Clubs PROFILE
WILL.I.AM Occupation He’s in some band, The Black Eyed Peas, you might’ve heard of them . . . So what’s he doing in the club section? BEP are headlining the Radio 1/NME Stage at T in the Park and Will’s heading straight to Glasgow afterwards to man the decks at the behest of Colours and Tipsy. A busy man, then. Tell me more Born William James Adams Jr he co-founded the Black Eyed Peas back in 1988 with high school pal apl.de.ap (aka Allen Pineda) but it was the addition of Fergie to the line-up in 2001, the subsequent album Elephunk and the colossal chart hit ‘Where is the Love?’ that sent them mainstream. Their 2009 album The END has further cemented their position as sci-fi hip hop pop stars with huge hits such as ‘Boom Boom Pow’, ‘I Gotta Feeling’ and ‘Meet Me Halfway’ eating up the airwaves. So what about this DJ set? You can hear Will’s love of electro beats in his more recent albums (particularly on his solo releases). The BEPs have also drafted in the likes of David Guetta, Boys Noize and Mark Knight on production duties, proving their commitment to dancefloor culture. So we’re expecting a party up mix of cool electro, house, hip hop beats and probably a few of Will’s own tracks. What else can we expect? Of course Will has been featured pretty heavily in the tabloids of late due to his rumoured dalliance with a certain Ms Cheryl Cole. While we can’t promise the X-Factor judge will be in attendance we can assure you Holland’s house superstar DJ Chuckie (Dirty Dutch) will be making his Scottish debut as the main support alongside some cracking local house, urban, hip hop and R&B DJs including DJ Mash, Jon Mancini and Paul N’Jie. (Henry Northmore) ■ Will.i.am at the Arches, Glasgow, Fri 9 Jul. 40 THE LIST 8–22 Jul 2010
HOUSE THE REVENGE Return to Mono at the Sub Club, Glasgow, Fri 9 Jul.
For Graeme Clark, aka The Revenge, this is something of a golden period. As if to prove the point, The List has to conduct an email interview with him all the way from Japan, where he’s on tour. It’s a long way from his home in Glasgow and even farther from his native Dunfermline, and the sense of hard- working privilege is only amplified when he points out that ‘the last 15 years have been the highlight for me’.
Playing everything from house to disco re-edits, Clark is promising plenty of the former for this visit to the church of Slam. Again, it’s a far cry from his original love of rave (‘people like The KLF, Prodigy, Orbital and some hardcore Rotterdam stuff too – my teenage rebellion, I guess’), but then again versatility
has been a hallmark of his career. He has been or still is a part of Deportivo Street Team, OOFT!, Cronk Family Enterprises, 6th Borough Project and The Hong Kong Micros. ‘The names aren’t so much to signify a different style,’ he says, ‘but more to signify a different working partnership. I collaborate with different people on these projects and that keeps production exciting for me.’
While his labels Five20East and Instruments of Rapture are on hold at the moment, he has plenty more to keep him going, including ‘the 6th Borough Project album for Delusions Of Grandeur with Craig Smith, a reworks album for Dave Lee’s Z Records, a track for Steve Bug’s Pokerflat plus remixes for Chez Damier, Holy Ghost and Faze Action. That should keep me busy. I need a cup of tea’. Green, we presume? (David Pollock)
TECHNO JAKN GRV, Edinburgh, Sat 10 Jul
Now heading into their seventh year, it seems a pleasure for the boys at Edinburgh techno night JakN to be able to report a positive change on the horizon. After all, they’ve already endured two venue changes (one forced on them when their original haunt the Venue closed down, another when they decided to leave Studio 24 two years back) before settling down into their current bi-monthly slot at the GRV. Now, though, they’re laughing – Gary Beveridge, aka S3konz, has got his hands on a Rane Sixty-Eight mixer, and the pair are talking it up as if it were a special guest star. ‘It’s silly,’ says co-promoter Chris McKimmie, aka FuK- NuT, of the piece of kit. ‘I had a go on it for five minutes and I was amazed at all the things I could do, but once you get in-depth it feels like the possibilities are endless. Now Gary’s a really skilled DJ already, the boy is absolute techno, so I reckon combining him with this mixer is going to be just ridiculous.’ McKimmie doesn’t want to second-guess what his DJing partner will do, but he knows it’ll involve a straight
three-hour set played off three decks.
Musically, though, it’ll follow the style that JakN has established for itself since it started, which is ‘all kinds of techno, a progression through all its forms, with maybe a little house at the start and then moving towards harder stuff at the end. Minimal, techy stuff, a bit of breaks too . . .’ At least now they know they have the gear to put together such a packed set. (David Pollock)