Trade

Trade was a London after-hours club night that ran at Turnmills in Farringdon from November 1990 and is widely regarded as one of the greatest gay club nights in the world. Its founder and promoter was Laurence Malice. Its name came from Polari – the argot of queer London – in which "trade" referred to a casual sexual partner. The choice was deliberate: unashamed, knowing, and immediately legible to anyone who needed to know.

Malice had come to the idea through earlier nights including Pyramid, a mixed gay club at Heaven, where he had seen what happened when experimental music met a queer dancefloor. Trade formalised that instinct. Turnmills' owner John Newman held a 24-hour licence from Islington Council – one of the few in London – which allowed Trade to open legally at 3am on Sunday nights, when everywhere else was closed. It was the first legal gay after-hours club in the United Kingdom.

The main room was described by regulars as Dante's Inferno – packed, dark, physically overwhelming. People danced on every surface. The sound system was bespoke. The music policy was harder than almost anything else happening in London: house, techno, and what became known as hard house, a genre that Trade's residencies in part created. Tony De Vit (1957–1998) was its defining DJ resident – a Midlands-born selector whose sets at Trade made him internationally famous and whose death at 41 from drug-related heart failure remains one of the most mourned losses in British club culture. Other residents included Malcolm Duffy, Smokin Jo, The Sharp Boys, Ian M, Steve Thomas, Alan Thompson, Pete Wardman, and Daz Saund. Miquel Pellitero observed that Trade "encouraged many DJs and producers to create specific tracks" and "kick-started a new global dance genre."

Trade provided something rarer than music: genuine safety. In the 1990s, openly gay men moving through London at 4am were not safe. Inside Turnmills they were. The crowd included gay men, lesbians, straight women, and a scattering of curious others, all absorbed into the same relentless dancefloor logic. Regulars used the phrase Trade Babies in at least two ways: as a term for first-timers brought through the door by a regular, and as a description of the children subsequently born to couples who met there. Both usages speak to the same thing – the depth of community the club created. Devotion to Trade extended to the permanent: a significant number of regulars had the Trade logo tattooed on their bodies. The Trade Babies Facebook group, launched in 2009, has over 2,000 members.

A second room – Trade Lite – offered funkier, more vocal-oriented music for those who needed to come up for air.

Trade closed at Turnmills in October 2002. Laurence Malice subsequently opened Egg nightclub in King's Cross. Trade's 25-year anniversary was celebrated at Egg. DTPM resident DJs Smokin Jo and Alan Thompson were also Trade residents, the same circuit of talent serving the two most musically serious gay nights in the city.

See also: Turnmills, Heaven, DTPM, Soundshaft, Tony De Vit