Blitz – Interview with Corrina Hornsby-Walsh and Paul Challinor

When did you first have the idea for the club night?

Corrina: We were just like; why, in a city that is so on trend musically, with so much diversity in the music scene and in fashion and so on, is it so behind in terms of diversity in the gay scene? We were talking about how we should maybe do our own night but it just became one of those things that we talked about and then never got round to. Then at the end of second year one of us said, “Oh, I’d still be keen to do this,” and we were both kind of like – well shall we e-mail some places then and see if they’d be interested in having it?

We thought Flying Duck because it already has Lock Up Your Daughters, which is the famous lesbian night. We weren’t expecting too much, but we got this very enthusiastic e-mail back saying it would be something they would be interested in doing.

So much of the time we would go to Polo, or the main gay clubs, and just feel like we weren’t being represented. To us there is more to queer culture than the mainstream scene.

You say you were discussing it for a while, how long was that while?

Paul: We’d always talked about it but the last six months have been when we’ve started to talk about it more seriously as something that could actually happen.

Corrina: One of our friends, Peter Cameron, was like, “Oh, I’d be interested in doing a night,” and then he organised one in Nice ‘N’ Sleazy called Out. Which we went to and it was a good night but we felt it was very different from what we had imagined for our gay night so we thought we could still do ours.

What did you dislike about his night? Was it too mainstream?

Paul: It was more dubstep, more beat-based, non-lyrical dance music. Which is brilliant if that’s the kind of music that you’re interested in. It’s just that we wanted something a bit different.

Corrina: Yeah, it was very DJ focused. He didn’t do the music himself, he got people from the Art School and from Mobius, which is one of the DJ collectives here.

Why Blitz as a name?

Paul: I suppose it comes from the “Blitz Kids” like Boy George and New Romanticism, and that’s the kind of aesthetic we wanted to go with. It’s not just New Romantic music that we’re playing, but that is the kind of quintessential 'cool 80s'. 

Can you describe a little more what the gay scene is like in Glasgow?

Corrina: I’d say it veers between two extremes. There’s Polo which is the main gay club in Glasgow which is very chart focused, mainstream music, and then you have stuff which is much more alternative like Lock Up Your Daughters and Menergy… On the scale, if they’re two polar opposites, we’re kind of in the middle.

I haven’t actually been to Lock Up Your Daughters. What is it, what do they do?

Paul: It’s definitely paved the way for us I’d say. If there hadn’t been LUYD there wouldn’t be Blitz. They got Glasgow Film Theatre on board, they have their own film night one Sunday every month where they show cult queer films. They have a zine. The fanzine was what they originally started to do and they just ran the club night to fund that. So they have their fingers in all the pies.

They have a dubstep DJ, they also hire DJs, so they have a girl call Suze who does a lot of dubstep. Then they bring a lot of people in. They brought in ElectroSexual, and the Scream Club, who are two lesbian rappers from New York…

Corrina: That’s the point really. They don’t play, generally, music with lyrics.

Your plan is to do the DJ-ing yourself at first? What kind of experience do you have doing something like that?

Paul: House parties and stuff but nothing on the scale of what we’re doing with Blitz. This is our first – we’re in a room, people are going to request things, and we have to use a CD-DJ.

Corrina: We don’t want technical like 'real DJ-ing' because if you want that you can go to like LUYD or anywhere. We’re going to practise a lot between now and the first night. We’re having a practice night on the 23^rd (September) called The Bloody Show, and that’s going to be our chance to test everything out in the Kitchen before the launch night itself.

In November, on the 4^th, we’re also doing a joint night with LUYD. It’s not part of Glasgay officially but it will be on at the same time. Again that will be in the Kitchen, which is this front area of the Flying Duck. 

Are you looking to expand your team of DJs?

Corrina: Our friends, Anna Burton and Izzie Casey, run this radio show called Dead Beat Club on the Glasgow University radio, Subcity. They’ve already said they’d be interested in doing a set.

You have a video piece too – could you explain more about that?

Paul: It’s like video clips that were inspirational for us. It’s an hour-long loop of these clips that are queer and camp in the way that we want the night to be. There’s a load of different things from the original Blitz club, the Castro, Alexander McQueen’s catwalk shows, Harvey Milk…

Paula Radcliff urinating in the street – things that just have a kind of camp fun-ness about them.

How would you summarise the kind of music you’re going to play?

Paul: Alternative pop music… Kate Bush, Blondie, Culture Club, Patrick Wolf, Beth Ditto, The Cure, a bit of Lady Gaga.

Corrina: Well chosen Gaga, not the stuff that’s been in the charts on repeat but like album tracks. Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, Tori Amos, The Smiths definitely. A bit of seventies too – T-Rex, The Kinks.

What about Riot Grrl?

Corrina: We’re going to play a bit of Riot Grrl, just see how it goes down.  It won’t go too Riot Grrl, cause sometimes with Riot Grrl it just goes all “woo” and we don’t want to take it too far that way in case we can’t bring it back.

Paul: When we were practising the other day I put on a bit of Sleater-Kinney. But we don’t want people to come and expect solely Riot Grrl because then we’ll have to be like; “sorry, that’s not happening.”

Is there anything you will definitely not play?

 Paul: Dubstep. I’m really sick of dubstep.

Corrina: I think we can safely say we won’t be playing 'Polo Music,' just like current chart music. I mean I can go there and have a lot of fun, but if you want that type of music you just go to Polo.

For you, what is the most important thing about Blitz?

Paul: On the posters we described it as “the mix-tape that your first boyfriend or girlfriend in High School never gave you.” You feel so alone as a teenager and then you go to University and you start to find these people who “get” you.

You just kind of think, “where the fuck have you been these past four years?”

Corrina: I think that’s how we felt when we met.

Paul: Yeah, and we thought that we should do this [Blitz] because this is us and we think that other people in the queer scene feel the same way.

Corrina: Blitz is the night that my friends and I want to go to but we can’t because it doesn’t exist. So we go to Polo or wherever and don’t have as good a time.