HIDDEN GLASGOW
GLAD, HANDY
The Glad Café is one of Glasgow’s best-kept secrets. It hasn’t even opened yet, but already has a dedicated clientele and a track record for some seriously hip gigs and club nights
Rachel Smillie has lived in Pollokshields, one of the most ethnically diverse areas in Scotland, for almost 35 years. She’s only recently realised what the area is missing, though. ‘About two years ago, I was
in London visiting my daughter. She had a café in Dalston that she particularly wanted to take us to. They did music every night of the week, often quite experimental music, and it had such a diverse clientele – people of different ages, different backgrounds. Turkish, West Indian, white. By the time we left that café, I was on a completely different career trajectory.’ She came home determined
to create a similar space for Glasgow: serving food, playing everything from
cutting-edge electronica to world music and acting as a meeting point for the various communities in the area. Over the past two years, Smillie has raised a volunteer army of Southside-based DJs, musicians and artists, who have both acted as an unofficial steering group and run fundraising events. The growing secret of the Glad Café (which, we’re now allowed to say, will open in a former industrial site on Darnley Street later this year) has built up over a series of gigs, club nights and clothes swaps designed to raise awareness and funds. Supporters include some of the LuckyMe, Detour and Numbers DJs (who have run a couple of gigs and put a Glad Café fundraising album together), Radio Awaz are
going to run comedy nights from the café, and novelist Alan Bissett and Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake have already signed on as patrons. Get involved in the next couple of fundraising events, and you could be part of a new, growing community project. ‘Yes, it’s definitely come
about through the community: through our connections, through new connections we’re making in the area all the time. A lot of people have said to us that this is what the Southside really needs.’ (Kirstin Innes) ■ Glad Rags Clothes Swap, Sat 20 Aug, Pollokshields Church Hall, 11am, £5; La Roche Rumba (all-day fundraising gig with eight live bands, plus DJs), David Cargill Club, Sun 25 Sep, 3pm–1am. thegladcafe.co.uk
events and bar licence for some absolutely storming pop-up gigs and warehouse parties. Something about the complete isolation of the area, combined with the excellent connections of SWG3 supremo Mutley, makes this one of the hippest spots in the city, as anyone at the recent and now-annual Electric Frog Carnivals will testify. Events are by no means regular, although the exhibitions are. swg3.tv
If you’d like to take things a little less hedonistically, why not try to find a hidden conFAB performance? Rachel Jury’s team of performers and poets create works designed to be heard or experienced live in hidden locations around the city. They most recently ran ‘mini- interventions’ around the Merchant City as part of the Merchant City Festival. confab.org.uk A number of the really interesting pop-up events recently have been designed as rallies or fundraisers around good causes. The Govanhill Baths, currently unable to be used as a swimming pool, has hosted film screenings,
experimental sonic gigs, a pop-up charity shop and gala. govanhill baths.com swimming
even
a dry
Burlesquey saucepots tend to flock to the Britannica Panoptican, the former music hall on the Trongate end of Argyle Street, for a variety of cabaret nights aiming to bring it back to its former glory (britanniapanopticon.org, take your coat, though, the building has no heating). And the ever-growing team behind the yet-to-open Glad Café have put together the sort of programme most full-time venues would kill for (see panel, above). Finally, although it’s not really an event, nor in any way young and new, any tour of Glasgow’s hidden gems ought to take in the show at Sharmanka Kinetic Theatre. Seriously beautiful, intricate sculpture, dancing, singing and disturbing, in a tiny dark room at the back of Trongate 103. Such a wonderful collection of work shouldn’t remain a secret for much longer. sharmanka.com
21 Jul–4 Aug 2011 THE LIST 95
Cookery School in Glasgow for over a year now. Its location? Your own kitchen: Deer comes into your home and teaches you how to make authentic Bombay dishes with your own utensils, so as to increase your confidence. If you’d prefer to try out the sort of dishes she makes before you start your lessons, you can catch her every weekend, running her Babu Bombay Street Food stall from either the Partick or Queen’s Park farmers markets. See citymarketsglasgow.co.uk for full details of all Glasgow markets. tiny.cc/babustreet
HOME GROWN GALLERIES, GIGS, FESTIVALS AND PARTIES
As you may have worked out by now, Glasgow means art. Never mind the razzle-dazzle, fully- funded and prize-grabbing big venues and galleries you’ve already heard of, get to know the scene from the inside. Follow artists collectives and studios across the city on Twitter or Facebook – the Chalet, in Govanhill, for example, may not have regular events on, but is occasionally involved in local festivals. IRONBBRATZ is a new studio complex packed full of younger artists. A walk to the East End is highly recommended too: on Duke Street the Duchy Gallery (theduchygallery.com) and the Market Gallery (marketgallery.org.uk) usually have exhibitions of emergent work and are great examples of artist-run organisations managing to stay afloat on shoe-string budgets and talent. Right over the other side of town, SWG3 is our absolute favourite hidden venue, well versed in the art of parties. Carved into the old warehouses under the railway arches just out of Partick Station, and right slap bang in the middle of absolutely nothing at all, the Studio Warehouse houses a fertile nest of artist studios year-round, but also takes out an occasional