Thundercats Assemble

It's an extremely wet Friday night in Merchant City and the streets outside are filled with people in even more of a hurry than usual, desperate to find shelter. However, if anyone took the time to cast a glance down a certain alleyway, they would come across something a bit unusual. A sizeable line of young people are bracing the elements for the second outing of Thunder Disco Club, a new night created by four friends and hosted in one of the lesser known venues in the city.

Inside the Lite Bar, the 250 person capacity venue fills quickly and remains full until almost the last song, the crowd lapping up every track. Without a doubt the evening has been a huge success and one fuelled simply by some eye-catching posters, Facebook and most importantly, word of mouth.

The following week I catch up with the creators Sandy, James, Angus and Ian to talk about their success.

As it transpires, they are just as surprised at the positive reaction to the evening as anyone else.

“It was our dream to have people lined up outside, and then it happened, a line of folk all out waiting in the pissing rain. I couldn’t believe it.” says James.

“The way it fell together on the first night worked, I don’t think I could have ever imagined the way it has turned out." says Ian. "We don’t take it too seriously, we’ve still very much got our learner plates on.”

For better or for worse, the DIY culture of starting your own club night has exploded over the past few years and appears to be here to stay. The ease of promoting events over the internet for free and the rise of the ‘laptop DJ’ means that the cost of running a club night has been reduced to an extent that everyone is trying it out. However, where many of these nights are created and killed off in a matter of months, Thunder Disco Club has enjoyed a dizzying high very early on. I ask them about their use of technology and the night's music policy.

“It’s very obvious that it’s more of a party than a serious night. Our evenings start out with mostly italo-disco until one o’clock, then afterwards we hammer it a bit but drop in some disco here and there.”
“Because we all only get one hour each to DJ we ensure that our sets are very tight and have no fillers in them. The only criticism we get is that we DJ off of laptops, but I think we give a type of variation that you can only get by using one.”

“It’s electronic music, it’s supposed to be forward-thinking and if you hold the mindset that you should still use only vinyl then you’re going to get left behind.”

“The ideal set up would be to have a combination of it all though. But without the advancement to laptops what we’ve done wouldn’t have been possible.”