80s nights? We gots yer 80s night right here...

[hirez]

Power tools, public drunkeness, wanton destruction of private property, Nice Boots and a burning desire to rewrite some history - if there are better ways to spend a Friday night, then I look forward to finding out about them.

Mission: Destroy All Monsters. In this case the monsters were a pile of terrible records foisted upon the public by The Man. Ritually destroying them would engender a sense of freedom - 'This is shite and I see no clear reason why I should allow it to pollute my consciousness.'

Wendles was mistress of ceremonies. Aeia, Cybershawn, Girfan, Greebo, Jessica_phoenix, Mr_tails and myself alternated between sober-minded jury and howling mob, depending on circumstance. I also got to wield most of the power tools because I'd not got my drinking head on.

We began quietly with The Boss: Bruce Springsteen's 'Born in the USA/I'm on fire'. Well, Brucie got his wish within seconds and he damn well was on fire. Burny-burny went the sleeve, melty-melty-spludge went the record. Good riddance to dreadful toss.

Billy Ocean was despatched with some speed, because it really wasn't worth wasting creative destruction on such a noncy record. When the going gets tough, a 7" is no match for vengeful Peelites armed with hammers.

The Thunderbirds theme was rightly saved for posterity, if only because the B-side features the Joe-90 theme, which is a stand-out slice of Farfisa-powered psych-pop.

The next delve into the bag of horrors gave us Belinda Carlisle - I get weak. The jury was split evenly between the revolutionary faction who'd had to listen to this arse of a pop-song clutter up the charts the first time round and the younger revisionists who, um, hadn't. Older, drunker and more bloody-minded heads prevailed and we got to find out just how weak this record was by bending it in half with two sets of pliers. When it finally cracked into several bits, spitting shrapnel hither and yon, the report was loud enough to set off a nearby car-alarm. Result.

Marty Wilde's cover of 'Rubber Ball' lived for two reasons: (a) It's Kim Wilde's dad. (b) Records with the phrase 'bouncy-bouncy' are too mad to destroy. And are probably posessed by demons who'd come back do something horrible.

It was determined by shouting and argument that Sinitta's ' Toy boy' would be vastly improved by a scratch mix. We began by giving it a good going-over with a file, but it was still possible to discern the dreadful honking that the perpetrators were pleased to call a 'tune'. Clearly sterner measures were called for, so I set upon it with an orbital sander. Remarkably, though it sounded like someone listening to Radio Luxembourg on a badly-tuned wheelbarrow, the 'music' was still in evidence. This time, I didn't give up 'til the label had been sanded off. The results were excellent. No trace of Sinitta remained. A victory for good taste once again.

Next up was Kylie - I should be so lucky. It became clear that the demon irony of Laughtons had been at work and any appeals to good taste were doomed. We pleaded and cajoled. I threatened to hunt the rest of the participants down and exact terrible revenge. They weren't having any of it. Kylie was spared. Bastards.

With a name like 'We didn't start the fire' it was inevitable that Billy Joel's record would meet an appropriately flame-filled end. Initially we tried to construct a flaming catherine-wheel with warmed rum and an electric drill, but Mr. Joel's satanic issue resisted easily. Accordingly, we spun the record up and lowered it into the flames of the barbequeue. Centrifugal (or was it centripetal?) force and the odd properties of melting vinyl conspired to form a bizarrely lollipop-shaped object which was planted in an earthenware pot.

The Style Council joined Elton John in a frying pan. The records bubbled and writhed and gave off noxious smoke. Which was nice.

By this time, the combination of dreadful records and copious alcohol had taken terrible control and that pop-eyed bogwitch Sarah Brightman was unlikely to escape unharmed when her howling rendition of Pie Jesu was plonked on the gramophone. The mob howled back and it became clear that there could only be one possible, if somewhat taste-free, result.

So we nailed the record to a cross and set fire to it.

Experiments with heat-guns (Hot Chocolate), saws (Ken Dodd) and savage attacks with hedge-clippers (Jennifer Rush) followed, but it seemed the mob's appetite for destruction (haw!) was sated, since Betty Boo, Toni Basil and The Shadows escaped with their grooves intact.

And so to bed...

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[ex-wendles389.livejournal.com]

It was based on Woody Bop Muddy's Record Graveyard comedy act. Highly recommended ;)