Is it sinful to be cool? Not according to Rev Jennie Hogan, our resident correspondent of the cloth. Trying too hard to be cool when you're not really cool at all, however, is a totally different matter! We sent her to the not-so-secret Secret Wars design-off tournament at Cordy House on Curtain Road. Swedish electro outfit, Slagsmålsklubben, accompanied Jennie to watch graffiti artists Wen & D-Bug do battle…

I have just moved to E1 from the fancy confines of SW1. London now feels like a new, edgier environment. Gone are the gilded domes, the royal parks, the tearooms and the tourists. East London is still so cool it hurts, but there’s nothing wrong with that. I love seeing people stretch the boundaries of art, fashion and music. But only if it’s a genuine and original expression. If it’s forced then it’s fake, phoney and dare I say it? Sinful!

One Saturday evening recently I went to a club night called Secret Wars at Cordy House on Curtain Road. The club night initially had all the elements of a cool East London experience: an empty, open, post-industrial space - art, youth and alcohol. I thought I was about to have the ultimate non-West End night out, without neon naffness and pit ponies from suburbia trying to take London by (drunken) storm. My evening had a further layer of exotic promise as my guests were a six piece electro-synth band from Norrköping in Sweden called Slagsmålsklubben. I assumed that I was exposing them to London at its hippest.

The Vicar shows our Swedish friends a good time

The focus of the night was not the music (thankfully) which was old skool hip hop. There was not much dancing, but a few keen girls with nice outfits had a go. Most people there were watching two graffiti artists draw cartoon images on the blank walls. One was creating a post nuclear disaster scene with a George Bush look-a-like squeezing a cockroach triumphantly. The other was an image of urban chaos. They were good cartoons, but it was hardly Pollock at his peak. So why was everyone entranced? What exactly was their draw?

Perhaps it’s just this East London scene. Some people try so hard to belong, to fit in, to be seen to know. Art sometimes equals instant kudos. So eager punters were paying money to watch two men draw on walls who they would otherwise snobbishly ignore if they were drawing on the pavement in Leicester Square. Some people there were clearly only watching because everybody else was. Being desperate to be dandy is never a winner in the wide urban world we live in.

 
The double-finger, the pseudo-limbo, the flat-cap shuffle - it's all there. Posers, Jennie? Whatever do you mean?

One of the members of Slagsmålsklubben told me that they started out a few years ago and made playful upbeat music on their synths. Slagsmålsklubben have recently played at hyper-hip Liars Club and The End. I was under the impression that Slagsmålsklubben must have been cool until they told me that their name translates in Swedish as Fight Club. Hmmm…

Three of the members politely watched the artists get on with their work but, like me, soon got bored and wondered what the fuss was all about. They were disappointed. They had expected to be challenged and entertained - they had come all the way to East London from Norrköping! The Swedish scenesters wanted to dance and so headed off to a techno club.

Trendiness and coolness cannot be manufactured. Postures and posing are just fake sheepish forms of behaviour for those who do not know who they are. Real coolness is radical, dangerous and risky, fuelled by a creative urge to create or be something new. Sifting through the posers in East London takes more than one night out on the town… so if you have been hanging around in East London pretending to be cool, come and find me. I'll be happy to hear your confession.

Have a listen to Slagsmålsklubben at www.myspace.com/slagsmalsklubben

The final of Secret Wars will be taking place sometime, some place in February. Keep updated at their website - www.secretwars.co.uk