Clubs
www.list.co.uk/clubs
IT SHOULD BE ON AN EVENING WHEN NO ONE ELSE WOULD DREAM OF GOING OUT Hitlist THE BEST DANCEFLOOR ACTION*
Optimo
✽✽ JakN & Cause It The techno night is back with three rooms of beats, drum & bass, hip hop and dubstep and all for a good cause (St Columba’s Hospice). Highlights include a reformed Acid 69. The GRV, Edinburgh, Fri 11 Sep. ✽✽ Kapital Nathan Fake marks the release of his new long player, Hard Islands, with a live set of minimal techno and electro. The Caves, Edinburgh, Fri 11 Sep. ✽✽ Ballers Social Second Birthday Party LuckyMe’s clubbing wing celebrates two years of parties with two days of action from Jamie Vex’d, Darkstar, Rustie, The Blessings, Fulgeance, Fox Gutt Daata and Dema. Stereo, Glasgow, Fri 11 Sep; Ivy, Glasgow, Sat 12 Sep. ✽✽ Wrong Island For two years, Teamy and Dirty Larry have torn up a dark basement on Sauchiehall Street with a collision of electronics and rock’n’roll. The plan won’t change at this birthday party. Nice’n’Sleazy, Glasgow, Sat 12 Sep. ✽✽ Death Disco The Arches’ most relentlessly close-to-the- edge dance night this month features guests Joe and Will Ask?, Mix Hell, Designer Drugs, Optimo’s Wilkes and Edinburgh’s Hostage. Arches, Glasgow, Sat 19 Sep. ✽✽ Fortified Glasgow’s premier dubstep night returns with a freshers special featuring guests TRG and Jack Sparrow. Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, Sat 19 Sep. ✽✽ Wire Rapidly making a name for itself on the Edinburgh scene as Broken Records put in a DJ set of twisted folk and electronica. Electric Circus, Edinburgh, Sat 19 Sep. ✽✽ Killer Kitsch Take a break from the weekend with KK, featuring renowned remixer and producer Kris Menace. Buff Club, Glasgow, Tue 22 Sep. 10–24 Sep 2009 THE LIST 39
The university of life David Pollock checks out the club flavoured entertainment on offer for freshers and returning students.
The clubbing scene does tend to go into a state of semi-hibernation over the summer. And there’s one over-riding reason why you just can’t find anywhere decent to go on a Tuesday night, should the mood take you. The students, as they say, are away. In which case, hooray for September already.
But what makes a good student night? In the first case, it’s got to be cheap. Cheap entry, cheap drinks, cheap tunes and cheap thrills are generally enough to keep most freshers happy, and you’ll find plenty of venues offering both on the east and west coasts. In Glasgow, the Garage is a guilty pleasure but also rightly an institution, while Viper is an option that’s a little closer to home for West End-bound students. In Edinburgh, meanwhile, Stereo, City and Opal Lounge are likely to provide the definitive experiences of your student years. The other necessity for a big student night is that it should be on an evening when no one else would even dream of going out. That way you either get to be as lairy as you want on your first few legal pints without someone who’s older and bigger than you taking offence, or you get to sample some of the most truly underground nights around. Optimo (weekly Sundays, Sub Club, Glasgow) is popular among students, but absolutely not a typical student night. There are other fine examples of clubs with credibility and the crucial midweek element: nu-disco night Club For Heroes (weekly Thursdays, the GRV, Edinburgh); wide-reaching dance night Killer Kitsch (weekly Tuesdays, Buff Club, Glasgow; weekly Sundays, Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh); party night
Octopussy, which earns a place here by being in Glasgow’s most iconic club venue (weekly Thursdays, Arches, Glasgow); and a mid-weeker with occasionally huge guests in We Are . . . Electric (weekly Wednesdays, Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh).
There being lots of freshers in town, there is also a range of special one-off parties and new clubs kicking off. Two student union-bound parties deserve particular attention. First, Glasgow’s biggest dubstep night Fortified is holding a Freshers’ Ball (School of Art, Glasgow, Fri 18 Sep) with special guests TRG and Jack Sparrow that’s free to GSA freshers. Second, Edinburgh University will play host to local talents Motherfunk, Modern Lovers, Tokyoblu and Trouble at their freshers-only bash (Potterrow, Edinburgh, Fri 18 Sep) and then Rob Da Bank guests at Shuffle (Potterrow, Edinburgh, Thu 24 Sep). That’s not all. There’s, for example, local talent night Rendez Vous (V Club, Glasgow, Sat 19 Sep), which is free for students; a new student-focused monthly indie night named Synth (Flying Duck, Glasgow, Thu 17 Sep); and two free nights at the Hive, Edinburgh (Thu 10 and Thu 17 Sep). Also watch out for the Alternative Freshers Week at Cabaret Voltaire in Edinburgh next fortnight, a whole week of events that is the perfect introduction to one of Edinburgh’s best underground venues and all their big nights joined by the likes of Friendly Fires, Kris Menace, Total Science and Shit Robot.
Check listings and www.list.co.uk/events/clubs for full details of individual nights.