On Friday I read at the Permanent Gallery in Brighton which, needless to say, was a groove sensation. Aside from booking me for that, Jay Clifton’s Tight Lip literary organisation also checked me into the Pelirocco Hotel at 10 Regency Square. The latter establishment can be found close to the wreck of the old West Pier. The rooms are themed around rock and roll lore and the pleasures of sex. I had the Modrophenia Room, done out in purple with an orange mod arrow over two walls; there was a target bedspread, a poster for the film Blow Up and a painting of Keith Moon in red, white & blue. So, all in all, the decor was closer to the mod revival than the original movement, and very heavily influenced by the 1979 film Quadrophenia. The room was cosy and provided a good talking point with my fellow revellers. Likewise, the hotel service was very attentive and this combined with the teen-style decor provided an experience that ranked way above the sterile and generic environment an overnight trip more usually entails. The bar downstairs was open until 4am, the cocktails potent and the bright pink stools and light shades truly surreal. The late breakfast in this bar was also great fun. Several of the hotel rooms are themed for kinky sex, so I was trying to guess which of my fellow guests had The Play Room, which is billed as: “the ultimate dirty weekend suite, dedicated to all things decadent and indulgent, think burlesque, kitsch and sexy boudoir all rolled into one…”
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes no sense!
Comments
Comment by Michael K on 2009-04-20 10:32:27 +0000
This is really boring. You should have written about the bondage orgy we had in Betty’s Boudoir (named after 1950’s pin-up Betty Page) with the bisexual lesbian couple who picked us up in the bar and who brought along the various friends they’d made over the course of their dirty weekend in Brighton! There must have been a dozen people making out in various ways at the same time in that room. It was a groove sensation!
Comment by Msmarmitelover on 2009-04-20 12:29:30 +0000
Sounds like a great hotel. How much is it per room per night? Now that would be a cool date!
Comment by Howling Wizard Shrieking Toad on 2009-04-20 12:49:12 +0000
Now, now, more tea Vicar?
Comment by Justin McKeown on 2009-04-20 14:43:02 +0000
Sounds like you had a blast mate!
Comment by Jay Clifton on 2009-04-20 16:25:24 +0000
Hey thanks Stewart, glad you really enjoyed it and you’re right about it being revivalist, most Brighton hotel rooms in the 60s were either dowdy or fusty and f you painted a hotel room like that back in ’65, they would have called you ‘mad as mice’– anyway, enjoyed seeing my name associated with Mod, Quadrophenia and other such buzz-words, however loosely– A grand Union, Jack!
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-04-20 17:46:16 +0000
Hey Jay, you took me there, so you’re right by all those mod and Quadrophenia buzz words! You also booked the room so I guess you decided I’d want Modrophenia!
Ms ML, rooms go from about £50 to quite a bit more… like £300 for the Play Room at peak price… Although Tight Lip, of course, kindly paid for me! But check the Pelirocco website for all the details: http://www.hotelpelirocco.co.uk/
I’m also told by a source totally unconnected with the hotel or Tight Lip that this is where all the interesting bands who play Brighton stay… unless they’re on a star trip and insist on The Grand….
Comment by The Sad Sad World of Mark E. Smith on 2009-04-20 18:36:23 +0000
I save money on tour by getting drunk and sleeping in the first hole in the road or ditch I come across. Staying in a hotel is a decadent indulgence.
Comment by The Real Tessie on 2009-04-20 19:05:52 +0000
Those weren’t really bisexual lesbians you and Michael were with, they were just geezers wearing make-up…. And BTW you’re not a nude lesbian either, you’re just sick in the head!
Comment by Díre McCain on 2009-04-21 00:14:04 +0000
?????Comment by Michael Roth on 2009-04-21 05:15:12 +0000
All Mod Cons! Last time I was in the UK, I ran out of time before I could hit Brighton and area. If only I knew about the Play Room …
How did the reading go, BTW?
Comment by Howling Wizard Shrieking Toad on 2009-04-21 09:43:42 +0000
Pink Fairies Roundhouse July 1975
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI976o34A9k&NR=1
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-04-21 14:02:59 +0000
The Pink Fairies are a groove sensation, and like I said the reading was too… I decided to do a long intro kinda setting the whole thing in place, then the recitations which weren’t perfect but the spirit was there… This stuff works best when I’ve been doing tours… Doesn’t take me long to get perfect then… But I hadn’t done a reading for a long time… Then I threw in a bit of ventriloquism and the usual huge climax…. But yeah it went fine. I enjoy the live stuff and I think that shows, but it is quite time consuming, so sometimes I don’t do it for a while, but then you need the work to get it back on top form… so hard to know which way to take it really….. Nice to keep my hand it, but a several week tour doing one or two performances a day would really get me back at the top of my game; although it goes without saying my bottom is way above most writer’s tops!
Comment by Michael Roth on 2009-04-21 14:40:20 +0000
Bottoms up! Toot Toot!
Comment by The Turned On Jimmy Pursey on 2009-04-21 15:41:19 +0000
Brighton is a groove and aside from my work with my new band Day 21, I also wanna kick start my ballet career again, and I think a stay in the Pelirocco could help with that. I am a cliche! Oops wrong band!
Comment by Howling Wizard Shrieking Toad on 2009-04-22 01:37:30 +0000
Ah yes, Mr Home and if you dig that, then dig Wilko!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HahJdPL32a4
and Eddie and the Hot Rods, Canvey Islands Rockers….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYrMpPt10XE&feature=related
Me and the Shrieking Toad are having a good dance about in my cave.
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-04-22 11:54:58 +0000
Wilko Johnson rocks, and so do the Rods!
Comment by Colours of White on 2009-04-22 12:41:57 +0000
Mr Home, I dug your earlier article on pub rock — a missed opportunty by many in UK —
As you said, it’s such a shame that most people in the mid to late 70’s dug pub rock so, so much — but then went on to let it go in place of punk rock, which most of us at the time saw as “the real thing”, whilst pub rock was, by the time early 1977 came round — typically seen as grubby, and old man’s music , viewed as taking too much from r n b, and with a poorly defined image.
More fool us !And of course, Lydon is a lot to blame for creating a false “year zero” around the Pistols. Lydon himself clearly took so much from Ian Dury’s image in the High Roads, which Dury asserted plainly, causing Lydon to resent him.
But I think Dury was right : compare those very early Sniffin Glue /Nashville venue images of Lydon’s style,the photos Peter Christopherson took of Lydon when he was at Hipgnosis with the early High Roads /Dury pictures.
And as for the 101’ers with “Sweety of the St Moritz” and then The Clash with Janie Jones sounding so much like Little Feat. As a 14 year old in 1976/77, I thought Janie Jones was pure punk rock — but it’s just so like Little Feat. And Clash City Rockers, which I loved for its sleeve featuring 14 year old kids like me at the time, is just The Who’s “Cant Explain”.
( I never liked the Clash besides a few good inarticulate, incoherent lyrics like “Hate and War” and a few others).
As you also said — The majority of so called pub rock was far, far rawer, more real, harder, and just so much better than most punk rock — even if the musicians did wear tartan roll bottom flares, grown out thug mod haircuts and psychedelic scarves a la the Creation and Sam Ghopal. Of course, I dig all that again now,only having got out my dusty record box again, and re listened with new ears — but as a youth, I definitely favoured a ripped up Ted’s coat, brothel creeper crepes and a hand painted T shirt instead. Pub rock just didn’t make the grade, style and fashion wise for most of us in the late 70’s did it.
But re listening to it now — the music is just so so so much better than most punk rock.
Comment by Díre McCain on 2009-04-22 21:30:26 +0000
And I was due to see Eddie and the Hot Rods at the Knitting Factory this Sunday, but an unforeseen KO punch has thwarted my plans, damn it…
Comment by Díre McCain on 2009-04-22 21:31:48 +0000
P.S. This place has been a bit funky lately, as in malfunktioning, not funkadelic…
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-04-23 12:38:33 +0000
Yeah, I had real problems when I was doing the blog after this. I wasn’t able to save all the changes I made to it, and it all got a bit mangled… I’ve tried to redo the corrections but always a drag when this happens. The problem just seems to be a lot of traffic…. I should complain!
Comment by donna on 2010-02-10 23:02:02 +0000
hey im soo interested in staying in this hotel. seems like the ultimate dirty weekend for me and my husband , just to make sure before i book it – its not a swinging hotel isit?
Comment by mistertrippy on 2010-02-10 23:19:59 +0000
I didn’t notice any swinging going on while I was there… but I’m sure there is plenty going on in Brighton and Hove if you want to look for it. But I don’t think you’ll feel under any pressure to swing at this hotel….