Gareth AKA Poodleboy

A brief history of Gareth (but not as brief as it was before!!!)

Mid-afternoon, Tuesday (I think), March 7^th, Ninewells hospital, Dundee (pity me). A small child is born with a destiny. That child was then taken home to St. Andrews (a small improvement) and soon given the auspicious name of Gareth David Roberts. After three years in St. Andrews, Gareth’s parents, in their infinite wisdom, decided that Cupar is the ideal place for them to raise Gareth and his siblings. A nice quite town not far from St. Andrews, quaint and not shitty wee hell hole at all.

Gareth grew up much like any small child does and by the end of primary school, was starting to think that he might want to be listening to something other than his parents 60s stuff. Around that time a minor band known as 2 Unlimited released "Get Ready For This" and Gareth’s musical education truly began. For the next 3 or 4 years, Gareth was a Raver listening to such masterpieces as Ebeneezer Goode, No Limits and U Got 2 Let The Music, and musical geniuses like Altern8, Prodigy, Clock and Bizarre Inc. That musical phase couldn’t last though and as the rave scene moved towards things like REZ and Bass Generator Gareth signed up for a Drama trip that would spark the beginning of the path towards his true destiny.

The drama trip, was basically an excuse for all those taking S-grade drama to con their parents into paying for them to spend a week’s holiday in Spain. Gareth had been hanging around with a guy called Andrew Stockwell for a while before the holiday and had already been introduced to the wonders of a band called Bon Jovi. Gareth had also been growing a ponytail for the past two years and had just got a leather jacket a few months before the holiday. Andrew Stockwell was also studying drama and it had been arranged that Gareth would share a room with Andrew and a friend of his, who happened to be in a Metallica cover band. All the pieces were in place and on the last night of a very enjoyable holiday it was arranged that the entire group would go to a local club/pub called Garfield’s Pub.

After much sangria and a lot of cheesy pop, Andrew’s request was finally played and a rather inebriated Gareth, took to the dance floor and threw his head backwards and forwards for the first time to what turned out to be Enter Sandman. After that, Gareth was transformed. He didn’t leave the dance floor for the rest of the night (a slight change from his usual, siting at the side all night refusing to get up and dance because he didn’t think he could) and when the night ended he stumbled back to the hotel to get some sleep before the 18 hour bus journey back to Cupar. (Probably not the best of ways to spend the day after your first head banging experience.)

By the time Gareth left Cupar to start Uni in Edinburgh his music tastes had expanded greatly and he was ready for anything.

Upon arrival a Pollock Halls in Edinburgh, Gareth decided that this was his chance to throw off his insecurities and small town upbringing and be who ever he wanted to be. For most of his first year in Edinburgh he faked self-confidence. While this led to him being a bit of a vain git and rather annoying at times, it also led to him no longer needing to fake his self-confidence because he had actually begun to like himself and accept his imperfections. Gareth was a new man. He was going out to pubs and clubs most nights and had a wide circle of friends in and around Pollock. He’d also begun to accumulate a selection of people that he couldn’t remember ever actually having a conversation with but they all seemed to know him and smile and say hi whenever they passed him. One of Gareth’s friends in Pollock had a boyfriend who had lived in Edinburgh for sometime (possibly his whole life, I’m not sure) so finding clubs and pubs was made a lot easier through his knowledge.

One night Gareth and his friends were being shown around by the friends, boyfriend and were taken to a pub called the Tap. The Tap no longer exists but was once THE punk bar of Edinburgh. After a few drinks in the Tap the suggestion was made that the group should proceed to a pub called Nicky Tams then after a drink there they would go down to some place known as The Mission. Bemused by the idea of going somewhere that sounded religious on a Friday night Gareth followed this weird man’s suggestion and found himself in a small, pokey bar on Victoria Street.

There was no where to sit in the bar so the boyfriend decided they would all go down past the toilets where they found the entrance to the club. As they descended they bypassed the Goth floor and peered through the big double doors on the middle floor before descending even further and spending the night down in the Indie Floor. Gareth hated it. He was used to cheesy clubs and the bottom floor of the Mission was miserable. The brief glance at the middle floor had been interesting. A dark dancefloor with a lone, sweaty, longhaired little man dancing like a mad thing (guess who) but sadly his friends weren’t interested and he wasn’t willing to spend the night on his own.

Gareth returned to the Mission a few times but still didn’t like it. Then after about 6 months in Edinburgh, Gareth went to the Mission with a few metalheads that he knew and his view of the Mission changed completely. From that point on Gareth was at the Mission every Friday night leaving his friends in a pub around 11 to walk there on his own and meet the metalheads in the Mission. It wasn’t long before Gareth was spending his entire night on the dance floor and he soon became a regular on both Friday and Saturday nights. After about a year Gareth finally made it to Dust and was instantly impressed with yet another night at the Mission. He soon became a regular at Dust as well and began to spend time socialising as well as dancing.

Suddenly, out of no where, there appears three new people dancing with Gareth and his metalhead chums. Graeme had made some friends and the group of two or three had suddenly doubled to include this lovely, smiley thing called Ffyona and a couple with matching super-noodle-style hair. When Gareth finally stopped dancing long enough to talk to the newcomers they instantly became friends. As Gareth began to socialise more (particularly at Dust but also at the Mission itself) his group of friends grew to the point where if there was anyone Gareth didn’t know he would almost undoubtedly know some one who did know them. Gareth’s parties were pulling in at least 70 people (much to the annoyance of his flat mates) and everything was going wonderfully apart from the odd rumour about the Mission being sold. On the night before Gareth’s 20^th birthday (i.e. His last night as a teenager) He got engaged to his girlfriend Vici but that didn’t last and Gareth was soon back to his normal(?) self. Then disaster struck. One of the rumours turned out to be true and the Mission had been sold. The whole scene was thrown into turmoil.

News spread quickly. The Mission was really closing and while most people were busy spreading rumours about what the building would be changed into a select few started planning new clubs to take it’s place. The last night of the Mission came and people from all over Scotland queued up to pay their last respects. Edinburgh had lost it’s only metal venue. In the following weeks Edinburgh went from one club to at least three and Gareth was at all of them. One month later the new Mission started at Studio 24 and the scene started to settle down but it had changed. For a start the numbers had doubled, the shake up of the scene seemed to have brought it to the attention of clubbers who had never been to the old Mission and they were all coming out in force to see what the new place was like. Dust was also thriving even with it’s new found competition in the form of dysfunction. The idea of starting a new alternative club was suddenly an acceptable idea and clubs started to crop up all over Edinburgh. Some clubs survived, others didn’t. When the scene finally did settle down it had acquired several new clubs including Keroscene, Dysfunction and the new Mission.

Gareth’s life was also quite shaken up by the death of the Mission. He’d gone from knowing half the people at the old Mission to knowing only a small percentage at the new place. As Gareth got to know the new people he also began to get to know his best friends ex, Lisa. He was soon spending the majority of his time with Lisa and her two children, Erin and Kai. After hitching down to Glastonbury and back with Lisa, the two of them finally got together. When term began again and Lisa had to go to college every day, Gareth started looking after the children for her. This reduced the number of times Gareth could go out during the week as he had to get up in the morning to look after Erin and Kai but that didn’t matter to him because Gareth was happy.

During this period Gareth met a recovering (?) alcoholic called Ali and after a while Ali told Gareth that he wanted to start an old skool metal club at Studio 24. The only nights available were Sunday, Monday and Tuesday so Ali decided that his club should be on Sundays and he wanted Gareth to DJ at the club and to help him run it. Why Ali thought Gareth would be good at DJing an old skool night is a complete mystery but Gareth turned down the offer because he would have to look after the kids the morning after so he didn’t want to do the club.

Suddenly, disaster struck Gareth’s life again. After returning from spending Christmas with his parents Gareth could sense that there was something wrong. Lisa was being distant and didn’t seem to be as happy as usual. On the night before new year Gareth forced Lisa to tell him what was wrong and she eventually explained that she didn’t fancy him any more. The girl Gareth thought of as that mythical thing known as "The One" had just dumped him. Gareth had arranged that he would stay in and look after Erin and Kai at New Year so that Lisa could go out with a friend of hers and enjoy the millennium celebrations so Gareth did that even though he had just been dumped. Lisa still needed Gareth to look after the kids so he did so for a further three months by which point things were getting to stressful and Lisa found some one else to look after the kids.

As Gareth recovered from this major upheaval he found that he was very bored on Sunday nights and kept finding himself in Subway Westend through a lack of anything else to do. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the Subway, Gareth can quite happily spend a night dancing to cheesy pop and dance music and drinking cheap alcohol, he just wanted something else and new that a lot of his friends wanted somewhere to go on a Sunday as well. Ali suggested his old skool metal night again and Gareth began to think about it. Gareth knew that an old skool metal night wouldn’t work because most old skool metallers have jobs that start in the morning on Mondays but a Sunday club could work if it was done correctly and at least it would be some thing to do. Gareth realised that Ali would be useful because he had the drive to get the club started and also knew the owner of Studio 24 but for the actual club to work he would need some one else. What Gareth needed was someone with a large CD collection, an eclectic taste and a sense of humour. It would be best if he could find someone with a sense of humour and music taste that was close to his own so that he would have someone to back him up when he tried to make something good out of Ali’s ideas.

Jordi was regularly going to the Subway Westend with Gareth so Gareth knew he was available to help make the club good and knew that his tastes were as eclectic as his own. One night when Jordi was giving Gareth a lift home Gareth realised that Jordi’s music collection was indeed large so Gareth made his suggestion. Jordi agreed and the DJ line up was set all that was needed was a name, venue and some punters. Ali was working on the venue and it was just a matter of time before Jordi and Gareth took over that and had a sober conversation with the clubs owner. Gareth had got back to the point where the majority of The Mission knew who he was so punters could be drummed up by just asking his friends, so that left just the name to be decided upon. It couldn’t be that hard to come up with a name could it?

After several very bad suggestions, Jordi and Gareth were in the Subway, talking about the club when a friend of there’s asked what the club was going to be called and Jordi and Gareth replied "we don’t know yet." The friend suggested calling it WDKY (we don’t know yet) and Jordi and Gareth decided on the way home that DKY sounded better and would also be amusing. The opening night came round and after much plugging from Gareth, the punters came down to see what it was like. The night went well although they did play to much cheese and the following week went just as well. A break was taken for the Beltane festival and the following week numbers had dropped dramatically. DKY wasn’t covering costs and the DJs were paying for the club out of their own pockets but they were having fun so they didn’t mind. After a few months thing started to improve and on the night that DKY had it’s first guest DJ it also made it’s first profit since the first two weeks. DKY’s attendance has fluctuated a lot since with a low of 6 paying customers and so far it’s high stands at 111 paying customers. Presently the average stands at around 50 and Gareth is having a lot of fun even if he does find himself doing the doors a lot.