Karinski.net

I love Rockstarz. I know I go on about it all the time but it’s ace. Here are some songs I played this week.

Mark Ronson - Stop Me / Connan & The Mockasins - Sneaky Sneaky Dogfiend / Mr Hudson & The Library - Too Late, Too Late / Jarvis - Don’t Let Him Waste Your Time / Air Traffic - Never Even Told Me Her Names / Kasabian - Me plus One (sadly not a cover of Annie) / Vines - Don’t Listen to the Radio / Modest Mouse - Dashboard / L7 - Pretend That We’re Dead / Charlotte Hatherley - Behave / Metric - Handshakes / The Violets - Forey / Soulwax - Conversation Intercom / The Whip - Trash / Teddybears - Punkrocker / Bloc Party - 2 More Years [MSTRKRFT remix] / Lilllix - Little Things / Shiny Toy Guns - Le Disko / The Killers - Bones / LCD Soundsystem - North American Scum / Kaiser Chiefs - Ruby / Just Jack - Starz in your eyes / Gossip - Jealous Girls / CSS - Let’s Make Love / Klaxons - Golden Skans / Cazels - Poor Innocent Boy / Jarvis - Fat Children / Switches - Lay Down The Law / Young Knives - Hot Summer / Young Love - Discotech / Metric - Dead Disco

Come. Mondays at Ghetto, there’s always a band playing too and it’s only about £3 to get in. I’m back on Feb 5th with the Schla la las.

Tonight, like nearly every Thursday, Friday and Monday night (yes I never sleep), I was djing. And I played some ace music.

Thursday is Miss-Shapes where nearly anything goes but is mainly indie and pop. Our first set was brill, it went something like this (there are whopping gaps as I forgot to photo it and can’t remember):

Brad Walsh - Two of Hearts
Lo-Fn-Fnk - City
Linda Sundblad - Lose You
Annie - Anniemal
Bertine Zetlitz - Midnight
Jarvis - Don’t Let Him Waste Your Time
Air Traffic - Never Even Told Me Her Name
Just Jack - Starz in your eyes
Beck - Cellphone’s Dead
Mika - Love Today
Elton Montello - Jet Boy, Jet Girl
The Rakes - Work Work Work (Pub, Club, Sleep)
White Rose Movement - Love is A Number
The Gossip - Jealous Girls
Lady Sovereign - Pretty Vacant
Ashlee Simpson - Boyfriend
Amy Winehouse - You Know I’m No Good
Peaches - Boys Wanna Be Her
Le Tigre - TKO
The Pipettes - Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me

In the late set we played Sophie Ellis Bextor - Catch You and it went down a storm. HOORAY.

So Happy New Year one and all. We celebrated it with the busiest Popstarz in it’s 11 year history. I was a little bummed about having to work NYE as we did Popstarz last year, and this time round all our friends were going to the fantastic Unskinny Bop and we wanted to be there too. However, Popstarz absolutely surpassed itself and was amazing good fun, thanks in no small part to a special area Tommy had created for staff and friends filled with gallons of alcohol. Hooray! I also sang Jolene on the special karaoke in the glass bar with Sheila which was pretty ace, despite not really being able to hear the backing track. Kamikaze karaoke starts at Trash Palace on Sundays very soon, maybe even this week.

Anyway today I got the news that my shiny (although now a little dirty) iBook has gone KAPUTT with that old ‘oh your logic board has failed trick’. I came home the other night and instead of being asleep it was off and trying to boot it up resulted in beeps. This seems to mean a ram failure and the genius bar at Apple seemed a bit confused that I hadn’t added any extra ram. They did not seem confused when they told me that fixing it would cost £640.
So now the dilemma is what to do? I use a PC as my main computer in my room, and my laptop if travelling (so not regularly) and when not in my bedroom. It serves as a great little device for writing/web browsing while watching the TV in the lounge, and I really like being able to do other stuff while sitting in the lounge. I don’t particularly want to spend £700-odd on a new MacBook though. The options seem to be: exist without a laptop, look for a bargain on the refurbished store, just buy one, or go for a dirt cheap PC one that would be perfectly fine but not as pretty and lovely and everything apple-y. Plus if I was spending a lot of money with Apple I’d really want to get an iMac, but that wouldn’t at all help my portability issues. I don’t really understand why my iBook has broken though - should they really just break for no apparant reason after about 2 1/2 years? I am eyeing my housemates suspiciously.

To cheer me up I bought Pokemon rescue for my DS and tomorrow I think I’m going to buy a new digital camera as I handily threw my new very heavy phone at it and smashed my lcd while at Gaz’s flat over Xmas. BOOO HISS.

Tonight join Laurence and myself to dance at Rockstarz while listening to these guys.

You’ll probably recognise vocalist Tina from the cute and colourful video to Annie Mac favourite and Crazy Itch Radio highlight Take Me Back To Your House. Frankyl, it’s refreshing enough just to see a Jaxx video where you don’t have to avert your eyes from some massive breasts.

Here’s some breaking news for you…

After our Scissor Sisters gig earlier in the year, Popstarz will be hosting a short gig by We Are Scientists on November 10th. Book it in now! See you there?

When Darren brought up the idea of Bethnal Green Working Mens Club one hazy Saturday afternoon, we looked at him with a bit of confusement.   "No no," he exclaimed.  "It’s really cool!"  Really?  A working mens club is cool?   "Yes, they are sometimes on rollerskates!"  We decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, albeit with one eyebrow raised.

My birthday rocked round and options for where to go seemed pretty limited.  We could have an admittedly great time at Wig-Out or we could try something different.  Purusing the wonders of the world wide web, I happened across Oh My God I Miss You: The Hellfire Club at, well would you believe it, the Bethnal Green Working Mens Club.   Aah this was fate.

The website itself scared quite a lot of my friends who wondered exactly what I was planning on taking them to.  After all the dress code was that you should have a ‘touch of the whore’ about you.   Brilliant.

It promised sleazy kitch, rock & roll, classics, showtunes, rockabilly, oddball delights and a taste of the devil.

So off we went about 1030, and arrived at a mammoth queue. Hooray.   Eventually after lots of standing in the cold and being allowed in 2 at a time, we all got in and watched cool young 20somethings go to the groundfloor, and those you may associate more traditionally with a WMC downstairs.  What exactly was downstairs we may never know, but the Guardian indicates that our room is run as a separate licensed venue rented out from the WMC itself.

So the room was a large square, mainly carpeted and full of elaborately dressed up twentysomethings with a devil on the stage.   When we entered Editors - Munich was playing.  A fabulous song, but surely a bit safe and regular given the music policy.  Within about 20 minutes the regular indie was pushed aside and a more random selection ensued. We were happy.

Great thing  #1 : The bar staff do not care how much you pay them for drinks. Darren got a whole round for free. I got a round of 8 drinks for £15 and James got a Red Bull for "errr lets say a pound?"

Great thing #2 : Lots of people I know happen to live near us randomly.   And we saw them all there. Hooray.

Great thing #3 : Everything was decorated in a really fun way. You can tell the promoters put a lot of effort in.

Great thing #4 : It was fun buying random things to wear, and getting a smidge dressed up in silly things.  James had a cane, Naomi a bowler hat, Darren a leopard skin scarf.  Jeez we’re hardcore.

Great thing #5 : It was like being back at uni, walking from the union to Hurst. It took us 5 mins to walk home. Sweet!

Bad thing #1 : The door queue was massive, and they seemed really disorganised about who they were letting in and who they were making wait longer.

Bad thing #2 : It was quite hot

So yes, it was rather good and it’s definately got the Karinski stamp of approval.  Hooray!

We look forward to many more nights at the WMC.   Sometimes Mark Lamarr plays rockabilly, sometimes they have tea partys and bake sales.  Sometimes they play bingo and learn how to jive.   I get the feeling we might be going there quite a bit.

[writing about Saturday 11 February]

Last weekend we were very good with trying new things. We went to Stay Beautiful (ok we’d been once before), played new music at Popz, decided to live somewhere new, and went to Duckie on Saturday.

Going to the Vauxhall Tavern is not a prospect I relished given the last time I went past it (admittedly it’s only been once and was just before Ray of Light) there was steam pouring out of the door and all I could see inside were mainly naked men. But… I trusted big hairy Darren and off we went. And hey, guess what, it was great fun! The venue itself is actually great. It’s a nice temperature with a big bar, a big stage, a raised level and the toilets aren’t that bad either (although there are only 3). The music, provided by the Readers Wives, was very varied going from the mainstream Kaiser Chiefs all the way to Neil Diamond and Sweet Caroline. Why did Darren and James give me weird looks as I sang every word? It’s a tune! The night also featured a quiz on stage which was great fun.

So yes, go to Duckie, it’s great and surprisingly for me, girl friendly! Hooray.

Early Set
———–

Kylie - Confide in Me
Lush - 500 (Shake Baby Shake)
Belle & Sebastian - I’m a cuckoo
Client - Pornography
The Cardigans - Sick & Tired
We are Scientists - The Great Escape
Editors - Blood
Sleeper - Nice Guy eddie
Long Blondes - Giddy Stratospheres
Seahorses - Love is the Law
Bootleg - Juicebox Rock
Basement Jaxx - Plug it in ft JC Chasez
Suzi Quatro - Can Can
Adam & the Ants - Prince Charming
Manic Street Preachers - Kevin Carter (yeah, er sorry)

Late Set
———-

No Doubt - Just A Girl
The Modern - Jane Falls Down
Bis - Eurodisco
Franz Ferdinand - Do U Wanna
Maximo Park - Apply Some Pressure
Arctic Monkeys - I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor
Little Eva - The Locomotion
Girls Aloud - Love Machine
Mint Royale - Don’t Falter
The Cardigans - Love Fool
White Stripes - Hotel Yorba
Placebo - Nancy Boy
Gloria Jones - Tainted Love
Blondie - Hanging onthe Telephone
The Vapours - Turning Japanese
Buzzcocks - Fallen in Love
Charlotte Church - Crazy Chick
Hole - Celebrity Skin
Love Bites - You Broke My Heart
Bloodhound Gang - Chasey Lane
Beck - Sexx Laws
The Clash - Rock the Casbah
Mylo - Doctor Pressure
Ladytron - Destroy Everything You Touch
Amerie - 1 Thing
Lulu - Shout
Prince - Raspberry Beret
Michael Jackson - Beat It
Lionel Richie - All Night Long

On Sunday, our friend, Simon died unexpectedly, an hour or two after we last saw him.

I’m not going to go on about how he changed the landscape of clubbing and life for so many people. You can read that in other places. I want to remember my friend Simon, the guy who wasn’t just our boss, but a man we respected, a man we cherished, a man we loved and pretty much over the last 6 months, the centre of our universe.

I started going to Popstarz soon after moving to London in around September 2004. James and I always noticed this tall, omnipresent guy with black hair who was obviously involved in the club in someway. He was constantly there, and we found him quite a scary, foreboding prescence.

Roll forward and it’s May 2005. James & I arrive back from New York and head in a deleriously jetlagged state to Miss-Shapes at Ghetto, run by the same man. We see a poster saying there will be auditions for a DJ for the club and I’m straight on the case. We applied, headed down to Trash Palace to do a set and got the gig, all while nervously speaking to this guy we now know is Simon. He compliments us on our set, gives us some drink vouchers, and later not so subtly hints that the job is ours, though he’ll have to confirm that with Sandra. James and I look at each other amazed that this guy is even talking to us.

And that was that. Suddenly we were thrust into the spotlight, and into the world I fondly called The Hobart Empire. We were living out some of our dreams, DJing in a place we loved, meeting fantastic people and getting us and our friends into Popstarz for free. How cool was that!

We spent the next 6 months getting to know him. Both of us still in awe of him, but wondering how on earth we ever found him scary. He was so generous, letting us in everywhere for free, plying us with free drinks, and talking to us, telling us his fabulous stories of days gone by.

It was probably in the last 2 months, as he and J became closer, that I got to really know him and he changed from being the awe-inducing Simon Hobart, to being our friend Simon, Suddenly I was playing cupid, determined that these two great guys should be together. I helped J pick nice restaurants and filled Simon in on Js’ quirks and eccentricities.

Going to Ghetto was something I knew I could always do happily, even by myself. A few weeks ago I showed up after another party by myself at 1 in the morning knowing that inside I’d be able to enjoy myself even if I didn’t know anyone there. But I did, Simon of course was there, and we drunkedly spent the next 3 hours drinking and gossiping. It was great fun, and a far cry away from my fear of the immortal gothic prince that we used to see from afar. Similarly I could show up at Trash Palace, hook up with Simon and then head to Ghetto with him where we’d buy each other drinks and have a good gossip. In the last month or so, we were pretty much a regular feature at Ghetto from Wednesday til Saturday and we certainly wouldn’t have been there that much if Simon hadn’t been there.

And so to the final night. After having been out all day, James & I eventually rocked up to Ghetto at 12.45 just in time for Simon’s set at 1am. We greeted, we danced and then at about 3, we left. I told him to call me when he woke up about DJing on Sunday, and kissed him goodbye. And that was that.

I feel a bit embarassed at myself. Last night a group of his friends all got together and went out. There are people who have known him forever and there I am bursting into tears every two minutes. Perhaps I’m just not very good at coping with grief and being strong, but I do need to be strong for everyone else,.

I feel so sad and devastated. It doesn’t feel real, we showed up to DJ, made a phone call and got this terrible news. I can’t imagine walking down those stairs at Ghetto and him not being at the bottom. I can’t imagine going into Popstarz and looking forward to seeing him at the first bar and realising he’s not there and never will be. I’m just walking round my flat crying in a permanent state of disbelief. We walked from Wardour Street up to Falconberg Court when we got the news, and walking down Old Compton it felt like the world should stop. Why are there people walking round doing their usual business. It felt like Soho should be still.

I, like a lot of people, loved that man, and it’s near impossible to describe how great he was to people who didn’t know him. He was funny, intelligent, inspiring, handsome and kind.

He was so important to the way we operated that it’s even more impossible to imagine how our world can carry on without him.

Simon, please come back. I miss you.