Malice aforethought

"Imagine Hades 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."

Thus, rave club entrepreneur Laurence Malice described his ground-breaking gay night 'Trade' - the first anywhere in the UK to receive an official "all-nighter" licence (from Islington Council) - which bows out this month after twenty-five years of leading the field in innovative clubbing in London and on tour.





Mr Malice, himself a denizen of Steve Strange's seminal 'Blitz' Club and Leigh Bowery's 'Taboo', created the club night in the fall-out from the "illegal rave" furore at the turn of the 90s - and found the perfect venue in 'Turnmills', a converted gin distillery in the distinctly non-residential environs of Clerkenwell Road near Smithfields Meat Market (how appropriate), at that stage a struggling straight bar/restaurant/club.



With its myriad rooms, corridors, nooks and the notorious "Muscle Alley", 'Trade' dominated the late-late-late night gay scene in the 1990s.



Many world class DJs played there, including Frankie Knuckles, David Morales and Danny Tenaglia, as well as regulars Malcolm Duffy, Alan Thomson, Pete Wardman, the late Tony de Vit [read more about him over at my other blog Give 'em the old Razzle Dazzle], Ian M, Steve Thomas, Tall Paul and Rachel Auburn. Operating a strictly "democratic" door policy, 'Trade' inevitably had more than its fair share of "names" queuing up to get in - including Queen Madge, Bjork, Alexander McQueen, David and Victoria Beckham, Grace Jones, George Michael and many more. Some got no further than the door:

"On Trade's 8th Birthday early on in the night, with the guest list queue stretching along Clerkenwell Road, a massive stretch limousine drew up and out jumped a young PA asking to speak to the manager. She then said Cher, whose single I Believe was No. 1 in the charts, was in the limo and paused for effect. Everyone in both queues heard this and suddenly silence reigned. He said, 'Yes and how could I help?' A bit put out, she explained that Cher would like to come in and requested a VIP area plus six bottles of champagne. He explained politely that we didn't have a VIP section, as our club was about inclusion and that everyone was treated the same. He hadn't done this for Madonna and he wouldn't be able to do this for Cher, or any other celebrity. The crowd burst into a spontaneous round of applause and the limo sped off into the night."

On another occasion: "Axl Rose came to the door, we wouldn’t let him because two weeks prior to that he’d made some very homophobic comments in the press and came to the door apologising and we said 'No, you’re not coming in, mate. Get on your bike'."

From its early days, 'Trade' carefully crafted its own "brand", with flyers, murals and artwork by Mark Wardel aka TradeMark (geddit?) - largely based around the club's logo in the shape of one of its most popular comestibles, the drug capsule.

These have gained a semi-legendary status of their own, and a collection of them, together with compilation CDs, posters and other memorabilia has now been curated in a new exhibition at Islington Museum: Trade - often copied, never equalled. Celebrating 25 years of after-hours clubbing in Islington, to the launch of which I went this week.













Although I never went to 'Trade' - I wasn't even in London at its heyday - anyone and everyone who did (from DJ Stewart Who? to the gang of former punters who gathered at the museum itself on Thursday) mourns its loss. 'Turnmills' itself was demolished to make way for an (inevitably glass-fronted) office block. Laurence, however (shrewd businessman that he is) threw his resources into a new club venue 'The Egg' in another (for now) non-residential corner of London, Kings Cross.

And it is at this venue that the final outing for 'Trade' takes place on Sunday 25th October 2015: History – Trade: The Final.

As a recent interview with Mr Malice in the Irish Star put it:

These two revolutionary clubs - 'Egg' (ranked alongside 'Fabric' and 'Ministry of Sound' as London’s best) and 'Trade' (the legendary 90s and noughties after-hours party) - are a most fitting legacy for [a man] whose profound impact on modern dancefloor culture has been greater than any other.

Trade didn’t just revolutionise the London club scene - it went on the change the world.

The exhibition Trade - often copied, never equalled is at Islington Museum until Saturday 16th January 2016.

I'm the bionic woman

"Here I am, I still go on, you know, like the tides."

"I'm the bionic woman; I've got knees, hips, everything is new and that has made a tremendous difference to me; replacements are high on my list of goodies."

"I'm not one of those people who sits in the dark, looking at their work from 70 years earlier. I'm really not."

"I just stopped playing bitches on wheels and peoples' mothers. I have only a few more years to kick up my heels!"

"Providing I can put one foot in front of the other, I will continue to act."

Our Patron Saint Dame Angela Lansbury is 90 years old today.

All hail!

Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home

A cynically humorous range of "adult" oriented Ladybird books is in the news.

I prefer these piss-takes myself...









100 years of the "real" Ladybird books. We - like every UK household - had dozens of them when we were kids.

It's a look...

Karlheinz Weinberger - Rebel Youth: Photographs of youths of the "Halbstark" cult in Switzerland in 1958.

John Waters on Karlheinz Weinberger

I am the captain of my soul

It's National Poetry Day, apparently.

To celebrate, how about a bit of a poetic pick-me-up? This is a great one for one of those days when everything seems to be conspiring against you...

Invictus
by W.E. Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how straight the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

And here's the late, great Alan Bates to read it:

Alan Bates reads Invictus by W.E. Henley

National Poetry Day

A good deed never goes unpunished

"A good deed never goes unpunished."

"A narcissist is someone better looking than you are."

"Andy Warhol is the only genius I've ever known with an I.Q. Of 60."

"Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so."

"Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates."

"As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests."

"By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he's been bought ten times over."

"Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little."

"Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half."

"I never miss a chance to have sex or appear on television."

"I'm all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults."

"It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail."

"Never have children, only grandchildren."

"Our form of democracy is bribery, on the highest scale."

"Sex is. There is nothing more to be done about it. Sex builds no roads, writes no novels and sex certainly gives no meaning to anything in life but itself."

"Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences."

"Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn."

"The four most beautiful words in our common language: 'I told you so'."

"Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either."

"We must declare ourselves, become known; allow the world to discover this subterranean life of ours which connects kings and farm boys, artists and clerks. Let them see that the important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself."

"What other culture could have produced someone like Hemingway and not seen the joke?"

"Write something, even if it's just a suicide note."

The incomparable Gore Vidal would have been 90 years old today.

RIP a bitter genius.

My Fair Julie

"I am very proud to be British. I'm very conscious of carrying my country with me wherever I go. I feel I need to represent it well."

"Some people regard discipline as a chore. For me, it is a kind of order that sets me free to fly."

"I am a liberated woman. And I do believe if a woman does equal work she should be paid equal money. But personally I am feminine and I do like male authority to lean on."

"I know what I'm capable of - it's other people who have a problem with my image, not me."

"Hopefully, I brought people a certain joy. That will be a wonderful legacy."

"Sometimes I'm so sweet even I can't stand it."

Dame Julie Andrews is 80 years old today.

All hail.

Julia "Julie" Elizabeth Andrews DBE (née Wells, born 1st October 1935)

More Julie over at my other blog Give 'em the old Razzle Dazzle