Initial Itch is an ongoing project that forms the centre of flatrate’s activity.

Every month, at the 13th Note cafe in Glasgow, we put on an informal evening of spoken word / music / scratch performance / poetry / debate / dance / film / entertainment by emerging artists who want to try new material, and every week, on subcity.org, we make a little radio show of similar things.

Fundamentally, Initial Itch is an experimental venture: that is; we enshrine the right to fail. How else does a performer discover what works? We want, above all, to create a performance enviroment that is both supportive for artists and entertaining for audiences. On top of this, it’s also a space for like-minded artists to meet and seed collaborations. We think we’ve hit upon a great way to do all this, and hope you’ll agree.

We also hope you’ll join in. The live performance nights are open to all comers, and all art forms, although we are keen to shape an evening of entertainment that gives punters their money’s worth in terms of variety, so we occasionally organise more thematic evenings, and we give out slots at our discretion. If you want to perform, please email programmer Michael John O’Neill at initialitch[at]flatratestate.com and let us know vaugely what you want to do. Michael is very friendly. Initial Itch happens on the first monday night of every month, and doors open at half past seven. We hope to see you there.

The radio show runs the same content policy: we want your art, and we want to put it on the air. Get in touch with your ideas, demos, experiments, poems and rants. The show is presented by Rob Jones and Stephen Redman, and involves new music, new poetry, new drama and occasional guests. You can listen to it live on the subcity website, or you can listen again to all the shows that we’ve done this year. Previous guests on the show include hilarious experimental theatre legends Forkbeard Fantasy doing an anarchic telephone interview, and The Skinny’s performance editor Gareth K. Vile discussing the art of criticism. Alas, at the moment we are on temporary hiatus, but hope to return soon.

Get involved.