The Trent House era passes 2009
Exit Strategy
We had an amazing amount of time on our hands, once we got rid of the Trent. We realised that we probably should have bitten the bullet & done it 2 years earlier.
Trent Bar & Monkey World fundraising- standard x.
Leaving the Trent gave us the time to create the original WHQ web site, which (in the same way this new one will) revolutionised people's perception of the Club.
It gave people the chance to know what we are all about, in minute detail & poured petrol, on the flames of word of mouth.
Yup, after all those great times, the Trent was now starting to feel a bit like being in imprisoned.
It had been an important, influential & magical little Bar, but it was over for us now & we felt free.
So we let it go & handed the lease back to the Brewery, who sold it on to some new people.
We left certain things of ours behind, like the outer ‘Babies’ sign & the globe lights above the bar, for an initial period to allow the new tenants to bed in.
We also left behind the ‘Drink Beer Be Sincere’ lettering on the wall & the lovely 'Garden of Eden' nature mural upstairs.
We'll do a full feature on the hilarious Mystery star show from '85, one day, when we have some spare time.
Never Sell Your Soul
The new tenants & the Brewery wanted us to leave the epic jukebox behind too.
But we were not willing to sell the soundtrack of our lives & all our mad capers over the years, to new people, who weren’t even Soul fans & hadn't ever been around to share in those experiences.
Spoof Motown-style record label beer mat artwork, which we never ended up releasing from back in the day - should have.
It’s kinda nice to leave some things behind after so long, especially in a place that came to mean so much to so many people, but to ’sell on’ the music would have felt completely wrong.
No one can ever duplicate, or improve on that jukebox & it's seismic impact on the city's proper music heads.
To even attempt or pretend to, without a real understanding of the years of deep culture behind the music, would just be silly.
Humorously, when the new tenants came to ask us about buying the jukebox from us, we caught them trying to take sly photos of the label, with all the tune titles on… Guess how we responded..?
We thought about it for a moment, cast our minds back to Old Harald, from Surinam, way, way back in the story with his swaying crops & we just laughed out loud..!
A moment to draw on our friend Harald's wisdom for sure.
It's a family affair
It was the end of an era for sure & the Trent House closing weekend was ballistic, as hundreds of people poured out in their droves, to kiss it goodbye.
We had forgotten just how much it had meant to so many people. It was reminiscent of when we closed the old Club & emotions were running high.
Internationally loved.
No one could quite understand why we were leaving it all behind & it got a bit ‘Princess Di’ for a little while back then for some people (including us) as all that love & emotion spilt out.
No wonder, it had held the epic soundtrack of our mad young lives...
The Media Find the Time
We were genuinely shocked by all the attention we got, front page of the Evening Chronicle on a Friday night, quotes from politicians etc.
It was hilarious, totally over the top & honestly took us a bit by surprise…
Great to see the local press engage in more classically original headline writing - Where on earth do they find the 'time..?'
The Trent House Soul Bar opened many doors for many people & was consistently light years ahead of both the curve & it’s time…
We really appreciated all the good wishes, thanks & positive media we received for what we achieved there, in terms of making the City more friendly over the 25 years we worked there.
Eventually, we will get time to post up all the mad images from behind the scenes & how it looked.
Trent Crew lock in, around 2003/4? maybe a little later..? A lot of our key, early WHQ players in there too.
Idiots must die
The new tenants took over & changed the Bar – totally.
They removed the pictures of rare & endangered animals & even painted over the beautiful mural (below) that we left for them.
A little over a year later, they were out of business & the Bar had changed hands yet again.
There’s a moral in there somewhere...
Especially when you are disrespectful idiots.
The Bar then rapidly changed hands again, twice, making us feel all - 'Alex Ferguson.'
We still pop in once in a while if we are passing...
& that is that.
The last night of the Trent - Crew all smashed in front of the soon to be destroyed 'Garden of Eden' mural.
Over like 'The Jam'
We held the line, all the way from Thatcher… to Barack Obama, setting up WHQ in the process.
The Club could never, ever have happened without the Trent & we never forget that.
Ha - Ha! - Now you tell us...?!
What a great place it was to work, it really was a blast.
We grew up in there & we want thank everyone who came & all who worked with us on that fab little, far reaching, Soul Bar from 1984 – 2009.
The best seat in the House...
The last night we played all the top tunes that meant so much...
& after 25 years of ground-breaking, anti-upping, multiracial musical culture...
The last of our tunes ever played in the Trent House, was Brickhouse by the Commodores.
Ancient, pixillated to buggery - but you gotta love Yo' Momma x.
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