CLUBS LISTINGS
Catch the best Edinburgh Clubs till: fortnight.
PHAT
I Phat James Lavelle — Mo Wax head honcho — brings his wired ambient funk and scientific jazz visions north of the border. Scuff those old school trainers and nod your head. La Belle Angele. Fri 22 Apr.
I Truth Soulful. rhythmic. inspired. House like it should be. Fierce. emotive garage. You only need one Friday night house club. This is it. The Rocking Horse. Fridays.
I Joy Shaping up to be one of Edinburgh's best nights out, gay or otherwise. Dis Maggie and Alan putting some serious finesse into the mix and a raging queercore of punters who could teach all the straight boys in skirts around at the moment a thing or two. The Caltmi. Saturdays.
I Chopper at Club Xchange. 10.30pm—3.30am. £3 (£2). Garage. house. 90s disco and a new set of brake blocks. Double vodka £1.
I Fab at Reds. llpm—-3am. £3 (£2). The Fab Boys play a many and varied funky and bassy soundtrack to jump along to. TAG £1.50. vodka-mix £ I.
I Go West at Cleopatra's. 11pm--2.30am. £2 (£1 with ticket).
I Horizontal at The Volcano. 10.30pm—3am. £3 (£2). Jazz and rare groove from the highly respected Nick Peacock.
I love Train at Cafe Cini. 9pm—midnight. Free. Selected beers for £1. Joe Deacon playing the best in classic soul. funk and piano house.
I lied October at October Cafe. Spin—midnight. Free. Gavin Lawson and Paul Crainie mixing up a bit of house. disco and garage to keep you off the streets on a Wednesday night.
I Paradise at Fury Murry's. llpm—3am. £1. Hip-hop to house from Cristian and Raj who can also be seen at The Rock Garden on a Thursday night.
I Positive lloise at Sub Club. 10.30pm—late. £2.50 (£1). ‘Silly student‘ drinks promos: pints and vodka £1 with cheap bottled beers. Pitched at students bored of the same offerings night after night. Featuring an eclectic playlist of chart dance. funk. classic indie and new indie.
I Rampant Sound at Under Ventura. 8pm-midnight. Free. Dub of the highest order.
I Tamla Motown at The 13th Note. Free. Listen to Marvin all night long at this pre- club celebration of 60s and 70s classic soul from labels like Motown. Stax. Atlantic. Okeh and Ric-Tic.
LAVELLE BEST
James Lavelle is intense and intent; in his new, minimalist office (just off Oxford Street) he stares determinedly and expounds passionately. At twenty, Lavelle runs one of Britain’s most successful independent record labels, Mo’ Wax, and he’s just been co-opted by london Records to run a new hip hop subsidiary label, Smoke Filled Thoughts.
Since its inception eighteen months ago, releases on Mo’ Wax have fast- forwarded hip hop and ion into the 21st century; warping and contorting funk and syncopation into scientific and new-technological territories. ‘l’m very into strong British labels like Warp, that have a mass musical identity but are also experimental and different,’ he says. ‘I’d like to do something similar for the ian scene.’
Lavelle’s label has been nothing if not experimental. Take last year’s pivotal ‘ln-Flux’ by DJ Shadow, a futuristic marriage of ambient and hip hop or the wired eclecticism of Le Funk Mob. The current Mo’ Wax single, nPM’s ‘2000’ is an aqueous piece of sparse, spaced funk; think The Orb and Cypress Hill trapped 20,000 leagues under the ocean together. It typifies the kind of
' glorious fusions that make Mo’ Wax
such a fervently progressive label. ‘I love so much different stuff, like Ram Al Zee, The Beastle Boys, Smith and Mighty, abstract techno shit,’ Lavelle enthuses.
lle ploughs a linear verbal furrow through an assortment of musical
'A pastures with the sort of assurance lacking in many a 40-year-old record executive. Lavelle also has unshakeable faith in the potential of British hip hop. ‘llip hop may not be a way of life here like it is in America but I think the way British hip hop can work is in an aggressive instrumental way,’ he explains. What’s refreshing is that Scotland is very much a part of this British hip hop scene for Lavelle. lie is excited at the chance to DJ in Edinburgh and about forthcoming releases from Edinburgh’s Mo Flava 0uta llational and Glasgow-based ex- Soul II Soul engineer llowie Bernstein. llls search for new talent wherever it may spring from is undaunting.
‘l’m not interested in working with a
‘lot of old school jazz musicians. I’m 'young, I’m only twenty, I wanna move
things on.’ (Bethan Cole)
James Lavelle 0.1s at Phat, La Belle Angele, Edinburgh on Fri 22 April. A Mo’ Wax compilation lP ‘Boyalties Overdue’ is released on 31 May.
I Wednesday llight Fever at The Cotton Club. 10.30pm—3am. £3 (£2 with matric card). Positively a towering inferno of rekindled kitsch. Busy? You betcha. Drinks promos.
Thursdays
I Bar 10 ‘)pm—1ate. Free. Dis Gavin and Ziggy popping in from time to time. Live music now and then too.
I Bellyhutton at The Volcano. 10.30pm-1ate. £3 (£2). Get your midriff round this Euroish. garageish. funkyish club with Kevin McKay and other assorted top Dis. Note that this has moved from Monday night.
I Big Time at Caledonian University Union. 9.30pm—3am. New weekly mainstream night with Di Paul ()‘Niel.
I Bloomers at Cleopatra‘s. llpm—2.30am. £2 (£1 with ticket). Mainstream pop and dance.
I Bluntstone Groove at The Rock Garden. Spin—midnight. Free. Dis Chris and Raj going from hip-hop to house via three turntables.
I Brian Lavelle’s Party flight at Bennet's. llpm—3am. £2. Upfront dance from Di Grant Duff.
I Club It at Underground. 10.30pm—3am. £3 (£2 students). New student-orientated night. thus student music (whatever that may be), with Dave C.L. Young.
I Club Xchange llpm—3am. £2.50 (£2). Gay. Di Stella and Happy Hour all night. I Club Havana at Baby Grand. 8pm—lam. Free. Di Jazz with Latin jazz and salsa.
I Contamination at The Power Station. 10pm—3am. £2. The popular industrial and goth club continues to plug a gaping hole in Clubland.
I D.I.S.C.0. Inferno at Reds. l lpm—3am. £2. Seventies disco. pop and glam plus Bud and vodka for £1 all night. A night of
classic disco peppered with the best of contemporary house and garage.
I Disney Fist at The Cathouse. Studio 3. 10pm—3am. £2. Alternative sounds.
I Frontier at The Garage. 10.30pm--3am. £3 (£2). May 5. A Megadog inspired night with a tribal underground ambient feel.
I Harmony Bennet's. l 1piii~3am. £2 (£1 1. New mixed night from Dis Sarah (Tunnel) and John (Glad).
I Hex Upstairs at The 1301 Note. 8.30pm- midnight. Free. A sort of acoustic. mellow night.
I llon COW at The Arches. 10.30pm-3am. £2. Student night with live music every week and happy house sounds from Di Malkie.
I loaded at Blackfriars Underground. 8pmcmidnight. Free. New studenty pre- club with Dis Mikey and Sanj. Cheap drinks. groovy garage and bouncy toons. I Loveshack at Fury M urry's. 10.30pm—3am. £2.20 (£2). From the people who bring you Sonic and The Beat Club. included in the price is one free tequila. Dutch beer. or white wine.
I October Cafe 7pm- midnight. Free. A packed ()ctober Cafe is aurally contented by Dis Steve and Derek offering up a cool and current selection of dance tunes. Perfect as a pre-Tunnel warm-up and with more promos than you can shake a short review at. earning its ‘happy music for happy people' tag.
I Shaft at The Cathouse. 10pm—2am. £2. A shameless 70s disco funfest. with the added attraction of regular drinks promos. I Soundclash at Glasgow School of Art. Vic Bar. 28 April and then fortnightly.
I Strathclyde University Union 9pm—2am. Free. A legendary night in the annals of studentdom. Tam Coyle doing his thang on Level 8 (now calling itself The Octopus) and Retro Active in Reds. I The Tunnel 10pm—3am. £4 (£2 with
matric card). Ain‘t never been a student night quite as big as this one. What ‘)am lecture? Mainstream dance and club classics.
I Planet Earth at Cotton Club.
1 1pm—3am. £3 (£2). Fighties hits and a mixed bag of funky tunes.
I Virunga at The Garage. 10.30pm—3am. £3 (£2). Di Tchico taking his blend of African. reggae. Latin. soca and hip hop to this new location.
I XlH-B at The Hive. 10pm-1am. Free. Students and guests. Top gear dance sounds with DJ Paul Me and guests. Drinks promos. Tickets available from the Union bars.
EDINBURGH Fridays
I Big Beat at La Belle Angele. 10.30pm-3am. £4 (£3). 2‘) Apr. Monthly. Tight jazz syncopations from those Thelonious boys with an essential infusion of hip hop and funk. Well sophisticated.
I Boost at Heriot Watt Student Union. 10pm—3am. £1. Students and guests. 2‘) Apr only. Indie and bubblegum pop.
I Breeze at The Citrus Club. 1 1pm—4am. £5. 2‘) Apr. Guests tbc. New dance night. I Bubblegum at Potterrow Student Union. ‘)pm—2am. £1 (£2 non-students). Students and guests only. Indie music.
I Buster Browns 10.30pm—3.30am. £3 (girls free before midnight. £2 after; guys £2 before midnight). Mainstream. chart and oldies. Available Mon—Thurs for private parties. Curfew is 2am.
I Cathouse at The Rocking Horse. llpm~3am. £2.50 (£2 with ilyer). Crowded night running the gamut of rock. from heavy metal to grunge to thrash.
I Century 2000 llpm—3am. £5. Mainstream and chart. Drinks promos.
I City 2 Downstairs at The City Cafe. Spin—lam. Free. Underground house and progressive dance in the pre-club club.
I The Edge 4pm—230am. Free. Mainstream. chart and oldies. Happy Hour 4—10pm. Available for private hire Mon-~Wed.
I EVOI at Wilkie House. 10.30pm——3am. £3 (£2.50). Shiny. happy indie sounds. with a bit of a raw. grungey edge from resident Dis Kieren and Amanda.
I Ciro at The Rocking Horse. llpm--3am. £2.50 (£2). A playlist with floor-shaking tendencies: techno/acid. funk/death metal and rap. ‘The most intense sounds in lidinburgh.‘ Promising to play your own records and (‘Ds if vou take them along. I Joy at the Calton (downstairs).
10pm- 3am. 2‘) April only. Benefit for the financially troubled gay bookshop West and Wilde. featuring Dis Allan and Maggie.
I Junction 69 at lleriot Watt Student Union. 10pm-3am. £1. 22 Apr only. Fortnightly. Students and guests. 69;) drinks promos. happy charty dance music and mainstream club sounds.
I l(atch at The Rocking Horse. 11pm-—3am. £2.50 (£2 with tlyer). Lively club with a playlist consisting mainly of 80s and ‘)0s indie dance.
I Kazoo at The Vaults. 10pm 3am. £5. 22 Apr. Monthly. Trannies With Attitude open this new night with a music policy verging on Balearic. A tea lady will be. serving beverages to thirsty patrons from lam until closing time. they tell me.
I Kiss at Teviot Row Student Union. 7.30pm—2am. £2 (£3 non-students). Free before 9.30pm. Students and guests only. Happy Hour 7.3()~‘).30pm. Featuring Beatbox upstairs. playing mainstream chart disco and Juice downstairs. with hip-hop. funk and 70s disco.
I Lee Sinclair Presents at Legends. 11pm—3am. £4 (£3). 22 Apr only. Bouncy tunes of the garage and techno persuasion. I Lush Mush at The Shack. ‘)pm—2am. £4 (£3). 22 Apr only. ‘A delightful meal of a club featuring a wide selection of delectable platters.‘
70 The List 22 April—5 May 1994