OPTIMO’S CHILDREN
An ode to Optimo (Espacio)
The nights are fair drawing in! While putting on my Optimo scarf the other day, I got to thinking about an article in The List or The Skinny magazine (cannae mind which!) when I was in my 20s and managing Glasgow underground digital radio station, Radio Magnetic. The (then) music journo and pal, Rosie Davies, was penning a piece about the Glasgow clubbing scene and in particular a bunch of cool, small, idiosyncratic, diverse and kinda “outsider” club nights that were emerging.
Teamy and Larry’s Wrong Island, Andrew Thomson’s Huntleys + Palmers Audio Club (Andrew now runs Clyde Built Radio and H+P continues as an amazing label), Brian D’Souza’s Highlife and his previous Slabs of the Tabernacle night (Brian has now really made a name for himself as Auntie Flo and making music playlists for pioneering scientific psychedelic therapy research and making music with, from and using mushrooms - as you do!), and a few other wee burgeoning local club nights of the period.
As part of that conversation with her about my take on it all, I had made the point that these newer nights all owed a lot to legendary night, Optimo (Espacio). “We are all Optimo’s children” was how I put it. Bit hifalutin - not like me! Think might have called Brian D’Souza “the thinking man’s three deck wizard” in same article or similar one at the same time roughly. LOLZ.
Can’t remember if this was before or after me and Brian were flat-mates and became very good friends. Think probably a bit before, not too long after we had first met. Neither lines were meant to be tongue-in-cheek or throwaway.
The line was scoffed at in some quarters of the clubbing cognoscenti at the time. This piece might be too. What can you do!
As I say, was not meant to be throwaway. I really meant it and still do.
My first experience of Optimo was when I moved to Glasgow, possibly just before, at age 17 or 18 and it was life-changing. Was maybe 2001 or 2002. I heard The Buzzcocks, Taxman, Os Mutantes, Public Enemy, Talking Heads - Road To Nowhere, CLS - Can You Feel It and loads of other amazing weird and wonderful, banging dance tunes and loads more off the beaten tracks too that night.
Lots of stuff I LOVED already and lots of stuff I hadn’t heard but got into as of that night. Mind blown! World changed.
I’ve always had quite diverse and varied taste in music and this just hit the spot in a big way. Didn’t think such a place existed. Really felt like I’d arrived and found something for me... after some wayward years in the clubbing wilderness.
Had been going to clubs since age 15 with a bunch of older pals at the time - mostly Perth’s Ice Factory and some proper mental places in Aberdeen called Joy and Drum - all places where the music menu would be more of a Global Underground and/or hard house flavour. Not completely and utterly horrendous but really not my bag now. There were a few teenage wilderness years when I was into that sorta stuff a bit. Hands up! Guilty as charged, your honour...
Some things from that period in the wayward wilds are still not too bad - Dave Angels’ 39 Flavours of Tech-Funk mix CD, on occasion... the very odd and occasional Sasha thing, but yeah vvvvv small doses. I couldn’t believe how good it could actually be after being introduced to Optimo though. Glad I popped in!
Following that, I went all the time for years. Sometimes just fired along on my own. Was that kinda place. It would take place every Sunday night. For some reason, during these years, I was off work sick quite regularly on a Monday and a Tuesday... a very strange coincidence. Can’t explain it. Anyone else experience something similar?
It was always rammed and always amazing - some nights very house and techno heavy, sometimes all over the place, sometimes more of a punk or a post-punk energy (the NYC mutant disco funk side of post-punk, that is). Was always right good and always FUN.
The Boxing Day parties they would host every year were next level. An incredible knack of playing popular and fairly ubiquitous music and making it sound like it’s from outer space - Blondie, Lee Perry, Donna Summer, Fleetwood Mac, Roxy Music, INXS, the B52s, Soft Cell, Eurythmics, Aretha, Nina to name a few. Same vibe went for the times I have seen them at festivals - both way back in the day and more recently.
Optimo took place in a wee club called Mas, upstairs, at Royal Exchange Square - kinda other side of the archway from another former Glasgow institution, Rogano - for the first year or so of me being into it. All while the Sub Club was undergoing reparations following a fire, then was all back to the Subby when it re-opened.
Never went to Planet Peach but heard that was ace.
You’d see the likes of Arab Strap cutting about at Optimo which was yet another reason that it broke the sound-o-meter for me. Think Jarvis Cocker might have played records one night but I missed that (a TripTych one maybe?). Possibly just before my time. I might have dreamt it! Did Andrew Divine DJ there once, playing entire set comprising different versions of Light My Fire? Maybe apocryphal or maybe I dreamt that too...
While at Mas there was the main clubbing room and also a bit of a bar / chill out area - for want of a better term - where you’d hear stuff like Some Velvet Morning, Johnny Cash, Another Girl Another Planet and various other off-kilter and alternative non-dance stuff. I think (not 100% sure though) that the bar space was ‘Espacio’ and the club room was ‘Optimo’ back then.
These early years tied in with “electroclash ” - remember that? They were very much at the forefront of that scene - DFA, Ladytron, Tiga, Felix Da Housecat, FC Kahuna, Fisherspooner, those Futurism CD comps etc. Some of that holds up well today but some has dated. Optimo were never defined by this, but the boys played the best stuff and interwove it with all sorts of other bits and bobs. Magic. Pretty certain James Murphy, Tim Sweeney et al were taking notes.
At the start of night they would kick off with slow and weird experimental stuff and gradually build to an ecstatic frenzy of heady and happy hedonism, Zappa, Hawkwind, The Doors, mad dub reggae, really out-there stuff for a Glasgow club night to kick-off with… certainly then anyway. What I have read about places like DJ Parrot’s iconic Jive Turkey in Sheffield and some US clubs with anything goes musical policy might have had a similar vibe. I'll never know for sure.
They put on loads of bands - old and new - during this period and gave a platform to the stuff they loved without really giving a f*ck about whether anyone else would, often bands who went onto world domination in the following years: Add N To X, Peaches, The Rapture, LCD, Hot Chip, Franz Ferdinand, ESG, Liquid Liquid (a tune of whom’s is where the name Optimo derives) and loads more. First class stuff.
The DJs themselves are right up there among the best I’ve ever had the good fortune of seeing and hearing - both technically and more importantly (for me) in terms of breadth and depth and unexpectedness of musical selections. Saw Jonnie (JG Wilkes) just seem to get better and better as weeks, months and years passed on - picking up and soaking up from a master, Keith McIvor (JD Twitch), it would appear. I think Keith is probably the best I’ve ever seen and heard apart from maybe Andrew Weatherall. Jonnie is incredible too.
Harri & Dom from the other iconic Sub Club house-orientated night, Subculture both up there as well. Keith’s previous ground-breaking club night, Pure in Edinburgh (alongside Brainstorm and DJ Dribbler) is still very much revered and much talked about moment in Scottish raving history. Lots of folks and friends whose tastes I trust implicitly rave about times there in early-mid 90s… but I never had the good fortune of attending that. Too young! Too much? Sorry! Not sorry…
Both K and J are built in a similar mould in terms of their open-minded and far-reaching taste in no-nonsense, sometimes abstract, sometimes familiar tunes, in their own very distinctive style and with a super deep appreciation for music of all kinds. They then create magic for the dance floor from that. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue… All things typically dynamite. Quite quite. Something something.
Been lucky enough to hang out and spend a little bit of time with both over the years and had some particularly inspiring, supportive and encouraging convos with Keith. He contributed to my erstwhile online magazine, Racket Racket, a bit back in the day.
Really enjoyed putting him and Adrian Sherwood together for this:
http://racketracket.co.uk/.../jd-twitch-meets-adrian.../
And his recount of discovering THAT Mariah record in Japan here:
http://racketracket.co.uk/music/jd-twitch-utakata-hibi/
He DJ’d for me (FOC) at nights I put on at The Brunswick Hotel basement via Racket Racket, with my then girlfriend, Denise, as well back in the day... Both Keith and Jonnie also just really sound and down-to-earth folk, completely ploughing their own furrow - not giving a f*ck about trends or fads - solid and super respectable integrity and approach to things.
They are responsible for introducing me to the magical world of Arthur Russell. Tell You (Today), Go Bang and Kiss Me Again would be big, anthemic staples of their sets (among other AR and Sleeping Bag bangers) and the tunes would take on whole new dimensions of mesmerising and hypnotic and euphoric enrapture. Think I was at the front of the queue for their last ever weekly Sunday at the Sub back in 2010. On my own... but... not at all... on my own. Dinosaur L’s Kiss Me Again to end that night was just off the scale completely. Proper ecstatic evening. Ever-so-slightly sweaty by the end of it!
Some stories from those heavy and heady Optimo days, at the club, at afters and on boats parties etc, I’ll maybe leave out for now. You might never speak to me again if I did... Joking... not joking… Ha!
Their artwork, aesthetic, slogans for posters and flyers and general DIY schtick and attitude really hit the spot too. Lines like; “Get Dumped At Optimo”, “You Won’t Like It Sugar, Sundays”, “Phone In Sick, It’s A Crap Job Anyway”, “It’s Not As Good As It Used to Be” and the concise and perennial “UNTIL THE MUSIC STOPS” will live long in the memory. Quality, situationist, scuzzy, colourful, arty, punky, left-of-centre gubbins - proper sound. Beyond definition, really.
Sound eggs doing sound things in their own, uncompromising sound way. That is what it is all about. Still going strong and will take some beating. We should be proud and pleased to have experienced them if you did. Check them out properly if you haven’t yet.
They also make AMAZING scarves.
Grateful for the education. Redefining what it means to be crucial and influential in da nightclubbin' scenez. Pivotal.
The set from the 2010 last ever weekly night at the Sub captured by my mate and all round top bloke and Optimo nut, Moggie on his Ripped In Glasgow blog below... Tuesdays haven't been the same since!
https://rippedinglasgow.blogspot.com/.../optimogeddon...
VIVA OPTIMO (ESPACO)!