Soundhaus

This was not my first experience of Soundhaus but only my second. My last visit I was charged £8 to get in to sit in a dive and listen to absolutely horrible trance/​dance music dribble. I swear my ears were bleeding and my purse was very very much lighter. Ouch!
So you may ask why I put myself through this, well it was a friend’s leaving do and one of my colleagues at the time said to go here as he regularly DJs here for his night, Symbiosis. All I knew about the place was it’s a bit out of town in an industrial estate near the River Clyde and next to the vintage clothing hire company Saratoga Trunk. I would say the nearest train station to get there would be Anderston. Also that it was a members only club but I seemed to get in ok so I’m thinking this may not be the case anymore.
As I’m pretty open minded I thought och why not. Hmm?! Opinion changed quickly as soon as I got there. I was fortunately rescued by a friend who lives nearby. I was craving Nina Simone by this time.
On this second occassion it was for the fabulous Madame Magpie’s Mayhem in aid of the Govan charity Starter Packs Glasgow. It was a night of glamour, cabaret and burlesque and I was going to be an ursherette for the night. I was supposed to be performing but my health has been poor lately so this was another way to help out at the event.
The club had tables dotted about the place with tablecloths, candles and champagne bubbles, which was done tastefully. The place is still a dive but The Magpie Tribe did a really good job.
I give the venue 2 stars based on a normal night as I’m not a fan. For what was supposed to be a members only club I don’t know where the money went. I thought it would be much more looked after. As for Madame Magpie’s Mayhem I give this 5 stars. All the performers were brilliant and made great entertainment for the night, Unfortunately the lighting on the stage wasn’t great so the performers were a bit in the dark but I heard later this was due to the Soundhaus lighting/​sound guy pulling out 1 hour before the gig. We also escaped the trance music as the DJs also didn’t show up. The Magpie Tribe had everything thrown at them but they still managed to put on a great show.

I played one of the worst gigs of my life in here a few years ago. Synth broke, sampler broke, both guitars wildly out of tune and finally my microphone stopped working (or maybe I was so bad the sound engineer cut me out).
It’s dark, dingy and I get a real sense of my own safety as I make my way off the motorway in the dark to come here.
They seem to concentrate mainly on all sorts of electronic, dance and DJs now which is brilliant for people into very specific genres of alternative music. Unfortunately, I’ve kind of grown out of it a bit but I can see the appeal.
It’s not a very trendy place to go. I don’t see anything hip about it but that’s maybe a good thing. The lack of pretence makes it a welcoming place to go.

My first memory of Soundhaus was when I played a gig here years ago, in awe of this big scary building and amazed that we were provided with free pizza and beer.
This place is a little out of the way, far over the west end, and tends to somewhere I have only visited when playing or attending friends’ gigs. It touts itself as a members only club, however I have never found this to be strictly upheld for gigs as long as you have or are going to purchase a ticket.
Dark and atmospheric, Soundhaus is a great gig venue, but only for bands with enough presence to take on its great big stage and its big moody sound engineer.

Soundhaus is the only alternative in Glasgow, so long as the alternative in question is serious trance, techno or metal. It is a long way, both physically and in style, from the clubs of the city centre, and it is not for the fainthearted. Its décor recalls a classic old school rave: cold concrete walls and floors, a stage for the DJ, a few video screens and some flashing lights. It really is a place that is all about the music.
That said, it is very friendly. Even the coat-​check person has a huge grin, and there are no cool standoffish cliques. The bar is pretty empty by the tie the music gets going, so it becomes a makeshift chill-​out area, filled only with animated conversations and people making new best friends.
Even in its posters, Soundhaus makes no concessions to fashion: it harks back to the glory days of the underground party scene.

Many many years ago we had a gig in the Soundhaus. The huge stage and cavernous expanse of the venue really created a great atmosphere for the bands.
It reall is in the middle of nowhere though — in fact we got lost on the way to our soundcheck we got lost, pretty scary for a naïve 16-​year-​old me carrying an oversized bag of cymbals. A giant camouflage tarp hanging from the ceiling along with a very strange mushroom tapestry, just to add to the dingy feeling in here.
I believe it is more commonly used to host D. J’s and trance nights nowadays though.

Soundhaus is a cut above most of the others clubs of its kind I have been to. It is not posey, nor is it manky, it gets the balance just right. The facilities are reasonable and the front of house staff seem like real people, doing a job they are a bit interested in. In other words it has a good atmosphere.
There is also an interesting mix of music at the different nights, and if some of the audience look like they’ve turned up expecting something different they usually still hang around for a bit of a listen!
Overall I would say this is one of the most unpretentious venues in Glasgow.

A great wee club for someone looking for something different in Glasgow, members only so there are no riff-​raff floating about and its out of the way, so you feel like its just for you.
Really good atmosphere and friendly crowd, the staff are top notch too, smiling and having a boogie behind the bar all night. Its had a lot of work done on it over the years, when I first went there was an old couch in the corridor and porta-​cabins for toilets, and the bar was like something youd see at a car boot sale since then its had several face-​lifts and has now got proper toilets and a new bar and seating in the main room.
Music policy has always been excellent, from glasgows premier house and techno nights to indie and metal, theres always something going on in the soundhaus, always best to check whats on if you dont already know as you may go expecting Bangin’ techno and end up at a Metal night, headbangin’ (nothing wrong with that — just best to check these things first tho eh?)
Great venue, very underground feel to it and not for the airy-​fairy lot that hang about the fancy bars in town might get yer gucci shoes dirty with disco muck ;-)