Clubs
‘IT’S A SEXY, LUSH CLUB NIGHT FROM THE 1970S’
www.list.co.uk/clubs Hitlist THE BEST DANCEFLOOR ACTION*
✽ Return to Mono Old school house and electro from Chicago’s Cajmere, aka Green Velvet, at Slam’s regular monthly bash. Sub Club, Glasgow, Fri 11 Jun. ✽ Rock Ness Three days of beats on the banks of Loch Ness featuring Leftfield, Fatboy Slim, Aphex Twin, Bloody Beetroots, Dave Clarke, Booka Shade and heaps more. See feature, page 30. Loch Ness, Fri 11–Sun 13 Jun. ✽ Dance! Dance! Dance! Ben Pistor of London’s painfully fashionable Disco Bloodbath joins up with the like minded D!D!D!. Mama San, Glasgow, Sat 12 Jun. ✽ The Greatest Show on Earth Edinburgh’s most eclectic club space celebrate their first birthday with a typically free wheelin’ line up of burlesque, cabaret and fun with a circus theme. The Electric Circus, Edinburgh, Sat 12 Jun. ✽ Sick Note Saturday SN take advantage of their monthly weekend slot with alt. hip hoppers Young Fathers (pictured) going live. Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh, 12 Jun. ✽ Animal Farm Another of the Farmers’ irregular appearances at the Subbie, this time with New York-based South African Brendon Moeller for a set of dubbed-out disco. Sub Club, Glasgow, Fri 18 Jun. ✽ Be Deep Expect an eclectic selection as Berlin’s Panorama Bar resident Steffi guests. Admiral Bar Basement, Glasgow, Fri 18 Jun. ✽ Death Disco Belgian electro from Aeroplane and Australian disco-pop from The Swiss (see Exposure, p 71) at the Arches’ neon-flared, popular monthly party. Arches, Glasgow, Sat 19 Jun. ✽ Substance Planetary Assault Systems lay waste to the GRV. The GRV, Edinburgh, Sat 19 Jun. 10-24 Jun 2010 THE LIST 43
Milk
Beyond the thunderdome David Pollock talks over design, 70s disco and ‘tasteful pornography’ with Thunder Disco Club as they reach their first birthday
T hunder Disco Club: part night out, part state of mind. Speak to the organisers of the Glasgow-based event, which is one year old this fortnight and will be hosting the School of Art’s 3000-capacity end-of-term party to celebrate, and they talk about it almost as if it were still an imaginary idea, the fantasy best night out ever, which they’d one day like to run.
‘If you were going to the Thunder Disco Club,’ says Ian Guy, co-promoter, ‘it would ease you into it with 70s disco and 80s Italo, but then it would get harder, housier and more modern as the night goes on. Thunder Disco Club isn’t so much a sound, though, it’s more an atmosphere. It has a consistent identity, it’s a sexy, lush club night from the 1970s.’ Considering Guy has just handed in the last piece of coursework for his Product Design degree at GSA minutes before The List calls, it’s little wonder the club is branded so well, all airbrushed models in retro sunglasses on the flyers and visuals on the night from fellow GSA student Joe Crogan. There was barely any kind of design to the night’s inception, however.
‘I met Ian on the first day I arrived from London to go to Glasgow Uni,’ says co-promoter Angus Dunsyre. ‘We were outside having a fag, and he wanted to show me his guitar and his Apple Mac, because he thought they were so wonderful. I was thoroughly unimpressed.’
‘Genius product design, though,’ pipes up Guy. From there, the pair moved onto presenting a show together on Subcity Radio and then kicking off the first TDC night at the Lite Bar under the Corinthian
one year ago. ‘Since then we’ve collaborated with R-P-Z at the Courtyard,’ says Dunsyre, ‘played the Art School and DJed at other people’s nights under the TDC name.’ Although the pair don’t want to be tied down to a residency, they do want to keep playing their own events and others’ regularly – already they have the first date of a quarterly charity gig at the Sub Club with Cotton Cake coming up. For this event the pair have also lined up a live set from new Glasgow band Milk, whose number includes singer and guitarist Pablo ‘My Kappa Roots’ Clark and Guy and Dunsyre’s old friend Callum Rankine. Despite not having a MySpace (‘it was a group decision to leave it,’ says Rankine. ‘If you want to hear us, come and see us live’) perhaps Rankine’s description might convince: ‘Imagine Keith Emerson and Nick Cave playing in an 80s band like Blancmange and you’re pretty much there. We’ll be putting on a show – it is a party, after all – and probably playing a roaring 80s cover at the end.’
All of which sounds like a great party, although the scale of the thing is a step up for the TDC boys. ‘I am slightly daunted,’ says Dunsyre, ‘by the size of the crowd and how cultured they’ll be. But Joe has some great ideas, so we’ll be doing some green screen filming with him next week . . .’ ‘. . . and mashing it up with classic 70s B-movies,’ continues Guy. ‘A bit of tasteful pornography.’ The suspicion is they’ll be just fine.
Thunder Disco Club celebrates its first birthday at Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, Fri 11 Jun.