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4th November 2001
Rock-solid winner in the dance stakes
I have always complained that the power in the dance industry is in too few hands. This fact makes going to dance music award ceremonies rather tedious because you always know who's going to win. The other evening myself and DJ J-Love popped down to Heaven in London's Charing Cross to check out the DJ Magazine's DJ of the Year event. The champion of the night (which is called Bedrock) and its monthly host, John Digweed, was obviously the winner long before I drew on my eyebrows and ordered my cab.
I can't think of a more deserving winner because Bedders, as he's known to the disco throng, is not only an excellent spinner but an all-round nice bloke. I kept asking those who obviously knew who the winner was and got the usual: "Can't tell." So I did the drunken thing and marched upto John and said you owe me £500 if you don't win." He was bashful in a quietly confident manner, and I had to leave before the announcement - but I'm quite sure I'll have to do without my monkey.
Bedrock travels here and there but holds its most important night once a month at Heaven. It's one of the UK's coolest and most respected nights and its followers are fanatical and foolishly protective. "What are you doing here?" I was asked, like I was a heavy metal fan at a knitting circle.
The next line was even more idiotic. "Oi, do you do weddings, mate?"
"No," I snipped but I do funerals."
A chorus of Karma Chameleon followed me almost everywhere I went and I am almost tempted to ask Digweed to remix it, but these days he charges faster then a rhino. If you want to check out Bedrock be prepared for long queues. If you don't make the grade you can hear John in all his progressive splendours on Kiss FM after my slot on Friday nights.
Search for a star DJ
Talking of Kiss, form the end of November-ish, I will be introducing a slot into the show which will involve giving up the final 20 minutes to young DJ talent. The inspiration came after attending that scary evening in Romford last week. My first guest spinner will be Joe Brunning, who walked of with the crown, but if you know someone who is a whiz on the decks please get them to send a CD into Wise Buddha and mark it "Desperate to be famous".
I have decided that rather then bitching and moaning about the state of dance , I should do something about it. The only ban, sorry, is ear-splitting stuff that area is well and truly covered by the construction industry.
A Sparkling Show
The most glamorous event of the week was Lyall Hakaria's fashion show at Sway under the Connaught Rooms. I was offered a serious diamond necklace (on loan) to wear to the event. But though tempted to slip one around my throat , it was giving it back I couldn't deal with.
Lyall is a glamour addict who spends weeks sequinning the sleeve of a jacket and lives hand to mouth. But in these times of conflict, a return to kamikaze glamour is not impossible. Of course, my dear chum Philip Sallon had to ruin the day by moaning about starvation in the Third World and how diamonds were obscene. "It's worse then fur," he complained. I was reminded of that old song that goes: "You can bring Rose with the turned-up nose, but don't bring Lulu". Or is it: "Diamonds are a ghoul's best fiend"?
11th November 2001
Why I'll Carry On Playing New Music
I've started a war on my Internet site, TrusttheDJ.com, because I dared to say that I hate hard house. Though there have been many letters of support, the bile has sprung forth. One chap, who will be getting a (very) personal reply, called me a "spineless git who hides under a silly hat and dodgy make-up".
Of course, personal style is a matter of taste, but to walk around as I do, and have done since my early teens, takes more than a tough spine. It also involves walking fast to avoid the kind of men who make such comments.
Funnily enough, the chap in question has been to a number of my gigs, so either he fancies me or he can't read. If you don't like a DJ, don't go and see them. Read the poster!
He goes on to say that I have no right to criticise other people for being into different music but fails to realise that not only is he doing the same thing, but that that is exactly my point. The headline "Hard house is crap" on my news page may have been a bit strong, but at least it has stirred a healthy-ish debate.
I don't actually dislike any type of music, hard, soft or otherwise, but as a DJ, I loathe to be dictated to by the audience, not because I don't value their opinions but because the job of a DJ is not simply to entertain.
You can't separate someone from what they play any more than you can separate them from what they think, say, do or wear. When people talk about emotion or sexuality, they often talk as if these are separate from the rest of the body, kept in some battery pack. Maybe the future DJ will be a virtual robot? As a DJ, one's emotional expression is limited if all you are expected to do is stand in the booth and play records the crowd is familiar with.
Any musician will tell you that one of the biggest battles is to get even your most loyal fans to listen to new material. At least with singing you have the opportunity to take your audience through an array of emotions, but as a DJ you are mostly forced to keep the audience on a perpetual high. You could blame drugs, because they play a huge role for many clubbers, and certain drugs crave angry music, or you could argue that the audience has got too big and you simply can't please Œem all.
Real music lovers - and trust me, there are very few - are open to all kinds of music. I can listen to Sandie Shaw singing Girl Don't Come or put on the latest album by Air and be filled with the same joy or sadness, depending on where my heart is at that moment.
I guess if you make music, you have a passion for it that can't be explained to everyone. Just as a butcher feels little compassion for the livestock he rears and slaughters. I don't stand around arguing with butchers but I will go 12 rounds with anyone over music.
Taboo, the musical I've been rattling on about for months, opens at the Notre Dame Hall off Leicester Square on January 29th. The most exciting moment so far has been dressing up the cast in their costumes. Designer Mike Nicholls and his team of David Cabaret and Christine Bateman have pulled it together with pure genius.
Euan Morton, who has been cast as moi, was asking me how I would have behaved at the photo session which took place last week. I told him I would have been very edgy and probably demanded that everyone leave the studio, except for the photographer, hair and make-up person. He did, adding: "It's all about me," which was perhaps taking it a bit too far.
Make-up, ask any drag queen or woman, adds a little spikiness to one's personality. God bless the goddess of slap and God bless music, because without it (and love), the world would be a sorry old place.
18th November 2001
I looked over Jordan, and what did I see?
On Friday, I started my latest venture. I am doing a 10-part interview series ofr the UK play channel called One On One. My first guest was glamour model and hugely misrepresented diva, Jordan. You know, hugest breasts in the universe, ex-lover of Dane Bowers, often seen with a glass in her hand. What don't we know about her?
Well, I got my brown rice guru, Simon Brown, to give me some information about her deeper self, and was able to click with her and had a very deep and interesting chat.
You could say, if you were cruel, that Jordan is dumb, or "thick", as she regularly refers to herself, but not only does she do herself a great disservice in telling people this, she's actually quite loveable and vulnerable - even beyond my level. And trust me, that's vulnerable!
Let's just say that after meeting her, I won't hear a bad word about her, whether or not I agree with the things she's done to her body (I don't, because why take a knife to a Mona Lisa?). What I met was a sweet girl who grew up deludedly believing she wasn't that pretty. In that respect she's as mad as a March hare in slingbacks, because she has eyes that could seduce a corpse. If I had to give her any advice, I'd say sack the silicone because she is, as my mum would say, "a gorgeous looking girl".
She hasn't learnt to stand up to every interviewer, because later that day we shared the sofa on the Frank Skinner Show and he was too much of a quick draw. Not for me, because I pack an extra gun and ammunition, and I come from the Dolly Parton school of self-depreciation: get the joke in before they can. Jordan told Frank that she can't find a man to love her and maybe that's why she demands that the world does via the media. Oh dear - it's a familiar story, but I did offer her my therapist's number.
My house was full of male friends who not only had no need to be there but made themselves busy, bringing her tea, fussing and gawping. Jordan's breasts, like my reputation, proceed her. But trust me, she's a sweetheart who could survive quite easily with a lick of eyeliner, and her smile - which lights up a room, or a house even - but which she oddly hates. The mirror of life is a confusing thing.
Next it was off to Wembley Arena to witness the latest Eighties roadshow, which I mentioned some weeks back. Kim Wilde was excellent, but the star of the show was Ben Volpelliere-Pierrot, formerly of Curiosity Killed The Cat.
I might have been the only one who notices, but then I've always been a fan. Ben has so much soul in his voice, and was looking better than he has done in years. It's hardly news that he has been off the rails for the past few years but he was looking great. He needs to get back into the studio because he has a voice that is touching, imperfect (in the best sense) and very real. Think Gil Scott-Heron and you'll get the picture.
Each act performed with a highly-professional backing band and made it all sound very slick. Also sounding pretty amazing was Peter Cox of Go West, who has lost his hair but none of his vocal power or passion.
Bless Paul Young for saying: "I have a picture in my attic that looks like Boy George." As I said last week, God bless the goddess of slap, and while I can still get away with it, I shall be trowelling it on. I figure I have a few years of drag left in me before it all comes "Tumbling Down", to quote a Paul Young song.
I think this tour is ending in Manchester tonight but next year Adam Ant is on, among others, and I'll be there for my yearly injection of nostalgia. I loved every minute of it.
25th November 2001
Frank Deserved to get A Bumpy Ride
After my apparently rather shocking interview, or verbal parry, with Mr. Frank Skinner, where we discussed Swiss army knives and "the sex that dare not speak its name" (Oscar Wilde may be turning in his grave by my paraphrasing him, but he'll get my drift), I got a mixed response. Gay folk said: "Bless you for everything you said," while more conservative friends claimed I wasn't myself.
Well, being a Gemini, I'm never sure who I am anyway. My best chum always says: "Say one thing about a Gemini and the opposite also applies."
Maybe I'm just sick of being referred to as a pantomime dame. I stand by everything I've said about homosexuality because it is a part of us all and I've been saying it in print for years.
The difference between myself and, say, Quentin Crisp is that I don't turn the other cheek I'm a fighter. Frank Skinner (bless him) took me into the verbal boxing ring and got what he deserved.
Sunday night, after a rather raucous Saturday night at a London's premier gay nightclub, Trade, I woke up at 6:00PM and raced to the Elbow Rooms in Islington to watch a fabulously sexy new group called Boeddeka, who are a mixture of Pink Floyd and Wings on a good day. Their first mini album, Hapi Nightmares, is out this week and they play an acoustic set at the Heavenly Social tomorrow.
The drummer, Carl, has this birthmark which looks like a permanent black eye (very sexy) and you know me and drummers! I went round to several of the big record stores to attempt to buy the record and, after an exhaustive search, discovered they didn't stock it typical. Anyway, if you like chilling out to sublime tunes that massage your erogenous zones, you can't go wrong. I wonder if Sainsbury's might stock it?
Afterwards, I played a MAD DJ set that ranged from John Cougar's Jack & Diane to Shirley Bassey's Big Spender and the kids loved it. I'm desperate to start a night called Hectic Electric, with no music rules and absolutely no logic. If you have a spare club, venue or bar, that needs a musical facelift, I'm available at a bargain price.
After a glitzy evening of music and fun at the Café de Paris, where I was spinning a few tunes, I raced home in the early hours of the morning only to find that I had left my invaluable record collection in the cab. I have to say that this was a direct result of too much free champers. Luckily, a nice girl named Sophie found them and returned them after a desperate APB went out on all the radio channels. Then I went and lost them again... but some nice snowboarder chap brought them home. Life without my vintage 45s would be like life without my eyeliner.
Next Thursday, I'm going to be giving a talk at the Oxford Union to discuss, oh dear, homosexuality. Apparently, I'm a bit of an expert on the subject. Let's hope that it's a livelier debate than the last one I took part in. And to think I got kicked out of school at 15. At least it proves my education and intelligence are mutually exclusive. If you think my chat with Frank was frank, think about what Bette Davis once said: "Hold on to your hats it's going to be a bumpy ride."
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