Saturday night. Just in from The Boogaloo, which tonight is hosting an jolly party for The Sounds. I am told The Sounds are a Swedish band who have just played 4 nights at Brixton Academy, supporting a group called Panic At The Disco. I wouldn’t know a Sound or a Panic At The Disco if he or she bit me on the bottom. If this were to actually happen, I’d be less concerned with identifying their position as a modern pop group in the general scheme of things, and far more concerned with the act of being bitten on the bottom by a person with whom I had not formally been introduced.
Anyway, people seem to be enjoying themselves, dancing and smiling and so forth. I do the necessary etiquette for feeling not quite in the mood for a party: make eye contact and smile with everyone I know, then politely sneak out. So I leave the pub at about 1.45am, and sit here across the road, my ears ringing, to write up my diary.
Last Thursday. Beautiful & Damned is laid-back but fun. Present are Robin, Ellen, Tammy, Eddie, Lawrence, along with my neighbours Ms Layla, Ms Liz and Mr Cicero. It’s nice to show one’s next door neighbours what your life is like, not confining it to the usual small talk when passing in the street. Some fantastically dressed people there, including a handsome gentleman called David who is not only impeccably attired, but is something of an impressive dancer, probably with a few proper lessons under his belt. Moreover, he shares the wealth, happily partnering up with boys and girls alike, teaching them a few vintage moves on the spot.
My fellow DJ Ms Red follows a fantastic set by over-indulging at the bar to the point where she hurts herself while dancing. “I’ve forgotten I can’t do The Splits” she says, limping. Later, when she develops a bout of hiccups, I am witness to a cure that genuinely works. You pull back your ears and drink a glass of water very quickly. Although in this case, her ears are pulled back for her by a third party. Actually, the glass of water is also administered by a third party. Her hiccups vanish at once.
Silent movies screened tonight are Flesh And The Devil and Piccadilly. Music played includes The Puppini Sisters’ Wuthering Heights, which seems to go down terribly well, along with Right Now by Mel Torme, a suggestion from my mother. I am also complimented for airing The Monochrome Set’s The Ruling Class. Peggy Lee’s My Man is less obvious than Fever and solicits less dancing, but sounds no less stunning in a club environment. Lawrence – dressed as a deposed Russian prince – gets me to play Ivor Novello’s Keep The Home Fires Burning.
Other current favourites:
I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair – from the movie South Pacific
Oh Lori – Alessi Brothers
Five Foot Two, Eyes Of Blue – Art Landry (1920s recording)
Don’t Forget To Mess Around – Louis Armstrong And His Hot Five
Ole Buttermilk Sky – Hoagy Carmichael
Hey There – Peggy Lee (from her album of Broadway tunes in a Latin style)
I Could Have Danced All Night – ditto
Savoy Stomp – Judy Garland
Sweet Georgia Brown – Ella Fitzgerald & Count Basie
You’re The Top – Anita O’Day & Billy May
Mister Sandman – The Chordettes
Two Little Girls From Little Rock – Marilyn Monroe & Jane Russell
Next (Jacques Brel) – Scott Walker, though I alternate it with the even more histrionic version from the 60s cast album of “Jacques Brel Is Alive And Well…”.
‘Next’ is one of my favourite lyrics of all time. I wonder what it must have been like for Scott Walker’s teeny bopper fans to hear him sing, only a couple of years after his big pop hits with the Walker Brothers, about his ‘first case of gonorrhea’.
The sleeve notes to ‘Scott 2’, the 1968 album ‘Next’ is on, are by ‘his friend Jonathan King’. Mr Walker’s 2006 album, “The Drift’, is shockingly experimental and avant garde, but I can’t help thinking he should have asked Jonathan King to do the sleeve notes once again. That’d be truly ‘dark’, and ‘challenging’.
As a DJ, I find it’s better to generally play to women than to men or to some idea of what pleases both. Women are more likely to get up and dance of their own accord. Men are less likely to dance, and are also far less likely to dress up. The question of putting someone on the door to impose a dress code is dismissed when I realise there’s a fair amount of male club regulars who love the music, but prefer not to make an effort with their clothes. I will never understand why boys like jeans quite so very much. Other trousers are available.
Message from Mr J:
“I just saw Salman Rushdie dancing in Clerkenwell – to I Will Survive.”
The next Beautiful & Damned is on Thursday November 23rd.
