontaine’s bar (Dalston’s most unique nite spot!) devoted to Bad Movies We Love (our motto: Bad Movies for Bad People), specialising in the kitsch, the cult and the queer! For the final cinema club of 2018 (on Wednesday 19 December), let’s wind things down with a crowd-pleaser – John Water’s delirious 1981 black comedy Polyester! A parody of 1950s “women’s pictures”, Polyester sees 300-pound drag monster / leading lady Divine cast against type (and giving one of his definitive performances) in a rare sympathetic role, as long-suffering suburban housewife Francine Fishpaw! It’s an apt choice for last film of 2018 for two reasons: 2018 represented the 100th anniversary of the birth of beloved punk granny Edith Massey (1918 –1984) and Polyester represents her last appearance in a John Waters film. And dreamboat leading man Tab Hunter (1931 – 2018) died earlier this year. 

Doors to the basement Bamboo Lounge open at 8 pm. Film starts at 8:30 pm prompt. Arrive early to grab a seat and order a drink! We can accommodate 30 people maximum. First come, first serve! Note that Fontaine’s Christmas cocktail menu will be available, and the featured cocktail of the night is hot buttered rum!

Event page

Next Dance Party:

Feeling jaded after Christmas? Didn’t get those cha cha heels you wanted? Come head-bang away those post-Christmas blues at Lobotomy Room! Friday 28 December 2018!

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

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

Admission: gratuit - that’s French for FREE!

Lobotomy Room: Faster. Further. Filthier.

It’s sleazy. It’s grubby. It’s trashy - you’ll love it!

Let's end the year on a note of sleazy desperation!

Event page

Further reading: 

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

Follow me on twitter!

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

Reflections on ... The Rise, The Fall and The Rise by Brix Smith Start

/ Portrait of the Author: present-day Brix Smith photographed by Amelia Troubridge /

[I was commissioned to write this book review of Brix Smith Start’s memoirs a while back, it seemingly got “spiked” and rather than let it go to waste I’ve posted it as a blog entry!]

Brix Smith Start has a knack for self-reinvention, from punk guitarist to Shoreditch fashionista and boutique proprietor to TV presenter.  She also seemingly possesses great timing: her autobiography follows on the heels of successful recent efforts by the likes of Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon, The Pretenders' frontwoman Chrissie Hynde and Viv Albertine of The Slits. Confessional memoirs by veteran rock chicks are red-hot right now.

Born Laura Salenger in 1962 in Los Angeles to an affluent family with show business connections, as a teenager she embraced punk rock (the nickname “Brixton” came from her love of The Clash song “Guns of Brixton”). Following a whirlwind romance with Mark E Smith (frontman of hard-edged Mancunian band The Fall), in 1983 Brix impulsively marries him, relocates from sun-kissed LA to drab and overcast Manchester and joins his band as guitarist. The book is especially funny describing her horrified culture shock at her new Northern husband’s grimy poverty. (“Mark’s parents suggested we have the reception in the Eagle and Child pub and that we serve sausage rolls, salt and vinegar crisps and pickled onions to our guests,” she shudders).

“The Brix years” were arguably The Fall’s creative and commercial peak.  Her towering, catchy riffs, steeped in surf instrumentals and rockabilly, injected The Falls’ music with a new accessibility. Diminutive, blonde and beautiful, she also added a jolt of Californian glamour to one of the most austere and uncompromising of post-punk bands. The Falls’ artistic zenith would perhaps be in 1988 performing onstage with drag monster Leigh Bowery in queer bad boy of dance Michael Clark’s avant-garde ballet I Am Curious, Orange.  (Brix played guitar while seated atop a giant Pop Art hamburger).

/ Art-rock heaven: The Fall meets Michael Clark /

A volatile musical genius Mark E Smith may be, but he didn’t make for ideal husband material.  Brix depicts him as an unhinged alcoholic and speed freak with an increasingly ugly temper.  Once their romantic and musical partnership imploded (they divorced in 1989), Brix would struggle with low self-esteem, depression, dysfunctional relationships, career disappointments, eating disorders and sleeping pill addiction (very Valley of the Dolls). 

/ One of my favourite Fall songs and videos. The skunk-striped black and white Cruella de Ville hairstyle was one of Brix's best looks /

Her lowest point sees Brix back in Los Angeles and broke after leaving The Fall, unable to play guitar because of painful tendinitis and supporting herself as a waitress while hustling for acting jobs. One night a group of Mancunian musicians recognise her at the restaurant and ask, “Didn’t you used to be Brix Smith?” (To her credit, she replied, “I still am”).

Gossip hounds will find much to savour here. Brix seemingly crossed paths with everyone over the years. Her mother used to work in the television industry. As a child Brix would watch transfixed as Sonny and Cher rehearsed for their TV show (“even in street clothes she radiated glamour ... Cher is my jeans idol”).  As student at Bennington College Brett Easton Ellis and Donna Tartt were fellow pupils in her creative writing class. Later she would rub shoulders with everyone from Morrissey (“he was always so unfriendly, prickly and weird”) to Courtney Love (she almost joined Hole in the nineties) and even Princess Diana (“I’ve rarely seen a woman turn it on the way she did”). And then of course there’s Gok Kwan. Let’s face it: for a generation of gay guys Brix is inevitably best known as co-host of Gok’s Fashion Fix.

For anyone allergic to New Age self-help speak this probably isn’t the book for you (Brix underwent years of therapy and it shows in her writing). But she’s so effervescent and disarmingly likable you can’t help but root for her as Brix – now 53, happily remarried and playing music again - overcomes adversity and ultimately emerges resilient and serene.

[The Rise, The Fall and The Rise by Brix Smith Start is out now, [published by Faber & Faber]