Trade: Last Dance

Considering the recent club closures, and the increasingly identikit options that are left, that an ordinary night out in London might entail club-hopping around Soho, scooting across the central line to an east London warehouse rave and then ending up at a club in a disused toilet until lunchtime the next day feels like something from an alternate universe. Or just plain made up.

But that’s exactly what used to happen when Trade began in November, 1990. It was London’s first legal carry-on party, which raged at the now-defunct Turnmills in Clerkenwell from 3am every Sunday, and kickstarted an intrepid after-hours clubbing scene that would last two decades. Masterminded by Laurence Malice, it was billed as a gay club but it attracted a diverse crowd and, thanks to its DJs like Tony De Vit, became famous for pushing the breakneck hard house sound (“he took techno and basically camped it up a bit,” says Malice).

At the time, most clubs ended at 2 or 3am and after-hours parties were illicit, even dangerous. The Aids epidemic had also erupted and Malice wanted to create a safe environment for gay men – with a pumping soundtrack. “It was a ridiculously homophobic time,” says Malice. “No one knew what Aids was about so you would have guys leaving clubs at 3am and they wanted to meet, get off with people, whatever, and they were being attacked.” It’s why Trade’s assorted audience was so important. “I wanted straight people to show that gay people are not a problem – that we can mix.”

This inclusivity is one of the most significant aspects of Trade’s legacy, inspired in part by acid house’s togetherness rather than the attitudinal, fashion-focused clubs of the 80s. “It was a crazy group of characters from different walks of life: rent boys, trannies, working girls, muscle marys, industry people,” says regular Trade DJ Smokin Jo of the club’s clientele. “It was such a mixed bag and that added to the fun. It wasn’t a serious night full of musos, it was everyone there with their hands in the air going crazy.” An article first printed in 1994 in Gay Times, now republished on digital dance music anthology DJ History, perhaps sums up Trade’s significance best: “Here there’s a real sense of belonging, of community,” says its writer Richard Smith. “Coming here did me at least as much good as coming out.” ...

Kate Hutchinson, The Guardian.

That article by Richard Smith really is brilliant!

Trade The Final - billed as the last ever Trade - is at Egg London, Sunday October 25th.

Trade: Often Copied, Never Equalled - an exhibition on 25 years of Trade - is at Islington Museum from Friday.

David Hudson writes about the end of Trade here.

Guardian online ran a guide to gay London last week, not sure why.

Gay Star News: Time To Say Goodbye?

Only GSN could steal this story from one that someone else - DiscoDamaged - broke 10 days ago and say "Gay Star News can exclusively reveal..."

Fagburn is opposed to anti-drugs hysteria and thinks people should be free to do whatever they want to do with their own bodies and minds, but who else but GSN could spin this so that they bemoan how "an effort to save lives" "may end up destroying businesses".

Astounding amorality in service to capital as per ahoy!

Pink profit over people, indeed.

Here's the original DiscoDamaged.com story, which they have mockingly titled in a parody of tabloidese; Loony Lambeth Labour Out To Shut Down Vauxhall Gay Scene...

Labour, huge developers, cash and homo cleansing


You only need to look at Lambeth's planning department for the clues as to why they want the gays out. This is homo cleansing by Labour for billion dollar corporations wanting delicatessens for their foreign millionaire tenants not us gays dancing the light fantastic. Nine skyscrapers. a new American Embassy, Chinese Embassy, Danish embassy - they're all to be built in Vauxhall and we're in the way. Worse, let's not forget many of Lambeth's councilors are religious and welcome the chance to rid themselves of us.

Why would they do that? Struggling Labour Lambeth get cash from developers whenever they build anything. Lambeth also recently announced plans to demolish the bus station and build a new high street. They need cash and developers. Network Rail who own the arches must also have their eye on better paying tenants if they can just get us to hand back the leases. Do the math...

[Vauxhall and I are strangers these days, and the machinations of local councils are often beyond bizarre, as is the reporting of them, and they are often public spats about undeclared feuds by rival political crooks, so Fagburn has no comment to make on this story itself. DD's story seems a bit overblown as it doesn't seem to affect currently existing venues licenses].

Fagburn asked Gay Star News earlier if they thought their endless undeclared advertorial for Barclays, Microsoft etc were in breach of the Enterprise Act.
Still waiting to hear back...

And finally... GSN apologises yesterday for wrongly saying a man was a convicted child rapist - OOPS!

Regular viewers may know fact-checking is not GSN's strong point.
In fact a lot of what they publish is just whatever press releases they got emailed, or some crap they Googled from the straight press and wrote up unchallenged.
'Shirtless X Factor reject, who is out and openly openly gay, slams Russian Nazi Pasta Gay Death Camps' etc.
What is point?
I could spend all day every day pointing out all the errors, lies and basic fuckwittery in each and every story they run, but life's too Snow White And The Seven Fucking Dwarfs [ie Short].
Fagburn is all for a free press, but if you're as seriously and systematically bad as Gay Star News is, maybe you should consider doing something other than running a gay news website?
Just a thought, Tristram Posh-Name.