25TH BIRTHDAY
THE ARCHES T he Arches was founded in 1991 as a multi-purpose arts and clubbing space, designed to accommodate a variety of Glasgow’s avant garde scenes. Through club nights such as Slam, Colours and Death Disco, festivals such as Arches Live and the innovation of artistic directors including Andy Arnold (interviewed overleaf), it’s never fallen away from the cutting edge of Scottish culture.
Death Disco Launched at the end of 2002 as a place to hear anarchic, electronic DJs and bands in an open- minded atmosphere, Death Disco at the Arches has hosted the likes of Erol Alkan, Mylo, Justice, Calvin Harris, Bloody Beetroots and 2ManyDJs. Here is a selection of their best flyers
CARL COX The world famous DJ is an Arches patron, with a very special relationship to the venue. He explains why Arches clubbing is such a unique experience
I first played the Arches back in 88/89, for Slam and Colours. There has always been a big line around the corner and the nights have always been exciting. I have very fond memories of playing Slam on Friday nights, especially given the nature of the music I was playing at the time. It was very underground stuff, a lot of Detroit techno music, very specialist and people were keen as mustard to hear it. I can’t give you any standout nights because they’ve all been so good. Over the years, they’ve spent a bit of money to make
it better, it used to be a dark and gloomy place, but now it’s actually an amazing, clean venue. Also, the sound is incredible – because of the arches themselves you get this really good warm sound.
When you get a few thousand people in there it does get hot, but I also think it creates an energy in the room when you are all steaming together. Out of all the DJs that have played there, people have had a special affinity with me, so the Arches came to me about being a patron because of the way I got people to go to that venue and to enjoy it for what they had created it for. When I went back and played again this year it was absolutely phenomenal. The Scottish people have always taken me to their hearts as I was one of the first DJs to come from England to Scotland, and they’ve never forgotten it. So it’s fantastic that they still open their arms to me after all these years, based on what I did in the beginning. (As told to Henry Northmore)
28 THE LIST 23 Sep–7 Oct 2010
I WAS THERE!
Banksy exhibits at the Arches, March 2001. By Neil Bratchpiece, Arches front of house duty manager 2001 saw a huge and very welcome change to The Arches, Glasgow’s clubbing and arts mecca. It was the year the building was given a major refurbishment, including the addition of the café bar and restaurant on Argyle Street – until then, a brick and dust- strewn derelict space. One of a few events to celebrate this re- opening was an exhibition by two of Britain’s ‘underground’ artists – one an iconic situationist of the 70s, the other an emerging graffiti artist whose satiric stencils were beginning to upset establishments in major cities around the world. The former was Jamie Reid, the man behind the Sex Pistols’ cover artwork. The latter was Banksy.
At the time, Jamie Reid was the better-known artist, and the main draw of the exhibition. Reid was also the type of guy that stands out in a crowd – tall and thin with a flowing mane of white dreadlocks. Banksy, however . . . well it seems the stories are true. Somehow, he managed to set up a large exhibition which included huge, unique paintings on an arch wall, and yet nobody knew who he was. Nobody in The Arches remembers meeting him or speaking to him. He was like a spray-can-wielding ninja. All Banksy-related correspondence was executed through his manager, and most of that amounted to stories of graffiti antics in Amsterdam’s red light district. I later wondered if this manager was in fact Banksy himself, using a character to throw people off his trail, like a Bristolian Keyser Soze.
It was a memorable and unique exhibition. The stencils on the wall of Arch Two, including an enormous rendering of a Mona Lisa (which Banksy later controversially replicated in The Louvre), are still there, albeit hidden under paintwork like a giant lost masterpiece. Excitingly, The Arches are currently trying to retrieve them. Watch this graffiti-tinged space . . .