Fact #63761

The Birth and Rise of King Tut's Wah Wah Hut by Johnny Black, first published in Audience magazine, 2010.


Believe it or not but when the 300 capacity King Tut's Wah Wah Hut first opened its doors in February 1990, it was the only small venue in Glasgow – a city of over half a million inhabitants – dedicated to presenting live music.

Twenty years later, King Tut's can boast not only an unrivalled international reputation for a club of its size but also that gigantically successful bands from Oasis to Radiohead, Coldplay and Muse took some of their first steps on the Wah Wah Hut's stage.

"Up until we opened," remembers Tut's founder, Stuart Clumpas, "Glasgow was crippled by archaic licencing laws which meant the only way you could see a band in a small venue was to go to a night club, which put live music out of bounds for most young people."

Clumpas, a promoter and club manager of many years experience, had long wanted to put that right. Having started out as the Entertainments Manager at Dundee University, managed Dundee's successful Fat Sam's club, and then expanded into promotions with his company DF Concerts, Clumpas knew he could create something significantly better if the opportunity arose.

"I wanted people to be able to see great little bands and still catch the last bus home," he remembers. "I was also sick of losing money by promoting gigs by brilliant young bands like Radiohead in clubs where the owners would make £1500 on the bar."

When Glasgow's city fathers relaxed the licensing laws in 1990, he knew the moment had come. It was now possible to have a small venue attached to a pub, so long as the bar and the music room were separate. "I let it be known that I was looking for a venue," Clumpas explains. "The Coronation Inn on St. Vincent Street used to run a club called Saints And Sinners, but they were struggling with it, so I cut a good deal with them and they sub-leased it to me."

Mike Greek, an old university friend of Clumpas, is now based in the London office of CAA (Creative Artists Agency), and has placed bands including Franz Ferdinand, KT Tunstall and Paloma Faith at King Tut's. "Having worked with Stuart as a student, he called me one day when I was a young agent at Wasted Talent and asked what I thought about naming his new venue King Tut's Wah Wah Hut," laughs Greek. "I remember telling him, 'That's a stupid name. It'll never work'."

Clumpas's exotically-monickered new venue opened on February 10, 1990, with a gig by Martin Stephenson & The Daintees and has never looked back.

Senior BBC Radio Scotland producer Stewart Cruickshank has based many live broadcasts in King Tut's and remembers the comfortable ambience of the venue from the start. "You go down a few steps off the street, then there's the bar and the venue is upstairs. It was an L-shaped room with a large mirror over the bar, which meant that music business types could watch the band without ever leaving the bar. They used to call it the A&R Mirror."

Rab Andrew, owner of Glasgow's GR Management, which looks after Texas and Primal Scream, says, "Our first gig there was with Texas years back. From an artist's perspective it's great to play because it was the first small venue to treat up and coming artists like stars, made them feel special with a rider and food etc instead of the rough treatment they were used to."

Dougie Souness of No Half Measures, another well-regarded Glasgow-based management company currently representing The Law, Wet Wet Wet and Cosmic Rough Riders, says he has lost count of the number of times his artists have played King Tut's, and affirms, "Whenever we discuss tour dates at artist meetings, we’re always asked, ‘When can we play at King Tut’s?’ Its worldwide reputation means it's good to be able to say your artist has performed there when speaking to promoters in various territories. On show day, everything you’ve asked for is as it should be and you know your artist is going to be treated well."

Indeed, right from the outset, Clumpas' philosophy was to look after both audiences and artists, and one major plank of that philosophy was good food. "One of the first things about King Tut's was that it had a kitchen so we could cook decent food and serve it up at a reasonable price," he explains. "We could put bands on for £3 or £5 at 9.00pm, so people could see them in a good, convivial environment."

Two further elements in the Tut's mix have been a determination to avoid genre-pigeon-holing by presenting great acts from across the spectrum of modern music, and to provide a live in-house sound worthy of the quality of those artists. Enter Shikari, it is said, were so impressed King Tut's sound engineer that they stole him for their own.

Paolo Nutini, who was discovered while playing at King Tut's, has always admired the venue's wide-ranging booking policy. "It’s the kind of place where you can see anything," he explains. "One night they’ll have a really great band playing their ass off and the next there’ll be a nice acoustic thing on."

When Clumpas decided to start a new life for himself in New Zealand in the mid-90s, he sold 50% of his interest in the venue to top Irish promoter Denis Desmond of MCD, and left in the sure knowledge that his founding ethos would be maintained by his successor, new manager Geoff Ellis.

"My outlook was that if it ain't broke, you don't fix it," states Ellis. "I'd seen Stuart's advert in Music Week looking for a manager for King Tut's and it interested me." Like Clumpas, he had started in student Ents, and rose to be booking manager at London's legendary Marquee club. It did no harm that Clumpas had originally envisaged King Tut's as a kind of Marquee of the North, and Ellis came on board in February 1992.

"Stuart was still running the company from Dundee," recalls Ellis. "King Tut's was effectively the Glasgow office of DF Concerts, but what amazed me was that such a tiny place, within the space of two years, was putting on bands like Blur and The Manics. It had become the main club to play in Scotland."

When hotly fancied 90s trio Kingmaker played at King Tut's on October 31, 1992, they were supported by young hopefuls Radiohead, who gave Ellis a perfect opportunity to demonstrate his grasp of the Clumpas ethos. "They said they never got fed at any of the shows they did, so I said, 'I'm sure I can sort something out.' It was a Sunday so we didn't have a chef on, but I went into the kitchen and rustled up baked potatoes with some kind of filling, put some soup on, and they were delighted. When they headlined T In The Park in 1996, as we walked back to the dressing room I told them how much I appreciated that they'd played the gig. They said, 'Well, we appreciated it when you fed us in King Tut's." Things like that are very important to bands on the road."

Good food and King Tut's seem to go hand in hand because when The Manic Street Preachers played at the DF Concerts-promoted T in the Park Festival in 1999 they dedicated a song to, “King Tut’s, the first venue to treat us properly and give us hot food on tour”.

Dave McGeachan, now the Senior Booker at King Tut's, started at the venue in 1999. He feels that the club, "still flourishes because of the variety of acts we put on. You can see metal, indie, folk, all sorts, and I think that's a very positive thing. We get quite a few tourists coming in because they know that if they come to King Tut's they'll see a top quality act that might well become famous. It's similar to how CBGBs in New York was in the 70s. People come from all over the world, just to have their photograph taken outside."

Geoff Meall of The Agency Group Ltd, whose bands Muse, My Chemical Romance and The Zutons have all graced the King Tut's stage, reckons, "It’s the best small venue in The U.K. run by the nicest people. I’ve yet to find a band with anything negative to say about the room, or to find a person who doesn’t like Dave The Geach!"

Similarly, Paul Bolton of X-Ray Touring, whose long relationship with Tut's includes memorable gigs by The Kaiser Chiefs, Therapy? and Bowling for Soup, confirms, "Down the years they've always had staff that make bands feel welcome. It doesn’t matter if it’s a major attraction playing a warm-up, or a new band playing their first gig, the Tut's staff always make them feel like stars."

This special relationship works both ways, of course, and bands have frequently repaid the club's generosity in their own ways. McGeachan cites the case of The Killers who, while on the way up, supported Stella Starr at Tut's on March 1, 2004. "All I'd heard was a demo of Mr Brightside," he says, "but the club was absolutely rammed and they were astonishing. On the strength of that show, we booked them T In the Park. The next time they were booked to come back they'd already started going up and they had to cancel King Tut's to do a tv appearance, which we were completely OK with, but they promised to honour the booking and they came back specially to headline on the 27th of June, 2004."

Given the forward-looking policies that have made Tut's unique, it's no surprise that it still continues to develop innovative initiatives. In 2005 they launched ‘Your Sound’, a monthly event at which unsigned acts could begin to build a fanbase and gain exposure by having their recorded material played and also receiving advice from industry insiders.

One notable Your Sound success, says McGeachan, has been The Dykeenies who have since become the first band to have a CD released on another of the club's ventures, King Tut's Recordings. Says McGeachan, "Just as King Tut's is a live launch platform for artists, so King Tut's Recordings is the equivalent recorded music launch platform. We did Twin Atlantic in September 2008 and they've since done very well. We'll be releasing a compilation shortly which will also feature our most recent release, Sucioperro."

The venue now even boasts its own-brand lager, brewed specially by local micro-brewery West. "It's completely organic, made with German hops and Scottish water," says Ellis, adding, "It has a very smooth, malty, honeyed taste."

Colette Grufferty, General Manager, of Ticketmaster Scotland, which has been working with King Tut's for ten years, says, "It’s a very special venue, like a hidden gem in the city, like a tardis. You think it's small, then you go in and there’s the bar and then you get to the venue behind that again. Its intimacy makes it ideal for showcase gigs, where the audience is able to connect completely with the artist."

King Tut's 20th Anniversary is being celebrated with a month of special gigs that includes Enter Shikari, Paolo Nutini and the hotly anticipated return of the Manic Street Preachers. "They're breaking off rehearsals to drive up specially from Cardiff," says McGeachan. "As far as I know, it will be their only European date this year."

At the celebratory 20th Anniversary Party on February 19th, Biffy Clyro, The Dykeenies and Sucioperro delighted the jam-packed throng, but already Geoff Ellis is looking to the future. "We're constantly improving facilities for the bands, and upgrading the sound system," he points out. "We're in no rush to expand but, if we do, it wouldn't be by creating a bigger venue in Glasgow. More likely is, if the right venue in the right location came up in London, well, I wouldn't say we'll never have another King Tut's."
---------------------------------
Stewart Cruickhank (producer, BBC Radio Scotland) : Stuart Clumpas took over a pub with an upstairs venue, Saints And Sinners, which had been the subject of Johnny And The Self Abusers first single on Chiswick Records. They went on, of course, to become Simple Minds.

It was on St. Vincent Street, and you go down a few steps to get in, and you'd find the bar, with the venue upstairs. It's an L-shaped room, and there used to be a mirror over the bar in which you could see the stage reflected. That became known as the A+R mirror, because it meant that record business people could watch the bands without actually having to leave the bar.

Stuart always had a great sense of self-promotion. Even the exotic name helped attract attention, but the start of the club coincided with the rise of indie rock and shoegazing bands like Slowdive, and they were very astute in their choice of acts.

It was also one of the first venues to encourage band members to participate in selling their merchandise, so that the fans actually have an opportunity to meet the artists.

It's such a comfortable venue, you feel like you're part of a gang when you see a band there. I've done a lot of outside broadcasts for the BBC from King Tut's, including Teenage Fanclub, Thrum and The Pastels.

King Tut's stimulated the live music scene in Glasgow and in its wake came places like The Garage on Sauchiehall Street, The Mono Bar and The 13th Note.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, for Audience Magazine, January 2010)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SEVEN LEGENDS OF KING TUT…

1. King Tut's was featured in a song even before it existed. Saints And Sinners, the first single by Johnny & The Self Abusers, was about the club that existed on the same site. Johnny and Co, by the way, went on to become Simple Minds.

2. It wasn't the first club to be called King Tut's Wah Wah Hut. Founder Stuart Clumpas borrowed the name for a club he visited in new York. Singer-songwriter Jesse Malin now owns the former King Tut's, but it is called Niagara.

3. Oasis was discovered at King Tuts on May 31, 1993 by Alan McGee, boss of Creation Records. "I knew I was going to sign them within two songs," he says. "I remember turning round in this pub and the minute I saw Liam Gallagher I thought, ‘He looks like Paul Weller – the kid looks like a f***ing star’."

4. Little-known Glasgow band Glass Onion were Tut's regulars in the 1990s. Then they moved to London and renamed themselves Travis.

5. King Tut's played host to bands including Radiohead, Blur, The Killers, Travis, Pulp and The Verve before they scaled the heights of superstardom. It also hosted the first Scottish gigs for Beck, Crowded House and The Strokes.

6. Neil Finn of Crowded House threw his brother Tim out of the band during their first gig at King Tut's on November 1, 1991.

7. Founder Stuart Clumpas's father, Edward Clumpas, was a highly-respected
audio engineer, and co-designer of the Linn Sondek turntable, widely regarded as the finest transcription deck of the 1970s.