Saturday 8th March 2008
SMARTIE PARTIE says farewell to Turnmills!

“What can I say about the closer of Turnmills... quite a lot actually, am I sad? NO, because I know that when this great club closes its doors & plays that all emotional last record, it will be done with the kind of grace and respect that we wished Muhammad Ali and so many other great fighters had done.

Strange analogy you might think, but hear me out, Turnmills really is (not was) in the same league club wise as these great champions.

They are part of history and there name will live forever. Turnmills is up there with Paradise Garage, The Loft, Twilo, Studio 54 and Hacienda (I was lucky enough to have also been involved with as a Percussionist).
But Turnmills is so much more than just a club – it’s the rock of London and quite simply no other venue comes close.

Turnmills means so much to so many people and in my opinion the reason it’s so special is simple - Danny Newman and he's incredible team.
Dan (who I consider a great friend) is a Promoter first and everything else falls in line. By this I mean any Promoter that is lucky enough to get a shot at promoting Turnmills can’t spring any surprises on Dan because he’s done everything any promoter has done, and probably done it first and better and he see's past Bullshit. He judges you on results, yes he puts you under pressure and so he should, but when SMARTIE PARTIE was given the chance to Promote a "one off" event at Turnmills (5 years ago) I had to re-prove myself despite coming off the back of a 5 year residency at Ministry of Sound.

But this meant nothing, we (myself & Claire my Lovely girlfriend) were now being offered a chance at Turnmills and believe me we shit ourselves!! As I’ve said, we had been at Ministry every month for 5 years and were incredibly successful there. But it’s true we were in the comfort zone! We were moving on and up to Turnmills and had to re-prove our ability.

To start with we were offered a co-promotion with City Loud, but we did it properly and blew the place to bits! After this I had a meeting with Dan, I wanted a monthly and our 7th Birthday was coming up! Dan put his Promoter hat on and listened to what I had to say. I had just proved myself the proper way (no bullshit) and we got the go ahead despite many world famous brands trying to get on the Turnmills roster.

SMARTIE PARTIE had the main ingredient i.e. a massive loyal following and now 5 years later, we’re still the biggest regular outside promotion at Turnmills, smashing record numbers every single month.

In Nov 2007 we had our 12th Birthday and on March 8th we big say "Farewell to Turnmills” for one last time before searching London for a new residency to take its place (is there such a place). Will we be sad... Fuck yeah, I lied.
R.I.P TURNMILLS.

LONG LIVE SP.”