Monday 25 April 2016

Lobotomy Room at Fontaine's DJ Set List 25 March 2016

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/ Lobotomy Room: the club night for the hillbilly beau monde! /

As promised (threatened?) on the Facebook events page for the 25 March 2016 Lobotomy Room events page:

Rock the long Easter holiday weekend - at Lobotomy Room! Friday 25 March!

Yes! Revel in sleaze, voodoo and rock’n’roll - when incredibly strange dance party Lobotomy Room returns to the Polynesian-style basement Bamboo Lounge of Dalston’s premiere Art Deco vice den Fontaine’s! With sensational special offer cocktails on the night!

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! White Trash Rockers! Kitsch! Exotica! Curiosities and other Weird Shit! Think John Waters soundtracks, or Songs The Cramps Taught Us, hosted by Graham Russell (of Dr Sketchy 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! Come for the cocktails - stay for the putrid music and dirty movies!

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!

 photo Lobotomy_Room_Babs_Johnson_zpsyrgthjuk.jpg

/ All dressed up? Ready to fall in love? Come to Lobotomy Room! /

Once again, unfortunately this Lobotomy Room was very sparsely-attended, but to paraphrase Susan Hayward as tough-as-nails show business veteran Helen Lawson in Valley of the Dolls (1967): I’ve got a hard core.  I’ve learned how to roll with the punches. And in this business they come left, right and below the belt. (You have to imagine me saying that in Hayward’s butch sixty-cigarettes-a-day baritone babe growl). While it’s undeniably deeply disappointing (and wounding) when no one comes to Lobotomy Room, I also feel buoyed by the triumphant Desperate Living film club I organised in The Bamboo Lounge last month (the busiest one yet) and the response I got guest DJ’ing at The Glory’s packed barn dance on Easter Sunday.  And there’s been gratifyingly rabid advance interest in my Lobotomy Room Goes to the Movies film club screening of The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield (1968) on 27 April. In fact, if everyone comes who says they’re coming on the Facebook page, we’re over-subscribed! There won’t be enough seating! So let’s hope success leads to success.

Anyway, the elite brave souls who did venture downstairs into the Bamboo Lounge for this Lobotomy Room were definitely intriguing. Around midnight a suave and stylish 30-something Italian couple, so sleek they could have been escapees from a mid-century Fellini or Antonioni film, came down. The striking female half had dyed-red hair and slanting eyes and looked a bit like Monica Vitti in Il Deserto Rosso. They’d been drinking upstairs and were merry and ready to have a laugh. The two of them totally embraced the sleazy tittyshaker music I was playing and the vintage erotica on the big screen. When they arrived, the film playing was grainy black-and-white Irving Klaw footage of Bettie Page wearing lingerie and extreme fetish heels shimmying in a threadbare living room. Who couldn’t love that? Then I swapped-over to Russ Meyer’s Mondo Topless (a Lobotomy Room perennial) and they hooted at the buxotic go-go dancers’ bouncing bare boobs.

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/ Monica Vitti in Il Deserto Rosso (1964) /

When they finished their cocktails they came over to the DJ booth to say goodbye. The woman said something in husky thickly-accented Italian and planted a kiss on my lips! I think I blushed furiously. I begged them to come back next month and they split. Afterwards I said to Pal, “I couldn’t understand a word that woman said to me” and Pal explained she’d said, “It’s great down here! I don’t understand why there aren’t more people!”

Anyway, here is what I played. As you can see, the set list is substantially shorter than usual (I didn't DJ while there was no one downstairs).

Night Scene - The Rumblers
High Wall - The Fabulous Wailers
Sheba - Johnny and The Hurricanes
Three Cool Chicks - The 5,6,7,8s
Little Darlin' - Masaaki Hirao
Adult Books - X
Taboo - The Shangaans
Kismiaz - The Cramps
Monkey Bird - The Revels
Beatnik - The Champs
I'm A Woman - Peggy Lee
Don't Be Cruel - Bill Black Combo
The Whip - The Originals
Khrushchev Twist - Melvin Gayle
Here Comes the Bug - The Rumblers
Wiped-Out - The Escorts
Suey - Jayne Mansfield
Pass The Hatchet - Roger and The Gypsies
Sweet Little Pussycat - Andre Williams
Pussycat Song - Faye Richmonde
Can Your Pussy Do The Dog? The Cramps
Boss - The Rumblers
Twist Talk - Jack Hammer
Viens danser le twist - Johnny Hallyday
Peter Gunn Twist - The Jesters
Peter Gunn Locomotion - The Delmonas
Bomb the Twist - The 5,6,7,8s
Twistin' the Night Away - Divine

Further reading:

Read about all the previous antics at Lobotomy Rooms to date hereherehereherehereherehereherehereherehere , hereherehere, herehere and here!

Follow me on tumblr for all your kitsch, camp, retro vintage sleaze needs!

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


Most importantly - upcoming Lobotomy Room-related dates!

 photo Jayne_chihuahua_zpsfyvtlvq7.jpg

Throw on a blonde wig! Borrow a chihuahua! Put a wiggle in that walk! Coo and squeal like a sex kitten-gone-berserk! /

Wednesday 27 April 2016: As host of the regular monthly Mondo Trasho punkabilly club night Lobotomy Room, I – Graham Russell - will occasionally crash Fontaine’s free weekly film night and screen a rancid title of my choice, with an emphasis on the cult, the queer and the camp! The Lobotomy Room Goes to the Movies selection this month is – The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield!

Rated “X” upon its release in 1968, the ultra-trashy faux documentary chronicles the kinky globe-trotting misadventures of Hollywood sex kitten-gone-berserk Jayne Mansfield.   Watch agog as kitsch icon Mansfield - the punk Marilyn Monroe, revered by John Waters and Divine (and “the face” of Lobotomy Room) -   visits the hedonistic “sin spots” of the world, encompassing topless go-go clubs, gay bars, drag queen beauty contests and nudist colonies, usually accompanied by her pet Chihuahua!

The low-budget Wild, Wild World was in production 1964 - 1968. Bear in mind Mansfield died in 1967. Part of the fun is spotting how the producers cobbled things together after Mansfield’s death in order to complete the film. Watch for the (many) shots of a body double filmed from behind wearing Mansfield’s disheveled blonde wig.  And the sound-alike who delivered the voice-over narration (nailing Jayne’s breathless babydoll coo) deserved an Oscar!

In an eerie unplanned coincidence, April marks Mansfield’s birthday (she was born 19 April 1933). Let’s make the night a celebration of all things Jayne! Come dragged-up as Jayne Mansfield and / or accompanied by a Chihuahua – get a free cocktail.

As usual: arrive circa 8 pm to order your drinks and grab the best seats. The film starts at 8:30 pm prompt!

Events page


 photo Lobotomy_Room_Updated_zpsoimclhkw.jpg

Friday 29 April 2016: Revel in sleaze, voodoo and rock’n’roll - when incredibly strange dance party Lobotomy Room returns to the Polynesian-style basement Bamboo Lounge of Dalston’s premiere Art Deco vice den Fontaine’s! Friday 29 April! With sensational special offer cocktails on the night!

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! White Trash Rockers! Kitsch! Exotica! Curiosities and other Weird Shit! Think John Waters soundtracks, or Songs the Cramps Taught Us, hosted by Graham Russell (of Dr Sketchy 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! Come for the cocktails - stay for the putrid music and dirty movies!

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!

Events page


Friday 15 April 2016

Cockabilly at Bloc Bar DJ Set List 13 April 2016


Drag a comb through your quiff, swallow a fistful of bop pills and rock around the cock – at Cockabilly! Wednesday 13 April 2016 in the louche surroundings of Bloc Bar in Camden! And every second Wednesday night of the month thereafter!

Leather boys, gay greasers, cry-babies, prison wives and juvenile delinquents of all ages are welcome at Cockabilly - London’s only regular queer rockabilly night! With DJ Mal Nicholson and I (Graham Russell) spinning all your favourite rancid vintage sleaze classicks! Think rockabilly, rhythm and blues, surf, punk and tittyshakers! Daring and virile! Chains, whips, knives and leather belts all swished around together in bone-jarring rock and roll! Way-out sex and sin for those who like it that way!

The Bloc Bar: 18 Kentish Town Road London NW1

8-midnight

FREE

Cockabilly_13 April 2016

/ DJ Mal Practice (left) and I at the 13 April 2016 Cockabilly at Bloc Bar. Photo by Pal /

The April 2016 installment represented the second-ever Cockabilly at our sparkling new venue – Bloc Bar in Camden. Happily this time (courtesy of Bloc Bar’s boss man Wayne Shires) we got their DVD player and projector fully operational so I could play my collection of atomic-era homo porn. The continuous grainy fifties and sixties beefcake homoerotica on the big screen (think sexy vintage baby-oiled body builders scantily-dressed as centurions, slaves, sailors, bikers and prisoners endlessly wrestling) proved a hypnotic visual backdrop to some pretty blistering DJ sets by Mal and I. It was great to get some glitches ironed-out. We even got the trademark Cockabilly sign perfectly positioned on the DJ booth! Now all we need is people to come and support Cockabilly’s vision of squalid rock’n’roll filth! 

Anyway, here is what I played:

Jane in the Jungle - The 5,6,7,8s
Road Runner - The Fabulous Wailers
He's The One - Ike and Tina Turner
Boss - The Rumblers
The Big Bounce - Shirley Caddell
Hoy Hoy - The Collins Kids
Let's Go Baby - Billy Eldridge
Lucille - Masaaki Hirao
The Batman Theme - Link Wray and His Wraymen
That Makes It - Jayne Mansfield
Bombora - The Original Surf-aris
Atomic Bongos - Lydia Lunch
Adult Books - X
Cretin Hop - The Ramonetures
Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad - Wanda Jackson
Club Delight - Jack "Big Daddy" Jolly
Viva Las Vegas - Nina Hagen
Wipe Out - The Surfaris
Female Trouble - The Melvins
Beat Party - Ritchie and The Squires
Three Cool Chicks - The 5,6,7,8s
Big Bad Boss Beat - The Teen Beats
It's a Gas - The Rumblers
Harley Davidson - Brigitte Bardot
Woo-Hoo - The Rock-A-Teens
How Much Love Can One Heart Hold? Joe Perkins and The Rookies
Killer - Sparkle Moore
I Got Stung - Elvis Presley
Jim Dandy - Sara Lee and The Spades
Whistle Bait - Larry Collins
Like A Rolling Stone - Mamie Van Doren
Somebody Put Something in My Drink - The Ramones
Beat Girl - Adam Faith
Fever - The Delmonas
Margaya - The Fender Four
Intoxica - The Centurions
What's Inside A Girl? The Cramps
Go Wild in The Country - Bow Wow Wow
Gostaria de saber (River Deep Mountain High) - Wanderlea



Previously in blog posts I have irresponsibly and sensationally speculated on the homosexuality and / or bisexuality of Billy Fury and James Dean. This time, let’s focus on parasitic, doomed (and very cute in a greaser rough trade way) actor Nick Adams – who may or may not have had intimate knowledge of both Elvis Presley and James Dean. The account below is from the essential Facebook page Gay of The Day, which I highly recommend you follow. They profiled Adams - a true casualty of Hollywood Babylon, dead aged 36 - on 28 July 2015.



/ Nick Adams and Elvis in 1956 /

"Every big star needs a best friend, someone to carouse with, someone with whom they can talk, let their hair down and (most importantly) procure some occasional fellatio to ease the stress of a hectic showbiz career. Today's "Gay of the Day" was more than happy to meet those needs, as long as it furthered his own career. Hanger-on turned actor Nick Adams (1931-1968). 

"As a teen Nick couldn't hold down a job, but somehow still managed to have money. After dinner he'd be out all night and come home with wads of cash. Luckily his parents didn't ask too many questions, for he was cruising the bars and pool halls of Jersey City and hustling his tight teenage Ukrainian ass. He told his father he wanted to act "for the money" and despite his dad's pleas to listen to reason, Nick hitchhiked to Hollywood. Once there, he did ANYTHING to get a job. He crossed paths with both Jack Palance (who gave him his professional name, his birth name was Nicholas Adamshock) and Henry Fonda, both of whom had the the same concise advice for him: "Take acting lessons". Meanwhile he got a job tearing tickets at the Warner Theatre since premieres were held there. He figured he could rub elbows with the Hollywood elite and make some connections (he was fired for putting "Nick Adams" on the marquee). It was around this time that he met James Dean. They both were cast in a Coca-Cola commercial. But Adams got drafted and wouldn't see Jimmy for another four years until they were acting together in Rebel Without a Cause. Once reunited they were thick as thieves and soon Adams started blabbing around town that they were fucking. Adams also started escorting single actresses to premieres (particularly Natalie Wood) and getting his picture in all the magazines. Adams then became the paid companion of Elvis Presley, a position he'd assume for many years. They behaved rather indiscreetly and their unusually close relationship raised many eyebrows. In fact, when Elvis' mother died Nick was the only person he wanted to see. Elvis' manager, Colonel Tom Parker, figured Adams was effective at scratching a particular Elvis itch and a happy Elvis was a profitable Elvis. Adams was still a supporting actor in movies, but his parts were getting larger (he's the butt of some gay cracks in Pillow Talk). However, television was where he'd make a name for himself. 

"For three years he was the star of the television series The Rebel (1959-1962). It was also around this time that he became a husband and father. After the show ended, he was nominated for an Oscar for Twilight of Honour (1963), which led to nothing. He couldn't get decent work and blamed his sexuality. He groused to Hedda Hopper "No one's buying this" (his marriage) and filed for divorce. His last years were spent in Japanese monster films and cheap European productions. He was found dead in his home, his body coursing with Michael Jackson levels of sedatives. Some theorize he was murdered because he had a big mouth and a lot of dirt on supposedly straight stars, particularly Elvis. I highly doubt Col. Parker had him eliminated. Adams was very morose in his final days and was no doubt medicating his disappointment. He probably just overdid it."



/ Nick Adams and Elvis in 1956 /

Further reading:

Read all about the sordid antics at previous Cockabillies hereherehereherehereherehereherehereherehere,  here, herehereherehereherehereherehere and here.

Follow my sensual and depraved tumblr blog (also called Bitterness Personified) for all your retro, kitsch and vintage homo porn needs! Warning - it contains adult situations! NSFW and never will be!


Most importantly: upcoming Lobotomy Room-related dates!


Throw on a blonde wig! Borrow a chihuahua! Put a wiggle in that walk! Coo and squeal like a sex kitten-gone-berserk! /

Wednesday 27 April 2016: As host of the regular monthly Mondo Trasho punkabilly club night Lobotomy Room, I – Graham Russell - will occasionally crash Fontaine’s free weekly film night and screen a rancid title of my choice, with an emphasis on the cult, the queer and the camp! The Lobotomy Room Goes to the Movies selection this month is – The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield!

Rated “X” upon its release in 1968, the ultra-trashy faux documentary chronicles the kinky globe-trotting misadventures of Hollywood sex kitten-gone-berserk Jayne Mansfield.   Watch agog as kitsch icon Mansfield - the punk Marilyn Monroe, revered by John Waters and Divine (and “the face” of Lobotomy Room) -   visits the hedonistic “sin spots” of the world, encompassing topless go-go clubs, gay bars, drag queen beauty contests and nudist colonies, usually accompanied by her pet Chihuahua!

The low-budget Wild, Wild World was in production 1964 - 1968. Bear in mind Mansfield died in 1967. Part of the fun is spotting how the producers cobbled things together after Mansfield’s death in order to complete the film. Watch for the (many) shots of a body double filmed from behind wearing Mansfield’s disheveled blonde wig.  And the sound-alike who delivered the voice-over narration (nailing Jayne’s breathless babydoll coo) deserved an Oscar!

In an eerie unplanned coincidence, April marks Mansfield’s birthday (she was born 19 April 1933). Let’s make the night a celebration of all things Jayne! Come dragged-up as Jayne Mansfield and / or accompanied by a Chihuahua – get a free cocktail.

As usual: arrive circa 8 pm to order your drinks and grab the best seats. The film starts at 8:30 pm prompt!

Events page



Friday 29 April 2016: Revel in sleaze, voodoo and rock’n’roll - when incredibly strange dance party Lobotomy Room returns to the Polynesian-style basement Bamboo Lounge of Dalston’s premiere Art Deco vice den Fontaine’s! Friday 29 April! With sensational special offer cocktails on the night!

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! White Trash Rockers! Kitsch! Exotica! Curiosities and other Weird Shit! Think John Waters soundtracks, or Songs the Cramps Taught Us, hosted by Graham Russell (of Dr Sketchy 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! Come for the cocktails - stay for the putrid music and dirty movies!

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!

Events page


Wednesday 6 April 2016

Easter Sunday Barn Dance at The Glory DJ Set List 27 March 2016

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/ Giddy-Up, Cowboy: the gorgeous Wilde brothers Rory (top) and Gunner (bottom - and what a bottom!) photographed by Bruce of Los Angeles in the sixties /

I was a late addition to The Glory’s annual Easter Sunday Barn Dance on 27 March.  A day of beers, steers and queers – in gritty urban Haggerston! Think bales of hay on the floor, posters of mondo cleavaged patron saint Dolly Parton Blu-tacked everywhere and a crowd of yee-hawing gingham and denim-clad yokels (well, as interpreted by hip East London homosexualists).

Easter Sunday Barn Dance at The Glory 27 March 2016

/ I dug-out my old Hillbilly Hop t-shirt for the occasion. This t-shirt is so old at this point it must qualify as borderline vintage /

I’ve always wanted to play at one of these barn dances. After pleading, pouting, cajoling and stamping my foot, I finally managed to persuade John Sizzle that as someone who actually grew up on a pig farm in rural Quebec I’d be the closest thing to a hillbilly there - and won myself a sweet -DJ’ing guest spot from 7 pm. This night also represented my long-awaited Glory debut.

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Anyway, at first I DJ’d between the cabaret acts. They included a drag queen (Miss Craig) lip-synching to a live recording of Cher singing “Walkin’ in Memphis” and “Just Like Jessie James” followed by a drag king Jesus (“Shesus”) complete with crown of thorns and luxuriant beard (who wailed Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball”) and finally Concertina Turner. The self-described "bearded hairy shit-kicker" in Tina Turner drag (with signature punk-bouffant wig and micro-mini skirt) accompanied himself on accordion while singing heartfelt versions of “Private Dancer”, “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” and “Simply the Best” – probably with more conviction than Turner herself has managed in decades. In other words – it felt like my spiritual home.

/ Below: All photos by Pal /

Easter Sunday Barn Dance at The Glory 27 March 2016

/ Shesus and Concertina Turner /

Easter Sunday Barn Dance at The Glory 27 March 2016

/ Shesus died for somebody's sins but not mine ... /

Easter Sunday Barn Dance at The Glory 27 March 2016

/ "She's got legs / She knows how to use them ..." Concertina Turner /

Easter Sunday Barn Dance at The Glory 27 March 2016

/ Pal and I /

Easter Sunday Barn Dance at The Glory 27 March 2016

Once the performers finished, I DJ’d straight through until the end.  Musically I aimed to deliver a hayride to hell. As a rural Canadian child of the seventies, kitsch old-school honky tonk Country & Western is embedded in my DNA. Early on I focused on the pantheon of hair hoppin' divas of the genre: think Bobbie Gentry, Wanda Jackson, Tammy Wynette’s “Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad”, “Fist City” by Loretta Lynn.  (I was kicking myself that I forgot to bring the CD with Loretta’s “The Pill” – what an omission!). Obviously Nancy Sinatra is a goddess to me.  From her 1967 album Country My Way – which I’d argue is her most consistent masterpiece - I played “Get While the Gettin’ is Good” and “Jackson”. (All due regards to Johnny Cash and June Carter’s original, but the poppier, stomping Nancy and Lee Hazlewood country exotica version is definitive).  




 As the night progressed things got punkier, messier and more sordid (I’d been drinking all afternoon by this point) and I resorted to my more usual assortment of putrid vintage sleaze.  To their eternal credit, the up-for-it and lively Glory crowd danced to whatever I flung at them. One young guy approached and asked if I could play Jessica Simpson’s cover of “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.” Needless to say I didn’t have it (I didn’t even have Nancy Sinatra’s on me) – so I played Mrs Mill’s version. And people actually danced to it! It was especially gratifying to see a full dance floor thrashing and flailing to The Knitters (Los Angeles punk band X’s occasional hillbilly side project), Ann-Margret, Nina Hagen and Divine. And once again, leather-clad, gap-toothed punk granny Edith Massey proved to be a surprising crowd-pleaser.


 photo Rory_Wilde_Bruce_of_LA_zps6uln9vb5.jpg

/ Your reward for reading this far: who doesn't love vintage homoerotic cowboy imagery? The delectable Rory Wilde photographed by Bruce of Los Angeles /

Gotta Lotta Rhythm in My Soul - Patsy Cline
Willie Joe - The Mystery Trio
Get While the Gettin's Good - Nancy Sinatra
Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad - Tammy Wynette
Oh Lonesome Me - Johnny Cash
Fist City - Loretta Lynn
Mississippi Delta - Bobbie Gentry
You Done Messed Around and Made a Mean Woman Mad - Julia Bates
Poor Little Critter on the Road - The Knitters
Seven Lonely Days - Bonnie Lou
Oh Lonesome Me - Ann-Margret
Jackson - Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood
Fools Rush In - Ricky Nelson
Ring of Fire - The Earls of Suave
Woodpecker Rock - Nat Couty and The Braves
Ballad of Thunder Road - Robert Mitchum
I Let the Stars Get in My Eyes - Goldie Hill
These Boots Are Made for Walkin' - Mrs Mills
Walk Like a Man - Divine
Big Girls Don't Cry - Edith Massey
Viva Las Vegas - Nina Hagen
Johnny Are You Queer? Josie Cotton
Funnel of Love - Wanda Jackson
Breathless - X
Rock Around the Clock - The Sex Pistols
Love Me - The Phantom
Sweetie Pie - Eddie Cochran
I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield - The 5,6,7,8s
That Makes It - Jayne Mansfield
Lucille - Masaaki Hirao
The Girl Can't Help It - Little Richard
Hanky Panky - Rita Chao and The Quests
Gostaria de Saber (River Deep, Mountain High) - Wanderlea
Under My Thumb - Tina Turner
Twistin' the Night Away - Divine
Viens danser le twist - Johnny Hallyday
Peter Gunn Twist - The Jesters
Peter Gunn Locomotion - The Delmonas
Ultra Twist - The Cramps
Bomb the Twist - The 5,6,7,8s
C'mon Everybody - Sid Vicious
My Way - Nina Hagen

Upcoming stuff to scrawl in your social calendar (ideally in blood). I’m the hardest-working woman in show biz in April!

 photo Cockabilly_April_16_zps0o3ukwze.jpg


Wednesday 13 April 2016: Drag a comb through your quiff, swallow a fistful of bop pills and rock around the cock – when COCKABILLY returns to the louche surroundings of Bloc Bar in Camden! And every second Wednesday night of the month thereafter!

Leather boys, gay greasers, cry-babies, prison wives and juvenile delinquents of all ages are welcome at Cockabilly - London’s only regular queer rockabilly night! With DJ Mal Nicholson and I (Graham Russell) spinning all your favourite rancid vintage sleaze classicks! Think rockabilly, rhythm and blues, surf, punk and tittyshakers! Daring and virile! Chains, whips, knives and leather belts all swished around together in bone-jarring rock and roll! Way-out sex and sin for those who like it that way!
The Bloc Bar: 18 Kentish Town Road London NW1
8-midnight
FREE


 photo Jayne_chihuahua_zpsfyvtlvq7.jpg


Throw on a blonde wig! Borrow a chihuahua! Put a wiggle in that walk! Coo and squeal like a sex kitten-gone-berserk! /

Wednesday 27 April 2016: As host of the regular monthly Mondo Trasho punkabilly club night Lobotomy Room, I – Graham Russell - will occasionally crash Fontaine’s free weekly film night and screen a rancid title of my choice, with an emphasis on the cult, the queer and the camp! The Lobotomy Room Goes to the Movies selection this month is – The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield!

Rated “X” upon its release in 1968, the ultra-trashy faux documentary chronicles the kinky globe-trotting misadventures of Hollywood sex kitten-gone-berserk Jayne Mansfield.   Watch agog as kitsch icon Mansfield - the punk Marilyn Monroe, revered by John Waters and Divine (and “the face” of Lobotomy Room) -   visits the hedonistic “sin spots” of the world, encompassing topless go-go clubs, gay bars, drag queen beauty contests and nudist colonies, usually accompanied by her pet Chihuahua!

The low-budget Wild, Wild World was in production 1964 - 1968. Bear in mind Mansfield died in 1967. Part of the fun is spotting how the producers cobbled things together after Mansfield’s death in order to complete the film. Watch for the (many) shots of a body double filmed from behind wearing Mansfield’s disheveled blonde wig.  And the sound-alike who delivered the voice-over narration (nailing Jayne’s breathless babydoll coo) deserved an Oscar!

In an eerie unplanned coincidence, April marks Mansfield’s birthday (she was born 19 April 1933). Let’s make the night a celebration of all things Jayne! Come dragged-up as Jayne Mansfield and / or accompanied by a Chihuahua – get a free cocktail.

As usual: arrive circa 8 pm to order your drinks and grab the best seats. The film starts at 8:30 pm prompt!

Events page


 photo Lobotomy_Room_Updated_zpsoimclhkw.jpg

Friday 29 April 2016: Revel in sleaze, voodoo and rock’n’roll - when incredibly strange dance party Lobotomy Room returns to the Polynesian-style basement Bamboo Lounge of Dalston’s premiere Art Deco vice den Fontaine’s! Friday 29 April! With sensational special offer cocktails on the night!

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! White Trash Rockers! Kitsch! Exotica! Curiosities and other Weird Shit! Think John Waters soundtracks, or Songs the Cramps Taught Us, hosted by Graham Russell (of Dr Sketchy 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! Come for the cocktails - stay for the putrid music and dirty movies!

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!

Events page