Going Out - Pistols At Dawn With Alfredo (3 Hour Balearic Set)

One of our favourite club nights to emerge in the last few months has to be Pistols At Dawn. In a short space of time they have brought some great guests to one of Fat Buddha Store's favourite Bar/Club spaces, Max's La Cheetah on Queen St in Glasgow. Guests have included Balearic Mike, Bill Brewster, Tusk Wax and now the legend that is Alfredo. As far as DJs are concerned, there are very few who merit such a title. However there are very few DJs who have had the influence of Alfredo Fiorito. Or as he's more commonly known, DJ Alfredo.

To put it simply. Alfredo is pretty much responsible for modern clubbing as we know it in the UK. Quite a feat for an Argentinian journalist living on a small Spanish island.

In 1987's Britain, going to a night club for most people was a very different experience to what most of us are now used to. Clubbing meant dressing in your smartest clothes to get in to your local ritzy nightclub where the main goal was to get blind drunk to generic chart music and hopefully secure yourself a drunken one night stand.

Meanwhile on Ibiza, thousands of beautiful Europeans danced under the stars in a stunning open air nightclub. That nightclub was Amnesia and the DJ who had all those dancers so enthralled was Alfredo. At this point house music was in its infancy. There certainly wasn't enough of it around to sustain a full nights dancing. Alfredo would take records from every corner of the musical spectrum and create a magical balearic soundtrack. Dark Belgian new beat, italo disco, latin rythms and weird pop music all featured along with the new house and techno sounds filtering out of Chicago and Detroit. Records that club DJs had largely ignored suddenly took on new meaning and became anthems when he played them. It takes a special DJ who can go from Strings of Life to Kate Bush – Running up that Hill and have people literally crying with joy

It was a scene that was to make a massive impression on four young Londoners who visited Ibiza on holiday. And it was to have massive repercussions in Britain...

Johnny Walker, Paul Oakenfold, Nicky Holloway and Danny Rampling travelled to Ibiza in 1987 for a holiday. It was during this trip that they were to have their first experience of Amnesia and Alfredo.

“I remember walking into this open-air, white-walled fabulous club with palm trees and a mirrored pyramid and dazzling light show going on and all these crazy, flamboyant people dancing,” recalls Johnny Walker. “You had all the jet-set around the edges drinking their champagne and all the gay crowd going mad on the dancefloor. It was a real carnival atmosphere, full of life and energy.”

“And then hearing Alfredo play was completely mindblowing to what we were used to in London,” he adds. “We were like, ‘Wow! What the fuck is this?’ Something completely different. Alfredo was mixing up house records with indie guitar records, pop stuff and then some of the things that are now Balearic classics, that I suppose he was finding in Ibizan record shops. I think we did go there every night; we just couldn't get enough of it. We were like: ‘We’ve got take this back to London’.”

True to their word. The four friends returned home and started three of the most important clubs in UK history. Namely - Shoom, Spectrum and Future. These clubs changed everything and pretty soon the acid house movement swept the entire country and revolutionised the UK clubscene forevermore.

As word spread through the world about what was going on at Amnesia. Suddenly everyone wanted a piece of Alfredo and he was offered guest spots in every corner of the globe from Australia to South America and especially in the UK where he was considered a hero thanks to Danny Rampling and co.

Nowadays Alfredo still lives in Ibiza where he brings a little bit of balearic magic to the 'We Love' parties at Space on Sundays. His influence however is still felt across the world and you have to wonder just how different things would be if it wasn't for Alfredo and Amnesia.
 

The guys at Pistols At Dawn feel extremely privileged to be able to bring Alfredo to Glasgow where he will be playing a 3 hour set of the classic tracks that he played in Amnesia all those years ago.

To be able to experience this in such an intimate venue is going to be something really quite unforgettable and something you may possibly never get another chance to witness.

This is probably gonna sell out extremely quickly so please get a ticket early if you want to go because there is limited capacity at La Cheetah.

Tickets are only £10 and will be available from Tickets Scotland and Max's Bar later this week.

Really can't wait to see you all there for what will be their biggest party to date.