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The Highlands have the distilleries, Edinburgh has the castle and Glasgow? Glasgow brings the party.
We teamed up with Glasgow’s brightest rising star, Jasper James, to show us around the 24-hour party city in our latest episode of Stay True Cities to prove to us and the world, that Scotland’s biggest city is anything but grim. Here we go.
For people in the know, they’ve always known that Glasgow is an amazing musical city talent. It doesn’t really matter when the rest of the world discovered it, if you know you know.
Jasper James
It would be an absolute sin to talk about Glasgow’s music and not mention the duo behind the longest-running club night in the UK, and possibly on earth (plus, Jasper’s own Da.) The men, the myth the legends that are Harri and Domenic. Spinning tunes in the sweaty underground mecca that is Sub Club since the late eighties, their weekly House night Subculture has hosted the creamiest of the crème de la crème of House DJs and continues to party on today.
If Glasgow lives and breathes dance music, then the lungs must surely be Rubadub Records. Co-owned by arguably one of the godfathers of Glasgow’s techno scene, Wilba brought the sounds of Chicago and Detroit almost as soon as the likes of Derrick May and Juan Atkins started to pump out techno from their own soundsystems. 27 years later, Rubadub remains a hub for the local music scene and continues to inspire the DJs, producers and promoters across generations.
With a motto that reads real rockin’ raw s**t from the street for the clubs, you can expect only the best tunes to get you moving from the boys behind Dixon Avenue Basement Jams. The DJ duo at the helm of the label, Dan ‘Monox’ Lurinsky and Kenny Grieve, aka The Wasp, are master selectors that came up through the music scene with a reputation of putting on iconic ‘afters,’ before moving on to become promoters and headline DJs in their own right. You’ll still find them getting dancefloors thumping through their own sets as well as championing Scottish talent through their label such as Big Miz, Nightwave and Josh Caffe.
Right, as much as people think it is all deep-fried Mars bars and haggis, there is a great food scene in Glasgow, so I’ll do a quick top 3:
Paesano – Pizza the Italians would travel for.
Crabshakk – As fresh as seafood gets.
Ox and Finch – It’s like Scottish tapas – strange, but it works. You might actually get a deep-fried Mars bar here.
The Pot Still – Whisky, locals, pies and Whisky.
Bananamoon – As edgy as a second hand rubix cube
Max’s bar – Good tunes, cool people and the danger of a big night out as the nightclub La Cheeta is directly downstairs.
Tabac – Slap bang in the city centre with lots of good people and members of the bar and music scene coming through the door.
Inn deep – A great spot next to the river in the westend of the city.
SWG3
Subclub
The Berkeley Suite
La Cheetah
This is a hard one, because you are never going to be guaranteed good weather in Glasgow, but I would say May. The temperature hits about 17 degrees and people start to get excited for the summer. Taps aff as they say.
You should go to Glasgow if you up for a good laugh and need a break from all the fakery – In the words of Anthony Bourdain: “ Its Europe’s no bullshit zone”
Yuptae? – What are you up to? / How is your day panning out?
The dancin’ – a nightclub
Swally – Alcohol
A Bam – A person of a lively disposition
Taps Aff – Slightly warm temperature
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