State Of Grace returns
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by Margaret Chrystall
STATE Of Grace returns to Inverness on Saturday in its 25th year with the same passion its DJ duo shared for the music in 1993!
“I still love it, I really do – my passion is still there!” said Scott Langley, who with Al Carson will get started at 9.30pm for three and a half hours of music.
Their legendary club nights have become rarer in the past few years as family and day-jobs have kicked in.
Al said: "There are people coming along and will have their very grown up kids with them as well - it’s really good. And some of them are really into the music – and come across us first and then find out that their parents used to come to the club. which is really funny.
"They say ‘My dad was such and such’. So I find all that hilarious! The next generation has ended up on our doorstep as well."
Though Scott and Al don't run many State Of Grace nights, they have been keeping their hand in DJing for other people.
"We’ve done a lot of DJing and played a lot of other people’s gigs which is why we haven’t put on a lot ourselves.
"In the past couple of years we have played Belladrum, Shenanigan every year. I played Carnival 56 in Dundee last year. We’ve also played the Dundee Dance Event last year and this year as well.
“We were going to do a State Of Grace at the beginning of the year, but the venues were all booked up! We were looking to get a March date but July was the first date we could get.
“I think it is reaching a saturation point at the moment in the city So we will continue to do the odd thing because that is the thing for us to do at the moment ,I think.
“And we have had a lot of interest for this weekend which is really good.
“And all we are wanting is an intimate night with the right people. And we will just to play back to back for the whole time.”
Scott said: “The last time we played was at Shenanigan last year which was great fun. We are not doing it regularly – lack of a decent venue and Alan has kids and I work.
“The dance scene in Inverness is kind of fragmented at the moment. Nights aren’t doing terribly well, so we thought that a small venue like the Tooth and Claw is going to be perfect – room for 70 like-minded folk who appreciate our music rather than just going along for the crack."
Al said: "“We can go here there and everywhere with the music. If you are playing for an extended period then you can get hooked into what people are going for then you can really go anywhere. Doing that just the two of us over four hours. We can enjoy it much more and you can go places.
“Twenty-five years, we can’t believe it. I read other clubs biographies and there are a couple to make me chuckle, saying they brought the house music scene to Inverness in 2008.
“It was happening before State of Grace!”
Scott too can't wait for Saturday.
“I’m looking forward to it – it’s just me and Alan this time, all night long.
“You see some line-ups in town and they have 10 DJs on them. You can’t just give a DJ an hour or half an hour to play his music! An hour into it you are just starting to get going. “So we felt, ‘No guests’ just the two of us.”
What characterises your music now?
“We don’t tend to pigeon-hole ourselves,” Scott said. “If it makes us move, we will play it, – whether it’s progressive house or house music or breakbeat or drum n bass.
“If we feel it’s going to work well then we stick it in our set!
Al said: "I still love the music – there were times through we ran these nights that the music was on offer, I despaired.
"Some of the directions the music took, I felt apart from. Some of the genres that were reated. Some of the things things that morphed from one genre to another. And some of the producers were just coming up with the same rubbish.
"Then this past few years has been really strong for the particular music we like. Progressive house and melodic house and techno.
"We play Afro house which doesn’t actually sound as you think it would. So there are a lot of genres and they have really come on in recent years. It’s music that we have always been fans of anyway. So the production work and the availability of music has just exploded.
"There are lots of fantastic producers out there making great music."
Scott said: “We still use vinyl and will be using laptops as well, we’re quite versatile.
“And as we say on the poster on Saturday night it will be four turntables and two mixers!
“And hopefully it will be something good to witness.
“From the feedback we are getting, it is going to be people who appreciate our music and who have come to State Of Grace in the past. For them, it is harder to get out, people have kids and they have to organise babysitters and do lots of planning!”
The night is dedicated to the late former loyal State Of Grace fan Martin Hastings.
Scott said: “He passed away a couple of months ago. Martin was part of the woodwork at State Of Grace, he was there every time we had one.
“So I thought all the proceeds on the night will be donated to the Strathcarron Hospice where he worked, just outside Falkirk.
“We are dedicating this night to him and we will put buckets out if people want to donate.
“It will be a chance to celebrate Martin’s life.
“He would arrive, take his glasses off and give them to us to put behind the decks so he could dance the night away.
“Then at the end, he would come over, say ‘What a night!’, shake our hands, put on his glasses and head back out into the night.”
So why was it called State Of Grace anyway?
Al said: "It was a process we went through at the beginning. We wrote down lots of strange things and I wrote State of Grace because I disliked a lot of the music that was being played . So the thought of going from there to a state of grace through music really appealed to me!
"And I didn’t know that we would keep that and thought it might be just the first couple of nights, so we thought 'Let’s just do this'.
"I think I even remember the first flyer had "elevated to a State of Grace" on it because we had been doing a night called Loved Up Light and it was "elevated from Loved Up Light to a State Of Grace"."
Scott has an immediate answer when you ask what he remembers of the earliest State Of Grace nights in the 90s.
“I remember the happy people. No pretentiousness, it wasn’t about dressing up and looking good, you were there purely for the music. It was always a proper sweatbox and it’s beautiful when it is like that – playing records, the crowd are going crazy and you realise this is what it’s all about.
“I think it’s going to be sweaty and tops off this Saturday!
“It’s when you see people coming out of a club and you see the steam rising off them, you know it’s been a good night!”
State Of Grace with Scott Langley and Al Carson at the Tooth and Claw on Saturday, July 7, from 9.30pm to 1am. Tickets £5.
