July 20, 2023 • 36 mins
Trade at Turnmills was a legendary London Queer nightclub that's unapologetically hedonistic late-night parties transformed the way we party. Opened in the wake of the AIDS crisis and a decade of conservatism under Margaret Thatcher’s rule, Trade gave LGBTQ+ people a space to celebrate and explore their identity, carving out a revolutionary space for London’s queer community to party at while their very existence was under attack.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
In the late nineteen eighties, the UK was in the
midst of its second Summer of Love, where massive yet
illegal warehouse parties and days long outdoor raves swept across
the country. It was a hedonistic summer, fueled by the sun,
drugs and the psychedelic sense of freedom in the air.
(00:25):
Country fields and abandoned buildings in cities like London were
filled to the brim with young people hungry to experience
it all. But for Uday Bodwaj, his Summer of Love
was just out of reach because he was living in
a boring suburb called Northwood, twenty miles outside of central London.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I mean, as a teenager it was deathly boring and
also being gay, you know, I wanted to find my people.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Northwood is the kind of place families with money might
move for good schools and an e commute into the city,
but there's something about growing up next to a big
city that makes you long for a life on the horizon.
Uday could see the silhouettes of the city's skyscrapers and
hear the echoes of a life bigger and brighter than
his own. He yearned for life in a city where
(01:18):
people danced from dust until dawn and found themselves on
dance floors. But that freedom, that life was just out
of reach for now. Ouday longed for hot, sweating nights
and dark clubs and euphoric moments under twinkling lights. Soon
as he was old enough, he left the suburbs and
(01:39):
moved to the city London. There he found the life
changing magic he'd been searching for at a venue in
London called Turnmills during a club night they had there
called Trade.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
And the biggest memory I have is coming down those
stairs and hearing that hard house spaceline pumping through the
club and I was like, yes, I'm home.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Today. Uday still lives in London. He's a super animated,
fun loving, wild, outspoken person. When I talked to him
on Zoom, he was wearing a super colorful short sleeve
shirt and just fully present. He's a type of person
that gets super passionate. Like so many of us who
grew up in small towns where people don't get us
(02:25):
or understand who we are. Uday moved out as soon
as he could, and I can totally relate.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
I was very shy. I was very insecure, I think
being a Indian and being gay and being in a
very white environment, I was never had the confidence to
pick up anyone or talk to anyone or in a
romantic or sexual way.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
He began studying at the London School of Economics. He
was a typical student on the first leg of his
journey into adulthood. But it was away from the classroom
at night when Uday would spring to life in London
he had a chance to find himself.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
I was a university student whenty. We wanted to.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Party or night and of course, like anyone single his age,
he was looking for love, friendship and community, something nightclubs
have been giving people across the globe forever. Uday started
going out to clubs in nineteen ninety. At that time,
they were all sorts of gay clubs, and Uday was
(03:28):
more than ready to check out everything the London gay
scene had to offer. Most nights, he'd meet up with
a group of friends for drinks, then together they'd walk
the darkening streets of London to their favorite regular club.
But one night something caught Oudey's eye.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
They were handing out flyers outside a club called Heaven
that we used to go to and at that time
most all the clubs shot around three o'clock.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
This club was open later than other clubs. The fly
were for a night called Trade. Trade Flyers were nondescript
with only black text, but direct and straight to the point.
First ever legal all night dance club in England. Closes
very very late and dance at high temperatures to the
(04:16):
hottest mixed masters in town. The club was located at
a venue called Turnmills, just north of where Ude lived,
went to school and partied. UDEI looked down at the
pamphlet in his hands.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
We took the flyers and decided to go check it out.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Turnmills was a large, cream colored, rounded Victorian building set
on the corner of a busy road in the area
of Clerkenwell. Back then the area was pretty run down
with burnout buildings, but it had a main draw the
historic market Smithfield, selling meats, poultry and cheese to London's
(05:00):
restaurant tours. But yeah, aside from that picture, a bunch
of derrelic buildings, quaint cobbled streets and an area that's
pretty dead at night. But back to Uday. It was
nearly four in the morning and Uday walked for thirty
minutes to get to the club, because this is serious business.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
It was really close to my halls of residence, so
it was on my way home anyway. And I remember
going there and I saw a friend of mine who
worked in one of the gay bars going and say, oh,
just coming with me.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Udai didn't have to wait in line or pay the cover.
We all know what that feels like. It's like you
have entered the kingdom and the line energy is where
it's all happening. Because when you walk up, not paying
a cover or waiting in line, everyone wants to know, well,
(05:54):
who is this who's that person? There's an immediate sense
of pride, an immediate sense of belonging that happens. This
was very very serious for him. Oude walked inside and
there they were, the stairs. They curved as you went
down them, and there were a lot of them.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
We called it the Stairs of Truth.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Oude grins from ear to ear when he talks about
those stairs. They weren't just stairs into the club where
he'd become a regular at. They were stairs into a
life forever changed. He still remembers this moment decades later.
Everyone has that memory, that thing that instantly catapults you
into that place in time.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
The steep stairs that came down there were the stairs
of Truth for two reasons. One because if you were
trying to hide how high you were coming down those stairs,
you always gave it away because you'd stumble and slip
and grab one to the walls because they were so slippery.
And also we called it the stairs of truth because
you'd pick up some hot guy on the dance floor,
and then when the club finished, you'd go upstairs, and
(06:59):
every step you took towards daylight that person aged by
ten years.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
But even though the stairs exposed you and everyone around you,
it was worth it. Trade was unlike any other place.
The main dance floor was filled with tons of people,
maybe a thousand at the most, lots of guys with
their tops off, women moving their heads in unisonto the beat,
a wide array of people of different backgrounds, Lasers everywhere.
(07:31):
The lasers were huge. I mean, this was the come
to Jesus moment in this club. As you swayed across
the dance floor, bright colored banners with the word Trade
written across them were above your head. The music was
base driven and uplifting and sexy and it.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Was almost like a breakhould experience.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Oudei loved Trade. He became a regular. The place helped
him find his people, the warmth so craved and a
sense of belonging. He struggled growing up in that quiet,
well to do suburb of London, but at Trade he
collected a treasure trove of memories, ones that would define
(08:12):
his life. That's the kind of place Trade was. One
night in particular, sticks Out and I was.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
On the DN store with my friend Joe, and I
looked over at her and she was like crying, like
those tears pouring down her face.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
And I was like, what's wrong?
Speaker 2 (08:26):
And she just looked at me and she just went,
We're never ever going to be this happy again.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
There they were young, happy and dancing to the music
that pulls through the club, vibrating the walls, vibrating their bodies.
Nothing else mattered.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Actually, I reminded her of that a couple of years
ago and said, you know what.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
You were right? From London Audio, iHeartRadio and executive producer
Paris Hilton. This is the History of the World's Greatest Nightclubs,
a twelve part podcast about the iconic venues and people
that revolutionized how we party. Some of the world's most
(09:14):
legendary nightclubs were known for the unique community they welcomed,
others for the cultural movements they started, and some for
the musicians and DJs they introduced to the world. The
best nightclubs champion new music, transform lives, and provide an
escape from life's pressures. One more thing. This is the
history of some of the world's greatest nightclubs. Not a
(09:37):
ranking of every club in the world. It's an exploration
of the spaces, people and club nights that made a
lasting impact on nightlife and music. Today. I'm your host Ultrnate.
I'm a singer, songwriter, musician and I found my purpose
in club culture. This is episode three Trade at Turnmills, London.
(10:09):
While Oday and his friends were dancing carefree at the
bottom of the Stairs of Truth. There was a lot
going on in the UK, both politically and socially the nineties.
The London queer club scene for starters was pretty fragmented.
Everyone was kind of in their own camps.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
So like at that point you had the coal Hearn
in Oscourte, which was where the leather scene the older
guys went.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
The coal Hearn Arms was a popular landmark for the
queer community to congregate and meet on the west of
the city. The leather scene is essentially a look guys
and lots of leather, of course, but also edgy with
a sexy fetish vibe. So that's one scene and we
all love our leather fetish scene look, so of course
(10:58):
I've worn that. It's lots of fun and it's fantasy.
From there, in the center of the city and the
bright lights of Soho.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
There was what became j wy Bang was where there
were little young twigs and Heaven as well, which is
twinky like people who were into pop music and lots
of sequins and lycra.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
That was Soho.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
The queer people of color, they had like their own
thing that we had. Club Karli, the South Asian.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Gays club Calie used to move around the city taking
over venues, curating their own brand of South Asian gay fabulousness.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
There was a Fridge in South London Brixton, and there
were other clubs for black people who were queer.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
There were clubs for everyone, but.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
They didn't seem to mix very much.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
If you were gay and went out to clubs in
London during the early nineties, it could feel a bit clicky.
You just went to the club for your group or
your scene, and that was kind of it. And in
addition to the dynamics of scene, the UK wasn't accepting
in the way that it is now. Around this time
a new law was introduced known as Section twenty eight.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Now the rest of the news.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
The government is to ban the promotion of homosexuality in schools.
Speaker 5 (12:17):
I obviously don't want children taught that the gay and
lesbian lifestyle is natural or normal.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
It is not.
Speaker 5 (12:24):
It never has been and it never will be. Children
who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values
are being taught that they have an inalienable right to
be gay.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
I mean, this was the time of thatch As Britain
and a deeply conservative government who in nineteen eighty eight
brought in Section twenty eight, which was a bill that
effectively suppressed in silence queer people.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
That's Kate Hutchinson. She's a journalist who writes for The
Guardian and the host of the Last Bohemians podcast.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
For example, prohibiting teaching about homosexuality in schools and stopping
local council from funding gay initiatives.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
So discussing same sex relationships in the classroom, among other things,
was effectively illegal. Section twenty eight was law for over
two decades until two thousand and three. But while the
law was in place, many within the gay community were frightened.
In fact, many gay clubs had blacked out windows to
(13:24):
protect themselves from outsiders.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
Plus, at this point, the age of consent if you
were gay it was still twenty one. So this was
Britain in the late eighties early nineties, where it was
essentially dangerous to be gay.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Yep, so the age of consent was higher for gay
people than stray people. It is truly shocking and extremely disappointing.
Let's stop for a moment and appreciate how difficult a
time it must have been in nineteen ninety when kids
like Uday were first out on the scene. It wasn't
just a scene spread out across different clubs and communities,
(13:59):
or the nightmare authoritarian legislation targeting gay citizens in the UK.
There was more.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
When trade started in London, the AIDS crisis was raging.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
AIDS was devastating the community. No one could escape it.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
So my name is Susie Krueger. I am an American
living in London since nineteen ninety.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
She runs and promotes fetish clubs and has been doing
it for decades. Susie is an American from the East Coast.
She remembers what it was like at home in the
States before she moved across the Pond for a new.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Life, coming from America, where people were dropping dead big time,
you know, starting in the mid eighties up until then,
and it hadn't really hit London until maybe ninety two
ninety three, and then it sort of took its toll
here homophobia which was quite big here in the nineties,
and with the HIV sadly it was starting to take
(14:59):
its toll on people were getting sick and dying.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
It was a time we now see depicted in shows
like Angels in America and The Normal Heart and most
recently the mini series It's a Sin, which really shows
what life was like in London and the UK for
the LGBTQ community at around the same time as trade opened.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Aides was a death sentence and it was this sort
of sword hanging over your head if you were a
gay man in London.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
A young Uday never thought life would be what it
is now and back then, everyone needed an escape from
the horrors of it all.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
It was almost like, we need a space where we
can go and just forget about our problems and just dance,
just have a good time, just be hedonistic and not
have to think about it.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
I remember clearly when those moments were happening here in
my neighborhood in Baltimore. Many many friends in my collective
passed on many talented, young, beautiful black men, and it
was devastating and awful. There was so much, many unknowns.
Susie wanted that escape too.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
To just forget all about that and come together and
enjoy the eight or nine hours of music.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Music has a way of healing someone's soul. There's nothing
like getting lost in the rhythm of your own body
and moving to the beat. The queer community in London
was in need of a safe space in the eighties.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
He'd been in a band called Big Bang and then
he became a club entrepreneur.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Kate is talking about Lawrence Malice, the man behind Trade.
It was his baby. Lawrence is an extremely charismatic guy
of Irish heritage and a former electronic musician, pretty well
known as one of the city's party entrepreneurs. Kate interviewed
him for The Guardian.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
He was always wearing a sharp suit and maybe a
trill be. I think if you dedicate your life to
running round the clock parties, you've got to be someone
with tenacity, with a larger than life personality and above
a great stamina.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Lawrence had been involved in the club scene for years
and he had a strong desire to shake things up.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
Lawrence Manis effectively wanted to create what we'd now call
a safe space in nightclub form. He wanted an escape
that took aim at shame and was unapologetically hedonistic.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Lawrence also wanted to help dismantle homophobia by connecting queer
and straight people during a time of division. That thing
we were talking about earlier, how there were so many clubs,
but all with their own scene and separate community. As
a former musician, Lawrence had a vision for new sounds.
He also found a gap in the clubbing industry. In London,
(17:46):
all clubs closed at three am. It's the reason why
Ude was interested in trade. The night he was first
handed a flyer, Lawrence worked with Turnmills to secure a
late license, which allowed the party to go even later
into the night.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
Trade was the first legal after party, so it was
the first party that was advertising itself as starting at
three am, going on all day, you know, that you
could come along to. So, you know, there were other
parties at terminals before then, but this was the first
party that was really kind of maximizing and making the
most of that twenty four hour dance license by offering
(18:24):
a party that went on at a time that you know,
it wasn't the usual.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Trade opens in the fall of nineteen ninety and it
was an instant hit. In fact, not long after.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Well, the queue to get in would be like three
hours long. Yeah, it was very ethnic diverse. There was
no color barrier or anything. It was all sorts. Yeah,
definitely diverse.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Trade was for everyone, and they all wanted the same thing,
the freedom to dance the night away at the city's
first late night venue.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
The rest of the club's emptied down. Then everyone would
get there and the queue would be massive, massive. They'd
have special events like the birthday and gave pride. They
would always sell out. I think the co Check had
a number of meltdowns, but that's always a bane of
any club, a club of voters existence. It's bloody co check.
I'm sure there was always a meltdown with un or
people just not getting in.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
You have to remember that before that, if you were
partying after three am, it was an illegal rave party
or a squat rave and your night could be ruined
at the drop of a hat once you heard the
sound of a police siren. With Trade, it gave people
the freedom to party and it created a ripple effect
in the scene. Before Trade's grand opening, the UK Second
(19:43):
Summer of Love was coming to an end. It was
a time when hundreds of people took over random fields
across the country and through wild illegal parties. Trade fell
devoid as the government clamped down on these parties. Here's
Kate again.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
When Trade started and became super successful, loads of other
after parties started up, like at clubs, like the End
of Fabric, and suddenly London just became this twenty four
hour party capital.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
But even if London was blowing up as a party city,
Trade remained unique. People partied and they partied together.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
But Lawrence and the DJs that played at Trade, like
Smoking Joe, you know, they talk about the club's inclusivity.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
This blending of people was intentional.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
You'd get queer people there, straight people, trans people, celebrities
all mingling together, and in fact, it didn't even really
matter if you were famous at the door.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Trade attracted celebrities including Madonna, Byork, Kate Moss, Rupert Everett,
and Alexander McQueen. The club had two main policies. There
wasn't a VIP area, and celebrity entourages were not welcome.
What got you through the door was a unique and
(21:01):
open attitude, a vibe, a warmth. Even here's Uday.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
I remember going in and seeing, Oh, that's cool, I'm
going downstairs and being blown away. If I had diverse
it was I don't just mean sexually, I mean like
ethnically as well, like coming out on the gay scene.
For me, the club that I knew about that my
friends were going to, they were very white walking into
(21:28):
Trade like you had every type of person there, and
that was great, that was really amazing.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
It was Trade that made Uday realize something.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
All these places I've been going like, I've always been
the only person who's not white in the group. To
the extent that I remember, there were only two other
South Asian gay boys on the whole scene that I
knew at the time.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Uday had been out on the gay scene for about
a year and a half at this point, and.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Trade was the first place where I first kissed a guy.
Trade with the first place where had a date with somebody,
And so I've got really good memories of it because
i just felt it just felt like a safe place
for everyone.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
The connections who they made there were life changing. The
music changed his life too.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
It was a new sound. It was like uplifting but
sexy and bass driven, and like everybody was smiling, like
everybody was having a good time.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Susie remembers so vividly what it was like entering Trade
at Turnmills for the first time.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
So Terminills, if you go on these steps right and
right in front of you were some steps you went
down and there was like a cafe bar with a restaurant.
So you went back to the entrance. We went to
the left, we went down three steps and there was
a paydsk So he went down a flight of steps
and there'd be the toilets and when you got to
the bottom of the stairs again on your left, sign
(22:57):
was like a sitting area where they were serving d
you know, tables and chairs. To the left, small area
for Drakes.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
It was a large, sprawling space, unwieldy even there were.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Some alcoves and everyone used to sort of hang underneath
these alcoves. So that would be the bar area, which
is probably like six or seven meters.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Then you hit the dance floor, so on.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
The left was a DJ box. In front of you
was the dance floor area, and then like a walk around,
you know, so people used to dance on that and
then on the dance floor.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Susie shares the menu for the night, how the hours
were cut up to create a mood or heighten an emotion.
It was blissful and it took you on a journey.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
So time wise, the first three hours was like a
chunky sort of house music. It was chunky and slow
and really funky. And then by seven o'clock it started
to get an edge and then the music just got
harder and harder and harder and blew your head off.
And then I think by like ten or eleven, then
Taul Paul used to come on, which was the owner's son,
(24:04):
and he'd lighten it up a bit. It was insanity.
Oh my god, the music was insane, just really insane.
Ian m was a DJ trade who played the techno
in the hard house. Tony de Vite, who became very famous,
made lots of records and he was a techno hard house. Yeah,
his sets were just unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
When Susie talks about Trade, you can tell she's transported
right back to that dance floor.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
The DJs prior to Tony would come on at seven
or eight would be smoking Joe.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Susie effortlessly reels off so many of the DJs as
if she's partied there last night.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
DA Sound, Trevor Rodcliffe, I mean Sound and Trevor rod
could played together and as the music sort of used
to work its way into the heart of Sound, they
would play music. It was quite edgy, and then the
other DJs would come on and just bang out.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Yeah, it was great.
Speaker 5 (25:08):
I'm in m It used to be a DJ down
at Trade at Turmills.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Ian is a DJ from the Midlands. He played a
Trade for eight and a half years. Ian is the
kind of DJ that has thousands of vinyl records lined
up in his office. Before becoming a DJ at Trade,
Ian used to be a clubber there. It's the place
where Ian went to discover Hotney music.
Speaker 5 (25:31):
The music was different was here in music we've not
heard before. It was a cross section of all sorts
of styles. That was the best thing about Trade. It
went from house American, house techno, and then it went
into a bit of hardcore.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Soon after that, he was offered a one off gig
at a club night Trade put on outside of the Capitol.
After that, Ian was immediately hired to play regularly at Trades'
Lundon and Turnmill spot.
Speaker 5 (26:01):
I just sweat down there the following week and the
ended up playing a set. It was after Tony.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Tony Devitt was probably the most famous resident DJ at Trade,
who produced highly successful dance hits like to the Limit
and Burning Up. He contracted HIV and later died of
bronchial pneumonia and bone marrow failure in nineteen ninety eight.
He was loved. Susy mentioned him earlier. If you remember,
(26:28):
Ian m loved playing a set right after Tony because
he had the crowd going wild. Ian took over the
DJ booth at.
Speaker 5 (26:36):
About ten o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Yep, that's ten am on a Sunday morning. It was
kind of like their own church service, a spiritual service
honoring Trade. E and M went on to play for
almost a decade at Trade. It wasn't just the vibe,
the crowd and the forward thinking music that was great.
It was the design that hit you too.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Their logo was a trade baby, like a young guy
with the dummy in his mouth, and that was their
logo with hair sticking down. It was called Trade Babies.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
A dummy is a British word for a pacifier.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
And so they'd have a lot of those hanging around
like that. They had banners everywhere.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Another standout element was the lighting. The lighting was the thing.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
They had these phenomenal lasers that went above your head
over that dawn's floor. When you went down the steps,
they turned the lights out and put the lasers on,
which is amazing.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Just like Ian Susie Credit's Trade for her career, her
life transformed after partying at Trade.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
That sort of springboarded me into my connection to the
club scene, to be honest, So you know, I met
lots of people. Then I got other jobs and other clubs.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
As Trade success grew and London night life was shifting.
By the mid to late two thousands, the drugs people
were taking were different.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Ecstasy was a big thing and it was really good
and really good, and then you know, kept him in
There was a lot of kept them in use. We
used to take micro dots, so we took acid then.
And yeah, just the drugs evolved to this g.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
G as in GHB, a synthetic party drug that can
make you feel relaxed and social, but can also cause
amnesia and more serious symptoms related to unconsciousness and respiratory collapse.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
That just changed people and it wasn't lovey dovey, and
it didn't really go with the music.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
I think GHB liquid was relatively new back then. People
often took too much and they'd be collapsing right in
front of you while dancing. Although the drugs changed, the
philosophy of trade didn't, and most of the crowd were
partying hard and having a great time. Trade was getting
(28:51):
busier and more well known, and the city was growing
busier alongside it. At the same time, the area of
clerk Well was evolving too. Cranes were popping up and
the area was undergoing a huge amount of redevelopment. Those
derelict buildings that offered affordable rent were slowly getting demolished
(29:13):
and surely becoming luxury condos and slick offices for city workers.
This was bad news for the nightclub Turnmills. Here's Kate again,
Trades final party at ten Mills in two thousand and
eight came at quite a tragic time for London night life.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
Really and Key clubs at the end and a trio
of clubs in King's Cross called the Key, the Cross
and Canvas formerly Bagglies. You know they're all shutting. Places
were suffering from gentrification redevelopment. They were having to sell
up or they were losing their licenses.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Unfortunately, many clubs are in areas of cities that are
more affordable, and as those areas become developed, the clubs
can go away too. Trade at Turnmills announced it would
hold it's last night in the spring of two thousand and.
Speaker 4 (30:02):
Eight and Termill shutting and the end of trade felt
like the final nail and the cuffins ah wait cantetanism.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Really Termills closed due to the expiration of the lease
on the building. It was demolished and made way for
a sparkling new office building. The night life faithful, clubbers
and promoters didn't want to see it go, but there
was nothing they could do. Kate mentioned how that was
the final nail in the coffin of all weekend hedonism.
(30:32):
And that's exactly how dj E and M remembers it.
Speaker 6 (30:35):
To be quite honest, it was pure escape it. It
was just basically there to have a good time and
a museum.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
When trade started back in nineteen ninety, the AIDS crisis
and a hostile government was all looming in the backdrop.
People went to trade to find community and happiness. Ian
said to me, it was all about a celebration.
Speaker 6 (30:58):
I lost loads of years and everything, so you know,
but you don't think about it too much.
Speaker 5 (31:05):
Otherwise the end or a bit class about it. You know.
Speaker 6 (31:10):
You celebrate the people's life that God and that's what
we do, and that's what we've always done.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Lawrence Malice was keen to celebrate, and he was always
ahead of the curve. He was working on something else
for the community of clubbers he's so brilliantly served. In
nineteen ninety seven, before Termills closed, he purchased an old
Victorian warehouse building.
Speaker 4 (31:39):
The Egg is the club in King's Cross that Lawrence
opened in two thousand and three.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
The name Egg is a reference to rebirth.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
And it really continued the spirit of trade in many ways,
events that go on and on way into the next day,
a really interesting mix of people across nationalities and sexual identity.
You know, culture and moves on, especially clubbing, but trades
legacy absolutely deserves to be celebrated. And I think that
when it comes to any sort of generational shift in culture,
(32:10):
there's a tendency to forget our elders and what's laid
the groundwork. But I think, especially in the lgbtqiplus community,
there's a real desire to celebrate what's come before.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Moving to music is not only about celebration, hedonism or
bringing a wide variety of people together. It's also about
honoring the past and the moments you have with those
closest to you.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
We forget how homophobic society was at the time. We
forget even like you know Section twenty eight, the age
of consent. Forget civil partnerships or marriage that wasn't even
on the card. I never thought that would.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Happen when trade closed. Uday never went to trades' anniversary
parties because he wanted to remember trade for what it was.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
It won't be the same, It's in a different venue,
and you know, it might be disappointing.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
But as the years passed, Ouday had time to reflect
on his moments at Trade, especially during COVID nineteen, when
the respiratory disease changed the lives of so many and
changed the way we partied and looked at club culture,
a culture that was on its knees brought on by
the pandemic. He decided to go to Trade's thirty year
(33:22):
anniversary party, which was delayed by a year because of COVID.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
It was really really amazing, but I'm so glad I
went to this one because I saw quite a few
people that I haven't seen in thirty years.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
So many unforgettable personalities U Day thought he'd never see again.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
There were all these characters in the club who in
my head, they only existed in the club, Like when
I left, they were turned off and put back in
their box because they couldn't obviously exist in everyday life
or in daylight. They were just characters in the club.
But it was fun to see all of them.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
It was fun to see everyone, and the music hit
Uday as it always did, straight through the heart.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
They were playing all the old school like from the
early nineties Trade classics, and we were all there, like
there were certain songs that came on and everybody just
went mental and it was just reminded me of what
it felt like, and I think I kind of missed that.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Buday talked about how formative Trade was for him as
a young gay man expressing his identity. Kate said Lawrence
made space for a community under attack politically and health wise.
Susie shared how her career trajectory was only possible due
to the people she met at Trade, and it's the
relevant words of Ian m that still rings in my head.
(34:41):
You'd party to escape and to celebrate. That is what
Trade provided and every day escape to dance the night away.
In the next episode, we're going to make our way
over to Chicago to uncover the burn of house music
at the two legendary clubs where it all began, The
(35:05):
Warehouse and the Music Box. The History of the World's
Greatest Nightclubs is produced by Neon Hummedia for London Audio
and iHeartRadio for London Audio. Our executive producers are Paris Hilton,
Bruce Robertson and Bruce Gersh. The executive producer for Neon
(35:28):
Humm is Jonathan Hirsch. Our producer is Rufio Faith Masarua.
Our series producer is Crystal Genesis. Navani Otero and Liz
Sanchez are our associate producers. Our editor is Stephanie Serrano.
Samantha Allison is our production manager, and Alexis Martinez is
our production coordinator. This episode was fact checked by Sarah Avery,
(35:53):
theme and original music by Asha Avanovich. Our sound design
engineers are Sam Bear and j Han I'm your host,
Ultra Nate, and we'll see you next time. On the
history of the world's greatest nightclubs,
In the late nineteen eighties, the UK was in the
midst of its second Summer of Love, where massive yet
illegal warehouse parties and days long outdoor raves swept across
the country. It was a hedonistic summer, fueled by the sun,
drugs and the psychedelic sense of freedom in the air.
(00:25):
Country fields and abandoned buildings in cities like London were
filled to the brim with young people hungry to experience
it all. But for Uday Bodwaj, his Summer of Love
was just out of reach because he was living in
a boring suburb called Northwood, twenty miles outside of central London.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I mean, as a teenager it was deathly boring and
also being gay, you know, I wanted to find my people.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Northwood is the kind of place families with money might
move for good schools and an e commute into the city,
but there's something about growing up next to a big
city that makes you long for a life on the horizon.
Uday could see the silhouettes of the city's skyscrapers and
hear the echoes of a life bigger and brighter than
his own. He yearned for life in a city where
(01:18):
people danced from dust until dawn and found themselves on
dance floors. But that freedom, that life was just out
of reach for now. Ouday longed for hot, sweating nights
and dark clubs and euphoric moments under twinkling lights. Soon
as he was old enough, he left the suburbs and
(01:39):
moved to the city London. There he found the life
changing magic he'd been searching for at a venue in
London called Turnmills during a club night they had there
called Trade.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
And the biggest memory I have is coming down those
stairs and hearing that hard house spaceline pumping through the
club and I was like, yes, I'm home.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Today. Uday still lives in London. He's a super animated,
fun loving, wild, outspoken person. When I talked to him
on Zoom, he was wearing a super colorful short sleeve
shirt and just fully present. He's a type of person
that gets super passionate. Like so many of us who
grew up in small towns where people don't get us
(02:25):
or understand who we are. Uday moved out as soon
as he could, and I can totally relate.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
I was very shy. I was very insecure, I think
being a Indian and being gay and being in a
very white environment, I was never had the confidence to
pick up anyone or talk to anyone or in a
romantic or sexual way.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
He began studying at the London School of Economics. He
was a typical student on the first leg of his
journey into adulthood. But it was away from the classroom
at night when Uday would spring to life in London
he had a chance to find himself.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
I was a university student whenty. We wanted to.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Party or night and of course, like anyone single his age,
he was looking for love, friendship and community, something nightclubs
have been giving people across the globe forever. Uday started
going out to clubs in nineteen ninety. At that time,
they were all sorts of gay clubs, and Uday was
(03:28):
more than ready to check out everything the London gay
scene had to offer. Most nights, he'd meet up with
a group of friends for drinks, then together they'd walk
the darkening streets of London to their favorite regular club.
But one night something caught Oudey's eye.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
They were handing out flyers outside a club called Heaven
that we used to go to and at that time
most all the clubs shot around three o'clock.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
This club was open later than other clubs. The fly
were for a night called Trade. Trade Flyers were nondescript
with only black text, but direct and straight to the point.
First ever legal all night dance club in England. Closes
very very late and dance at high temperatures to the
(04:16):
hottest mixed masters in town. The club was located at
a venue called Turnmills, just north of where Ude lived,
went to school and partied. UDEI looked down at the
pamphlet in his hands.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
We took the flyers and decided to go check it out.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Turnmills was a large, cream colored, rounded Victorian building set
on the corner of a busy road in the area
of Clerkenwell. Back then the area was pretty run down
with burnout buildings, but it had a main draw the
historic market Smithfield, selling meats, poultry and cheese to London's
(05:00):
restaurant tours. But yeah, aside from that picture, a bunch
of derrelic buildings, quaint cobbled streets and an area that's
pretty dead at night. But back to Uday. It was
nearly four in the morning and Uday walked for thirty
minutes to get to the club, because this is serious business.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
It was really close to my halls of residence, so
it was on my way home anyway. And I remember
going there and I saw a friend of mine who
worked in one of the gay bars going and say, oh,
just coming with me.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Udai didn't have to wait in line or pay the cover.
We all know what that feels like. It's like you
have entered the kingdom and the line energy is where
it's all happening. Because when you walk up, not paying
a cover or waiting in line, everyone wants to know, well,
(05:54):
who is this who's that person? There's an immediate sense
of pride, an immediate sense of belonging that happens. This
was very very serious for him. Oude walked inside and
there they were, the stairs. They curved as you went
down them, and there were a lot of them.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
We called it the Stairs of Truth.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Oude grins from ear to ear when he talks about
those stairs. They weren't just stairs into the club where
he'd become a regular at. They were stairs into a
life forever changed. He still remembers this moment decades later.
Everyone has that memory, that thing that instantly catapults you
into that place in time.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
The steep stairs that came down there were the stairs
of Truth for two reasons. One because if you were
trying to hide how high you were coming down those stairs,
you always gave it away because you'd stumble and slip
and grab one to the walls because they were so slippery.
And also we called it the stairs of truth because
you'd pick up some hot guy on the dance floor,
and then when the club finished, you'd go upstairs, and
(06:59):
every step you took towards daylight that person aged by
ten years.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
But even though the stairs exposed you and everyone around you,
it was worth it. Trade was unlike any other place.
The main dance floor was filled with tons of people,
maybe a thousand at the most, lots of guys with
their tops off, women moving their heads in unisonto the beat,
a wide array of people of different backgrounds, Lasers everywhere.
(07:31):
The lasers were huge. I mean, this was the come
to Jesus moment in this club. As you swayed across
the dance floor, bright colored banners with the word Trade
written across them were above your head. The music was
base driven and uplifting and sexy and it.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Was almost like a breakhould experience.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Oudei loved Trade. He became a regular. The place helped
him find his people, the warmth so craved and a
sense of belonging. He struggled growing up in that quiet,
well to do suburb of London, but at Trade he
collected a treasure trove of memories, ones that would define
(08:12):
his life. That's the kind of place Trade was. One
night in particular, sticks Out and I was.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
On the DN store with my friend Joe, and I
looked over at her and she was like crying, like
those tears pouring down her face.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
And I was like, what's wrong?
Speaker 2 (08:26):
And she just looked at me and she just went,
We're never ever going to be this happy again.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
There they were young, happy and dancing to the music
that pulls through the club, vibrating the walls, vibrating their bodies.
Nothing else mattered.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Actually, I reminded her of that a couple of years
ago and said, you know what.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
You were right? From London Audio, iHeartRadio and executive producer
Paris Hilton. This is the History of the World's Greatest Nightclubs,
a twelve part podcast about the iconic venues and people
that revolutionized how we party. Some of the world's most
(09:14):
legendary nightclubs were known for the unique community they welcomed,
others for the cultural movements they started, and some for
the musicians and DJs they introduced to the world. The
best nightclubs champion new music, transform lives, and provide an
escape from life's pressures. One more thing. This is the
history of some of the world's greatest nightclubs. Not a
(09:37):
ranking of every club in the world. It's an exploration
of the spaces, people and club nights that made a
lasting impact on nightlife and music. Today. I'm your host Ultrnate.
I'm a singer, songwriter, musician and I found my purpose
in club culture. This is episode three Trade at Turnmills, London.
(10:09):
While Oday and his friends were dancing carefree at the
bottom of the Stairs of Truth. There was a lot
going on in the UK, both politically and socially the nineties.
The London queer club scene for starters was pretty fragmented.
Everyone was kind of in their own camps.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
So like at that point you had the coal Hearn
in Oscourte, which was where the leather scene the older
guys went.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
The coal Hearn Arms was a popular landmark for the
queer community to congregate and meet on the west of
the city. The leather scene is essentially a look guys
and lots of leather, of course, but also edgy with
a sexy fetish vibe. So that's one scene and we
all love our leather fetish scene look, so of course
(10:58):
I've worn that. It's lots of fun and it's fantasy.
From there, in the center of the city and the
bright lights of Soho.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
There was what became j wy Bang was where there
were little young twigs and Heaven as well, which is
twinky like people who were into pop music and lots
of sequins and lycra.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
That was Soho.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
The queer people of color, they had like their own
thing that we had. Club Karli, the South Asian.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Gays club Calie used to move around the city taking
over venues, curating their own brand of South Asian gay fabulousness.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
There was a Fridge in South London Brixton, and there
were other clubs for black people who were queer.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
There were clubs for everyone, but.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
They didn't seem to mix very much.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
If you were gay and went out to clubs in
London during the early nineties, it could feel a bit clicky.
You just went to the club for your group or
your scene, and that was kind of it. And in
addition to the dynamics of scene, the UK wasn't accepting
in the way that it is now. Around this time
a new law was introduced known as Section twenty eight.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Now the rest of the news.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
The government is to ban the promotion of homosexuality in schools.
Speaker 5 (12:17):
I obviously don't want children taught that the gay and
lesbian lifestyle is natural or normal.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
It is not.
Speaker 5 (12:24):
It never has been and it never will be. Children
who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values
are being taught that they have an inalienable right to
be gay.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
I mean, this was the time of thatch As Britain
and a deeply conservative government who in nineteen eighty eight
brought in Section twenty eight, which was a bill that
effectively suppressed in silence queer people.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
That's Kate Hutchinson. She's a journalist who writes for The
Guardian and the host of the Last Bohemians podcast.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
For example, prohibiting teaching about homosexuality in schools and stopping
local council from funding gay initiatives.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
So discussing same sex relationships in the classroom, among other things,
was effectively illegal. Section twenty eight was law for over
two decades until two thousand and three. But while the
law was in place, many within the gay community were frightened.
In fact, many gay clubs had blacked out windows to
(13:24):
protect themselves from outsiders.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
Plus, at this point, the age of consent if you
were gay it was still twenty one. So this was
Britain in the late eighties early nineties, where it was
essentially dangerous to be gay.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Yep, so the age of consent was higher for gay
people than stray people. It is truly shocking and extremely disappointing.
Let's stop for a moment and appreciate how difficult a
time it must have been in nineteen ninety when kids
like Uday were first out on the scene. It wasn't
just a scene spread out across different clubs and communities,
(13:59):
or the nightmare authoritarian legislation targeting gay citizens in the UK.
There was more.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
When trade started in London, the AIDS crisis was raging.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
AIDS was devastating the community. No one could escape it.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
So my name is Susie Krueger. I am an American
living in London since nineteen ninety.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
She runs and promotes fetish clubs and has been doing
it for decades. Susie is an American from the East Coast.
She remembers what it was like at home in the
States before she moved across the Pond for a new.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Life, coming from America, where people were dropping dead big time,
you know, starting in the mid eighties up until then,
and it hadn't really hit London until maybe ninety two
ninety three, and then it sort of took its toll
here homophobia which was quite big here in the nineties,
and with the HIV sadly it was starting to take
(14:59):
its toll on people were getting sick and dying.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
It was a time we now see depicted in shows
like Angels in America and The Normal Heart and most
recently the mini series It's a Sin, which really shows
what life was like in London and the UK for
the LGBTQ community at around the same time as trade opened.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Aides was a death sentence and it was this sort
of sword hanging over your head if you were a
gay man in London.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
A young Uday never thought life would be what it
is now and back then, everyone needed an escape from
the horrors of it all.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
It was almost like, we need a space where we
can go and just forget about our problems and just dance,
just have a good time, just be hedonistic and not
have to think about it.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
I remember clearly when those moments were happening here in
my neighborhood in Baltimore. Many many friends in my collective
passed on many talented, young, beautiful black men, and it
was devastating and awful. There was so much, many unknowns.
Susie wanted that escape too.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
To just forget all about that and come together and
enjoy the eight or nine hours of music.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Music has a way of healing someone's soul. There's nothing
like getting lost in the rhythm of your own body
and moving to the beat. The queer community in London
was in need of a safe space in the eighties.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
He'd been in a band called Big Bang and then
he became a club entrepreneur.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Kate is talking about Lawrence Malice, the man behind Trade.
It was his baby. Lawrence is an extremely charismatic guy
of Irish heritage and a former electronic musician, pretty well
known as one of the city's party entrepreneurs. Kate interviewed
him for The Guardian.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
He was always wearing a sharp suit and maybe a
trill be. I think if you dedicate your life to
running round the clock parties, you've got to be someone
with tenacity, with a larger than life personality and above
a great stamina.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Lawrence had been involved in the club scene for years
and he had a strong desire to shake things up.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
Lawrence Manis effectively wanted to create what we'd now call
a safe space in nightclub form. He wanted an escape
that took aim at shame and was unapologetically hedonistic.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Lawrence also wanted to help dismantle homophobia by connecting queer
and straight people during a time of division. That thing
we were talking about earlier, how there were so many clubs,
but all with their own scene and separate community. As
a former musician, Lawrence had a vision for new sounds.
He also found a gap in the clubbing industry. In London,
(17:46):
all clubs closed at three am. It's the reason why
Ude was interested in trade. The night he was first
handed a flyer, Lawrence worked with Turnmills to secure a
late license, which allowed the party to go even later
into the night.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
Trade was the first legal after party, so it was
the first party that was advertising itself as starting at
three am, going on all day, you know, that you
could come along to. So, you know, there were other
parties at terminals before then, but this was the first
party that was really kind of maximizing and making the
most of that twenty four hour dance license by offering
(18:24):
a party that went on at a time that you know,
it wasn't the usual.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Trade opens in the fall of nineteen ninety and it
was an instant hit. In fact, not long after.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Well, the queue to get in would be like three
hours long. Yeah, it was very ethnic diverse. There was
no color barrier or anything. It was all sorts. Yeah,
definitely diverse.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Trade was for everyone, and they all wanted the same thing,
the freedom to dance the night away at the city's
first late night venue.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
The rest of the club's emptied down. Then everyone would
get there and the queue would be massive, massive. They'd
have special events like the birthday and gave pride. They
would always sell out. I think the co Check had
a number of meltdowns, but that's always a bane of
any club, a club of voters existence. It's bloody co check.
I'm sure there was always a meltdown with un or
people just not getting in.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
You have to remember that before that, if you were
partying after three am, it was an illegal rave party
or a squat rave and your night could be ruined
at the drop of a hat once you heard the
sound of a police siren. With Trade, it gave people
the freedom to party and it created a ripple effect
in the scene. Before Trade's grand opening, the UK Second
(19:43):
Summer of Love was coming to an end. It was
a time when hundreds of people took over random fields
across the country and through wild illegal parties. Trade fell
devoid as the government clamped down on these parties. Here's
Kate again.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
When Trade started and became super successful, loads of other
after parties started up, like at clubs, like the End
of Fabric, and suddenly London just became this twenty four
hour party capital.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
But even if London was blowing up as a party city,
Trade remained unique. People partied and they partied together.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
But Lawrence and the DJs that played at Trade, like
Smoking Joe, you know, they talk about the club's inclusivity.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
This blending of people was intentional.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
You'd get queer people there, straight people, trans people, celebrities
all mingling together, and in fact, it didn't even really
matter if you were famous at the door.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Trade attracted celebrities including Madonna, Byork, Kate Moss, Rupert Everett,
and Alexander McQueen. The club had two main policies. There
wasn't a VIP area, and celebrity entourages were not welcome.
What got you through the door was a unique and
(21:01):
open attitude, a vibe, a warmth. Even here's Uday.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
I remember going in and seeing, Oh, that's cool, I'm
going downstairs and being blown away. If I had diverse
it was I don't just mean sexually, I mean like
ethnically as well, like coming out on the gay scene.
For me, the club that I knew about that my
friends were going to, they were very white walking into
(21:28):
Trade like you had every type of person there, and
that was great, that was really amazing.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
It was Trade that made Uday realize something.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
All these places I've been going like, I've always been
the only person who's not white in the group. To
the extent that I remember, there were only two other
South Asian gay boys on the whole scene that I
knew at the time.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Uday had been out on the gay scene for about
a year and a half at this point, and.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Trade was the first place where I first kissed a guy.
Trade with the first place where had a date with somebody,
And so I've got really good memories of it because
i just felt it just felt like a safe place
for everyone.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
The connections who they made there were life changing. The
music changed his life too.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
It was a new sound. It was like uplifting but
sexy and bass driven, and like everybody was smiling, like
everybody was having a good time.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Susie remembers so vividly what it was like entering Trade
at Turnmills for the first time.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
So Terminills, if you go on these steps right and
right in front of you were some steps you went
down and there was like a cafe bar with a restaurant.
So you went back to the entrance. We went to
the left, we went down three steps and there was
a paydsk So he went down a flight of steps
and there'd be the toilets and when you got to
the bottom of the stairs again on your left, sign
(22:57):
was like a sitting area where they were serving d
you know, tables and chairs. To the left, small area
for Drakes.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
It was a large, sprawling space, unwieldy even there were.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Some alcoves and everyone used to sort of hang underneath
these alcoves. So that would be the bar area, which
is probably like six or seven meters.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Then you hit the dance floor, so on.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
The left was a DJ box. In front of you
was the dance floor area, and then like a walk around,
you know, so people used to dance on that and
then on the dance floor.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Susie shares the menu for the night, how the hours
were cut up to create a mood or heighten an emotion.
It was blissful and it took you on a journey.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
So time wise, the first three hours was like a
chunky sort of house music. It was chunky and slow
and really funky. And then by seven o'clock it started
to get an edge and then the music just got
harder and harder and harder and blew your head off.
And then I think by like ten or eleven, then
Taul Paul used to come on, which was the owner's son,
(24:04):
and he'd lighten it up a bit. It was insanity.
Oh my god, the music was insane, just really insane.
Ian m was a DJ trade who played the techno
in the hard house. Tony de Vite, who became very famous,
made lots of records and he was a techno hard house. Yeah,
his sets were just unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
When Susie talks about Trade, you can tell she's transported
right back to that dance floor.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
The DJs prior to Tony would come on at seven
or eight would be smoking Joe.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Susie effortlessly reels off so many of the DJs as
if she's partied there last night.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
DA Sound, Trevor Rodcliffe, I mean Sound and Trevor rod
could played together and as the music sort of used
to work its way into the heart of Sound, they
would play music. It was quite edgy, and then the
other DJs would come on and just bang out.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Yeah, it was great.
Speaker 5 (25:08):
I'm in m It used to be a DJ down
at Trade at Turmills.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Ian is a DJ from the Midlands. He played a
Trade for eight and a half years. Ian is the
kind of DJ that has thousands of vinyl records lined
up in his office. Before becoming a DJ at Trade,
Ian used to be a clubber there. It's the place
where Ian went to discover Hotney music.
Speaker 5 (25:31):
The music was different was here in music we've not
heard before. It was a cross section of all sorts
of styles. That was the best thing about Trade. It
went from house American, house techno, and then it went
into a bit of hardcore.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Soon after that, he was offered a one off gig
at a club night Trade put on outside of the Capitol.
After that, Ian was immediately hired to play regularly at Trades'
Lundon and Turnmill spot.
Speaker 5 (26:01):
I just sweat down there the following week and the
ended up playing a set. It was after Tony.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Tony Devitt was probably the most famous resident DJ at Trade,
who produced highly successful dance hits like to the Limit
and Burning Up. He contracted HIV and later died of
bronchial pneumonia and bone marrow failure in nineteen ninety eight.
He was loved. Susy mentioned him earlier. If you remember,
(26:28):
Ian m loved playing a set right after Tony because
he had the crowd going wild. Ian took over the
DJ booth at.
Speaker 5 (26:36):
About ten o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Yep, that's ten am on a Sunday morning. It was
kind of like their own church service, a spiritual service
honoring Trade. E and M went on to play for
almost a decade at Trade. It wasn't just the vibe,
the crowd and the forward thinking music that was great.
It was the design that hit you too.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Their logo was a trade baby, like a young guy
with the dummy in his mouth, and that was their
logo with hair sticking down. It was called Trade Babies.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
A dummy is a British word for a pacifier.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
And so they'd have a lot of those hanging around
like that. They had banners everywhere.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Another standout element was the lighting. The lighting was the thing.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
They had these phenomenal lasers that went above your head
over that dawn's floor. When you went down the steps,
they turned the lights out and put the lasers on,
which is amazing.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Just like Ian Susie Credit's Trade for her career, her
life transformed after partying at Trade.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
That sort of springboarded me into my connection to the
club scene, to be honest, So you know, I met
lots of people. Then I got other jobs and other clubs.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
As Trade success grew and London night life was shifting.
By the mid to late two thousands, the drugs people
were taking were different.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Ecstasy was a big thing and it was really good
and really good, and then you know, kept him in
There was a lot of kept them in use. We
used to take micro dots, so we took acid then.
And yeah, just the drugs evolved to this g.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
G as in GHB, a synthetic party drug that can
make you feel relaxed and social, but can also cause
amnesia and more serious symptoms related to unconsciousness and respiratory collapse.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
That just changed people and it wasn't lovey dovey, and
it didn't really go with the music.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
I think GHB liquid was relatively new back then. People
often took too much and they'd be collapsing right in
front of you while dancing. Although the drugs changed, the
philosophy of trade didn't, and most of the crowd were
partying hard and having a great time. Trade was getting
(28:51):
busier and more well known, and the city was growing
busier alongside it. At the same time, the area of
clerk Well was evolving too. Cranes were popping up and
the area was undergoing a huge amount of redevelopment. Those
derelict buildings that offered affordable rent were slowly getting demolished
(29:13):
and surely becoming luxury condos and slick offices for city workers.
This was bad news for the nightclub Turnmills. Here's Kate again,
Trades final party at ten Mills in two thousand and
eight came at quite a tragic time for London night life.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
Really and Key clubs at the end and a trio
of clubs in King's Cross called the Key, the Cross
and Canvas formerly Bagglies. You know they're all shutting. Places
were suffering from gentrification redevelopment. They were having to sell
up or they were losing their licenses.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Unfortunately, many clubs are in areas of cities that are
more affordable, and as those areas become developed, the clubs
can go away too. Trade at Turnmills announced it would
hold it's last night in the spring of two thousand and.
Speaker 4 (30:02):
Eight and Termill shutting and the end of trade felt
like the final nail and the cuffins ah wait cantetanism.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Really Termills closed due to the expiration of the lease
on the building. It was demolished and made way for
a sparkling new office building. The night life faithful, clubbers
and promoters didn't want to see it go, but there
was nothing they could do. Kate mentioned how that was
the final nail in the coffin of all weekend hedonism.
(30:32):
And that's exactly how dj E and M remembers it.
Speaker 6 (30:35):
To be quite honest, it was pure escape it. It
was just basically there to have a good time and
a museum.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
When trade started back in nineteen ninety, the AIDS crisis
and a hostile government was all looming in the backdrop.
People went to trade to find community and happiness. Ian
said to me, it was all about a celebration.
Speaker 6 (30:58):
I lost loads of years and everything, so you know,
but you don't think about it too much.
Speaker 5 (31:05):
Otherwise the end or a bit class about it. You know.
Speaker 6 (31:10):
You celebrate the people's life that God and that's what
we do, and that's what we've always done.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Lawrence Malice was keen to celebrate, and he was always
ahead of the curve. He was working on something else
for the community of clubbers he's so brilliantly served. In
nineteen ninety seven, before Termills closed, he purchased an old
Victorian warehouse building.
Speaker 4 (31:39):
The Egg is the club in King's Cross that Lawrence
opened in two thousand and three.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
The name Egg is a reference to rebirth.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
And it really continued the spirit of trade in many ways,
events that go on and on way into the next day,
a really interesting mix of people across nationalities and sexual identity.
You know, culture and moves on, especially clubbing, but trades
legacy absolutely deserves to be celebrated. And I think that
when it comes to any sort of generational shift in culture,
(32:10):
there's a tendency to forget our elders and what's laid
the groundwork. But I think, especially in the lgbtqiplus community,
there's a real desire to celebrate what's come before.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Moving to music is not only about celebration, hedonism or
bringing a wide variety of people together. It's also about
honoring the past and the moments you have with those
closest to you.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
We forget how homophobic society was at the time. We
forget even like you know Section twenty eight, the age
of consent. Forget civil partnerships or marriage that wasn't even
on the card. I never thought that would.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Happen when trade closed. Uday never went to trades' anniversary
parties because he wanted to remember trade for what it was.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
It won't be the same, It's in a different venue,
and you know, it might be disappointing.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
But as the years passed, Ouday had time to reflect
on his moments at Trade, especially during COVID nineteen, when
the respiratory disease changed the lives of so many and
changed the way we partied and looked at club culture,
a culture that was on its knees brought on by
the pandemic. He decided to go to Trade's thirty year
(33:22):
anniversary party, which was delayed by a year because of COVID.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
It was really really amazing, but I'm so glad I
went to this one because I saw quite a few
people that I haven't seen in thirty years.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
So many unforgettable personalities U Day thought he'd never see again.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
There were all these characters in the club who in
my head, they only existed in the club, Like when
I left, they were turned off and put back in
their box because they couldn't obviously exist in everyday life
or in daylight. They were just characters in the club.
But it was fun to see all of them.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
It was fun to see everyone, and the music hit
Uday as it always did, straight through the heart.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
They were playing all the old school like from the
early nineties Trade classics, and we were all there, like
there were certain songs that came on and everybody just
went mental and it was just reminded me of what
it felt like, and I think I kind of missed that.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Buday talked about how formative Trade was for him as
a young gay man expressing his identity. Kate said Lawrence
made space for a community under attack politically and health wise.
Susie shared how her career trajectory was only possible due
to the people she met at Trade, and it's the
relevant words of Ian m that still rings in my head.
(34:41):
You'd party to escape and to celebrate. That is what
Trade provided and every day escape to dance the night away.
In the next episode, we're going to make our way
over to Chicago to uncover the burn of house music
at the two legendary clubs where it all began, The
(35:05):
Warehouse and the Music Box. The History of the World's
Greatest Nightclubs is produced by Neon Hummedia for London Audio
and iHeartRadio for London Audio. Our executive producers are Paris Hilton,
Bruce Robertson and Bruce Gersh. The executive producer for Neon
(35:28):
Humm is Jonathan Hirsch. Our producer is Rufio Faith Masarua.
Our series producer is Crystal Genesis. Navani Otero and Liz
Sanchez are our associate producers. Our editor is Stephanie Serrano.
Samantha Allison is our production manager, and Alexis Martinez is
our production coordinator. This episode was fact checked by Sarah Avery,
(35:53):
theme and original music by Asha Avanovich. Our sound design
engineers are Sam Bear and j Han I'm your host,
Ultra Nate, and we'll see you next time. On the
history of the world's greatest nightclubs,
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