GLAD CAFE NEWS
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GLAD CAFE NEWS
Grand Opening of the Glad Cafe!! After a three year roller coaster ride of inspiration, excitement, disappointment, confusion, idea bouncing, encouragement, grief and joy, we have finally opened our doors! How did we get here? Well, it was in the spring of 2009 that a chance visit to Cafe Oto in Dalston, London, prompted a chain of thinking and planning that has brought about the Glad Cafe. Based in a converted printworks, simply decorated and modestly furnished, Cafe Oto exuded a cool inclusiveness which coupled with its amazing programme of experimental music nearly every night of the week, left us asking ‘Why haven’t we got this on our home turf? Why is there no such place in multi ethnic southside Glasgow?’ The concept became deep rooted and refused to be shaken off. It had to be shared! We asked all the twenty-something southsiders that we knew ‘What do you think of this idea?’ Many of them were musicians, artists, actors, film makers... and they totally got it. They totally wanted it, and offered their support and ideas. They in turn spread the idea, encouraging friends to fill in our on-line survey.
The message came back to us, loud and clear. We want the Glad Cafe! Is it just for music, or can there be writers’ nights, film nights, exhibitions, installations? ...the suggestions kept on coming.
We are ecstatic to announce that the Glad Cafe is now open! Over the next months we started running gigs and other events in southside venues to make sure there was an audience out there, and we found that there emphatically was. We started looking for premises and fund-raising. As a social enterprise, we got incorporated as a Community Interest Company, limited by guarantee and began to build our team of directors and advisors. We had a false start. Believing we had found the right premises in an empty industrial shell on our doorstep, we got licences, planning permission, building warrant and architect drawings in place. In spite of generous donations and soft loans, as a start up business we couldn’t get banks or social enterprise loan companies to give us the loans we needed and had to walk away from a great place. Another search, - and a more realistic one – found us Pollokshaws Road – complete with kitchen,
Rachel Smillie Business Manager
lighting, heating and toilets! We identified the cosmetic changes we needed to make, the money we needed in place and ploughed our way through the challenges ahead to get us in and operational. And here we are! BUT ..... this simply could not have happened without the will and generous volunteering support of a host of talented people who helped to run events, play at events, make films, posters, website and zine, a dedicated Board of Directors who willingly donated their time and professional expertise, a supportive and effective group of advisors, and a team of professionals who saw to the building development in an open-handed and big-hearted way. Thank you one and all. In the midst of all this, we want to remember with love and pride, a person who is an emblem of all that the Glad Cafe aspires to be. Dan Bryant 1986 – 2011.
A PLACE OF REFUGE J. David Simons
As I walked down the entrance corridor the other day to what will be the refurbished Glad CafĂŠ, my mind wandered back more than forty years to that very same corridor, although in those days it was a much dimmer, danker, damper approach.
GLAD CAFE NEWS
Back then I was a pupil at Hutchesons’ Boys Grammar School (or a Hutchie Bug as we were then called, I wonder if we still are). Although not antisport, my friends and I were not great participants in rugby, cricket, curling and rowing as offered by the school. So while fellow pupils were off to the playing fields of Auldhouse after classes, my gang were up in Shawlands walking down that very same corridor off Pollokshaws Road to our own local den of sport – Hughes’ Billiard and Snooker Hall. The eponymous Hughes brothers were supposedly twins, to be honest there may only have been one, I never saw the two of them together. My memory – reliable or not – recalls always being asked by one brother as we entered if we were members. To which we would always reply that we had paid our membership the day before to the other brother. There must have been about twelve full-sized tables, the quality of each one deteriorating the further back they retreated into the darkness, the mouldy walls and the distant sound of dripping pipes. This was the late Sixties after all, a time before snooker became popularized by the advent of colour television and the legendary Pot Black tournaments. Hughes’ was no brightlylit gladiatorial arena boasting the latest equipment and a table-service of drinks and sandwiches. On offer here were stale macaroon bars and that wonderful facility treasured by most impoverished schoolboys – the ability to buy a single cigarette.
The first priority was the search for a decent cue, one that had not been warped by the dampness. If such a rare weapon could be found, then at the end of the day, it would be stored away on a rack in the deepest recesses of the hall in the hope it would not be discovered until the next day’s play. We we re ready. It was school jackets off, ties off, sleeves rolled-up. Cues were chalked, lit cigarettes placed on the table’s edge – a grievous sin by today’s standards. We did the best we could with bent cues, wobbly spiders, broken tips, sloping tables, green baize worn in places, torn in others, perhaps even a sodden patch to slow the ball down. But whatever the state of the equipment, the smooth plop of the ball into pocket was always a perfect sound to our young ears. When our half-hour was up, one of the brothers would flash the table lights from a control switch at the counter. If we were in the middle of a game and ignored the signal, the flashing would become more nagging and insistent until it was lights-out all together. We played for hours in that hall, we even created tournaments of our own, one of which I am proud to say I actually won. Hughes’ Billiards and Snooker Hall was a refuge for us boys, a kind of dim, half-way house between school and home where we could shed our uniforms, relax with friends, smoke the illicit cigarette, play the iniquitous game, pretend we were being anarchic.
I wonder what kind of refuge The Glad Café will be now.
GLAD CAFE NEWS
What to expect at the Glad Cafe
GLAD CAFE NEWS
Menu Every day we will serve: • A selection of breakfast choices • Freshly prepared lunchtime soups and wraps, mains and puddings • Home baking • Evening sharing plates
Coffee Our delicious coffee is supplied by Dear Green, a Glasgow based coffee roaster.
Venue Initially the venue will be running music gigs on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings, with the emphasis on indie and electronic music. There will be exceptions to the rule and we expect to see a wide range of music styles showcased at the Glad Cafe. We intend to make fuller use of the venue space as time goes by. For example, look out for the Glad Academy – monthly Sunday afternoon sessions of entertaining thinking on the big issues. This will kick off on Sunday September 9th with Nicola Sturgeon, our local MSP, talking widely on the theme of Freedom. There will be many opportunities for us to develop the venue programme, building on our links with the many local writers, artists, film makers, producers, actors living in the area.
Music lessons and workshops From our profits we aspire to provide affordable music lessons and workshops or local people. However, we have the small matter of loans to pay off first! Watch this space!
Opening hours Monday – Friday Saturday Sunday
8 am – 11 pm 9 am – 11 pm 10 am – 11 pm
“It’s a very multi cultured place, I think that helps bring about an expanded view on life.”
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GLAD CAFE NEWS
RUSTIE INTERVIEW
What was growing up in the Southside like? It was cool I had a bunch of great friends and there were parks close by for mucking about in. Its a very multi cultured place, I think that helps bring about an expanded view on life. Did you feel something like the glad cafe was missing? Yeah it would have been great for someone like me, there’s so much support for kids who are into sports but not so much for music and art. What are your favourite places in the Southside? I love Pollokshields, where I lived, there’s lots of curry and kebab places and weird phone shops and about 500 fruit shops! It has strange charm about it and a lot of my favourite people are from there. I also love pollok country park, huge huge park you can really feel like your out in the countryside when you’re in it.
Glass Swords is an incredible record and a total labour of love for you. What tunes are you most proud of? I guess the ones I play the most in my dj sets, like ultra thizz, after light and city star. I am proud of the whole thing though it’s pretty messy and crude in places but I think the energy and love I put in comes through. You spent at least two years making this album, do you think it’ll take as much time to realise your next record? I hope not but I can’t promise that it won’t, time seems to be moving super fast. You’ve had an unbelievable year. What have been your most enjoyable moments? Getting to see lots of new places for the first time like Australia, Tokyo and Sao Paulo. Playing some great festivals and clubs and meeting people at gigs who say the music means something to them. Rumour has it you’re moving back to Glasgow. What are your reasons for this? Not definitely but I am missing my family and friends up here.
What memories do you have of it? Mainly just good memories of getting up to mischief! Do You feel your childhood shaped the music you make now? Definitely. It doesn’t matter what kind of music you’re listening to, if you connect with it then it stays with you even if just in spirit or something. From listening to classic rock and pop with my parents or 90’s grunge and hip hop with my friends or just music from films, cartoons and stuff, it all gets absorbed somehow.
Rustie plays at the Glad Cafe opening weekend Saturday August 18th 2012
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THE GLAD CAFÉ LOCATION 1006A Pollokshaws Road, Glasgow, UK G41 2HG
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CONTACT US
The Glad Cafe is a Community Interest Company limited by guarantee, registered in Scotland, number 375439
graphic design and photography by www.scottimage.com tel: 07411 082 115
www.thegladcafe.co.uk EMAIL: INFO@thegladcafe.co.uk