try glasgow more

Was there for the first time last night for lcd soundsystem and took exactly that photo. Amazing venue

i saw plastikman there in 1994, totally sober. it was incredible

A good little read... not Smeato. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/sep/01/i-stopped-a-terrorist-attack-experience

― brain (krakow), Saturday, September 2, 2017 2:19 PM (two weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I threw my full weight into it. My arm and shoulder met his chest and he clattered down. I stood on his legs while the police cuffed him. One officer shouted at me, “Who are you? Get out of here.” That annoyed me. Who am I? I’m the one who’s just put him on his backside.

belter

or something, I was there on Tuesday. Amazing gig. Are you Glasgow based?

Tracer, was that the time Optimo put on plastikman?

Hey Jed, yeah some show. I've been up in Glasgow area for 4 years. Somehow found myself in cumbernauld right now but still work in the west end and spend a lot of time in the city. Great place

Optimo didn't exist then! Neil Landstrumm opened. There may have been a DJ Twitch connection. Thinking about it now there almost had to have been.

There must have been. Pure maybe?

http://www.glasgow-barrowland.com/history/ballroom_historybands_pq.html

my boyfriend used to live across from the Barrowlands and I loved going up to his on a night and just catching the buzz as I walked down the Gallowgate. I love when you come out a gig there and as you're walking down those steps everyone is singing along. It's such a cliche but I really don't think you get crowds like it anywhere else in the world.

James Murphy:

__ >> Favorite Music Venue __

Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow, Scotland
It fits about 2,000 people, but it's completely square and the audience there is so amazing. The only thing I can compare it to, if you played a big festival or you played a huge arena rock show, and you're a band who's just getting to be that size, so the audience is still really down, and there's about 2,000 people in this square right in front of the stage losing their marbles, it's basically like the pit of a big show, and if you just got rid of everybody else, that's the Glasgow Barrowland. Literally, from the front to the back it's people totally paying attention. It's a suspended floor, so when people jump up and down it bounces, it gives, it's like a big roller rink. It's amazing, and Glasgow's the best place on the planet to play a rock show, period.

I love the barras. It really is the best. The carling academy was shite the 2 times ive been there (Kraftwerk and Janes Addiction - both over a decade ago so it may be better now)

i think it's far beyond glasgow fap time and i'm just going to give it a date and a location.

6pm on Friday the 13th of October in the Vic bar at the art school.

we'll have to change it but there's your starting point!

even if it only turns out to be me and ailsa and gerty..

gerry, i'm calling you gerty now (autocorrect) i hope that's okay!

we're all fluid now, right?

I'll be there :)

I'd like to try and come along

I'm in (subject to work commitments coming up).

I should hopefully be able to come along

Also subject to work commitments

Can't think of a good reason why not - not least because I appear to be jed's go-to answer for "who will turn up" :)

If they could sort out the bar at the Barras, it'd be excellent. Shits all over the Academy though, utterly horrible venue.

Date in the diary.

I always found the barras a bit scary. I've never went to a gig by myself there and I'm reluctant to do so.

how?

Just always seemed a bit rougher in that area but I haven't been there in years.

it is a "rough area" as far as glasgow goes but nowhere in glasgow is the bronx and when a gig is on is the best time to go there as when it lets out there's a huge crowd of like-minded gig goers to walk back into town with or what have you. i am a soft middle-class want and have been to gigs there solo many times without any hassle whatsoever

damn autocorrect. let me call myself a wank ffs

having said that I've also drank in several of the pubs on the gallowgate as well so ymmv

A pre-gig swally in the Sarrie is all part of the experience. Fuck a Mono.

i wonder if they still have buckfast on the optics

Alisa, do you not like Mono?

I like to maintain a reputation.

Been meaning to ask... I used to hear about violent attacks all the time, not just glasgow but the area around it but I never hear about it anymore, maybe it's just that the news isn't as interested in thugs anymore and I don't speak to as many people these days.

Rarely see that classic ned look anymore, did they all ditch that and get ice cream hair?

One of my friends guessed that maybe phones and computers and the increased necessity of very basic literacy has maybe decreased gang violence (or just got into cyberbullying). Sounds very unlikely but I really don't know.

Ice cream hair!

All the shitty violence is out in Paisley these days.

crime has been decreasing in glasgow for the last couple of decades. it's no longer the murder capital of britain or scotland.

there seems to be a bit of a cultural change. i also rarely see a classic ned and wee guys seem to be more concerned with dressing like they were in one direction and having a good time than petty acts of nihilism. if i compare going out in the town this year - which i did when i was back for a visit in april, with when i used to go out drinking in 2002 as a teenager glasgow just feels like a palpably less dangerous place to be.

there have also been campaigns by the polis to end gang violence that apparently have been successful https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/apr/06/glasgow-murder-rate-knife-gang-crime-police

Ice cream hair seemed to have started with Jedward then all these other wavy designs that are light up top.

My sister knew this American guy who came over in recent years and he said he was repelled by how shiny, groomed and fashion obsessed so many glasgow people were. I was amazed by this impression but things really have changed.

yeah I feel like every other week I see a news story about a particularly unpleasant crime in Paisley, especially ones really near where I was living two years ago. I feel terribly guilty over my relief of moving away from the area.

Its been ages since I saw a proper "wee bam" type ned, but its also been ages since I saw a proper "mosher" too. You see the emo hang-ons at the corners of Jamaica St but it's nothing like the swathes of them who used to circle the GOMA. I think everyone younger than me looks the same now but that's probably just me not being switched on at all.

i miss the GOMA goffs

I was a fringe GOMA goff - all my pals were really into it but I couldn't get on board with nu-metal. We used to get the train up to town at 2pm on a Saturday, go to McDonalds and get a small coke but in a large cup, then go down the Clyde and get a jaikey to buy us vodka and use it to fill our paper cups so we could hang about the front of Borders drinking without getting caught. Into the Cathouse for a dance and a winch at 6pm, out at 9pm and then milling around Central until the party train home which got us back in time for an episode of CSI. Good times!

I really wish I had been old enough for Bonkers, it sounds like it was mental, but then again also like the scariest place on earth?

i miss the GOMA goffs

otm

I miss seeing full on goths and people who dressed in a way that made them really stand out. Where did that pvc guy with the superhero belts go?

Barrhead has really changed, it's probably still quite rough but I don't hear about peopled getting scalped or raped anymore.

The dressed neds thing is only new in terms of scale, they've always existed.

But Glasgow has always been. City where people get really dressed up. It shares that with other v working class cities in the north of England.

If you miss seeing bam type neds you should come to ma bit. Although they're getting relatively scarce even in Maryhill.

It's actually neddy girls that look terrible now. V dark makeup, scouse brows and false eyelashes that are pure caked in mascara and look like they've been on for weeks.

The guys look fine generally. I've actually had sex with a few of them. Ha!

The dressed neds thing is only new in terms of scale, they've always existed.

But Glasgow has always been. City where people get really dressed up. It shares that with other v working class cities in the north of England.

this is very true. newcastle is extremely similar in this respect for instance. my (canadian) wife has remarked how in glasgow the women are very dressed up, they dress extremely femininely and girly and wear lots of makeup, the men are also dressed up (good shiney jeans and leather shoes, crisp white shirt, gelled hair etc), and how much perfume and cologne folk wear.

nice work jed, always impressed by those willing to go the extra mile in reaching out to marginalised members of society xp

Ha!