Pete Wardman in Residence (Trade)

Trade was revolutionary. Launching in 1990, it began to break the rules instantaneously, opening from 3am and closing at 1pm. The pioneering and highly influential gay clubnight was a much needed safe haven when other clubs shut their doors, allowing people to party in a licensed environment as the sun came up.  

The club's original home, the Turnmills in London, was granted the first ever UK 24 hour dance license. Trade's popularity continued to grow, and in 1995 Trade began to host parties across the country. The global success of the clubnight even led to a Channel 4 documentary in 1997 titled Trade - The All Night Bender (watch below).

In that same year Pete Wardman was signed for Trade's weekly residence, and from then his relation with the club became concrete. He mixed the Trade Vol. 4 compilation and was also one of the DJs to take Trade on its first tour of Australia, South Africa and the UK. 

The Trade 'The Final' event will celebrate the club's 25 years on the circuit at Egg in London, with the clubnight's residents and legends playing across five rooms. Ahead of the event, we asked Pete Wardman a few questions on his role as a resident and his relationship with Trade.  

Why do you think that the role of a resident DJ is so crucial to a successful club night?

From a DJs perspective, getting a residency at a decent club is a dream. It allows you to get to know that club's crowd on a regular basis, and for them to get to know you and your music choices, and also what you do with it technically. If you're playing a club weekly, then you soon start to develop this rapport which enables you to experiment as a resident more so when playing at a club as a guest.

As a resident at Trade, I remember very clearly how the regular clubbers there gradually built a trust in me over the months after I started. I realised that they would stick with what I was trying to achieve within a set and then judge it afterwards.

If you're working with a number of other resident DJs who also have a very confident musical and rhythmical style and the promoter has put you in the right order then a certain magic starts to happen, and the night develops a structure and sound identifiable to that club. I've never seen a better example of this in nearly 30 years of DJ-ing than at Trade when it was weekly at Turnmills. I consider myself extremely lucky to have been a part of what really was a golden time in clubbing.

What do you think your duty is as a resident?

Play each set like it's your last. Give them a set that's a significant development from what you did last week, whilst keeping some familiarity and some of your trademarks as a DJ.

Tell us about the very first time you played at Trade...

I first played at Trade on Sunday 27th August 1995. I played from 11:30am so I'm guessing that it must have been because Tall Paul was off that day. I remember being incredibly nervous, partly because of the enormity of the occasion (I had wanted to play there for a number of years by now as I'd been going to Trade since around '92).

I was also nervous because of what had happened to me after playing a guest slot at a club in Vauxhall the night before... but I’m saving that story for the book. I remember Tony De Vit telling me afterwards that before his first time playing at Trade there he had been physically sick with nerves, so I guess that was just a rite of passage.

I filled in a number of times for Paul and Tony subsequently, and was offered a residency at Trade after Paul left to start his own night 'The Gallery'.

How do you think that you represent the club night and its music policy?

With the benefit of hindsight, and now that the club has been going for 25 years, I think my contribution to Trade's history pretty well reflects the changes in dance music that were happening through the early part of the 1990s. House music rapidly developed and fragmented into a number of different sub-genres, and the one I was championing quickly becoming known as hard house.

At the same time house and hard house was enjoying boom times with many new clubs opening up and seemingly never ending numbers of young people attending them. With its cutting edge reputation at the time, Trade was at the front end of this.

For a long time the resident DJ was overshadowed by the headline act but the scene has come to appreciate and acknowledge residents again, with many club nights adopting well known residents for series. Why do you think it's changed? 

I'm not now best qualified to answer this really as I've been semi-retired from clubbing for a while now but I suspect it is because the scene has turned full circle again. We'd reached a point a few years back when DJs were mostly being booked for one-hour guest sets which, frankly, are a bit dull for a DJ. All you're really able to do is play your big tunes for an hour - with not enough space for light, shade and build etc.

Put a night together of eight DJs doing the same thing and it's probably very dull for the clubbers too. If the current change means that clubs have returned to properly programming DJs to musically complement each other, with longer sets and different musical styles, in my opinion it'll make for a much more interesting night out.

What track in your collection always sets the tone for the night at Trade?

See previous answer - nothing I play sets the tone for the night. That's been done expertly by whoever's first on the decks at the start.

What has been your favourite moment playing as a resident DJ at Trade?

There really are too many to narrow it down to just one moment. We've had some incredibly memorable Trade birthdays at Turnmills. 

Taking Trade to the first ever Creamfields festival was a standout moment for me, as was the only Love Parade to be held in the UK at Roundhay Park in Leeds. Trade held it's own (and them some) hosting one of the two main stages.

Trade's tour to South Africa, captured brilliantly by Channel 4 for a TV documentary was a riot, and the only occasion that we'd taken nearly all the residents on an overseas tour together. And I'll never ever forget playing the last set at the last Trade at Turnmills before its demolition - the moment the house lights came on and I realised I wouldn't be doing this there ever again was a poignant one. 

But all of these times were really only special, and possible, because of the army of fiercely loyal and passionate people who supported Trade, and those who worked there. It would never have happened otherwise.

Tickets are no longer available for this event