Last Night A VJ Saved My Life

Five years of clubbing have left my attention span a little frazzled. You may well be the same. The Glasgow Music and Film festival is lovingly curated as a series of genuinely unique events which combine audio with visuals. But really, the most exciting part is that, as a writer, it gives me a convenient, if slightly tenuous, excuse to talk about what's happening audio-visual-wise in Glasgow on a more regular basis.

In a city where collectives such as Numbers continually merge VJing – step forward Adam Finlay, aka Retina Glitch, part of the Novak collective – with DJing, and initiatives such as SWG3 securing the notion that the future cannot be anything but multi-disciplinary, most clubbers experience Glasgow's rich visual tapestry more by way of tacit consent than anything else. But as the audio-visual culture expands as fast as the technology does, it’s well worth keeping an eye on what's developing in the smaller club nights.

Newcomer Joe Crogan has been steadily building a name for himself with his website and irreverent, bolshy exhibitions. His club visuals – seen at Dirty Noise, O/D and House It Going? – can be roughly classed as that lesser known genre 'Fucked Up', with a cut 'n' paste, art school, Aphex Twin mentality that enhances the general air of degeneracy you expected (and hoped for) from dirty little basement clubs when you were 15 years old.

Similarly under-development are the Bigfoot’s Teaparty crew, who have the unbridled enthusiasm of three mates who are simply ecstatic that someone’s finally let them loose in a club. As the name suggests, they’re all about inclusivity, which also means that for them, the key elements to a good club night have no hierarchy. Redux (aka George Russell) stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the DJs, on both the promo material and on the stage.

“We should encourage people who want to be creative, not criticise them for trying,” says George, and it’s this youthful exuberance and attention to equality that fuels the output. Trippy and acidic, live DJ feeds lurk behind text, glowing screens and horror-film-esque black and white prints... taking the raw, ravey feel of the Courtyard and combining it with primal techno beats, Redux attempts to create oblivion. “There's a reason Cocoon Club in Frankfurt is so famous," he adds. "It has the best sound system and the most inventive visuals. As soon as you step in the door it is a full assault on all your senses. That’s how electronic art should be – it should make you feel something all over, in the tips of your fingers, and at the back of your retinas.”

It’s taken for granted nowadays that clubs are going to pummel you senseless with audio and visual distractions, so it’s quite refreshing to go somewhere a little more retro in its attitude. Take Thunder Disco Club, currently looking for a new home after the Lite Club closure. It’s all about the branding – but we’re not talking tacky names plastered across screens, à la shameless superclub. We’re talking “chicks with attitude, 70s B movies, Chris Izaak’s unknown greats, tastefully cut clips from 70s soft porn and blaxploitation films...”

It began with promoters Ian and Angus making DVDs of old film clips stuck together, out of lack of money more than an aesthetic ideal. And, although the last event saw Visual AIDS bring a live set of beautifully recreated retro idents and more responsive visuals, it’s not exactly groundbreaking to discover that disco imagery and dark underground basements work really well together. Indulgent, sexy, chic... Glasgow's most established disco night, Melting Pot, could perhaps do with taking more advantage of it. Once they’ve found a permanent home, they’ll be aiming for a cross between their old movie footage and live VJ elements – but the visuals, although “almost as important” as the music, will only progress when they’ve established a live disco band. “If we had infinite sums of money, it’d be cool to make it like an old style TOTP show,” Angus muses.

You've probably caught Visual AIDS before at his Mixed Bizness residency. Although Ninja Tune / Solid Steel's Cheeba’s full a/v set this month is one to watch, Benny Boom and Visual AIDS will also be building one from scratch, with the visuals fully synced to Ben's bass-heavy record selection for maximum off-your-nut effect on the bigger drops. “It’s as much about improvising and going with the flow", says Visual AIDS' Shaun Murphy. "I think it’d get tiring quite quickly if everything was always super-synched.”

With that in mind, it's definitely a one-off thing. “Even if time was no object, I still wouldn’t do it every week. I’d spend the extra time making new content. It’s the same as any DJ – occasionally you might work on a routine like a four-deck set as a show piece, but that’s not what it’s about the whole time.”

It’s no bad thing – Murphy has without doubt added another element to the club since he got involved. Puerile, simple and childishly indulgent, they take the playfulness of hip-hop and – not something often ventured – they bring humour to the night. That's what makes Visual AIDS' appearance at Pressure next month –when HYP? takes over the Playroom – something seriously special.

"What should people expect? Me getting thrown out by Dave Clarke [head honcho at Soma]". Eh? "Yeah, with a visual of Ritchie Hawtin's hair sliding off and turning into a ferret, and a robot Stuart and Ord chasing after it, still on the screens. They never take the piss out of anyone in the techno scene, ever. People on forums take the piss out of it – like, Jeff Mills is called The Wizard, he thinks he's guided by interplanetary beings. How fucking stupid is that? The guy's off his nut, course he's called The Wizard. So, I'll have visuals of him with a wizard hat on, not touching the decks at all."

"The visuals in the main arch will be dull. It'll be Helvetica Bold, the DJ's name in capitals, and if you're lucky a camera pointing at Jeff Mills, who isn't exactly the most energetic DJ in the world. I've seen people go mental when a DJ's name comes up and he's not even on yet, the visuals are just running a bit too early."

Dav, from audio/visual artist collective Pointless Creations, is similarly dismissive of the super-slick, brand-heavy imagery which many big club nights still rely on. He quite rightly reminds me that visuals aren’t just about VJs but also “good old fashioned decor and lighting experiments”; at Death Disco, and other warehouse parties, he's worked with ACID RAFT who create “kinetic lighting installations and oversized dot matrix screens made out of traffic cones”; you may have seen, or more likely experienced, their swinging headlight installations at Death Disco or Sleazy's recently, changing the shape of the dancefloor by throwing the light about differently.

In terms of his work with Pointless Creations, probably best known for their trademark rotating cube screens, Dav says: “We always try to go beyond the ‘big TV’ scenario that seems to have become the norm in most clubs. We like free parties, not superclubs, so we always strive to create ‘surround’ visual backdrops that encourage the punters to dance whilst facing each other, rather than stare at an ego-inflated DJ on stage.”

It’s perhaps unsurprising that he’s more recently spent more time exploring theatre – the technical director of the Lowsalt gallery, he also creates one-off installations for everything from gigs, to fashion events, to circus. If this level of exploration has helped set the standard for visual artists, it seems that, for the other artists and for us, there's a lot to look forward to.