On June 11th, Thunder Disco Club will be taking stage at the infamous 3,000 capacity GSA Degree Show Street Party alongside Art School Residents & Glasgow’s Finest. To Celebrate their first birthday, come nightfall, the festivities will migrate to upstairs at the art school, commencing with the long awaited live performance of harmonic hedonists MILK and garnished with a healthy portion of funkadelic sounds from the Thunder Disco Club until a three o’clock close.

The retro chic aesthetic has always been integral to the clubs character & their 1st Birthday will see this focus raised to new heights. Thunder Disco Club will be teaming up with half man half seagull, visual enthusiast Joe Crogan, whose post modern view of triangles and tiny virtual landscapes of futurist colour, laser slime and mutant faces will visually assault and detain the brains of partygoers everywhere. The Art School’s main hall will be enclosed for the first time for a 360 degree visual experience that aims to achieve climactic responses from the overly-cultured senses of the Degree show party.

Sub Club got in contact to let all you good, good people know of a very unique night, that’s on it’s way to Glasgow. In The Company Of Wolves is a one off multi-media, fashion and art event showcasing the best in Scottish fashion design, and it’s being held on the 14th April.

It has been inspired by the dark fairytale themes of fashion week and the release of Tim Burton’s version of Alice in Wonderland. They promise to make this a night to remember and all profits are donated to Glasgow Women’s Aid – so get involved!

The fashion front will be kicking off at 8:30pm and will be showcasing work from: Rebecca Torres; Che Camille; Obscure Couture; Anna Whyte; Rowan Joy; Raw Vintage; Velvet Tigers and Dazed Dorothy Accessories.

There will also be a screening of Colonel Blimp‘s production for Halston and Yves Saint Laurent (they did the latest Hot Chip vid) and Pro Vinylist Karim will be spinning the records.

The £10 entry gets you a luxury goodie bag, drinks, canapes, catwalk show, art and music.

↑ Vid The Pogues – Streams of Whiskey

While your knocking back the black stuff tonight, don’t forget there are some other great treats on:

The Stand – St Patrick’s Day Comedy Special. Part of the Magners Glasgow International Comedy Festival. £10

Brel – Scotch Comedian of the Year 2013 (Antony Murray) Part of the Magners Glasgow International Comedy Festival. £5/£6

Barrowlands – Stiff Little Fingers. Get some classic punk in yer. £16

SWG3 – Little Magazine. Exhibition, curated by Alex Pollard. Free

The Arches – National Review Of Live Art Celebrating it’s 13th anniversary, this edition will feature artists from it’s legacy. £15

Right, I’m away for a Guinness.

Hushpuppy, of the Recordplayerz, got in contact with a press release for the closure of Optimo. I’m sure many are sad at this news, but it was due to happen and can be justified. The amount of opportunities Twitch and Wilkes have turned down through the Sunday night commitment must be staggering. The very best of luck to JD Twitch and JG Wilkes. Thank you for loving our ears…

Optimo (E!spacio) is a club night in Glasgow that was started in November 1997 at The Sub Club by dj’s JD Twitch and JG Wilkes. On Sunday the 25th April 2010 that event will end forever.

From its home in Glasgow’s legendary Sub Club, Optimo (E!spacio) has become both internationally renowned, and more importantly highly respected as one of the finest clubs nights anywhere in the world. Though the Optimo dj team of JD Twitch and JG Wilkes have in the last 13 years come to travel the length and breath of the global clubbing community, they have never lost affection for their one true spiritual and geographical home – Optimo (E!spacio).

Optimo have trail-blazed a new form of genre-bending djing.  Optimo has becoming a club name synonymous with experimentation and innovation born of a genuine passion for all dimensions of music.  They have taken a slice of Glasgow’s insatiable appetite for music and dancing across the world, and they remain one of Scotland’s most highly respected international cultural ambassadors.

However the passing of those years brought a change to Twitch & Wilkes as both a dj team and as individual artists.   The success of their many mix releases – How to Kill the DJ Vol. 2, Psych-Out, Walkabout, In Order To Edit, to name but a few – have hugely extended their reputation and placed them on demand internationally as djs .   As remixers they have a collective and impressive CV of diverse artists, including Manic Street Preachers, Hot Chip, Franz Ferdinand, Simian Mobile Disco, The Gossip, Snow Patrol and The Presets.  In addition both are solo artists with their own projects – JD Twitch with his Betty Botox persona, and JG Wilkes with his Naum Gabo projects.

The pressures that come with running a weekly club night in the UK, whilst touring internationally, trying to fit in remix work and find time to work on their individual projects caused both members to realise that perhaps the time had come to re-think their investment in Optimo (E!spacio), perhaps relinquish their hold on the weekly event and allow themselves time to pursue new projects as well as further opportunities to travel both individually and as a team.

Consequently Twitch & Wilkes have decided that it is time to allow themselves and the club night to move on, to grow, to become something new. Thus Optimo (E!spacio) – the event with residents Twitch & Wilkes  - will cease to be.  Together they will present a newly conceived event curated  - to an extent – by them, but no longer with themselves as the guiding and permanent musical core.

Wilkes & Twitch envisage a new event with a rolling roster of djs drawn from their Glasgow clubbing peers; their friends and musical family.  There will continue to be a commitment to live performance from bands and solo artists curated by the Optimo team. But one crucial new addition will be the introduction of guest deejays  - this having been specifically NOT part of the Optimo (E!spacio) ethos.

Full details of the new event will follow, along with the planned delirium for the final, tearful and joyous closing party for Optimo (Espacio) on April 25th.

Someone once said “it ain’t over till the fat lady sings”.  On Sunday 25th April 2010, she will. Literally.

Optimo, we will always love your ears.

Photo: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan

Here’s a few shots and mock ups for visuals i’ll be providing for Saturday night’s massive fun party, at The Arches. I’ve been working alongside the highly talented Alexander Martin to film some lush footage which pledges to please. Subcity’s 15th Birthday is guaranteed to be a mind-blowing and spectacularly special event with full sensory overload to make your eyes smile, your ears squeel and your body pulse. Myself, Visual Aids and Sweets, of Thunder Disco Club, will be providing the shapes and vectors for your body to pull. This stonking line up will be filling The Arches with great music to celebrate this special event with the only way it knows-banging.

This isn’t going to be your run of the mill dance night, this will be special-have a read at this list to see what’s in store. Tickets are getting lower and lower-so don’t miss out on this. You can swoop some up at The Arches , Tickets Scotland or the John McIntyre Building on Glasgow Uni campus. You know it makes sense.

I added a few new pieces to my folio. First flyer is for an exciting new night, I Am, starting in Sub Club. Expect non stop electrickery and mad audio wizardry.

Wibble Wobble is also a new night in the pipeline. This will fill the niche market for dubstep and fidget and will prove to be heaps of fun.

I’ve also been working on an iPhone app for a company in South Africa. I’ll put some screen grabs of that up on Monday.

On Saturday 6th March, Subcity Radio will be celebrating 15 years of passionately geeky lowbudget broadcasting with an all-out, balls-to-the-wall birthday bash at The Arches, featuring some of the best Subcity talent, past and present.

The line out is outstanding and the bar really has been raised for this one. Expect stellar performances from Dema (LuckyMe/RKGB), R-P-Z, Symbiosis, Argonaut Sounds, Shaun fae Solar, Slave To The Rhythm and much, much more. There will also be total eye sex laid on for you by myself, Visual Aids and Sweets from Thunder Disco Club as we blow out some insane visuals to enhance the night using every projector and TV we can find.

I can’t emphasise enough how good this will be. Get your tickets in advance for £6 from The Arches box-office but be quick-supplies are shrinking at break neck speeds!

Night Dreams is a listening concept presented and curated by Dave Barbarossa (Fun Size, Curious Curious) and Hushpuppy (RPZ, Death Disco).

Both Dave Barbarossa and Hushpuppy are frequent players on the Glasgow club scene at various events – Huntley’s and Palmers, RPZ, Death Disco, Fun Size, Optimo and many others. However, both felt there was a distinct lack of opportunity in their sets to delve into the more interesting corners of their musical taste and present something that is a fraction out of the ordinary – if not totally off the planet – nor indeed was there anywhere where music fans and adventurous club-kids could travel to hear such sounds.

It was out of this realisation that NIGHT DREAMS was born. Night Dreams is designed to fill the gap that exists for a pre-club where a genuinely wild and varied collection of music can be heard that is interesting, stimulating and entertaining. Sounds that though might be danceable are not necessarily about playing straight forward club tracks and dance hits.

The proposed soundtrack at NIGHT DREAMS will include all things cosmic – rock, funk, synths, jazz, as well as punk, new wave, progressive electronics, psych, kraut rock, weird pop, foreign disco avant-garde and all manner of difficult listening. The ambiance will be complemented with soothing sci-fi video loops and calming fragrances (to sooth the rattle of the odd burst of jarring artifical sound).

The line up will be supplemented on the 13th March by the input of James Pole from the well know “Northern Lights” radio show on deepfrequency.com, who will be encouraged to come up with a set to challenge and delight the ears of the listener.

Night Dreams-February Mix