Slam at the Academy: What kind of vision of the future is this? Stef Macbeth wonders if Slam have become aliens to their own dancefloor.

"You really don’t want to meet Slam face to face", their officious PR explains. My interview with Slam ahead of their first night at Glasgow’s newly opened Academy is not going to be possible. Maybe I can meet them some other time? "No." I’m ushered away with the promise of a phone interview a few days later. Which doesn’t materialise. But I guess it must be quite a lot of work being the past, present and future of electronic music in Scotland, as Slam are frequently heralded to be.

The Academy is a strange venue. After a full body search from the Gestapo on the door you enter what looks and feels like a nasty combination of chain pub and Superclub excess - complete with naff, mock-Renaissance pillars and ceiling. And really bright, like a service station. We sit on the balcony, sipping over-priced drinks from plastic cups. It’s really depressing and H-foundation sound disappointingly bland and completely swamped by this vast arena. Looking down at the little people dancing in the unhealthy light you begin to realise what Harry Lime is getting at in the Third Man - you really could start calculating how many "dots" you could afford to lose if the price was right. Because the Academy is not a space that is designed for human interaction; it’s a place to watch superstars in action. Gaze up at the huge elevated stage, here comes Slam.

As DJs, Slam occupy that territory between house and techno that sometimes gets called tech-house but really isn’t. It’s a simple formula: start with a groove (call that house), then add lots of bass and make it really big sounding, in a way that only a techno DJ knows how. Somehow they always find that extra bassline, the extra layer that goes straight to the stomach. And they do it with clinical precision, every time. It’s a sound that’s very "now" at the moment, but nothing new for us in Glasgow. Slam have been doing it for years.

Slam’s reign began in 1989 when the police had to close off the streets as the duo invited 808 State and half the Hacienda for Glasgow’s first all-night rave. It was an event that every self-respecting raver wanted to be at, judging by the thousands that were denied entry that night. A residency at the Sub Club followed. The night, Atlantis, propelled Slam, the Sub Club and Glasgow onto the world stage as an underground clubbing Mecca. In 1991 Stuart and Orde founded Soma. Throughout the nineties the label captured the sounds of the moment, launching the careers of Silicone Soul, Ewan Pearce [AKA Maas] and Daft Punk. Yet the label’s main stars would be Slam whose productions embody so perfectly the link between Soma house and Soma techno. Early singles Eterna and Stepback set the tone but it was Positive Education (first released in 1993) that would change everything: ‘a near perfect techno record’, said Kenny Larkin, enthusiastically.

The move to The Arches in 1994 was the final piece in the puzzle. Slam the club night, Slam the DJs, Slam the producers, Soma the record label, Stuart McMillan and Orde Meikle the most important people in Glasgow’s clubland. And it’s a position they have held ever since.

Slam (the club) became Pressure in 1998 and has become one of the biggest nights in Britain. Not just because over 1500 people turn up every month but because they secure the guests that everyone wants; the ones that only play in the UK for special occasions - a few festivals, the odd night in London - and Pressure, of course. People like Jeff Mills, Laurent Garnier and Green Velvet; not just big names but legends that remain deeply cool and important beyond any current fad or trend.

On one level, Slam are the greatest thing to ever happen to Glasgow. On another level they’re killing it. Kenny Larkin’s description of Positive Education as ‘near perfect’ is deeply revealing because that’s just it: Slam are perfect. They’re perfect like a robot’s perfect, or a computer programme. Ultimately, the insistent bass, the calculated funk, the progressive build-ups, the visuals, the lights can all start feeling rather empty. Like there’s something missing. It’s the thing that Kraftwerk had, and that Judge Jules definitely hasn’t, that fundamental human beauty and vulnerability that makes us able to relate to the machines and the music. And it’s a quality very hard to find at a Slam night. Sadly, their club nights, like their DJ sets, are all too often clinical and homogenous affairs.

There’s a wonderful irony to this modern fable. Orde Meikle’s father is a lecturer at Glasgow University. I remember sitting in one of his lectures. The topic of the lecture was Marx’s metaphysics. The crux of his argument is that the market economy fails to serve human good because its end is not human good, or anything particularly human at all, but capital accumulation. The argument goes like this: in pursuing money as an end rather than human good as an end, human good is neglected and undermined by this conflicting, dominant end (i.e money).

There are those who say that Slam are only in it for the money but I am not one of them, I think it's more complicated than that. However, a little more focus from Slam on human good would not go amiss. I doubt Slam would ever compromise the music for the sake of money. Their commitment to the music is absolute. But surely people are important too? Are their entrance prices really acceptable, considering that no matter how impressive and vast the line-up, you can only be in one room at any one time and it’s all over by 3.00 am? It is all part of the distance that has grown between Slam and their audience. The people represent little more than £18 and a dot on the dance floor. How many dots can they afford to lose?

Comments? stefmacbeth@hotmail.com