Clubs

Ed Simons
The Chemical Brothers
‘When I first moved back to London from Manchester in 1993 I went there a few times on a Friday and I wouldn’t have known who was playing but it felt uniquely London, with very different people all over the club: everyone seemed to be up for something, people would wander in at two in the morning because it hardly ever closed. But we really got to know the place when the Heavenly Social opened there in 1996.

‘That was probably the most intense year of our lives. We were making our second album, “Dig Your Own Hole”, we were going out to America to play live shows and then every Saturday we were DJing at the Heavenly Social. That was where we first played tracks like “Block Rockin’ Beats” and “Setting Sun”. It was the first time we’d had a proper club residency, so it was a challenge to keep the whole dancefloor in the groove. At the time the DJ booth was soundproofed and felt quite detached from the dancefloor; it felt almost like playing a computer game.

‘After the Heavenly Social finished we played about eight New Year’s Eves in a row. One time we played “Out Of Control”, a record we did with [New Order’s] Bernard Sumner, as the last record. It’s got a tough kick-drum that seemed to go through the whole club and cause instant hysteria. Well, it was the final record before someone else came on anyway; there was never a final record at Turnmills.
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‘Danny [Newman, current boss] is one of the best people to be involved in a club. He’s so enthusiastic: there was nothing better than when he popped out of nowhere to start doing the lights when we were playing and the lasers would all go full on and the crowd would be reaching for the beams…

‘For years we’d tip up there even when we weren’t DJing: I know you’re meant to be ashamed of that these days but I used to really enjoy a bit of trance. Paul Van Dyk used to play there on a Friday and I would go.

‘Turnmills has been great; I’m sad it’s over but I’m really glad that they’ve asked us to do this last night. We’re hoping to play some of the records from when we played in ’96. There’s an amazing acid record called “The Jazz” by The Micronauts that we used to play every week – that’ll definitely get a spin. They’re predicting apocalyptic set-times and a 3pm finish but I’ll be long gone by 3am. Well, we’ll see.’