The tunes, the sweat, the mullets

Quite why those short of stature often have absurdly high opinions of themselves is beyond me. Take Friday night at Sanctuary in Birmingham, for instance. I spent half an hour listening to a small moustachioed gentleman, pot-bellied and slick with sweat, singing songs about seduction and bragging about the size of his cock before shouting “Give it up for me – I’m the fucking best!”

It was the third time I’ve seen Har Mar Superstar, and the joke has finally worn thin. The flyer promised “the white Prince and all-American pocket-sized brief-wearing disco-funk-soul stripping sex machine”, but for the most part his set was less an engorged love-poker and more a pathetically flaccid post-pub trouser-maggot. The low point was, as usual, the seedy violation of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Sir Duke’. Things picked up towards the end, though, with ‘Power Lunch’ and ‘Brothers & Sisters’, which triggered a mass stage invasion (and which, incidentally, will not now be seeing the light of day as a single due to “some hippy cunt in New York”). Even still, it took some time for Har Mar to work himself up, and his departure, just as things were getting moist, felt premature. As he disappeared from view making his way through the onstage throng shouting “Don’t fucking touch me!”, those around me were only too happy to massage his ego.

The night wasn’t wasted, though – far from it. We might have missed Chikinki, but there was always fashion-victim-spotting to be done – the place was practically wall-to-wall feathered mullets and horizontally striped T-shirts. As my significant other commented: “I know it’s trendy at the moment to look awful, but you can take it too far.” I blame Karen O and all of The Cooper Temple Clause.

Thankfully Zane Lowe was also on hand and on the decks – and, to use the popular parlance, he completely tore the place up, playing everything from Queens Of The Stone Age to NWA via At The Drive-In, Beastie Boys, Weezer and The Strokes. Respect due for making me realise quite how brilliant The Rapture’s ‘House Of Jealous Lovers’ could be in a club, and for wrapping up the set with ‘Stop’ by Jane’s Addiction. Come back again soon.