Kef, RIP thy honourable establishment

[Maddeh]

Ohhhh kef

I remeber when I first heard of Kef, someone told me 'Its run by a backwards Irishmen, hence the name'

Obviously not true but Fek it was such a good venue
Especially for what its remebered for, if any of you got to enjoy it: Jungle Nation!
Basically the best venue for an underground Jungle experience. You have 3 parts to the building.

Bar area: Get yourself sorted with a tidy drink, tidy chat, tidy drugs, run around rallying the troops for a tidy dance.

Smoking area: Need a break from the sweat and noise, head outside for a tidy bine and a tidy chat. You could basically find anyone you knew outside at some point and have a superb conversation or at least good one.

Dance floor: sweat mess! There was no ventalation in this part of the building! once the night got properly going you could not go in there without being sticky. The floor was bouncy! you really cant get better than that for a nighclub. And contrary to popular belief the floor did not have springs put in it. It was the way the building was made, floorboards were smashed all the time and replaced with still the same bounce afterwards.

Sadly thou, the once a month collection of many was not enough to keep kef afloat and now it has deceased. Very shit!

The atmosphere was amazing thou. Everyone was always Excited about going to kef. I loved the calls between groups 'Are you going to kef?!!?' 'AYE! course im going to kef' 'meet you there at like 10:30ish' 'Oh aye!'. SO much fun!

You always ended up speaking to someone you kinda knew through someone else and discovering that infact u knew them in a closer way than u thought and then proving once again that Aberdeen is infact a village.

However I can still remeber the dead nights, I mean how many people really went to eletric boutique regularly!? Not many, you would go in with a mass of 30 people there. It wasnt dire but it wasnt prime either.

I MISS KEF!

AHHHHHHHHH!

[Massie]

Not completely the case, they got a decent offer from the firm that wanted to take over - doesn't necessarily mean that a place can't hold its ground - just mean's the owners get richer.

Also Electrique Boutique was never at Kef - it was always at Snafu - jeez how mashed were you? :P

You're probably thinking of the likes of the Playground night - Ketchup and Audio Assault seemed to be advertised and attended a little better. Gotta remember that JN built up a good reputation over years, and folk our age only started going even after the 10th birthday in Feb 2007 (where they had Dillinja as a fitting choice of DnB royalty).

Though I would see it as one of the premier point's of the semi-underground scene in Aberdeen for folk our age, considering that you could converse with people from so many of the different social enclaves - whether they were from town or outlying villages on either side of the city (or maybe just complete strangers to everything) and it was all very welcoming considering there was no unwritten etiquette and dress code - with the punks, metallers, bams, stoners, geeks and of course junglists among others all kicking it on the same dancefloor and lighting each others cigs outside.

Scoring a multitude of club drugs then getting hammed on harder spirits, or staying completely teetotal were both valid options too, I know from personal experience purely because I spent many of the Jungle Nation events completely untainted knowing that I'd sweat the good majority of it out as soon as my feet touched the dancefloor and I'd be feeling rotten as fuck as the beads of ethanol dripped down my skull.

I remember going myself one night for a small part of TC and MC Jakes - though never seeing them and just seeing a small part of residents DJ Davy and Tez who still game me ample danceworthy tunes - but as much fun as I was having to myself with the exercise and good tunes it wasn't anything without the friends to share it with, and soon found some acquaintances by the name of Kain and Bon who I traded half of my grass away to, had a few drinks and headed on home - still with a smile on my face - to watch Fievel Goes West and smoke a big fatty with tears of joy welling up at the ending - not a bad night for the worst night I've spent there.

Also if El Human Dildo is skulking around I hope he will remember a magical time when an stubby, elfin like bloke who looked remotely Hispanic, burst from a toilet cubicle earlier on one of the nights we were there (Maddy you forgot to mention the toilets as one of the other much hallowed places where people got on with a large percentage of their misbehaving). He cut straight to the chase with a large dopey grin slapped across his mug, "coke for weed?", "what sort of a trade is that?" I asked him, then conceded that we didn't have - burnt through all our narcotics as early as possible.
"No bother" he said, and beckoned us into the cubicle. We all huddled into the warming little abode he had created - and he produced a sizable bag of bhuddah, and crammed a healthy wad into the psuedo stoner mini-pipe he had handy.
We all took a quick blast and heard Maddy bust into the male toilets (swinging her dong two and fro to assert dominance and right of entry) and loudly enquired "where the fuck are those gays?" to the bewilderment of the to gents systematically scalding their hands under the searing heat of the built in sinks and handwash.
With the most appropriate timing and as if to confirm her accusations of our sexual orientation, we all bashfully waddled from the cubicle looking ashamed of the fact that we couldn't have a reasonable alibi for this - and just sauntered back into the club action without another word. Of course this is a dramatization as my mind was too glazed over to remember the real course of events. I thought My story was good anyway

Ever since I've been of the opinion that the smoke detectors were no more than stick-on decals that came with 'Public Liability Insurance Digest' or another periodical in similar vein.

Also the final Jungle Nation was a great chance to see one of my personal heroes Utah Jazz who looked like he was having some genuine fun flipping all his gorgeous soulful vinyl about. Most memorably dropping Disco Dodo as the penultimate tune and throwing everyone into the weirdest of dance patterns (its a tune by a very outlandish DnB producer Steve Lynx - couldn't resist dropping it at the TA 5th Anniversiary, listen to it with decent headphones or a pounding sub for full effect).

Was also good to see Tez recieve his dues on the true final night (to me this was like Ogre getting beaten by True Orge on Tekken 3 - always a joy) - though he looked pretty shy about the whole thing and had to get coaxed onto the centre stage to finally soak up some applauding. As by the end of the clubs career it seemed almost as if he had been carrying the entire clubs fanbase on his shoulders.

Feels good to know that for once in Aberdeen a club went out with style before burning out into obscurity (although how possible is that on Belmont St?), much like Origins predecessor The Pelican, which seemed to have been brutally sodomized by Father Time - although very famed for some of its dirty techno (and thus keeping quite an underground vibe in that sense too. Alas underground is inevitably not for ever, as it is to be wrenched up to the surface or just disappear with the lack of dinero being pumped into it and the artists involved shift creative gears over the space of months and years.

Blessed be the days but I'd rather have them as hazy memories of crystaline joy than something I'd forgotton over time myself.

Hope anyone who actually bothered to read empathises - and I know fine well there are clubs equal to it going around at this point in time - I'm not narrow minded about the situation at all - but only time will tell how their careers pan out.

[Alex B]

As a Kef insider I feel it is my obligation to post a reply to this topic. Just so I can set some people straight on what the place was about and what actually happened to the marvelous club that we all loved.

So where do I start?...

Originally named Glow 303 back in the day, before it changed its name to Lava when the club was nearing its peak. Lava was one of the best live venues in Aberdeen in its time, hosting such bands as Muse and Napalm Death along with many other big names that played there. But over the years the clubs reputation for its live music slowly faded and other venues such as Moshulu and The Tunnels took over where Lava once held its rightful place.

Live music was not what made the club legendary, it is now remembered for its contribution to the underground music scene of Aberdeen. For nearly 10 years it held its place as the major hot spot for House, Breaks, Hip Hop, Techno, Electro, and DnB.

Many, many great djs, groups and bands have graced the club with their presence over the last 10 years such as;

Noisia, Simon Bassline Smith, Pendulum, Ed Rush & Optical, Logistics, Dj Yoda, Jazzy Jeff, Flavor Flav, Epoc Live, Twisted Individual, Stanton Warriors, Plump Djs, W R Scientists, Franz Ferdinand, Jungle Brothers, Q-Bert, Goldie, Scratch Perverts, Orbital, Grooverider, Afrika Bambaataa, Dave Seaman, Dj Noise, Fabio, Rick Witter, John Maclean, Tom Hingley, Dj Vadim, Mr.Thing, Cutmaster Swift, Dj Zinc, Aphrodite, Andy Weatherall, Derrick May, Dave Angel, Dave Clarke, Dj Hype, J.Majik, Dylan, Dj Trace, Justin Robertson, Ozomalti, Plus One, Jungle Drummer, Ugly Duckling, Adam F, Peshay, Roni Size, Andy C, DeeJay Punk Roc, Total Science, Herbaliser, Altern 8, Slipmatt, 808 State, Dj Die, Mc Dynamite, Bad Company, Cut Le Roc, Adam Freeland, EZ Rollers, Freestylers, Mixologists, Sambaloco, Cause 4 Concern, Rob Swift, Jon Carter, Muse, The Alarm, Kevin Saunderson, Future Cut, Tim Westwood, Chris Goldfinger, Grandmaster Flash, Grand Wizard Theodore, Dj Kool Herc, Dave Tarrida plus many many more

not forgetting the residents ;

Dj Tez, Finnie, Dj Davy, Andy Torrance, Dj Jedi, Dj Lunik, Darryl James, Stuart Smith, Andy D, Dj Gogz, Mc Bass Monkey, Mc Darkrider, Mc Pipe, Mc K-Rhyme, Nil Munny, Stewart Wilson, Giles Walker, Dj Klink, MC, Bajan, Flyboy, Dj Skelp, Dee J A'La Fu, Gregor Macpherson, Dj Delane, Hammy, Paul May, Chris Knox

(thanks myspace.com/kefclub :P )


But the big names aren't the only reason the club was what it was. Kef will also be remembered for its very popular jazz nights, that were held in the upstairs section every thursday for quite a few years, right up until the jazz band were fired for smoking reefer out the back of the club. But they soon replaced the jazz night with an acoustic night called 'Live Lounge' which I myself ran, meaning that another group of smoked up musicians were there to take the stage on the thursday nights, to entertain the masses.

But as we all know the real thing that makes a club great isn't just the music, its the people that frequent it, and as a regular there for 3 and half years and a bartender there for the last 2, I can safely say that it was a great place to drink and to work. Over the years of clubbing there, I have met so many amazing people and have made a hell of a lot of friends. Everyone who went to kef, went there to have a good time, so you rarely saw fights break out unless there was a techno night on and some chavs had somehow found their way past the doorman.

Now finally we come to the reason the club shut down. There had been talk of Kef being sold for around 3 years, and we all knew it was gonna happen at some point. It was just the matter of when. As most of you know Kef and Siberia Vodka Bar are the same company, ran by the same people. And Vodka Bar is what we call a "Feeder Bar", meaning the profits made in vodka bar were used to keep the club running. Kef would never have survived if it wasn't for Vodka Bar pumping money into it. It got to the point that the management were not willing to keep the club going because of the amount of money it was taking form the bars profits. A lot of people find it hard to believe that Kef wasn't making much money, but people also forget that the most popular night (Jungle Nation) was not owned by the club, it was run by a private promoter (DJ Tez) along with a few of the other nights, so the club only got a small cut of the door money after paying for security and PR staff. The club made basically all of its money from the bar, and in the last year of the club their were only really 2 majorly popular nights running monthly; Jungle Boogie and Jungle Nation. The rest of the month was usually quite slow. It's true that kef would probably still be open if more people had attended their less popular nights. But hey its too late now, so what you gonna do?

But alas we have a new venue . . Origin on Market Street, (AKA The Subway or the Pink Pelican). DJ Tez (the legend) and his new club Origin have taken over all the nights that Kef used to host such as; Jungle Nation, Jungle Boogie, Playground, Breaks Beats and Bassline, along with some new nights such as Hush Hush (Grimey 4x4) , Gutterslut (Deep House), and Axis (Electro Techno) and their ever changing thursday nights with, Dub-Step, Hip-Hop, Soul and heaps of other stuff.

It is very sad for a lot of us to see kef go, It was a brilliant club that will never be forgotten.

R.I.P. Kef

We all love you and miss you

Alex