Tuesday, March 20, 2007

QUELLE

It's funny to see echoes of work you've been involved in, directly or indirectly, appear in unexpected - if not slightly incongruous - places. Huge fluorescent posters are constantly draped around Edinburgh to promote the very popular club night Optimo with my old (23 years old to be precise) slogan 'you won't like it sugar!'... and then this week I also learned that this city's long-standing and seminal techno club Pure was named after Sotos's notorious 80s fanzine.

6 comments:

John McAndrew said...

I was talking with a WH forum member not long ago about PURE zine and its connections with Edinburgh - as I understand that's where the graverobbers who started the whole Scotland Yard involvement were based - so while it's still suprising to hear the origin of the club's name, at the same time it's somewhat appropriate from a historical and locational standpoint...

As for those Optimo posters, all I can do is laugh at the mere thought of them

What a funny world we live in!

William Bennett said...

The 2 are somewhat connected because I believe both these very popular nightclubs have/had the same founders. Also, as I understand it, that inquiry you refer to was centred around somewhere in the north of England, but not in Edinburgh.

John McAndrew said...

Thanks William, my mistake - the person I talked to mentioned an Edinburgh band breaking into a graveyard around that time but didn't specifically state that they were the same group of people involved in the Sotos case. Copycats or just another group of moronic, attention seeking shock-artists? Most likely the latter, but who knows... (or cares?)

. said...

"As for those Optimo posters, all I can do is laugh at the mere thought of them

What a funny world we live in!"

It was actually through the Live Action at Optimo last year that I discovered Whitehouse. If I remember rightly it was a bank holiday weekend. As the club is on a Sunday night, it was much busier than normal because of all the folk (like myself) who usually work on Mondays and decided to turn up because of the bank holiday. :)

It was a bloody good night, although the band did have a polarising effect on the audiance unsurprisingly.

James said...

The grave robbers were Newcastle free-improv combo Metgumbnerbone, I believe - one of the local papers there ran a story about it online for some reason about two years ago. Their best-known member was Richard Rupenus of The New Blockaders.

Nick said...

I noticed the slogan whilst on the bus going adjacent to Victoria Street the other day. Took me by surprise, but of course the Optimo connection from previous shows makes sense to extent.