Optimo Espacio in Glasgow

Word here's the vibe on a fairly recent trip down to Optimo Espacion town. If you're up there and fancy cracking the electronic whip of a Sunday, then it's got to be done...



Dragons of Zynth were playing. We didn't like them much.















Aww the hype, the verse, the platitudes, the beats, the genre defying mixes -Glasgow ‘clubbing institution’ Optimo Espacio has garnered a reputation that every leftfield electronic shindig would give its latest Hercules and Love Affair promo for - supposedly one of the last bastions of underground dancing, after the merciless culling of Manchester’s Electric Chair by proprietors the Unabombers, and a club as much about the flyers, posters and live acts as much as the music and militant sloganing. The reputation of resident perves Twitch and Wilkes precedes them.

We were Optimo virgins and Glasgow ones too. Staying in a snide guest house near the Glasgow School of Art had made it an interesting trip but we were desperate for the wonk that the city is so famed for.

We’ve checked the Optimo djs before - Scuba in Sheffield played host to them not so long ago while we saw them take on the opening night of Spain's Benicassim festival a few years back.

That was mindblowing - 5am, a still baking hot car park in the south of Spain and one of the pair dropped the heart tapping synth line (where your atriola is the bassline) from the start of Black Strobe’s Italian Fireflies (still the best thing Smagghe has ever done) before bashing it into Blondie. The whole place went ape and that's the last thing memory recalls.

I woke the next day half in half out of a tent mammories melting and mouth like the proverbial menopausal minge - well fucking worth it.

Unfortunately it just our luck to catch the club when it’s two main men are out of town

However we were treated to a special set from Zombie Nation’s Dj Mooner, whose identity on the night was a secret. He was hiding behind some very big specs, a natty yellow jumper and an ace selection of italo cosmic disco which throbbed throughout. That, the smoke machine and ‘We love your ears’ sign boom bipping like a disco light house illuminating our ginned up steps was ace - The selection of doubles at three pounds a pop hammered it all home.

The next day (a Monday - yes the sickos run the night on the lord's day) was spent nursing a burning ass ring after smuggling some ill-gotten chips into the guest house. It was agony. A full day traipsing round Glasgow in the rain with trainers with holes in. The highlight was a full fry up breakfast where a miscalculation was made and the plastic wrapper that the black pudding arrived in was taken down to stomach town. Ouch, ouch, ouch.




This is the view from outside the Sub Club where the do goes down. Shot taken at a jaunty angle natch.