A new alternative club night launches this month in West of the Moon. The night named ‘Digital Natives’ will officially start up on the 30th of October as a weekly, Friday night event. Two music student brothers came up with the idea after running and promoting a number of successful gigs in West of the Moon featuring Scottish bands since February this year.
Now that Club de Mar is closed on a Friday night, Shaun and Liam McCluskey saw an opportunity to run a club night playing the same kind of music that proved to be popular at their ‘Live side of the Moon’ gigs. The brothers, who study at the University of the West of Scotland (UWS) Ayr campus play in the band Echo Valley and as students want to create a club night that other alternative music lovers and students will enjoy. Ayrshire Daily News spoke to Shaun McCluskey who will be taking on the role as resident DJ about how it all started and what to expect: “Last month we done an Echo Valley headline show along with another show with Pronto Mama, so it was the first time we done two shows in the one month and they were both really well received. The Pronto Mama show we ran on a Friday and we had the club night afterwards. It wasn’t official as such but it was running ‘til two in the venue and it was really well attended, people stayed around and they liked the kind of music we were playing and we thought well if this is something people would be interested in then why not look into establishing something more often that they want to see.”
On launch night, Scottish Alternative Music Awards ‘Best Rock’ nominee Huxtable will be playing, a band who supported Biffy Clyro in London last year. “It’s good that we’ve got a certain stature of band that are playing now that are all excited to come, they’ve heard good things about it and it’s exciting to see that kind of thing happening in Ayr again.“ The name “Digital Natives” comes from an article Shaun read in commercial music class. “Digital natives are that age group that have always grown up with technology, it’s become an intrical part of their lives and we thought then why not make it an intrical part of the club night. Sow we’re trying to include as many different social media aspects…it’s all under wraps at the moment.”
The club night will run every Friday from 8pm ‘til 2am and one Friday of every month the night will start with bands playing live music. Guest DJ sets, guest appearances and themed nights will also feature on a select few Fridays. Shaun told us that he is excited about already having ”one high-profile spot booked” for a DJ set that he is “not allowed to mention at the moment.” The launch night is a “Halloween special” so if you plan on attending you have the option to dress up.