Ghost in the Machines

 

Men & Machines began their relationship with the Stag and Dagger festival in 2009 following the move of the venue Stereo into the centre of Glasgow. This year the two have joined forces again as Men & Machines celebrate their second birthday. How did the collaboration come about?

We knew they were putting on the festival last year, and that they had
lots of bands playing in Stereo in the evening, but we had our night
on after that. [The organisers] asked if we would like to have our night as part of the festival. It was our first birthday, and we had Twitch coming to
do an R&S Records special and Stag and Dagger were keen on the idea. It was a great night, we were sold out by midnight, and the crowd was really up for it, so we're both keen to do it again this year.

Founded by Ally and Ewan Dunnett, Men & Machines has made a reputation for itself as being one one of the most forward thinking nights of the moment. How did it all begin and what is the music policy of the night?

We started doing a show on Subcity Radio about four or five years ago, which we still do every week, but back then Ewan was up at art school in Dundee. He used to get a bus down every week to come and do the show in Glasgow. Eventually we started playing at a few nights in Edinburgh, where we grew up, and a couple of big parties up in Dundee, but we always wanted to do something in Glasgow. After art school Ewan moved down to Glasgow, so it finally seemed workable. We actually put on the first Men and Machines in Edinburgh, at the GRV, because we'd still to find a venue in Glasgow at that point; but soon after we heard Stereo was looking for nights so we went for it there. There was no great plan to the night – we just wanted to put nights on where we could play the music we love and have guests over to either DJ or play live that we liked. Musically the policy is to try and keep it as good as possible, whatever that may be. What we play is quite varied, and not in some attempt to please lots of people – we just both like a lot of different types of electronic music. To an extent we shape what we play around the guests we have, so one month might have more of a deep house feel, say when Efdemin played, while the next might have more of a disco feel, like when Maelstrom was there, or we might go for a full on techno onslaught.

The main contributing factor to Men and Machines reputation is its impressive roster of past guests. What have some of the highlights been and why did you settle on Serge Santiago and Erdbeerschnitzel for the second birthday?

Serge has been a favourite of ours for years – he's got so many good 
remixes it's hard to choose a favourite. We saw him DJ and play live 
with Tom Neville as Retro/Grade late last year and decided we wanted 
to get him up to play then. It's taken a while to sort out, but in the end it's worked out perfectly for the second birthday. We also like having guests that are possibly less well known, along with local DJs or live acts. I had been speaking to Erdbeerschnitzel by email after hearing some of his music, and it turned out he'd recently spent some time in Glasgow on an exchange from his university in Germany. We were already keen to gethim over – but that just made it make even more sense. He's the kind of live act people will love, more down tempo. As far as highlights, Gavin Russom doing his Black Meteoric Star stuff live, that was hands down the best. Amazing music, a great performer and a fantastic person. Actually all of the live acts we've put on have been blown us away – Etienne Jaumet was incredible, and we were pretty proud to put on the first live performance from Brain Machine, as we love the music that their label puts out (ThisIsNotAnExit), but we'd been told by Simon who runs the label that they probably wouldn't be doing live dates. We managed to convince them to come though, and it was great – especially seeing lots of people who had no idea who they were get really into it.

With future plans including continuing the club on extra Saturdays at Stereo as well as aims to bring Cousin Cole from Flagrant Fowl over from NYC, Men and Machines shows no signs of losing its title of being one of Glasgow's best nights.