Who Remembers Pin Up Nights?
Vic Galloway has described new book, Retired Teenagers - The Story of a Glasgow Clubnight, as “a rip-roaring yarn that takes in the thrills, spills and belly-laughs of a certain era of Glasgow nightlife”. In it, DJ and former club promoter John McGonagle tells all about Glasgow’s iconic, Pin Up Nights.
Florence Welch performing at Pin Up Nights
By John McGonagle
Around 2000 if you weren't a mad raver or knowledgeable enough to be a dance music aficionado, the nightlife in Glasgow was desperate. Bars didn't have late licences and had to kick you out around midnight. Sauchiehall Street was Glasgow's top party street and clubs like The Garage and The Shack would play the same set of mostly chart garbage every night, in the same order, at the same time. You could set your watch to Whigfield at 1am. "Jump Around" at 2am. "I Touch Myself" at 2.30am. And so on - insulting, really. More aspirational nightclubs would invite you to "mix with Glasgow's glitterati" while DJs played "funky house". There would be roped-off VIP areas where you could pretend you have loads of cash with superstars such as Peter Lovenkrands and his pal Thingy with the funny hair who also played for Rangers.
Come 2003 I was spending most of my Sainsbury's shelf-stacking wages on CDs from Fopp, while also trying to drink from the audio streaming firehoses of Napster, Limewire and AudioGalaxy. It's hard to express the confusions, frustrations and risks of sifting through a vast, disorganised network of slow-moving MP3 downloads that might crash at any instant. A file entitled "Losing My Edge" might actually be a pre-recorded robotic message, informing you that law enforcement agents would shortly be raiding your property. You would spend a restless night wondering how you would survive a US penitentiary, and all because you couldn't wait for the official release of The Blueprint 2. I was becoming a right little music know it all, and decided I wanted to start a night in Glasgow that offered quality and variety, chaos and hilarity.
Pretty much the first thing any aspiring club night or party promoter will tell you is – don't try to start your night in the summer. Students are away home, folk are on their holidays, bands and DJs are away at festivals. So it's no surprise that the first ever "Pin Up Nights" was held in the middle of summer, on a Friday night in June 2003, in the basement of Blackfriars Bar in the Merchant City.
I can't remember why the name "Pin Up Nights" was picked. Besides the reference to the David Bowie album "Pin Ups", I think the idea was that whatever venue we had would be decorated with posters of music "pin-ups". I persisted with sticking up various posters (mostly black and white A4 print outs from the office printer at my government civil service job) until at least the first birthday party, when I gathered back up tattered blu-tacked pages of the likes of Alex Kapranos, Karen O and Debbie Harry, with penises sharpied onto their foreheads by sarcastic punters, and wondered "what the hell am I doing?"
Over the course of the next eight years, Pin Ups gradually grew from a handful of friends in a pub basement to became one of the most infamous club nights in the UK. Our most celebrated permanent venues were The Woodside Social Club, and from 2008 to 2012, The Flying Duck. We promoted performances by Guest DJs and live acts from around the world, such as The National, Florence Welch, Wild Beasts, Tony Wilson of Factory Records, Brett Anderson, Alex James, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, and MGMT. To name just a few. And also loads of upcoming Scottish bands including Glasvegas, The Fratellis, Chvrches and The Twilight Sad.
If you were a fan of Glasgow music and club culture in the noughties, or want to learn to promote your own club nights, then check out new book, Retired Teenagers: the story of a Glasgow club night
“Retired Teenagers is a rip-roaring yarn that takes in the thrills, spills and belly-laughs of a certain era of Glasgow nightlife. From high-points and hedonism to petty rivalries and downright failures, the book charts the white-knuckle ride of DIY culture and indie booking that will make you laugh, cry and cringe. A memoir of ambition, adrenaline and attitude - I’m just amazed he can remember so much of it, to be honest!”