Erol Alkan's Trash party teases return after 20 years
The legendary club night, renowned for its mixture of indie and electronic music, held its last event at The End in 2007
Erol Alkan's legendary club night Trash has teased its return, 20 years after its last edition.
A cryptic post shared alongside a sign-up link via Trash's Instagram on September 16 reads: "January 2027 will mark 20 years since we closed our doors forever. But there is a light that never goes out. Got something to share with you, let’s stay in touch."
Renowned for its combination of rock, indie, punk, nu-rave and electronica, Erol Alkan founded Trash in 1997 at the original home of Plastic People in Soho, where it ran every Monday until moving to The Annexe on Dean Street and then, finally, The End, where it remained until its last-ever party in 2007.
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Trash became a haven for London's underground indie and dance music scene in the mid-'00s, and now a focal point of modern indie sleaze nostalgia, with famous attendees including Amy Winehouse, Alex Turner, The Klaxons and Russell Lissack, alongside performances from the likes of 2ManyDJs, Justice, LCD Soundsystem and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
Every Trash party would end with the same two tracks, The Smiths' 'There Is a Light That Never Goes Out' and David Bowie's 'Rock 'n' Roll Suicide', except for its last-ever event, which concluded with ABBA's 'Dancing Queen'.
"January 2007 was one of the most important yet surreal points in my life. It marked the last ever Trash party; after 10 years of running a weekly Monday nightclub it felt like the right time to move on," Alkan said in an interview with Mixmag in 2021.
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"In January 1997, I was 22 years old and making flyers for the opening night of Trash on my then girlfriend's word processor which I would later photocopy at Archway library," he adds.
"I had no ambition to be a club promoter and absolutely no idea how to actually run a club, and if you had told me it would have existed for a decade and spend seven years at The End, I would have thought it was impossible.
Check out Trash's Instagram post below.
Megan Townsend is Mixmag's Deputy Editor, get in touch with her here.
