The Finsbury Comedy Night

I'm off to the Finsbury for the regular midweek comedy night tomorrow, which is possibly the only [legal] Wednesday evening entertainment to be found anywhere in the Manor House-Newington Green hinterland. It's brilliantly shit of course. A variety of amateur misfits, self-publicists and one-trick ponies line up on stage, desperate to leave their mark in this shabby back room and, above all, to make a bored crisp-munching crowd laugh, a crowd there either because they've stumbled in from the unforgiving rain, or because they have comedic pretensions of their own.

I base these opinions on one previous experience of the Finsbury Comedy Night on 26th October. I had helped a friend move to Finsbury Park earlier that evening whereupon it was then decided we would have a celebratory pint and an introductory kebab. As we strode in, things weren't looking too promising. The woman on stage [a Bavarian with a shrill voice] was launching into a fierce feminist diatribe against Americans and Men "they are so stupid ya" Enthusiastic applause at the end from one person at the front [certainly not a man and presumably not an American] Deafening silence elsewhere. She was followed by a short bearded man. I didn't catch the name, Martin? Marvin? perhaps it was Melvin - either way, a proudly seedy little office worker who proceeded to unleash 17 minutes of pure unadulterated smut on the unsuspecting crowd. Once again, any pockets of laughter were easily drowned out by the popular hot air dryer in the gents next door. Embarrassed faces at every table - his ecstastic airpunch at the end not to my knowledge reciprocated.

The act who saved the night was a giant Geordie called Luke Benson, who I tip for big things. I am writing this over 3 weeks later so I cannot actually recall any of his actual gags so will terminate this piece with some almost identical video footage from another of his other gigs.

*The Finsbury Comedy night takes place at the Finsbury, Green Lanes every Wednesday

The Great Posts #5 Amnesia

appyammer interview for Faith Fanzine - a brilliant recollection of Amnesia Ibiza in those halcyon days of the late 80s

What year did you first visit Amnesia
Mid-late August 1987. I’d previously been to Ibiza in 1984 and 85 whilst my sister was living there. She’d worked at Ku and Es Paradise and had taken me to both these but never Amnesia, although she had spoken about it. I’d been working back in the UK with long time friends Trevor Fung and Paul Oakenfold at their “Project” night @ Ziggys in Streatham, designing and printing all the flyers and doin the odd warm up alongside former school mate Carl Cox. Trev had invited me out along with his brother Rudy and a bunch of other mates: George (a hairdresser from Croydon), Chrissie Jackson (a welder from Streatham), Marcus (Trev’s sisters boyfriend), and a guy from North London I’d never met before known simply as V who told me he was a lyricist but in reality was actually a small time drug dealer and had smuggled over a large amount of quality nose-up! He was a top bloke, very funny and he had a beautiful appartment that overlooked the sea above The Cafe Del Mar. When we arrived I had nowhere to stay so Trev put me up in this small appartment which already had half a dozen other Streatham, Mitcham and Rose Hill faces I knew crashing there. There was also a couple of fellas I knew from my School days in Carshalton who were sat at a table cutting up loads of speed and wrapping it up ready for a nights business. On our first night we went to “The Project Bar”, in San Antonio. The Project was run by Trev and his cousin (another mate from Cashalton), Ian Paul. Books and mag articles have him down as Ian St Paul... I dunno where the “Saint” bit came from... he was far from being a Saint!... to me he was just Trev’s cousin, a part time cocktail barman from Rumours Covent Garden. In Ibiza however Ian was like a messiah. He had in-roads to everywhere and anywhere and everyone on the Island knew him. He was a main “face” and knew the best sources on the Island for drugs. The Project Bar was a small place, no decks (just tapes) but was very popular, particularly with UK workers out there. They had a few girls “propping” (handing out flyers) from South London as well as Sheffield and Newcastle etc and regulars at the bar included Lisa (Loud). Nancy (Noise) and a few other faces I’d seen about from back home at Streatham’s Project @ Ziggys. Trevor played all sorts of tapes in there including some of mine. It was a real mix of Hip Hop, Go Go, early House, Funk, Soul and even the odd rock or indie tune which I was kind of use to and considered it the norm from previous Ibizan visits. That first night I remember Trev saying “wait till we finish here Al, I’ll take you somewhere that’ll blow you mind..”. When The Project closed about midnight he took us to The Star Club. It did not blow my mind. It was a sprawling **** hole of a place in San Antonio playing mecca club style commercial soul and funk. Fatback Band - I Found Loving and stuff like that. I wasn’t impressed. The Star Club however was just a stop off. There we met this really tall guy with long fuzzy hair from Wolverhampton called Keith. He was one of the Stars security team. He was also a bit of a petty theif who wore dungarees in the day time (which I thought looked a bit Whamish!). His unusual slang term for thieving was “shooming”. I “shoomed” some clobber from Ibiza town today, I “shoomed” some credit cards from some dopey twat on the beach today... that kind of thing. Trev kept using the same term as well and would snatch things out of your hand saying “shoooom”. I remember thinking “what the ****s this shoom bollocks all about?” It became a catchprase and took on different connotations as the weeks went by. Personally I would have spelt it shum, but a certain other fella I knew (a Rare Groove and Soul DJ from Punters Wine Bar Kingston) who turned up a week later had another way of spelling it. By the time he’d arrived Shoom also had an entirely different meaning. I don’t know how true the “it’s the feeling you get as your E kicks in” translation from Trev to Danny is, but to this day it has always meant something entirely different to me. Much to my relief The Star Club was just a brief stop off before the real “blow your mind” location. As we walked back to Ian’s jeep Trev handed us these small transparent capsules with a sandy like substance inside. I was with my mate Chrissie. A wiser, older member of our Streatham crew. He’d done every drug under the sun and I looked up to him and had a lot of respect for him, so between us we split the capsule and shared the contents. We left San Antonio and headed to Amnesia.

What was your feelin as you first walked into the club / How were the other punters dressed compared with your lot?/Any druggy tales
As we approched Amnesia I was already feeling highly elated and Chrissie and I were jabbering on about how good we felt. From memory I dont think Trev even told us what we’d taken, just that “Its like nothing you’ve ever had before.” I think later that night I was told it was Ecstacy but I hadn’t really heard of it and I wasn’t bothered anyway. It just felt unbelievable. (I’m pretty sure the short/slang term “E” came a good year later. I have a vague memory of Danny’s first Shoom night having Carl Cox and a huge cardboard “X” covered in silver in front of his decks... I might be wrong?) We walked through the entrance of Amnesia with Ian and Trev without paying and at this point I was lusting after every pretty girl I looked at... there were many in Amnesia! I remember this really cute bird in a Batman T-Shirt I got chatting to who was a friend of these two Geordie girls who were both bang into LSD. I’d met them earlier that night back at The Project. “Batman” was stunning, model like eve and she was from Ladbroke Grove. I was larging it and was full of confidence.. I tried all week with her... got close, but eventually drew a blank! I was concious of being under dressed compared to many others in Amnesia but this merely heightened the feeling of elation. It just felt so priveleged and special just to be in such a glamorous place. I wore ripped jeans and a red and white stripped long sleeved Stone Island t-shirt I’d brought from Woodhouse in Oxford Street (see Old School pics... but without bandana in 87!). I can’t remember the footwear (probably espadrills or something **** like that!) but I wore the same outfit nearly every night I went to Amnesia... it felt comfortable and right! The majority of others in Amnesia were high class Spanish or other European disco goers. Most were a few years older than us and there were a few men in designer suits, sort of Miami Vice meets George Michael style. One night Ian turned up in a bright white Armani jacket trying to look rich and famous. This was out of style for Ian as most of the week I’d seen him in a shari, sheet or baggy indian type trousers looking the typical Ibiza hippy so we all took the piss. “Selling Ice Creams tonight then Ian?” I said. His reply still makes us laugh and remains a classic Ian Paul one liner to this day. “Al, this jackets worth more than your ****ing house!” he said. (had to be there I spose!) I dont remember much of the clubs interior details. The walls were high with Palm Trees around the perimeter, there was a raised stepped area (like a sort of terracing) to the rear, and there was no roof back then. There was also an area in one corner near the dance floor with some kind of netting hanging down where a lot of the South London and English faces seem to congregate and dance that mad-like kinetic dance in small groups.We readily joined in took another capsule and danced til the sun came up.. I’d never been to a club quite like Amnesia. It was (and still is to this day) the best Club I had ever had the privelege of being in.

Can you remember the Music/Alfredo?
The music selection at Amnesia in 1987 was at the time real difficult to define and weird yet at the same time wonderful. There were tunes you recognised and tunes you’d simply never heard of. Trevor had touched on the Chicago House sound back home that same Spring time at his Project Club in Streatham so I was aware of House and it felt like it was going to be the next big thing but it was yet to take hold and was taking a back seat to Hip Hop and Rare Groove at home. Looking back now House seemed to take a long time to really establish itself in London. That summer in Ibiza, House was included in the selections of the DJ at Amnesia. Trevor knew Alfredo and introduced me to him later that same week. He seemed old (even then!) but worldly and wise and a lovely kindhearted guy. His House choices were very specific and quite limited but it was what he played with them that really made him stand out from what I’d been use to. Most of the tunes Alfredo played formed a long list that Trevor later drew up for Pete Tong which was eventually cut to a short list of 10 for the ffrr compilation “Balearic Beats Vol 1” released the following year in 1988. There were more obvious selections mixed in with Alfredos left field choices and it was this whole mixed up mashed up sound track that became a musical genre all of its own. I don’t know who coined the phrase Balearic Beats (Oakie? Johnny?, Danny?, Tong? maybe even you Tel?) but Trev says it wasn’t him and at the time it seemed a little un-just to me. These selections were more specific than just Balearic Beats they really were the choice of just one man... Alfredo. Other clubs we went to (Pacha, Manhattans, Es Paradise) all played some of the same tunes that year but to me Alfredo seemed different in his programming and stood out. He didnt beat-mix he was simply a great selector. Clubland historians wax lyrical about the great Larry Levan at Paradise Garage, Nicky Siano at The Gallery, Dave Mancuso at The Loft and Ron Hardy at the Music Box but I never saw or heard these guys in their glory days. I DID however, hear Alfredo at his peak and I doubt if any of the former could have had the same effect on me and my ears as Alfredo did at Amnesia in 1987.
If I was pinned down to name the 10 most important popular and relevant Alfredo tunes of 1987 from memory my choice would probably look like this:

1. Why - The Woodentops
2. Sign Of The Times - Prince
3. House Nation - The Housemaster Boyz
4. Risque Rythum - Risque Rythum Team
5. Kaw Liga - The Residents
6. Jibaro - Elkin and Nelson
7. Whats Going On - Cyndi Lauper
8. Can U Dance - Fast Eddie
9. La Habanera - Yello
10. Join In The Chant - Nitzer Ebb

It’s difficult to remember exactly how many South London and English faces were Amnesia regulars in the summer of 1987. In the three weeks that I was there I went almost every night. A few days into the first week the in-famous four arrived. I was DJing in a small bar in San Antonio (owned by Manola a spanish friend of Trevor’s) when Paul, Danny, Johnny and Nicky arrived and I was one of the first from home that they bumped into. Obviously I knew Paul well. I’d met Danny earlier that year when he DJ’d at Punters Wine Bar in Kingston and I knew Nicky from The Special Branch and Zoo gigs, but I’d never met Johnny before. Paul was real excited and I remember him banging on and asking loads of questions about Amnesia and he kept asking me if House was big there. The problem was describing the music of Amnesia and when I told them it WAS great but it wasn’t all one sound and “not much house really” he didnt seem to understand. I remember that conversation like it was yesterday. Paul Kept asking me “well what is it then Al?” but I didn’t have a constructive answer. “Just go, you’ll like it”, I said. I knew Paul had a broad taste, we often argued at home about music ..he had me labelled as a Soul and Jazz head and he was into a more rock/hip hop sound. I knew he’d like Alfredo. Paul took to Alfredo’s sound immeadiatley. Danny, Nicky and Johnny followed shorthy after

Have you been back to Amnesia since it became a shopping mall.
In a word... No. I think I remember Ibiza and Amnesia 87 much like my parents remember the 1960’s. I tell my kids (who are fast approaching their clubbing years!) how truly magical it was and Its hard sometimes to accept and believe it was nearly 20 years ago now. 1987 remains a “vintage” year of my life. I know its a club land cliché and many ridicule those of us that were there (both in 87 and 88 and how we like to reminisce, but although Ibiza is still a fantastic place and probably always will be, I can honestly, truly say with my hand on my heart... it really Isn’t as good as it use to be... particularly back in 1987 with Alfredo at Amnesia, dancing and singing to the Woodentops in the open air til the sun came up.

The Great Posts #4 - Torture Garden

Here Eoghan describes his experiences at the Torture Garden (May 25th, 2006)

Bizarre Clubbing Experiences

I’m sick of you fellas and fellettes posting reviews of awesome club nights because it makes me jealous. I hardly ever go out any more. So I think it’s time for me to post a review of a club. What follows, I have to admit, is more than two years out of date. But I HAVE to get this one off my chest, once and for all. Because it was the most bizarre clubbing experience of my life.

TORTURE GARDEN VALENTINE’S BALL 2004

My flatmate at the time was one of those people you would call “experimental” (with or without the experi bit). He was also not one to take no for an answer. So when he announced one evening that we were going in a couple of weeks’ time to Torture Garden, Britain’s premier fetish club, I hastily scrabbled for an excuse in vain. After whining for a while about the cost he blagged some free tickets, and everything I came up with had a counter-argument. So I decided I might as well enjoy it (our other flatmate was disgusted at the proposal…he’s now a management consultant. NUFF SAID.)

First thing: outfit. We had heard the dress code was pretty extreme; wear not much, we were told, and best stick to rubber. A quick look in Cyberdog (and some rather more extreme retail outlets) and we blanched at the prices. Sixty quid for a luminous green rubber g-string? Not likely. So we resorted to fancy dress.

We knew that the night was pretty screwed up, and we didn’t want to be tame. So we did a brainstorm of fancy dress ideas (we decided to go with the same outfits) with the nastiest themes we could think of. After much debate, we settled on FAIRIES WHO HAVE JUST HAD AN ABORTION.

A trip to the local Primark ensued, and we emerged with little lace petticoats (£4), white stockings (£2), and the most comfortable (and largest) high heeled shoes on sale (£8). We then went to High Street Ken to the two party shops there (the superior one is west of Olympia), and bought matching angel wings, fairy wands, white face paint and fake blood.

Some preparation was needed; we couldn’t go into the club with knifes, so we slashed up the front of the leotards. The big night came, and we were nervous. So between the two of us we played speed drinking chess, and arsed three bottles of vodka in the process. Thus inebriated (I prefer the term “annihilated”), we set forth for the tube. I was (somehow) still in a state of sobriety enough to not want to be bullied on the train, so I put my costume in a bag. Colin, on the other hand, got changed before we left, covering mis modesty with a short jacket. I have to say, we attracted a LOT of attention on the tube (though we also scared away several families on their way home from the theatre).Eventually we got to Brixton tube.

Walking to the club, I felt petrified. There were fourteen-year-old kids hanging around, clearly with machetes as lang’s your airm (that’s from Rabbie Burns’ “Address to a Haggis”, by the way). But when they saw Colin dressed the way he was, they melted away in pure fear. “Don’t touch me”, they said. We continued to the venue, Mass.

Torture Garden only runs every three months and rotates venue to keep things interesting. It’s fabulously well planned. I resent paying £15 to see some “superstar DJ”; this was worth every penny (OK, wisecrack, I know we didn’t pay). The décor is superb, everything reeks of EFFORT. After a long drunken argument with the girl who couldn’t see our names on the guestlist, we entered .First port of call was the gents, where I carefully changed into my petticoat, stockings, heels, tiara, angel wings and wand. Then the white face paint was applied and a healthy dose of fake blood on my face. Then more blood was liberally splashed onto the slashed petticoat front, giving an excellent impression f a fairy who has just endured a backstreet abortion.

We went into Room One and became distinctly aware that although, in our opinion, we didn’t stand out, there were a LOT of gazes in our direction at the outfits. The official photographer latched onto us and snapped away at us ALL NIGHT (neither of us have been able to face looking on the website until recently in case there were photos…there are only a handful, and happily, none of us). Room One was essentially the “lite” room; a bar, some fairly nondescript music (OK, I was too pissed to notice) and a spectacular erotic fashion show on the stage featuring be-tasselled ladies trapezing across the club. It was ace.

We wandered into Room Two where the formula was much simpler: a square box, with hard-as-nails techno and gabber at ear-splitting levels. We danced like loons for a while as the beats poured out faster than the flapping of a hummingbird’s wings. Then we entered the Dungeon.

My first impression was of disappointment as I had been told it was THE place to be .But it was dim, and my eyes hadn’t become accustomed to the light. The music was fairly quiet, phat beats mostly, and the room was spacious.

We spent most of the night chatting to as many people as possible. It really is the most incredibly friendly club; there wasn’t a single person didn’t want to chat, and I spoke to maybe 50 people over the course of the night. I was in the middle of a conversation when…

…I did a double take. Quite clearly, about 3 feet away from me sitting on a bench, was a head, bobbing up and down. A female head, that is, bobbing up and down in close proximity to a male midriff. I looked around in the gloom and realised that there were literally DOZENS of heads doing the same thing (not all of them female). I have never been so close to so many blowjobs at one time.

It’s the only place in the world, perhaps, where you can just wander up to someone random and ask her/him/it if (s)he/it’ll suck you off. The answer will either be “yes”, or “no”. Simple.

Then there were the conversations – I met some weird and wonderful people. There was a girl from my college who I got chatting to; she said “essentially everyone’s here to get laid. Sure, everyone takes hard drugs too, but the ENTIRE night is about sex.” I was uplifted.

Shortly afterwards I’m chatting to another girl and she’s HOT. She’s also cracking on to me like her LIFE DEPENDS ON IT. Wahey, I think. She’s really into me, asking suggestive questions left right and centre. She’s in this little dress and has long blonde hair – seriously fit. I’m chatting to her at the bar for about half an hour, when SOMETHING comes into my head, through the best part of two bottles of vodka, that something isn’t quite right. Like, really really not right. Like, I’ve been chatting up this bird for the last half an hour and I just realised thatr yes, SHE HAS A PENIS. I did an extremely good impression of a gazelle as I bounded across the club. “She”followed me around for the rest of the night licking her lips and vamping at me.

I was in the middle of another conversation with someone else when I happened to look around and who should I see but my flatmate, naked and speadeagled across a rack, being vigorously spanked by two large men. I tried to pretend I didn’t know him (tricky as there were only two people dressed as bacstreet-abortion-fairies that night). Then a deafening roar of “Eoghannnnnnnnn” hit my ears. “Yes Colin” I said suspiciously. “SPANK ME”. “No, Colin, I know we live together but…” “SPANK ME”. One of the large males handed me some instrument of torture, and I proceeded to attack the hairy little Aberdonian’s backside.

Some time later we’re chatting to this bloke on the dancefloor. He’s a really nice, friendly, normal bloke, wearing this little satchel where he keeps his wallet and other things like that. And yes, I do mean that the satchel was ALL he was wearing. Possibly the thought occurred to me that it was a little odd be chatting to a naked bloke on a dancefloor, but this is a place where anything can happen. As you do, in polite conversation, we asked him, “what do you do for a living?”. “I make pornography”.

We looked at him with a mixture of amazement but mostly, as we say here, RESPECT, miongled with some disbelief. “This is one of my girls,” he continued, and our spirits soared as this HOT little Japanese chick appeared under his arm. As you do after two bottles of vodka, we took large and hopeful steps in her direction, only to have his arm firmly blocking our way. Fair enough, we thought. “You must visit my website”, he said, and gave us the website (I type this at work and I don’t know if this still live or not because obviously I can’t check it just now, but click here it WON'T be safe for work if the link is still live). A couple of days later, after the (lengthy) recuperation, we had a look; when he said he makes pornography, he was exaggerating slightly; he runs bukkake nights. For the uninitiated, bukake is an ancient Japanese fetish which involves twenty or so men (who would pay about £20 each), one girl, and, not to put too fine a point on it, they all beat off in her face. The whole thing lasts about 20 minutes, with £400 coming in; let’s say he splits it halfway with the girls; nice work if you can get it!

Some time later still I’m talking to this couple. They’re really friendly and are recounting some of the Torture Garden stories. The conversation comes to a natural lull, when the bloke says to me, “I want you to spank my girlfriend.” I look shocked. “I can’t so that!”, I counter. “Yes you can, just do it”, he says. It would have felt rude not to oblige, so she gets up on a chair with her hind quarters facing in my direction and hauls up her skirt, leaving her (substantial) rear pointing in my face. I give the buttock a gentle slap.

She turns round and gives my a look more disdainful than any I have faced before or since. “When I say hit me”, she says, “I mean FROCKING HIT ME!”. I take a run-up this time, and slap her as hard as I can. This provokes a much better reaction, so I give her a backhander for good measure. “Good” shouts the boyfriend approvingly, so I continue spanking her with gusto.

After a while, he says to me, “you carry right on, I’m just gonna move in and diddle her”. I’m shocked and want to get away, but something compels me to stay. He slips a hand under my spanking palm and proceeds to get to work. “Listen to her moan”, he says, so with a look of glee I lean forward to put my ear as close to her as possible. She’s making noises like a rhinoceros giving birth. In this rather singular triumvirate we remain, until it reaches its inevitable conclusion and our work is done.

Eventually the night comes to an end, and once I have extracted myself from the clutches of my admirer and the photographer, we make a move to catch the first tube home. Every single person is lying on the floor of the tube like there’s been an anthrax attack. Then comes what for me was the highlight of the night. I’m sprawled across the floor of the tube chatting to some bloke and asking him what he does. “I’m a solicitor”. I turn to someone else and ask her the same thing. “Civil servant”, she answers. A quick straw poll reveals that virtually everyone in there is either a repressed lawyer, accountant or civil servant (with the odd pimp thrown in as I had already found!)

Any other bizarre nights people have got to get off their chest?

The Great Posts #3 Ian Dewhirst

Legendary DJ Ian Dewhirst described a particular misfortune he had for the amusement of the DJH forum

Ian Dewhirst – “Embarrassing Tales from the DJ booth” 26/10/10

This is painful but true.

When I was up in Leeds in the late 70's I deejayed for a while at a huge bar/club opposite Leeds Train station called Amnesia.

Since Amnesia was formally a bank, they ended up building a balcony and stage area about 20 feet above the ground level and the only way you could get up to the DJ stand was via a metal ladder which went up through a trapdoor in the floor of the new balcony and was accessible behind the bar. At the bottom of the metal ladder there were two 'handrests' which inexplicably had spikes at the top of each one.

Over the course of the next few months, so many people were going up and down the ladder that one of the holding screws on the right-hand top of the ladder starting working loose.

On this particular night, the place was packed and being the DJ and having to keep popping up and down the ladder to get drinks, go for a piss etc, etc, everyone would see me zipping up and zipping down this ladder every hour or so.

The place was peaking at around 10.00pm and I thought I'd better get a drink in to glide through till 11.30pm and closing time, so I zipped over to the trapdoor and started down the ladder when the right hand-screw came loose which suddenly spun the ladder round and I lost my footing.

Result was, I ended up sliding 20 feet down the left-hand side of the ladder and the only thing which prevented me crashing to the floor was the fact that my balls slammed into the spiked armrest at around 20 mph resulting in me literally hanging by my balls about 4 feet above the ground.

This was in front of around 1000 people who witnessed the whole thing.

The pain was f*ckin' indescribable - essentially the most pain I've ever endured in my entire life. But the thing is, 'cos everyone was watching, I couldn't be uncool. So despite the white-hot shards of pain which were screaming from my balls, I very cooly shook my head and then lifted my balls off the spike and very gingerely continued to the bottom of the ladder.

I then went down to the loo, went in a cubicle, assumed a foetus-like position on the floor and bawled my eyes out.

After about 10-15 minutes, the pain subsided enough for me to very carefully stand up. I didn't dare even look at the damage 'cos I didn't really want to see it. But the pain was subsiding, so I carefully walked back upstairs, got my drink, very carefully went back up the f*ckin' ladder and started deejaying again. I had a seat up there but I couldn't actually sit down - it was that tender. But the show must go on etc, etc.....

A couple of hours later, I'd had a few more drinks and seemed to be a bit more mobile and ended up going to my second gig of the night up at the In-Time.

I'd been after one of the dancers up there for a while and typically she decided to choose this night for some action, so by 3.00am I was over at her place and she wanted to give me the works. I mentioned to her about the 20mph balls-spike scenario and told her I wasn't feeling as robust as usual but that just seemed to encourage her. So we ended up having a pretty intense session. By this point I'd had a ton of drinks and had gone past the point of pain so it didn't seem too bad at the time.

Anyway, I woke up the next morning tried to swing out of bed and collapsed in agony. Oh and my balls were the size of 2 massive grapefruits. Couldn't move at all. They had to send an ambulance and take me to hospital.

It turned out that I'd badly twisted my epidydimis and the sex session has basically exploded my balls. Here's some backgound info on the epidydimus by the way:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epididymis

The whole thing cost me 10 days in hospital before it was eventually sorted out.

However the new balls have been so much better than the old ones ever were.......

There's actually a further embarassing postscript to this, but the post-traumatic stress of writing all this up for the first time ever has made me want to assume a foetal position again!

"Exploding Balls" - The Epilogue

So, shortly after I was admitted to hospital, the first thing they had to do was 'drain' my balls to relieve the pressure on my twisted epididymus. This meant that a young lady had to insert a drainage tube into my ball sac which continued the pain threshold to even greater heights. Also, because of my unfeasibly large testicles the only position that I could really adopt, was to lay in bed with my legs wide open so I didn't accidentally smash my grapefruit-sized balls with one of my legs.

It was whilst I was in this position in my hospital bed aproximately 24 hours later, when a consultant doctor and 12 trainee medical students started doing the rounds of the ward. Immediately, I recognised at least 3 young female students who were regulars at the Warehouse, one of which I really fancied.

Imagine my horror, when the consultant doctor headed over to my bed with the 12 students and then pulled the curtain around my area and asked me what my ailment was.

What else could I do? I had to tell 'em that I'd slid down a 20ft ladder and impaled my testicles on a metal spike.

Already the 3 female students were smirking but the sting in the tail, was when I had to basically hoist my arse in the air and show all 12 students my swollen grapefruit balls complete with the bespoke ball-sac drainage tube.

I never did get to nail her. I mean, there's simply no coming back from some situations is there?

Bionic testicles?

I enquired about 'em at the time 'cos I genuinely thought my balls were history.

I mean, sliding down a 20 ft metal ladder @ 20 mph and slamming your own balls into a 2" metal spike is really expecting a lot in terms of the durability, general robustness and long-term prospects of the average set of balls.

So yes. Obviously I enquired about the possibility of acquiring bionic balls. I mean who wouldn't?

However, despite the obvious armageddon of my overall genital area, the experts in the field collectively assured me that I should leave things to mend and then assess the situation once I'd managed to heal.

Personally, I'd have PREFERRED to be fitted with a set of stainless-steel balls but that wasn't to be.

Instead I had to stay with my original set of badly damaged balls, which, as luck would have it, did manage to recover some of their former invincibility.

However, since the accident, I've always had a tender spot on my left ball.

This has resulted in me saying things like......

"If you could take it easy on the left ball that'd be great"

or

"My left ball suffered a major trauma in 1979, so if we could kinda swerve too much action in that general area, then we're rockin' and rollin' babes!"

or

"Forget any squeezing of the balls babe. That's just not gonna work OK........?"

So it's difficult.

Basically I'm damaged goods.

And that's the cross I have to bear guys.

It ain't easy........

The Great Posts #2 - Coldcut

KSAP wrote this stunning review of Coldcut's gig at in Sussex in 2005

COLDCUT @ THE DE LA WARR PAVILION

February 24, 2006 KSAP

‘Why do you walk down the high street with a lobster at the end of a lead Mr Duchamp?’

‘Because it doesn’t bark…………..and it knows the secrets of the deep.’

The phrase, ‘it was really surreal’ is generally over used and rarely justified these days. You expect to see a sculptor of Duchamp’s magnitude walking down the high street with a lobster at the end of a lead instead of the usual ‘cat jumping in a funny way’ or ‘sink gurgling melodically’ when people tend to utter it.

However when you experience Mike – Welcome to the Afterfuture – Ladd being pushed around the stage of the De La Warr Pavilion in a wheelchair and rapping, ‘Keep rocking Bexhill tonight! Keep on rocking in Bexhill tonight’ to great comic effect, you can’t quite think of a phrase more apt. The biggest piss-take since Duchamp’s urinal in fact!

Homage to Nirvana at Reading? A sly yank wink at Lou and ‘Want that one homeboy’ Andy? An ironic nod to the residents of the Milligan coined phrase’ God’s Waiting Room’ or just a stage prop taken on a whim? Whatever, the sight of two grown men whizzing each other around in an NHS wheelchair whilst spitting rhymes is zaniness personified and goes a long way in deflating the usual po-faced Hip-Hop stage show.

Behind the b-boy prance at an elongated table stand four shadowy figures manipulating laptops, gadgets and gizmos; prodding, scratching and tweaking sounds and images into new unimaginable forms. Imagine if a Moldovan swagman and a Berlin pimpmaster joined Kraftwerk and you’re halfway there. Jonathan Moore and Matt Black, the Coldcut mixtape dons, have landed. Over the next couple of hours they take us on a rollicking good ride both musically and visually, through a loosely tied together package of post-apocalyptic images, landscapes, beats, videos and live performance. The oppressive images on the large screen embellishing the sounds with dramatic effect.

The lethargic clunk and slap of metallic beats opens the show with an onscreen cartoon rabbit being drawn in real time. Each mark and line scratched into life like a DJ scratches a record. In fact, this is DJ-ing using visuals. The badly-scrawn rabbit boy strums a line wire guitar and sings along with the song. Google Earth flickers onto the screen. You Are Here! We can almost see our own nostrils when suddenly we go up up up, rocketing away from earth and into space. We’re not in Kansas any more Toto.

Slabs and soggy chunks of sound are scratched and sliced through with the precision of a surgeon’s knife, Seventies pimps and melodic Amazonian Queens jostle for position next to Angus Young and the guitarist from The Muppets. Back in Black riffs and ‘The Dark White Noise villain’ from some imagined spy thriller fill the screen and speakers. Gay robots dance as the Ninja Tune logo Ninja is ‘mixed’ in. A sample from the Jungle book is mixed in. Slowly surely you realise not only the song is coming in but the whole film scene. Eventually the Ninjas make way for Balloo and Mowgli and their ‘Man Mancub dance’.

Still the madness continues. Flavour Flav’s Boooooyeeee! hollers in and out of the mix over a split screen battery of drums until the drum riffs become the Can Can! Suddenly the whole screen is an explosion of colour as thirty or so Can Can girls do leggy kicks in our direction. The drums are chopped in (sampled) over the top again.

Bliar the politician in a staccato manner informs us that ‘The lunatics have taken over the asylum’ whilst Bliar ‘the rocker’ strums ‘a strat’. The agit prop continues with Bush saying, ‘no-one is safe’ and Kenneth Clarke repeating the word, ‘ugly’. It’s compelling stuff but not in the clumsy ‘anarcho’ chop ups of Crass and Chumbawamba. It’s far more sophisticated.

Daleks and Charlton Heston continue in the hotchpotch of cultural ciphers, chopped up blended and scratched back into the mix. ‘No-one is safe’ says Heston as he cradles a gun. Bus Stop becomes Bus(h) Stop! And Hal from 2001 watches us all with a cold clinical eye. It’s like being attacked by a living breathing tabloid monster. Heston, Nixon, Thatcher, Clowns, the ceaseless barrage of images and music reaches a tumultuous climax then swoops back down to melodic electrobabbling. Timber! A Brazillian rainforest and a logger playing his chainsaw like a thrash metal axe. An ethereal woman’s face wearing a crown of feathers, floats out of the screen possibly singing of magic and loss as the savage riffing continues and trees are ‘butchered’.

The screens switch off

The music ceases

Robert Owens takes his position. A couple of new songs then, ‘People Hold On’. Grown men cry and start to come up again. The sediment of rave suppressed then released twenty years on. It’s House as we knew it. Hands are shaken. Hands are placed in the air. Feel the Rave.

Ross Allen sheepishly shuffles on. Dressed as a Balearic warlord – rainbow stripy top, long hair, baggy cargo pants and converse – he treats us to under an hour of dirty hard jump up ragga, bruk and dub. We dance like things possessed as though someone’s just nicked our wheel chair and we had no need for it all along.

The Great Posts #1 - Chicago

I've compiled here some of my favourite posts of the last few years from some forums I've visited, starting with Slim's epic trip to Chicago in 2006


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Started this last night with:

"before my second dose of melatonin kicks in completely i need to write a few of the fading memories down.."

it kicked in alright ( - good gear that!), so had to abandon to complete today:

After being locked in an audio conference in evanston (leafy suburb north of chicago) for two days i finally had the chance - just a day - to go and see some of the city. it was cold and windy, as per its reputation, but the previous two days' rain had thankfully ceased. First, some web crawling had unearthed '2nd hand sounds' record store local to me, so had a trundle down to there. got a fair amount: jean-luc ponty, chicago, herbie, bohannon, blakey, jarret, silver, lateef, davis, cs&n, modern jazz piano rca camden comp, john mclaughlin, mahavishnu, cannonball, evans, mccan, harris and some other old jazz comps. all in all 25 odd slabs for less than 40 quid. get. in. Then headed halfway towards town in search of gramaphone. not a bad shop. great for house, disco, & tech classics. wasn't in much of a mood for buying though so listened to quite a few & prob left with about 5 records, despite being in there for a couple of hours. wish i could return in a different frame of mind now!

So finally hit downtown at dusk, and as i'd been told i NEEDed to have the chicago deep pan pizza experience i queued for 45 minute to get a seat at the bar in Gino's - the place to go i was told. well it was another 15 minutes before a waiter finally came, and upon ordering, told me it'd be another hours wait for the 'pizza'(! - that ain't no fast food). on an empty stomach too! when it finally came i forced about a quarter of it down before deciding it was truly truly disgusting: manky sausage, undigestible 'cheese', tasteless crust. truly 'a deep dish disappointment'. gimme a pizza express with parma, rocket, parmesan and capers - anyday! Now worse, my only company there at the bar was the guy next to me. a duran duran fan (greattt) who'd come all the way from kentucky only to miss them through flight delays. now he polished his 'pizza' off! - where do these people get their stomachs?! 

So i hit michigan ave and by this time it was getting late. popped into macy's to see if i could find some kids clothes/toys but it was 9 by this time and closing, so didn't have time to browse very long. exiting out of the back there, i was at my planned destination > i was right outside the entrance to the john hancock centre. a few minutes wait in the 'line' for the lift & it was whooosh > up to the 95th floor, ears popping, followed by the eye popping view. I spent a while up there in the bar, stretching my malibu & taking in the 360 night time view or the city - truly awesome! From there it was time to hit some nightlife. admiring all the effort everyone had gone into dressing up for pre halloween parties (they don't mess about in the US!), i take a short trip on the L red line train up to north clarke and hit the sm@rt bar. now, i knew madlib/pbw/j-roc were playing in town that night but hadn't realised the venue was the same building! i paid my money into the club and then snuck upstairs, to find that the show was still happenning. 

Must say, i thought the crowd were quite muted, and expected to see alot more brothers in the space considering the city's racial profile, but it was a proper buzz seeing them do their stuff for half an hour or so. highlight was hearing the folk intro, complete with rewind, merging into 'the red' - simply beautiful - i.d. sample spotters please! ? On my way back down into the club i meet madlib on the stairs(!) hello again sir. respec'

So the guy playing house downstairs miles maeda - was supposedly rated, but did very little for me. one of his entourage was the huge figure of 'acidman' - shame he didn't play. someone told me also that farley jackmaster was playing an afterhours not far away, but i lost him before i could get the venue name - another shame. still, peeps were all very friendly (makes a big change from the uk - even the bouncer guy on me asking him if he'd cleared my drink, admitted his error & got me another! - now any london barman/ bouncer in the same situation would have told me to feck off, i have no doubt at all) and the girls were gorgeous. (this was the same pattern i found troughout my time there: friendly approachable warm people without hang-ups or attitude - very very refreshing). so got talking to some folk, and ended up leaving with them and hitting an underground house party happenning a short ride further up the road. it was anarchy in there! - complete mayhem. no bad vibes. but no air either! the dj was called "overkill" & that was appropriate. - i'll say no more... then, it seems, this guy not far from where we're sitting had passed out cold. cue a great deal of commotion and about 6 people lifting the guy out and presumably onto the street. i'm guessing that was the trigger for the law, as ten minutes later the party was shut down, and we were all turfed out by about 40 cops.

it was 5 am. having walked all day, and with no chemical ammo back-up i was shot to bits. my new hosts kindly drove me all the way back to the comfort of my hotel room, with me satisfied that i'd had a good little 'taster' of some authentic chicago.

 A short sleep later, i got in a bit of shopping and then strolled down to the lake. it was a beautiful warm day, the wind had gone and the beach empty. again the view was breathaking. lake michigan so large you couldn't see the other side, with a horizon sharp as a blade, and the city rising up on the south. just had time to nip back to 2nd hand sounds to see how much cash i could spend in 10 minutes (where i purchased most of above listed) followed by some truly disgusting veggie food - big mistake (damn, still no burger!!), then purchased of a pair of new balance waterproof boots/shoes, and back to the hotel for my ride to the airport. my 'mans' Charles the doorman, as i'd found out days earlier, makes hiphop & house, and will be geting in touch. as a passing gift for our healthy music exchanges he sorts me out a stretch limo ride to the airport > schweeeeet!

In the departure lounge are a couple from lincoln - the guy has a placcy bag full of soul lp's he'd picked up in haight, sisco. immediate rapport, and it turns out they have the seats adjacent on the flight, so a great reintro to the uk - his comic dry wit genius having me in stiches whilst i was awake, the melatonin taking care of the rest..

arrivals lounge heathrow terminal3 > not pretty. welcome to the uk, yanks > get a load of this

ahh the Windy City. i miss it already & wouldn't hesitate to return. next time i'd spend a few weeks. there were line ups to die for all over the city in the run up to xmas.

bar the food,

highly highly recommended

An American in Ibiza

Entertaining (if not necessarily endearing) character who writes detailed, no-holds-barred reviews of his holidays.

intense

http://www.anamericaninibiza.com/