Born To Be Wilde

As the title probably indicates, you don’t have to love beats and bleeps for It’s All Gone Pete Tong, but it would certainly help. A wicked satire at the expense of the largesse of the Ibiza scene, this daringly bizarre mockumentary is powered along by a richter-quaking soundtrack from Graham Massey, while the likes of Carl Cox, Paul Van Dyk and the eponymous Pete Tong (who also rather sportingly signed on as an executive producer) provide fond anecdotes about the movie’s fictional DJ anti-hero, Frankie Wilde. So that’s what those guys look like. Even their mothers probably didn’t know before now.

Aiming right for the Balearics might sound a bit fanciful; the hedonism of the Pacha decks set would seem well beyond the reaches of the most grotesque comic parody, but It’s All Gone Pete Tong hits you with an impressive deluge of vomit, orgy and Scarface worthy cocaine binges. And that’s just the opening few minutes. At the centre of the maelstrom is Frankie, a character invested with maniacal charisma by British comedian, Paul Kaye.
Previously best known as impertinent celebrity pest, Dennis Pennis, Mr. Kaye puts in a deftly demented turn as the gold-toothed rave god, Frankie Wilde. Whether swinging at his luxurious ex-pat Ibiza home with his shrieky, spray tan trophy wife and like-minded couples or descending over the adoring trance masses in a crown of thorns and a loincloth, the film‘s thoroughly frazzled protagonist is convincingly debauched. It comes as little surprise then, that Paul drew inspiration from Mr. C, one-time front man with wannabe youth-corruptors, The Shamen.
“I looked to Iggy Pop quite a bit when I was thinking about Frankie,” Paul tells me. “To be honest, I’ve got no particular affection for dance music so I didn’t worry too much about authenticity. My ignorance was liberating. I’ve seen quite a few DJs and they’re not the kind of performing animal that Frankie needed to be for cinematic reasons. But I did follow Mr. C around for a few nights. I thought he’d be ravaged but he’s really young and healthy looking. I picked up on something he had – he was just totally in his own world and into what he was doing. Course, I had to fuck around a bit more. Deep concentration isn’t all that exciting to watch.”
Of course, Frankie Wilde’s exotic bacchanals and heroic powder consumption doesn’t lead anywhere good. One minute he’s talking about his own celebrity endorsed hummus, the next he’s lying face down encrusted in his own vomit and old crisps, while a rabid, imaginary cocaine badger watches on.
“Ah, the badger”, laughs Paul. “We shot loads of weird, self-indulgent macabre stuff. We shot a blood bath ending. We shot hundreds of hours of footage. But the badger was always staying in. For me, the badger is the movie. It was thirty-five quid for that badger suit on e-bay. What an investment. No amount of CGI would be better.”
Don’t think, however, that It’s All Gone Pete Tong is merely a Christopher Guest styled satire on trance mega stardom with a dash of English surrealism. Badgers are far from the only oddity the film has to offer. After snaking off into weird psychedelic territory and coked paranoia, Frankie’s tale becomes increasingly tragic. Years of thumping beats and a genetic weakness eventually render our hero completely deaf, prompting all too obvious quips among viewers as they question the necessity of hearing in such a profession and a sea change in tone. Suddenly, we’re watching a disability drama.
“My recollection is that it always felt like we were making a tragedy. Of course, comedy can come out of tragedy, but it felt very genuinely sad. With all that coke, he’s going to be an arsehole but there’s always be some part of you that’s impenetrable – everyone has some kind of soul, I suppose. And we wanted that in the film. That somewhere in there, you’ve got to feel for him."