FEAT. |
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We live in a world of hype, of corporate clubbing. A world where every high street in every city has the same shops. A world where we all see the same tv shows and hear and dance to the same records. There's not a lot that can be done to outwit the forces of global capitalism and greed but we want to try! |
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Smallminded perhaps but we feel it is really important to have 'a local culture for local people'. All the best movements in music and art were spawned from a particular city at a particular point in time before they went global. Today, the media picks up and spews out anything that they think is new and the next week, they are screaming 'next!' as they look for the latest micro trend. Nothing has time to develop or breathe, to grow organically from its roots. |
Optimo (Espacio) was started in November 1997 at The Sub Club, Glasgow. The music. Each week it would get wilder and wilder as they delved into their collections. Sleazy funk, post punk, electro, 50's swing, torch songs, disco classics, percussion workouts, sublime house, raging techno, 80's pop. All played with no seeming regard to continuity but somehow working together into this deranged hybrid. |
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Each week it would get wilder and wilder as they delved into their collections. Sleazy funk, post punk, electro, 50's swing, torch songs, disco classics, percussion workouts, sublime house, raging techno, 80's pop. |
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Harping back to the past - there was that New York of the early 80's, there was London in the mid 70's when punk was born, there was the 'Madchester' of the early 90's etc. etc. We make no bold claims of grandeur for what we are doing or where we would like it to go but it is a chance to have something different, something unique to this great city we live in. A year from now, who knows if anyone will give a damn about Optimo the club? Perhaps you will be bored with it and everyone will have moved on to the next 'cool' thing. Whatever. We will still be here trying to do it as we never knew what 'cool' was to begin with. Meanwhile there is a whole world of amazing but neglected music out there and it would be too easy for us to stick to a formula that works and is popular. |
Serious dj's would come and watch in horror while several times, seasoned trainspotters would come up to Twitch and tell him 'You've lost the plot' or 'You can't play this in the Sub Club - it's sacrielige!' In their heart of hearts though, both Wilkes and Twitch realised that the more you love music and the deeper into it you get, the more you appreciate the humour in it. So it continued for a year in this vein until one night in July 1999, the numbers went from the usual 80 to 100 to 250. This was put down to a fluke but the next week it was the same, and the week after, and then it went up again. Onwards and upwards. Laptop computers and effects units started appearing and while many people deemed Optimo a retro club, it was (and remains) perhaps the most technologically advanced night in the country. |
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| WHO'S PLAYED AT OPTIMO ESPACIO? bush tetras, the fire engines, blurt, peaches, the rapture, cnut, isolee, chris corsano, sir richard bishop, grace jones, mark hex, shit disco, dan deacon, clinic, ebony bones, findo gask, bis, tattie toes, murcof, radioboy, paul research, teamshadetek, electronicat, a certain ratio, atom heart, dmx krew, harvey, luciano, joakim, psychic ills, black lips, our disco, chicks on speed, whitehouse, erase errata, lcd soundsystem, hot chip, black devil, richie hawtin, the presets, fourtet, go! team, whomadewho, justus kohncke, the glimmers, tim sweeney, prins thomas, mouse on mars, modeselektor, michael gira, adult, hushpuppy, magic daddy, nathan fake, the kills, franz ferdinand, detroit grand pubas, midnight mike, tv on the radio, datarock, lee scratch perry, mad professor, annie... to name a few |
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JG Wilkes Optimo@Barbarella, Vilnius |
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