DTPM

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Fabric, Charterhouse Street, London, EC2
Tel: 020 7749 1199
Web: blue-cube.net

Weekly - Sundays 10pm-5am

If you've not been to DTPM, you'll probably be as sick as I was of people telling you that it's the best club in London - actually, they'll probably be telling you that it's the best club in the world! I won't insult your intelligence by saying the same thing... but, when I did finally make it to DTPM, what I found was pretty damn close...

When DT launched in 1993, my Sunday nights were taken up working at the hugely successfull Lava... What do you mean you've never heard of it? It was the London Apprentice's attempt to capture some of that Sunday trade that was going such great guns at... well, Trade! Okay, it soon died a death, but I still had to work every Sunday, until neither clubbing nor work remained a viable option, and then I retreated into the disco desert for a number of years. Even when I started back on the club scene in the late 90s, DTPM, despite it's phenomenal success, always seemed too extreme for my mild weekend ventures into clubland. In 2002, as I was devouring 'new' clubs faster than a Mancunian gobbling up pills, the turn of Salvation finally arrived, and I dutifully trotted down there with my disco club buddies to try it out for myself... only to be turned away at the door. Note, for anyone planning on going to Salvation, get there early.

Retiring hurt to the comfy surroundings of Friendly Society to lick our wounds, and then Freedom, and then nowhere fast (kinda like where this story's going), and after way too many red wines on my part (two, if memory serves me well), it was decided to go home - that bit surprised you, you thought I was going to say that we decided to go to DTPM!

On the way home, however, being the only DTPM virgin in the discomobile, we detoured via DTPM's Smithfield home of Fabric.Needless to say, I was converted, by the music of Alan Thompson, Steve Thomas, and Miguel Pellitero; by the venue itself, exploring Fabric being a good night out on its own; by the sound system, the lights, and the amazing visual projections; the glamorous hostesses, Venus Mantrap and Vanity. I was unused to venues on that scale in London, and soon became a regular devotee of possibly London's best all-round venue.

After being wheeled out at 4am on the night of my first visit (too many red wines slow me down), I became hardcore during subsequent trips, including the 9th birthday party just a few weeks later, and the Easter Bank Holiday weekend, when the queues were snaking round the block. Before leaving for Ibiza that summer, I made DTPM the last club I visited, and on the day I got back to London at the end of October, after being at Pacha Ibiza that morning, I made DTPM the first club I went to in London later that same day.

Since then, however, I've been trying out clubs nearer to home, and for some reason have often faded before making it to DTPM on Sunday nights... DTPM is still possibly the best club on the gay scene in London, the only drawback being that you need to escape the gravitational forces of the Vauxhall Triangle in order to reach it!

On April 6th 2003, I did escape the black hole of the Vauxhall Triangle quite spectacularly, for DTPM's 10th Birthday Party, and thanks to DTPM's gorgeous Press Officer, Aidan, I even managed to take a few pictures of the night! Click on any of the pictures, to take a stroll through the DTPM 10th Birthday Gallery.

Martin
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