Yes, Strange Fruit was rather good wasn't it? The bands were so-so, but grow me a monobrow and call me Olaf if the Strange Fruit posse didn't pull out all the stops on throwing, quite possibly, the BEST club night of the year. Personal highlights. . The uber bi-atchy door bitches. A position I aspire to attain. . Miss Sarah Garrett Sonner's impeccable dancing arm movements. . Mr Greg Pallis sporting an 80s-esque collar worthy of Jacque Lu Cont. . Bootlegs galore . An unfaultable play list from the DJ of Genius - Pulp, Baxendale, Fischerspooner, Le Tigre. And of course, Mr Mark Casarotto kindly played Chicks on Speed's "Glamour Girl" for me. Swoon. I love "Glamour Girl". I love the fact it's a perfect six minute slice of euro clash nonsense. I love the fact it's sung by mentalists sporting paper dresses held together with gaffa tape. I love the fact the opening and closing samples are vocal stabs from Take That. And I adore the fact that the Chicks didn't even know it. MISS MARIANNA: "Glamour Girls" is great. Two of my favourite, diametrically opposed bands combined on one record. Any particular reason for choosing Take That as your opening and closing samples? CHICK M: What? Oh my god! Oh no, I didn't know that! CHICK K: <Uncontrollable laughter> CHICK A: That's so funny, that's so cool. We made that with Punk Anderson and I always assumed that was him. Chicks on Speed are, quite simply, the tits. They were one of the first bands to make me throw off my indie shackles and re-discover the joys of frivolous glamour and hipster superficiality. It was because of them I bleached my hair. It was because of them I bought killer high heel boots and it was because of them that I wrapped loose scraps of material around my body and secured it with staples and ribbons so I could wear DIY fashion to parties. The Chicks changed my world. Not since falling in love with Edward Furlong had I deliberately changed my style to echo that of my idols*. It was all nonsense of course, but somehow everything seemed terribly important again. I was so excited by music again that certain tracks made me physically ill. They were that good. So I went back to playing piano and quit frequenting the Grosvenor to see who else had thrown a three-piece together. And I held lounge room discos in my apartment, and I was utterly, utterly content with the world and my place in it. D.I.G.R.E.S.S.I.O.N.S. Big, fat, blubbery apologies. What was I doing? Attempting some sort of ramshackle reporting back post to support the theories of Ken and Rob that fun was had. Right then. Other London Sinister gatherings of note: Sarah Garrett Sonner, Ken Chu, Liz Daplyn, Mark Casarotto and I formed a team to battle the wit of a certain celebrity crush of mine through the medium of a pub quiz. Our table was the amusingly titled Rah, Rah Rasputeenz. We did rather well, score wise. Crush wise, I made do with a grand entrance followed by intense eye contact. The seeds have been planted. mua ha ha. Another evening saw the aforementioned joined by Stevie Trousers, Sunnyset, Rachel London, Dimitra and Stefano for some karaoke warbling at the King of Corsica. There were pints of bitter for £1. ONE POUND! Not surprisingly, we were all suitably inebriated yet still, the Sinister Massiiiiive were superb in their respective performances; Casarotto in fine falsetto form as he stormed through "Baby One More Time", Rachel plural doing "Back for Good", Stefano singing "What I Am", Liz out-simmering Ms Ellis Bextor in Spiller glory, Ken storming through "Brown Eyed Girl" and then there was Stevie, out-rocking us all with "I love Rock 'n Roll". Later, soiree at Rachel London's for drinks, tunes and dare-devil hanging out of windows. Kick Ass. There was picnicking. And bowling too. But others should really expound on these. xx Miss Marianna Longmire * I grew my fringe out to match his coiffeur in Terminator 2. Somehow, I thought that if I had the same hairstyle as the spunky Master Furlong, I would be a shoe-in for his wife. I was 12. It made sense at the time. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+