Wasabi Disco – “The Mission is Terminated” with JD Twitch
It is with great pride and more than a little self-glorification that I present to you the last Wasabi Disco. Great pride? Well yes, Wasabi Disco is the club that almost never was, or perhaps never should’ve been…? Born out of a mis-timed birthday party, it was only meant to be a bit of fun, a one off, “let’s just see what I can get away with….” Basically somewhere I could play tunes and styles that I like and felt were underrepresented in Edinburgh. If it worked great, if not who cares……….. But fucking hell it worked!
On Saturday the 17th November Wasabi Disco will turn 10 years old. During those 10 years we have seen and done many things… Like the time Daniel Wang had all the bar staff singing their favourite song onstage in an impromptu American Idol at 4am in the morning, or the time somebody crashed into the decks on stage knocking 2 Technics, 2 CDJs, a mixer, a laptop and about 20 drinks all onto the ground completely ruining the soundcard resulting in Nick Stewart having to leave the bar and DJ for the rest of the night on a spare CDJ! Or the time I couldn’t get through the crowd from behind the decks only to be hoisted up and crowd surfed towards the bar. We saw Wasabi Disco being named as one of the best clubs in Scotland by the List Magazine and included in its Hot 100 list, pick of the week a couple of times by The Guardian, Time Out and The Skinny, we got mentioned on 6 Music and put in Mixmag’s top 3 clubs (twice technically but couldn’t afford to put their photographer up in a hotel the second time so we got dropped… no biggie!).
Wasabi Disco opened the doors for me to DJ in many other clubs and festivals, enabled me to write the occasional article for magazines (Hacienda DJ Dave Haslam would later get in touch to include quotes from one of those articles in his book Life After Dark) get interviewed by Boiler Room and supply photos for DJ Magazine and French magazine Trax.
We have hosted legends like Twitch & Wilkes from Optimo, DJ Brainstorm, Bill Brewster, Prosumer & Andy Blake. We have seen the likes of Daniel Avery and Jayda G go from behind Wasabi’s decks to headlining huge festivals, we have given DJ’s like Kris Baha, Violet and San Proper their Scottish debuts and Young Marco, Wolf Muller, Hashman Deejay amongst others their Edinburgh debuts. We have booked the notoriously difficult to book (DJ Fett Burger & Sotofett) and have witnessed wild live sets from Happy Meals, Octo Octa, RAMZi and Gabe Gurnsey from Factory Floor. We’ve had DJ’s from some of the best record labels around (Ari Goldman of PPU & Future Times, Shit Robot of DFA, Chuggy & Jamie Paton of Emotional Especial and Anton Maiovvi of Death Waltz). We have hosted local legends like Fudge Fingas, Linkwood, Auntie Flo, Astrojazz and not so local legends David Barbarossa, GK Machine and Billy Woods and soon to be local legends Wolfjazz, Cassavetes, DJ Cheers and Yves.
But all that being said, it was never really about the DJ’s: it was about not taking yourself too seriously, playing music we believed in, month in, month out, releasing yourself from the darkness of life and having a big fuck-off party. And to you, the dancers I am truly grateful.
So it IS with great pride that I announce the final Wasabi Disco.
WASABI DISCO IS 10 YEARS OLD WITH JD TWITCH!
Thank you for dancing.
“I want to be with you everywhere”
THE MISSION IS TERMINATED…..
