SLAM
Slam. Friday. The Arches. It's a Glasgow clubbing institution but, six years after the first record was spun, it's all coming to an end. We check out how Slam put Scotland on the world's techno map,
while DJ Stuart McMillan explains what's happening next.
Words: Rory Weller
Slam
- the dour closes
FOR THE PAST ten years, not a week has gone by without Scotland’s ambassadors of dance, Slam, DJing at least once in their home town of Glasgow. Now, though. they have chosen to think the unthinkable and bring their flagship night at the Arches every Friday to a climactic conclusion.
‘A lot of people are sad it‘s closing, myself included,’ says Stuart McMillan, who with Orde Meikle make up the Slam DJing and production team. ‘lt doesn’t mean Slam is stopping doing clubs in Glasgow, it’s just we‘re not doing that particular one.’
The night closes exactly six years to the day since it started, following on from the legendary Joy and Atlantis nights at the Sub Club and Slam‘s embryonic days at Tin Pan Alley and Fury Murry’s. Slam did so much to catapult the Arches itself into the national league of dance houses, designing the sound system to fit the hall and their own blend of techno. They also brought the finest names in modern music to the club to play with them and. staying loyal to their crowd, DJ-ed around the world but more often than not returned every Friday to the institution their night had become.
No one has come close to stealing McMillan and Meikle’s Scottish club crown.
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Organise the UK's first licensed all- nighters and go round Scotland on the SchlitflSlam tour.
1988 Stuart and Orde meet and begin DJing as Black Market at Fury Murry’s and Slam at Tin Pan Alley, then open Joy at The Sub Club with Harri.
SLAM HISTORY
18 THE UST 2—16 Apr 1998
As DJs. they are respected internationally; as producers they have created seminal acid house/Detroit techno tracks that endure the years; and as co-founders and runners of their Soma label (named after the drug in Brave New World), they have brought us acts like Daft Punk, One Dove and Funk D‘Void.
The decision to close originated last year but, with a club of this size, ending it is akin to stopping a super-tanker. The essential reasons
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given are that Slam need to concentrate on the development of their second album. and that the time wasjust right.
‘lt could have gone on for a good few years the way it had been going.‘ says McMillan . ‘When you’ve been doing something for six years. you purely need to do something a bit fresher. If you don‘t feel right about something you have to act on it.‘
But Slam will by no means disappear from
1993
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legendary Sub Club Slam at The Arches. (Saturday) Atlantis
night.
Farley guest fora Junior Boys Own Night