Words by Tom Clarke.
Thursday the 22nd of March saw the launch of a new club night at Sub Club. The name of the night is Rubix and the organisers are Joshua Plotnek, Abraham Parker-Clare, David Shields, Daniel Bartling, James Oglethorpe and Calum Lindsay. All are second year students at the university of Glasgow and this is there first ever night.
For a bunch of relative newcomers to the booking and promotion business, a night at the legendary Sub Club sounds like an extremely tall order and that is why it’s so impressive that these boys managed to do it. The first Rubix night managed to attract over 300 people and the atmosphere was incredible as everybody danced the night away to the music of the four acts that the Rubix boys brought in, namely Mandeep from Leeds, Glasgow’s very own Point To C (Mixed business), Lancaster’s Bondax (Forty40 records) and Arkist from Bristol (Hotflush, Applepips). All four acts provided a different kind of set and all managed to create and maintain an excellent vibe in the club, one which even an impromptu interruption to the night that came in the form of a fire alarm couldn’t quash.
Tom Clarke caught up with the Rubix team (minus James and Calum who unfortunately couldn’t attend the interview) to find out how they felt the night went, how the creation of Rubix Glasgow came about and what their plans for the future are:
How did all you get to know each other?
Daniel: just through mutual friends really
Abe: And a bit of appreciation for music as well
What got you onto the idea of starting a club night?
Joshua: I think the idea came about at a Halloween party, Abe, Dan, Calum and me were there and we spent the whole night just talking about music. We came onto talking about garage music and how it’s had a revival since 2009. It’s gotten quite popular recently with bands like Joy Orbison bringing it into the mainstream in terms of dance music and there isn’t much of a scene of it up here. Saying that, there are nights like Bad News and I Am and Vitamins that play some of that stuff but they’ re not completely dedicated to it so we wanted to create something that was.
Abraham: Also, we were given the chance to put on a night at 520 at the end of last semester and then that totally fell through. That would have been a weekly night and it would have been a big commitment that we probably wouldn’t have been able to maintain, especially with their set up. But then, just from getting excited about that, we took it upon ourselves to contact Sub Club and they gave us what we wanted in terms of having a monthly night and running it ourselves.
Daniel: so we get to decide everything basically.
How did you find the processes of booking the artists, managing a budget, and dealing with the venue etc?
David: the venue were all dead keen for it to happen and they were all really easy to work with.
Josh: yeah they’re very friendly and very flexible; very laid back. It’s been really easy working with them.
Daniel: They were really helpful as well. If you every needed any advice, then they were always there to help.
Abraham: But they were also sort of “hands-off” and let us do it. They didn’t set any barriers in our way.
Daniel: Things were quite stressful though, with it being our first night that we’ve done. We were quite inexperienced and there were certain things that we didn’t know how to do. But you learn.
Sub club is a legendary venue and quite an ambitious choice for your first club night. Were you determined to hit that kind of level from the beginning or was it something that just kind of happened?
Joshua: Sub Club was definitely our first choice
Daniel: We always wanted to do it at Sub Club but we just didn’t think there was a place available and when 520 came up, we were like “well we can do it there” but when that fell through, we thought we might as well email sub club, we had nothing to lose.
Abraham: Yeah, we all enjoy Sub Club but we had a feeling that we could make it even better and so we wanted to take our favourite club in Glasgow and give it something that we hoped people might like.
What do you think of Glasgow’s nightlife and the clubbing scene in general?
Joshua: It’s good.
Daniel: The music scene is really good if you know where to look.
Abraham: Definitely, places like LaCheetah and Chambre 69 as well as Sub Club are always providing really good nights. Its quite nice to have it on a small scale though so you can keep it all under your belt.
Daniel: It’s good but it’s not too big, what with the city being reasonable sized and the city centre being quite small as well. There’s only four or five clubs that our kind of scene revolves around.
Abraham: But there are some really nice intimate venues as well that really help the scene.
How did the name Rubix come about?
Daniel: There’s a Rubix that runs in Newcastle as well. James is a good friend with the guy who runs that. So Rubix Glasgow is essentially a sister night to the Rubix in Newcastle. But we’re in control of the Glasgow night. We just used the name and design and contacts of the other night essentially.
Abraham: But we did find that by securing the name, we also secured the promoter contacts that would help us to get bigger artists. But in terms of what we did ourselves, we found that is wasn’t actually too difficult to approach artists that we really wanted to play, ourselves, without having to go through the promoter.
How did you go about choosing artists? What made you choose the one’s played?
Daniel: Every Monday we have a meeting and we were all throwing names around for a couple of weeks and we all love music so we all had a good idea of who would be good. We emailed a lot of people and it came down to just who was available, the price range and who we fancied really.
David: Obviously, these artists were available but we wanted the best of who was available. I think the standard of acts that we managed to secure were definitely of the high end of what was available.
Abraham: They were also of minimal cost actually. I think we expected to be paying a bit more for the artists. But it was really lovely last night to have four different DJ’s that played very different sets but were all appreciated in different ways.
So the first night is over. How do you guys think it went?
Dave: Personally I feel like there were a lot more people in there than I was expecting. There were different levels of expectation throughout the group but the amount of people that were there last night was more than any of us were expecting.
Abraham: we sort of had the idea in our head that around 200 people would show up but we managed to get 335 people through the door so it was a massive success. Also, people seemed to be having a really good time. It was a really nice atmosphere. It felt like a different night at Sub Club
Joshua: I liked how at twelve o’clock when Point To C was playing, people weren’t only dancing on the dance floor but over by the bar as well which doesn’t really happen till later in the night usually.
What kind of feedback did you get from the Artists? How did they feel the night went?
David: None of them had played in Glasgow or Scotland before. They were all really impressed with the club and the crowd.
Daniel: If you check out Arkist and Bondax’ Twitter, they’ve both said things like “Big up Scotland, Fantastic night at Sub Club”.
Well the first night is done, so what comes next? Do you have plans for future nights in the pipeline?
Daniel: there are a few ideas going round.
David: It would be good to be able to relax a bit after this one but we’re definitely looking into another night.
Daniel: When it will be isn’t decided yet.
Abraham: Possibly before the summer but we’ll have to see.
So the Rubix boys are leaving it mysterious as to when their next night will be but one things for sure; it will be eagerly anticipated by all of those who made it down to Sub Club on Friday and probably more after the hype that’s going to come off of this first night. With Rubix Glasgow, these young promoters seem to have found a comfortable and exciting place in the Glasgow club scene and it will be exciting to see what comes next for them.
These cats is kool!