IN THE BEGINNING!
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Club Sativa started in Edinburgh back in 1992 at Moray House student Union near Holyrood by a small group of friends, initial dj's included Dil and Dave Tarrida. There was only one night put on at Moray House March 13th 1992. The club then moved to the Wee Red Bar in November 1992 to start up their now still highly thought of nights. Dil left after moray house and Ian Brown took over DJ'n with Dave Tarrida still in residence.
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VAGUE YOUTHS
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Initially we had very little idea about what we were doing being only 20, we all had a history of heavy metal and and had our minds warped into techno by the now legendary UFO nights at the venue. You would be sitting in the pub and they would give out free tickets for UFO, at a time when Acid and techno was barely heard of. Suddenly we were scouring record shops for this crazy alternative music. It was sadly limited, but in a way it made you appreciate each tune more, and if you were lucky enough to get DJ mix tapes from the likes of Dave Angel or NJOI you were lucky.
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Pure started in 1990 after UFO had been utterly trashed on it's last unfortunate night, an unfitting end to a ground breaking night. But Pure had the right idea and was all membership to make sure it would last longer than UFO. We watched them start to emerge as a leading club in the UK and thought hey maybe we can do this, as it turned out we could.
WEE RED BAR
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Meanwhile back at the Wee Red bar we were causing general mayhem and our fun filled parties were soon packed. Mainly due to the experimental music policy, the strange advertising and the cheap admission fee which we managed to maintain throughout the entire time it ran. The nights were full on with the mc's whipping up a storm, they just made up the rhymes freestyle. For some reason we thought it would be a great idea to give away free food at the first couple. I dont know who exactly thought it would be a great idea to try and give free food, think it was chili! i have recollections of ali hill with a huge vat of the stuff that he couldn't give away! certainly not one of our better ideas.
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Techno was starting to take off in Edinburgh at this point with Pures nights kicking butt weekly, our nights starting to draw attention, and the free party movement really opening up peoples minds to this new form of music. The music we were playing was becoming heavier as the selection of music we had to choose from became better and we had more to choose from. Records from Germany, Belgium, Detroit, New York, London all began to appear in our collections at a time when there was numerous record shops in Edinburgh. The 303 sound was heavily abused at this time and still twangs my heart strings when I hear it, mainly for the way it helped form a new movement.
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It was almost like a clan had started to form, initially the group running sativa was quite small. But we started to need more people involved as it became more ambious. The Wee Red for those that have been is a nice space, it doesn't take many people for it to look busy and have a nice atmosphere. The people in charge were great and really helped us put the club on the map and the people tthat came to the club helped forge it into some of the most memorable nights at the Wee Red.
Soon we had gone beyond the Wee Reds capacity. We then moved to the Vaults, which signaled a new era especially with the music we played. But the Wee Red holds great memories for us.
THE VAULTS
A new chapter started at the Vaults, the creative element at the club just exploded, we initially started off with 3 rooms, which after the wee red seemed like we could branch out musically. The first night at the Vaults was just mental we were not prepared for it, we had the SP23 DJ squad from Spiral Tribe playing, who had just been made notorious from there CastleNorton exploits. The queue to get in branched all the way up Niddry ST and round onto the High Street, we had to turn loads of people away. Inside it seemed like controlled anarchy, with each room being transported into another world by the creative talents of the crew involved. This night signalled a new beginning for Sativa in what was probably it's most successful spell.
We were soon up to fortnightly nights as the demand for our nights increased with Dave Clarke, Adam X, DJ HELL, Electric Indigo, Spiral Tribe all becoming regulars and giving us good publicity. Two local guys started attracting interest with their live sets at Sativa and Pure, Techno twiddlers Tobias Schmidt and Neil Landstrumm.
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Purveyors of the original 303 sound, their live sets helped carve sativa into the success it was. It was a bit of a joke at the time that if u went techno clubbing in Edinburgh you wuld either be into Sativa or Pure, there was a kind of friendly rivalry but the thing was we had broken pure's dominance on the Edinburgh Dance club scene. Which was good as people needed more variety.
We had moved up to 4 rooms at the Vaults by this point, a reggae/ragga room with Scott and Warren from the wee red days, an experimental ambient/electronic room which was warped by Wee DJ's producer Dave Paton. The 3rd room was run by the Massive Bereavement Tonka, Owen and Richie Gambles. The 4th room was the main floor which had residents Ian Brown, Dave Tarrida and Steve Glencross and had so little oxygen that you could barely light a lighter! Also the DJ booth was right in the middle of the room so you could barely hear what you were doing. We pumped out all the latest underground techno from rising labels. There was people just freaking out, topless girls and topless guys just going for it!
We had set up a Khat bar and smart drink stalls in the main halls, this was just as Khat was beginning to make an appearance and was still legal. Folk were scoffing it by the handful or in drink form and were just going bananas, i'd never really seen anything like it or tasted! it was like sticking a bit of hedge trimmings in your mouth taste wise, but that didn't stop people wolfing it down.
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ART/ENVIRONMENT
I cannot emphasize enough that Sativa wasn't just a techno club, thanks to the outstanding effort of the whole Clan/crew it was a whole new environment, and the music covered most genres at some point through the 4 rooms. The art and strange sculptures grew more gruesome and confrontational but that is what made us stick out like a sore thumb. The posters featured all kinds of art alot of which your average citizen would struggle to comprehend. Ali Hill started off designing the posters but this was taken over by Nadia who also did the screen printing, tops, tshirts and the lab coats that the sativa drummers and crew wore. All had interesting designs I remember on the one i had there was about 4 designs often with pictures in unusual places.
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THE MAIN FLOOR
What can i say my memories of choking amounts of smoke, terror strobes, barely knowing what direction I was facing! Playing there was just crazy, but great memories of people just being free from the usual shit that grinds us all down. This was a place to go to forget about reality, or maybe create your own.
SPIRAL TRIBE
The first night we had these guys up just pushed the button with the club and it just took off in the most spectacular fashion, looking back it was defo one of the best bits of business we did. Their "fame" after Castle Morten propelling them into the limelight and we gained off that. But also CastleMorten pretty much spelled the end of the large uncontrolled free party movement, with the criminal justice bill being brought in, which meant police could literally do what they wanted to stop almost any party or gathering, but there was always ways round it.
When we moved to the Vaults we weren't prepared for what would happen we went from a reasonable sized club having roughly 400 people attending, this increased to round about 1000 at the SP23 gig. We were caught off guard and had to up our game to cope with the sudden pressures of running such a big club and now with the clan sativa having gained more members. This provided it's own strain as would be expected, but the combined creative output from everyone was enough to propel us to a new level. The creativity of those involved made us stand out from the crowd, this wasn't just about a dj in a box this was about transporting people somewhere else.
Each room had a different theme, with UV train sets, UV white fabric wendy houses in the chill out zone, strange props made from recycled materials including deranged dolls and robotic creatures. The attention to detail some times was quite incredible when I look back on it.
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SATIVA DRUMMERS
We had by this point got the sativa drummers in to start the nights off,can't even really remember how they started but they soon started to gain popularity, the dance floor would be filled almost immediately, some nights they were better than others bit like the dj's i suppose. But they always got people there at opening time and folk would be well up for a night of mayhem after that.
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STRANGE DAYS
It's not to say it was all a bed of rose's! We had a night where we had casuals trying to boot the front door of the Vaults in, luckily the bouncers had manged to get the doors shut in time. We had problems with the bouncers also some nights being over zealous and turning the wrong people away including our friends. I can't remember what night it was but we drove the PA so hard we basically put it into melt down! It wasn't apparent until the next club night (not ours) when they switched the PA on and there was hardly any sound came out of the PA and they had a club full of people think it was the gay night Burger Queen, they must have been pissed. Of course we denied it and said it could have been anyone, prove it! haha they then got an "autopsy" done on the PA and that proved we had done it so had to buy the Vaults a new PA. Not one of our cheaper nights! We had to call the paramedics numerous times usually for over zealous clubbers who fell foul of the smoke, strobes and general mayhem. With one guy I remember as he was getting stretchered off the dancefloor after keeling over, he was desperately trying to get off the stretcher and back to the dance floor such was the fever on there.
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