Taste

As Sunday mainstay Taste moves to Cabaret Voltaire
When God had a rest on Sunday it wasn’t because he was tired. Sure he’d had a tough week creating the universe - Adam and Eve were at each other’s throats, Satan was getting on his tits and he still couldn’t get the moon to sit right. But, like anyone who had been working all weekend, he needed a night out. Luckily, on the seventh day, some nice people created one of the most hedonistic Sunday soirées this side of planet Earth. No wonder Monday’s child is full of woe; they’ve just missed Taste!
‘There was already quite a big crowd of us who used to go out clubbing on a Sunday‚’ says Gordon Band, one of the club’s founding fathers, ‘but there wasn’t really much happening in Edinburgh for us at all. A space in The Vaults became available and there were enough people willing to chip in a fiver each to pay the rent and have somewhere for our own party.’
After just three months, a regular crowd of over 600 were venturing into the sordid, yet alluring confines of Edinburgh’s most underground venue. Now in its twelfth year, having held over 600 nights in seven different venues, Taste is widely celebrated as having one of the best atmospheres known to man or beast.
Leading this merry bunch of revellers astray are the pied pipers of pissedness, resident DJs Fisher and Price. Their exhilarating brand of in your face house music, combined with some superb showmanship behind the decks, has been winning hearts and wrecking heads at the Liquid Room for the past four-and-a-half years. However, the team have now decided its time to hit the road again: ‘Since the smoking ban came in and they opened up the beer garden, people are spending more time out there than they are in the club. On a really busy night it doesn’t make a difference, but when we’ve got maybe 300 people in and 150 are sitting in the beer garden it’s killing the atmosphere.’
As of 8 October Cabaret Voltaire will be their new pad, with many people looking on it as a spiritual homecoming for Taste, who enjoyed four glorious years in the same venue during the late 90s. One person relishing the move is long serving DJ Martin Valentine who retains his backroom title in the Cab after losing out at the Liquid Rooms when his space was swiftly turned into the girls toilets. ‘I’m really looking forward to it,’ he says. ‘First and foremost to getting the backroom again, but being back in there, where we had some crazy nights, will make it extra special.’
Headlining the opening night and making their first appearance at the club are Spooky whom Band met when they supported Sasha at the Arches earlier in the year. The production duo have been releasing their unearthly blend of progressive dance music since ‘92 and the awesome Josh Winx remix of Spooky’s ‘No Return’‚ is currently in high demand after dismantling more than a few dance floors over the summer. With more guests planned for later in the year and a few new residents being added to the club’s DJ roster, expect to see some smiling faces spilling out the Cab on a Monday morning and remember to keep a look out for Our Lord Almighty.
Taste moves to Cabaret Voltaire from 8 Oct, weekly Sun