A brief history of TRADE, London’s first gay after-hours club

Iconic writer, DJ and London scene queen Princess Julia takes a walk down memory lane to trace the history of TRADE, London’s first gay after-hours club…

You may have heard of Trade, the UK’s first legal after-hours gay club held at Turnmills in Farringdon that emerged out of a London on the precipice of the rave era of the 90’s. It opened it’s doors at 3am on a Sunday morning and really set the precedence for a night that considered the needs of a hedonists night out with a bespoke sound system, lazer light show and DJs obsessed by the music they played. These are things we take for granted now, but 25 years ago the UK was a bleak place if you wanted to club after 3am.  And for that we pay Trade homage, changing forever the landscape of club life, not just for London’s gay scene but across clubland in the UK.

Stepping down those hallowed Turnmills steps was not for the faint of heart, the queue to get in started way before it opened stretching down Clerkenwell Road. Then when you got to the front you had to manoeuvre your way in past the door whore and down into it’s precarious depths to the thud of music getting ever closer. The sense of anticipation would actually give you butterflies.

Laurence Malice, orchestrator of the night, explains, “We always had integrity at the door and it’s a lot easier to list the people that didn’t get in!” The fact is that Trade pioneered the idea of after hours clubbing as a thing. Malice explains, “At that time [1989] there wasn’t anywhere legal open past 3am and so with nowhere to go once the normal clubs had shut, the idea for a legal after hours club was taking shape in my mind. I was also mindful of making a ‘safe’ clubbing environment for people to party on into the daylight hours, when they would be ‘much safer’ from prejudice and abusive behaviour.”

Malice christened it ‘Trade’ from gay slang/polari phrase that refers to ‘casual sex partners’, so you can imagine how decadence ruled once you entered that safe haven of hedonistic pleasure. The sweat dripping off the walls, lights flashing. You could get high just from the ambience of the place.

You might have well been out somewhere before and didn’t want the night to end. Or as Trade became for many the main focus of the weekend, taking a disco nap beforehand in order to arrive fully prepared for the hours ahead. The Trade experience has been likened to an epiphany by many of it’s faithful over the years and indeed the combination of pounding music, lights and, erm, drugs created the perfect scenario for escapism and un-abandoned sexual freedom.

“Imagine ‘Dante’s Inferno”. That’s what it was, you’d go down the stairs and there were people dancing on every single surface. It was the most hedonistic place to be – there were people dancing on tables, dancing on the bar, they were everywhere. The place was rammed to the rafters. A lot of people that originally went to Trade were very intimidated when they walked down those stairs for the first time at Turnmills,” Malice says. They soon changed their minds, at the heart of Trade was a community of like-minded souls, passionate and in love with the place. Newly-converted Trade fans (tagged ‘Trade babies’) really got the sense of that after a few visits.

The backdrop to the 90’s was also a time of uncertainty, underneath a seemingly hedonistic lifestyle the frightening prospect of HIV/AIDS lurked. Treatments for managing HIV/AIDS were still in the experimental stages, and you just didn’t know what the outcome might be if you got the virus. The community lived under a shadow, and places like Trade allowed people to escape for a few hours and celebrate life.

“Trade was a melting pot, because it was the only after-hours club you would get such a mixture of people,” Malice says. “It was the first time a lot of people had come into contact with their polar opposites. It was fantastic because, when people have no choice, they have to get on and it worked.”

The music was an integral vibe of the night. DJs experimented with techno and went on to become producers themselves. DJ and fan Miguel Pellitero remembers, “I think it [Trade] encouraged many DJs and producers to create specific tracks to facilitate this musical transition, and it was a very creative place to be in. It kick-started a new global dance genre, which in itself, is an undoubtedly massive achievement.”

As it grew in popularity and music tastes evolved, Trade expanded with ‘Trade Lite’ in the aptly named T2 rooms of the Turnmills complex, playing a funkier more vocal sound.

There are so many unforgettable and hilarious stories surrounding the club. Laurence Malice fondly recalls, “I’ve seen clubbers chatting up cigarette machines, there was one person who was riding an imaginary motorbike around the dance floor, doing imaginary wheelies and emergency stops, convinced he was riding on a BMX track. On the bridge across the dance floor one night another clubber came up holding an invisible plate as if eating, and when asked what he was doing, said he been eating all night from the imaginary buffet he thought was set up on the back wall.”

He continues, “We used to have a security guard nicknamed ‘The Mortician’ due to his deep and slow speaking voice, positioned on ‘the bridge’ and one night he radioed me to come as one lady was getting her friends to hurl herself into the air almost hitting the bridge, and he was worried she might hurt herself, and that turned out to be Bjork!”

All things must end, and as 24 hour licensing was rolled out across the UK and competition for late night clubs increased the day came when Trade closed its doors at Turnmills for the last time on 27th October 2002. The venue itself carried on until 2008. Laurence Malice went on to open Egg nightclub in Kings Cross which continues to this day and where Trade celebrates a 25 year legacy on Sunday 25th October. An all-star party ‘Trade: The Final’ features the original legendary Trade DJs, and with the true visionary insight and over five rooms of the Egg club complex guest DJs who have been inspired by one of London’s ultimate clubbing experiences join them. Don’t miss this monumental event in the UK’s gay history.

Trade in association with DTPM presents HISTORY –  TRADE: THE FINAL. Sunday 25th October – Monday October 26th 2015. 2pm – 9am. EGG LDN, 200 York Way, Kings Cross N7 9AX

The Trade: Often Copied, Never Equalled Exhibition is at the Islington Museum, St John St, EC1. islington.gov.uk/heritage