It Ended With A Kiss

It Ended With A Kiss

21 July, 2008
by: Paddy

Let's go back to the beginning, somewhat further back than last Friday night. The year is 1960 something, the place West London. Chelsea is cool, things are happening and the Times They Are A Changin' (although nobody can quite remember how exactly – nothing to do with the drugs, mind: it's just that most of the survivors are suffering the advanced symptoms of Alzheimer's). Back in the Tardis, and suddenly it's the 70s. McLaren's just opened SEX and has dressed up some angry musicians in bondage gear… You get the idea- West London was once cool.

So what happened? Implosion. Money. Lady Di. So much stuff – shit got bad and stayed that way. And let's face it, nothing's really changed since the dawn of the new millennium; the West End to Bristol is little more than a cultural desert. But readers should remember that blue bottles hang around out eating sewage, and supermodels float around fashion shows vomiting falafel. Two cases of beautiful things behaving badly in environments so awful you'd rather be a celebrity than set foot in them.

Which leads us nicely to Death To All Culture Snitches, 12 Acklam Road's monthly showcase of kids dressed like extras from Skins, but too old to pull it off. The Snitchy Crew have been filling toilets (Public Life) and motorway underpasses (The Club formerly known as Neighbourhood) for over a year now, and the crowd show no sign of abating. In fact, they've diversified perfectly; where the night was often all about the local Jocastas and Genevives havin' it, like Boujis for the techno set, it's, well, it's just got better. The poseur older crowd are no doubt crying into their 10% of Colombia's finest, displaced by the beautiful youth of today.

The guys behind this operation have developed an enviable talent for hiring DJs with big niche names. They upped their game not long back by featuring the Chicago house groovester Maurice Fulton and have maintained a steady course along the new trajectory. This time, Mike Simonetti and Pilooski pulled in electro kids and pushed out Italo-disco, old-skool house and Motown – a slow, sexy soup that worked like a biro on a banana. Likewise hats should be doffed accordingly for resident DJ and general raison d'etre, Dr. Henry Seligman. The night isn't exactly Bangface, but once again he dressed like it was while hammering out Dionysian electronic funk n' bang.

As all the best things do, It Ended With A Kiss. A French Kiss, to be precise. And a leg melting orgasm, to boast. It was something of a one hit wonder, never to be repeated again. But my-oh-my did the kids get a lesson in how to big-fish-little-fish out like it was 1989. Lil Louis' big track wrapped up the latest in on-a-roll technology: Death To All Culture Snitches, a veritable jewel in the faded crown of London's most maligned borough.

Of a rival night, Mixmag once wrote 'like a washing machine on crack', which, to give them credit, I like. For the Snitch Genocide, there's only one line for the next bill poster: 'Like Winehouse on a washing machine'. It'll go for miles and miles and miles.

Click here for London DJ Music
Click here to see all things to do in London 

Paddy