Erol Alkan marks 18 years of Trash ending by sharing classic 2002 DJ set

Erol Alkan has marked the 18th anniversary of the London indie and electro club night Trash closing down by sharing his classic DJ set from 2002.

• READ MORE: The songs you’ll only remember if you went to Trash

Trash was best known for its connections to the 2000s scenes like the garage rock revival, electroclash and new rave.

Bands like Yeah Yeah Yeahs, LCD Soundsystem, Scissor Sisters, Bloc Party and Klaxons performed there early on in their careers. It was first located in Soho, before moving to the West End.

Alkan, the DJ and producer who ran the iconic night, played classics from artists like Peaches, Missy Elliott, Primal Scream, The Cure, Nirvana and Kylie Minogue in his set, and you can check out the tracklist here:

1. ‘Set It Off’ – Peaches
2. ‘Sexy Girl’ – 2raumwohnung
3. ‘ID1’
4. ‘Work It’ – Missy Elliott
5. ‘ID2’ 
6. ‘Danger! High Voltage (Soulchild 12 Blitz Mix)’ – Electric Six
7. ‘Autobahn’ – Primal Scream
8. ‘Silver Screen Shower Scene (Static Revenger Mix)’ – Felix Da Housecat
9. ‘The Walk (Razormaid Remix)’ – The Cure
10. ‘Grown Men Don’t Fall In The River, Just Like That’ – Liars
11. ‘Machine’ – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
12. ‘You Know You’re Right’ – Nirvana
13. ‘Emerge / Come Into My World (Fischerspooner Mix)’ – Kylie Minogue
14. ‘The Perfect Kiss’ – New Order
15. ‘Planet Earth (Night Mix)’ – Duran Duran

Alkan explained in The Guardian in 2006, weeks before Trash would close its doors, “Had someone told me on the first night that it would run for 10 years, I’m not too sure that I would have believed them. And due to the new commitments I have taken on, it would be unfair to try and keep the club going.

2ManyDJs paid tribute to Trash when speaking to NME in 2022, too. Discussing their work under the moniker – brothers David and Stephen Dewaele are also members of the electronic band Soulwax – they said: “We started talking to [Alkan] about all the music we liked and if it felt like we knew him but had never met him. He asked us to play Trash on a Monday night – which is already crazy – and we opened up his record box and we had very similar records. He had ‘Rollin’ & Scratchin’ by Daft Punk, a Blur record, something by Elastica or Aphex Twin.”

He continued: “We used to play ‘Ace Of Spades’ because we fucking love that song, and then all of a sudden Lemmy is stood in front of the DJ booth throwing the horns. I remember we both looked at each other and said, ‘This is the coolest place in the world – these are our people!’”

When asked if something like Trash could ever come about again, Stephen said: “I don’t think so. It was a whole thing where Peaches could play, Soulwax could play, as well as LCD Soundsystem and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. You have to have all of these things for it to be able to exist, but it was a really big thing for Dave and me. You’d play all over the world and in Mexico you’d find all these kinds who loved dance music but also The Smiths. All of these worlds could come together.”

In 2018, NME’s Leonie Cooper described Trash as “the greatest indie crossover disco of all time,” writing: “The very definition of eclectic, DJ and founder Erol Alkan’s playlist – who ran the club from 1997 until 2007 – would skip around gleefully from punk to pop via rock and disco, and the club also became one of the first places to worship at the asymmetric fringe of electroclash.”

You can stream Alkan’s set on Apple Music now.