Curios? Sunday Joint - A Little Curios?

Curios? Sunday Joint at the Bongo Club offers a more relaxed and chilled out approach to the whole clubbing experience. Here, resident DJs Bill Spice (Loop/Nektar/Moo Bar), Monkeyboy (Swingbeats/Pivo/Lulu), Glasgow's Wee G (Interface Pirate Radio) and relative newcomer Dr. Chop can be found on a Sunday afternoon spinning everything from funk to electronica, to a selection of bootlegs. Bill Spice explains: "We've always played a very broad selection of music, probably because everyone involved is pretty open minded in their tastes. We all just play what we feel like playing at the time, whether it's the latest bootleg fusing Radiohead to hip-hop, a slice of mellow electronica, or an old Egyptian funk record."

"Curios? as an organisation has been running off and on for nine years. We started by playing every Saturday night in the basement of WJ Christies (now the Grassmarket Bar), with people crammed in like sardines creating a great atmosphere," says Bill. The regular weekly sessions of Curios? were started in September 2004 by promoters Malx and Tommy, initially running from 2pm until 1am. Malx elaborates: "The Sunday thing also came out of those festival Tuesdays in 2004. Silk debuted there and we had some real good diverse acts ranging from acoustic singer/songwriters to electronica to comedy. After the success of those nights Ally (the manager of the Bongo Club) asked us to continue a free night once a week." With the introduction of the Scottish Hobo Society, Curios? took charge of the upstairs and functioned as their chill-out room from 10pm until 3am while still continuing with the afternoon sessions.

Music is not the only thing on offer at Curios? Sunday Joint; there are also a number of games on offer such as chess, draughts, backgammon, a Jenga set (which apparently proves very popular) and a box of Lego. Bill continues: "It's very relaxed most of the time. During the day the cafe is family friendly and the toys and games are an obvious attraction for kids - so it's a great place for parents to get out of the house and unwind." Not only are there games for children and adults alike, there is also free interent access and an array of Sunday newspapers at your disposal. "The childlike qualities are at the heart of my ethos," explains Malx, "the idea of directly integrating play into a social setting for adults."

Curios? Sunday Joint would not be the first Sunday all-dayer [the fry-up breakfast being the first!] to integrate music with a variety of other mediums - The Big Chill perhaps being the most obvious comparison. But daytime clubs remain few and far between unless you're currently standing on the isle of Ibiza mid-summer, so if you need that injection of afternoon music and dancing and the chance to get to bed at a genuinely reasonable time, take some time out at Curios?. Their Sunday Joint has moved to a monthly residency instead of weekly, but what else lies on the horizon in the not too distant future? "Curios? as an organisation is going to be celebrating its tenth birthday next year, so it would be nice to put on a big event then," says Bill - fingers crossed for that almighty bang!