We were there last year. Very fun place and a nice crowd. Friendly.

Glad you had a wonderful time and a safe trip.

T

Whispers of Duckie making it across the Atlantic sometime in the next year. They got a governemnt grant. Wish OUR government would take note!

FYI Jan/Feb - its SO cheap to fly to Blighty from the US right now FYI only $99 one way on Virgin!
Amazing.... Cheap enough to bring a friend... Messy bonnie are you avail?

Hey

Hoping someone in the UK can help me out... I've just found out about a CD put out by London's Ghetto
apparently a hot spot right now... appearances by all kinds of 80s legends.

Here's the track listing:

The Cock @ Ghetto - Volume 1 Tasty Tim

01.Black leather - Nude (Dead or Alive cover)
02.Electroclash anthem - Morplay
03.Useless - Tobell von cartier
04.It kills - W.I.T.
05.Perspex sex - Free form five
06.Supermodeling - Larry Tee
07.Church of the poison mind (2002 elektro mix)- Boy George
08.Don't you want me - Human League/Jade
09.Just what I needed - W.I.T.
10.Replicunt - Dirty Sanchez
11.Contraversy - Prance
12.Soccer practice - Johnny McGovern
13.Dead sexy - Nude
14.Do I look like a slut - Ave D
15.Unpretty/Electricity - OMD/TLC

I can't seem to find anywhere to buy this online. Any suggestions?

XXXOOO
Satori

That list is basically every song on Larry Tee's recent compilation that he was selling at the last Electroclash festival here in New York. I guess he's really been pushing his artists, good for him and them.

You may not find the exact CD you are looking for, but many or all of those songs can probably be found for sale online here ....

www.electroclash.com

Thanks for recco Lex... We actually already have his Badd Inc. CD (love it)

We're trying to get ahold of the "Black Leather" cover by "Nude"

Larry Tee HAS been the PR King lately. We just saw the "Soccer Practice" video at the mainstream gay bar here (cincinnati), we were shocked 'cause they NEVER know what's hot. Our conclusion: must be a great PR person pushing these up-and-coming bands.

XXXOOO
Satori

I don't think Larry Tee actually produced the "Soccer Practice" song but it landed on his compilation anyway. That's great for Johnny (McGovern aka The Gay Pimp) that his video is getting played around the country.

Just got back from London.... and all i wanted to post is.............. it is SO EXPENSIVE.... everything...

Penny Arcade LIVE at ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL
New York Values
Wednesday at 8pm
April 16th 2003

On April 16th, the legendary creator of the long-running Off-Broadway hit BITCH! DYKE! FAGHAG! WHORE! brings her latest solo show ,
New York Values to the mainstream stage at London's prestigious Royal Festival Hall.

Don't expect "The Vagina Monologues", as Penny herself says, "My vagina does not speak nor does it have a favorite color nor does it own a funny hat."

New York Values is a 75 minute solo show that promises hilarious and unexpected insights from the highly opinionated Queen of Underground
Performance. All presented in the most unique and exciting format set to the most unique and rocking live mixed soundtrack you have ever experienced.

Penny Arcade is 'hot and hysterically funny " (NY Post) as she literally dances her way through 75 minutes of brutal laughs, edgy insights and zinging one liners that you can dine out on for month.

Penny Arcade (born Susana Ventura) has been creating her own unique theatrical presentations since 1985. Her works have been produced internationally in cities including Vienna, Melbourne, Sydney, Calgary, Vancouver,Edinburgh, London,Manchester, Glasgow, Munich, Dublin,
Zurich, and Berlin, and nationally in cities including Boston, Miami, Detroit, Tampa, Austin, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles.
Penny Arcade debuted at age 17 with The Playhouse of the Ridiculous, the seminal glitter rock queer theater of the 1960's. She was a teenage
superstar featured in the Warhol/Morrissey film Women in Revolt. In 1991 Quentin Crisp named her as the woman he most identified with in the world.

Penny Arcade is kick ass, independent, DIY, rock and roll performance at it's most powerful.

Here is the link to The Royal Festival Hall's website for Penny's April 16th
2003 London debut of New York Values - Penny Arcade Live at Royal Festival
Hall.

http://www.rfh.org.uk/main/events/89427.html?section=contemporary&file=index&month=2&week=9n

We were suppose to go to England this month to visit family but I didn't want to fly with my twins, I'm a bit paranoid with what is going on, besides that, I didn't think we could afford it, my father-in-law was paying for the tickets but that was it, which isn't much these days with airfare being so cheap- the cheap bastard!(yes I'm an ingrate-but he has so much money- the old man thinks he's gonna take it with him when he dies) I do miss the food , I don't know why people down English food, I love it!and the yummy Beer !But I cancelled the trip....

GiGi
http://gigideluxe.homestead.com/

[This message was edited by gigi on 03-26-03 at 12:46 PM.]

Food is the best really..... heavy on the lard...which is all good for me... Chips (proper french fries)..chips and gravy... chips and curry sauce.... and the crisps (potato chips) are so much better...just got some baked beans flavor then theres Smokey Bacon, Prawn cocktain, Beef and Onion, Bovril, Port and Stilton, all these fab flavas.... mmmmmm Don't get me started on the chocolate just the best for dead cheap... and the ale is cheap too... better selections of potatos and breads in the stores....and yummy 'proper' bacon to make bacon sarnies/butties..and great cheap currys (cheap curries here are so greasy)... ahhhh good ole Blighty.
Gigi... you should have gone... but to take the 2 kids is tough for such a long flight...(Mommie dearest that i am leave mine at home... he will travel LOTS when he is a bit older).

I LOVE clotted cream on REAL crumpets(sp?) but I still Can't get use to marmite-yipes! And grilled tomatoes, sausauge with beans- well I will probrably go in fall- the fish in chips in Devon kickass too, but youare risking yourself if youeat outside, those seagulls are wicked!

GiGi
http://gigideluxe.homestead.com/

Looks like it's going to be fun. They've already booked several NYC acts:

Egg

Now Gigi and Anna, I understand the penchant for pub food, but what about REAL falafel with garlic sauce -so potent that when I walked in to a club in Hackney called, yes, MOTHER, practically everyone said, "You've 'ad a falafel!"

Steve Strange's Birthday Party 5th June 2003 at PcokZ! www.pcokz.com

PcokZ (@SWAY 61-65 Great Queen Street) is a stepping stone not only for great
DJs & Musical acts but also new breeds of creative talent from innovative young
film students to artistic photographers and the imaginative creations of the new
breed of fashion designers - the new stars of the future - there work will be
shown on video screens

THE PUNK DUB SOUND CHECK ROOM will rotate DJ names such as
Dan Donovan (Big Audio Dynamtie), Don Letts, The Lavender Pill Mob, Ben Westwood
etc

He dressed the Jaggers, Twiggy and Liz Taylor among many others. Now a stunning new exhibition at the V&A celebrates Ossie Clark and his legacy

Seven years after his tragically premature death at the hands of his boyfriend, London's V&A museum this week opens a display celebrating the extraordinary brilliance of the fashion designer Ossie Clark.

Behind the scenes, Sonnet Stanfill, the curator, gives me a sneak preview. It's a Proustian moment for me - my mother wore Ossie Clark and as a child I was smitten with the glamour of his clothes, the magic of his tailoring and a desire to grow up as quickly as possible so I, too, could wear that black wool 'Dick Turpin' maxicoat with the silver buttons or the chiffon blouse with the impractical billowing sleeves. The good news is that my mother still has her Ossie Clark, while the bad news is that I am easily two dress sizes larger than she is.

In isolation, a piece of Ossie Clark's sensual and feminine clothing can sing, but in a roomful you get the Hallelujah Chorus: a print dress cut on the bias and constructed from just one spiralling corkscrew of chiffon stands next to a butter-soft suede jacket reminiscent of a doublet which, in turn, is next to a pair of snakeskin hotpants and a deceptively simple black coat with a full skirt inset with Fortuny-style pleats.

Like one of Clark's size six Celia Birtwell-print frocks, the exhibition is small but perfectly formed and features some of his finest work from 1965-1974. Reclining on a velvet cloud trimmed with snakeskin, Ossie and his ego may revel in the recognition, though he might also mutter 'about bloody time' because both Clark's talent as a designer - he was arguably the most gifted of his generation - and his enduring influence cannot be overstated.

Raymond Clark was born into a large, working-class family in Liverpool in 1942, grew up in the Lancashire village of Oswaldtwistle (which inspired his nickname) and then moved to Warrington before studying art in Manchester and fashion at the RCA in London.

Within weeks of graduating in June 1965 (with an op-art MA collection inspired by Bridget Riley, not to mention the only first-class degree in his year), Ossie's designs were being sold in the Knightsbridge store Woollands and featured in Vogue. A couple of generations later, John Galliano received the same kind of attention when his 1980s degree collection was bought by Browns, but in the mid-1960s this was unprecedented recognition for a recent graduate.

It was entirely deserved. Judith Watt, the writer and fashion historian, is the author of an excellent book accompanying the V&A exhibition and happy to stick her neck out on the subject of Clark's talent. 'He was not just a man of his time, his work stands with the greats,' she tells me, mentioning Ossie's name alongside the nineteenth-century father of couture, Charles Frederick Worth, and Chanel.

'In terms of his talent, Ossie could easily have been as great as they were, but the thing that let him down was his personality. He was a Gemini and a fragile soul and if you look at the people who really survived the 1960s - people such as Mick Jagger - they were tough as old boots. Ossie was not tough and the drugs and the drink got to him. And, later, he never had the kind of support or commercial infrastructure he needed for his career to succeed.'

Meanwhile, Ossie dressed the beautiful people beautifully, from Bardot to Julie Christie, via Patti Boyd, Twiggy, Penelope Tree, Amanda Lear, Marianne Faithfull, Talitha Getty, Marsha Hunt, Bianca Jagger, Jean Shrimpton, Elizabeth Taylor and Liza Minnelli.

If there were no longer a single piece of Clark clothing in existence, he would probably be remembered for David Hockney's iconic portrait, Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy. Alongside his wife, muse and collaborator Celia Birtwell, without whom much of his work might have looked like a half-finished canvas, a barefoot Ossie is seated on a chrome-and-wicker chair with his white cat, Percy, on his lap, cigarette in hand, peering out from under a floppy fringe.

The room is so self-consciously styled - white lilies on the coffee table, a cream shag-pile rug and a white telephone - that it looks like a groovy, swinging 1971 time-capsule. But this tongue-in-cheek 'grand' portrait was entirely commensurate with Ossie's status. After all, this was the man who conceived a mannish suit for women two years ahead of Yves St Laurent's famous 'Le Smoking' of 1966. This very same Ossie Clark suit had, indeed, been bought from Quorum in London in 1965 and taken back to Paris by some of Yves's underlings. 'I'm not saying St Laurent ripped it off,' says Judith Watt hastily, 'but I am certainly saying he was inspired by it.' During her research, Watt uncovered a holiday snap of Clark and St Laurent together in Marrakech. 'Until I found that, I hadn't even been sure they'd met.'

When I eventually, and somewhat reluctantly, leave the V&A, the PR mentions that they have received more RSVPs to tomorrow night's private view than they did for the recent, much bigger, Versace retrospective. I'm not remotely surprised. Ossie Clark was a designer's designer. You can see his influence today in collections by Marc Jacobs, Prada and Gucci, to name just a few - and the fashion world will want to pay belated homage.

· Ossie Clark at the V&A, London SW7 (www.vam.ac.uk) runs until 2 May 2004.

Back in 1993 I worked at the design studios of Ghost in London. The owner of ghost, a lady called Tania was good friends with Ossie from back in the day.....anyway, at this point he was pretty broke and living on welfare but she employed him to come up with pess grabbing runway looks. He would arrive in the studio as we where leaving at the end of the day and work right through the night, we would arrive for work the next morning and there would be the most fabulous dresses draped on the dress makers dummies, waterfalls of flowing fabric wonderfuly cut. It was like walking into a Brothers Grim fairy tale. He would draft all his patterns by hand without rulers or measurements and they would turn out gorgeous. He was truly amazing and a lovely guy.

Ok. So,Baroness, Darla and maybe Cheryl V are coming. Who else wants to see Ted release his inner door bitch and reduce the Dolce and Gabbana models to their La perlas again?(If you weren't there for it, you gotta ask Ted the story!)


http://www.skintwo.com/rubberball/index.html
SKIN TWO Rubber Ball Weekend 2003
Friday 3 to Monday 6 October

NEW 4-DAY PROGRAMME!

Friday October 3
Torture Garden Rubber Ball Special
Tickets: £20 (US $30 approx)
Saturday October 4

Saturday October 4
SKIN TWO'S House of Flesh
a night of decadent delights at Sahara Nights, Kings Cross, London N1
Tickets: £20 (US $30 approx)

Saturday and Sunday October 4 and 5
SKIN TWO Expo
The world's biggest international
fetish retail fair
Barbican Exhibition Centre, London EC2
Tickets: £6 per day (US $9 approx)

Sunday October 5
SKIN TWO Cabaret Night
Stand-up comedy and other entertainment after the expo closes
Last Stand Room, Barbican Exhibition Centre, London EC2
Tickets: £10 tbc (limited availability)

Monday October 6
SKIN TWO Rubber Ball
The world's premier international fetish event
PoNaNa, Hammersmith, London W6
Tickets: £32 in advance (US $48 approx) or £35 on the door
(£1 donated from every ticket to Crusaid)
This year's Rubber Ball theme:
Carnival through the Ages

(A £1 booking fee is applicable to all tickets sold)

My friend Mel, who lives in the east end, says the Rubber Ball is one of the best events that ever takes place in London. She drips with carnality everytime she describes it. And this from someone who used to bite fruit off the go-go dancers at Gomorrah (without using hands), has been known to go for sex on the bar, and can make you prefer that the cab ride home never quite reaches its destination.

I knew you could!!!

I'm so glad you're my neighbor!

Now, on your knees and give me all your frequent flyer miles!!!!!!!

http://www.skintwo.com/rubberball/index.html