Extract
Richard King
'We love the smell of napalm on a Monday morning'
For over a decade Optimo Espacio has not only defined the sound and feeling of Glasgow’s city centre on a Sunday night, it has stretched the perception of what a nightclub can be. To do justice to the wild, filters-off set lists at Optimo, the club has to be experienced for itself. The nights are intense, wild and happy; Optimo is a space where the experience of music is beautifully heavy.
As well as being its creators and resident DJs, JD Twitch and JG Wilkes have curated, goaded, teased, spewed and ached Optimo into a sensibility that combines music, pleasure and fun with deep feelings, unironic good times and trusting people’s intelligence.
So did you meet at Pure?
JD Twitch I think we met when I was doing Pure and I lived in Glasgow, but I would go through to Edinburgh every week, and for a few years we used to run a coach. At that point, clubbing in Glasgow, there wasn’t really that much going on, so all the people in Glasgow would go to Edinburgh, which was pretty revolutionary in itself.
JG Wilkes I met you briefly on the bus one time. I remember you getting on the bus with your records ’cos it made a few stops. We were all on the bus, and used to pick Keith up. It’d be a full single-decker through to Edinburgh, for a rave.
To listen to techno in the proper environment?
JD Twitch & JG Wilkes Yeah.
JG Wilkes It was a pretty mind-blowing club, Pure.
JD Twitch I mean, it was just a really horrible building, just a box, with the biggest sound system, literally – probably – on the planet at that time. It was without a doubt the loudest club. We toned it down after a few years.
JG Wilkes You couldn’t even see the sound system but it got louder as you went up to the front – it was just black boxes —
JD Twitch Pitch black, full of smoke and rave lighting, before rave lighting had become a cliché. The people we did the club with owned a lighting company and they just used to fill it with as many lights as they could.
– The rest of this article is printed in Loops Issue 01, available to buy from these Stockists.
As well as being its creators and resident DJs, JD Twitch and JG Wilkes have curated, goaded, teased, spewed and ached Optimo into a sensibility that combines music, pleasure and fun with deep feelings, unironic good times and trusting people’s intelligence.
So did you meet at Pure?
JD Twitch I think we met when I was doing Pure and I lived in Glasgow, but I would go through to Edinburgh every week, and for a few years we used to run a coach. At that point, clubbing in Glasgow, there wasn’t really that much going on, so all the people in Glasgow would go to Edinburgh, which was pretty revolutionary in itself.
JG Wilkes I met you briefly on the bus one time. I remember you getting on the bus with your records ’cos it made a few stops. We were all on the bus, and used to pick Keith up. It’d be a full single-decker through to Edinburgh, for a rave.
To listen to techno in the proper environment?
JD Twitch & JG Wilkes Yeah.
JG Wilkes It was a pretty mind-blowing club, Pure.
JD Twitch I mean, it was just a really horrible building, just a box, with the biggest sound system, literally – probably – on the planet at that time. It was without a doubt the loudest club. We toned it down after a few years.
JG Wilkes You couldn’t even see the sound system but it got louder as you went up to the front – it was just black boxes —
JD Twitch Pitch black, full of smoke and rave lighting, before rave lighting had become a cliché. The people we did the club with owned a lighting company and they just used to fill it with as many lights as they could.
– The rest of this article is printed in Loops Issue 01, available to buy from these Stockists.
