The Haçienda Read online

  Johnny Thunders (another hero of mine) played ‘Chinese Rocks’ three times during his set. He’d turned into a rock ’n’ roll casualty to say the least. (The ex-New York Dolls singer battled heroin addiction and died aged thirty-eight in mysterious circumstances.) Shame,the Heartbreaker’s were the first band we supported at Rafter’s,but I enjoyed it.I love that extreme lifestyle. I love to witness it.

  Likewise, I was a great fan of the Pogues, who headlined a few times and performed brilliantly. I’d see them perform elsewhere, too. New Order headlined Peter Gabriel’s WOMAD Festival with them at the Isle of Wight. Our dressing rooms/tents were next to one another, and we walked into theirs by mistake; they had drinks and a huge buffet, making us think, ‘The hospitality here is great.’

  Then we walked into our dressing room and there was nothing. Just a donkey. Literally, a big brown effing donkey!

  So, we took the donkey out and dragged him into the Pogues’ dressing room,where he ate everything on their rider.We nicked the booze. When they arrived they went berserk. What a laugh. I often wonder what happened to that donkey? I think it went solo.

  I ended up rebuilding a new sound system in the style of a band PA with the help of Chris from Tractor. Chris had a lot of experience. He and I later co-owned Suite 16 recording studio in Rochdale – named, again, by Tony Wilson – which was formerly John Brierley’s Cargo studios and where we’d recorded the first Factory single and later ‘Atmosphere’. He now sells Joy Division mementoes. Any time there’s something from Joy Division for sale, Chris Hewitt’s the one selling it. He seems to have a nice sideline buying things that Joy Division used and selling them over and over again.

  I was very proud of the new PA. It sounded miles better than the original, and it only cost £1000. I set it up and maintained it. I’d come in every Friday before opening to EQ it.For a special occasion,like a big group coming to play, we’d hire an extra PA as well, to augment it.

  That set-up lasted until 1988, when we splashed out for a huge system from Wigwam Acoustics (although still not as much as we spent on the original PA) that made everyone’s nose tingle because of the huge bottom end, and deafened audiences for a whole week. Eventually we had to turn it down from 140db to 130db because doctors were phoning up to complain – too many patients with Haçienda hearing problems. It also caused the baffling to fall down. We’d had this installed in the mid-eighties to improve the acoustics; it cost another thirty grand.The installation was designed by Peter Saville and Ben Kelly, in conjunction with Salford University, and was made up by a specialist company. Very stylish and looked fantastic. But it didn’t make any bleedin’ difference at all. Sometimes it would fall like a guillotine from the roof and always brought down half the ceiling plaster with it. There were some very lucky escapes. Ang Matthews was forever handing out free Life Memberships to dazed, white-haired people. In fact it became so dangerous we had to take most of it down. (Incidentally, most of the system is still going at a club in Oldham called the Tokyo Project, while the mixer and turntables are in Digital in Newcastle. The owner, Aaron Mellor, has also installed a huge chunk of the Haç dance floor at another of his clubs, Atomic in Ashton. That is what I call a true fan.)

  Nude, on Friday nights, was launched in October 1984 by Pickering, who stepped up to man the decks. One of the club’s most famous nights, and certainly the longest-running, it would go on make its name in 1987 and 1988, being one of the few places in the UK to play house music and providing a launch-pad for Pickering-as-DJ as well as for, later, Graeme Park.

  Initially, however, Nude consisted of Pickering and Andrew ‘Marc’ Berry, from Swing, the hairdressers, playing jazz, salsa, Motown, pop, hip hop and electro. At last Pickering was providing the across-the-board blend of musical styles he’d witnessed in New York. It paid dividends, too. Within two or three weeks Nude was a capacity night plus it was attracting an even more mixed crowd than Greg Wilson had pulled in. Hairdressers and Goths were thin on the ground now.Punters wore trainers.It was the very beginning of the scally era.

  Meanwhile, John Tracey’s The End: A No-Funk Night, despite having started the year with a new intake of DJs (including Suzanne, who would later manage the kitchens), died a natural death. For some time it had been the club’s most successful night. Yet now, perhaps because the regulars were having their ears tuned to different sounds – Nude on Fridays, Hewan Clarke’s Hot night on Saturdays – it seemed oddly anachronistic. Arthur Baker’s production of New Order’s ‘Confusion’ had drawn lines between electro and hip hop and was establishing a link between rock music and dance ...

  JANUARY

  Tuesday 3rd THE END: A NO-FUNK NIGHT John Tracey; Suzanne

  Wednesday 4th CLUB NIGHT Hewan Clarke

  Friday 6th Easterhouse

  Saturday 7th John Tracey

  Wednesday 11th Red Guitars

  Friday 13th A Certain Ratio

  Wednesday 18th Specimen

  Friday 20th The Wake; Del Amitri

  Wednesday 25th Prefab Sprout; the Daintees

  Friday 27th The Tube Live (the Factory All Stars; Marcel King; the Jazz Defektors; Breaking Glass; Madonna (in her UK TV debut)

  FEBRUARY

  Wednesday 1st The Chiefs of Relief (ex Bow Wow Wow)

  Thursday 2nd Reggae

  Friday 3rd Bourgie Bourgie

  Friday 10th Burning Spear; Spartacus

  Wednesday 15th The Cramps; Playn Jayn

  Friday 17th Pink Industry

  Monday 20th FILM NIGHT

  Wednesday 22nd Membranes; Tools You Can Trust

  Thursday 23rd Dead or Alive

  Friday 24th Thomas Dolby; Dekka Dance

  Wednesday 29th Fad Gadget

  MARCH

  Friday 2nd My American Wife

  Monday 5th Sanitorium (film)

  Wednesday 7th Cook da Books

  Friday 9th Hewan Clarke

  Saturday 10th Whodini

  Friday 16th The Lotus Eaters

  Thursday 22nd Julian Cope

  Friday 23rd Johnny Thunders and the Original Heartbreakers

  Wednesday 28th Reflex

  Thursday 29th The Three Johns; Terry Duffy

  Friday 30th Orange Juice; the Go-Betweens

  APRIL

  Tuesday 3rd THE END: A NO-FUNK NIGHT

  Friday 6th The Chameleons

  Set-list: ‘Don’t Fall’, ‘Return of the Roughnecks’, ‘A Person Isn’t Safe Anywhere These Days’, ‘Thursday’s Child’, ‘Here Today’, ‘Pleasure and Pain’, ‘Perfume Garden’, ‘Monkeyland’, ‘Second Skin’, ‘One Flesh’, ‘Paper Tigers’, ‘In Shreds’, ‘Singing Rule Britannia (While the Walls Close In)’, ‘Splitting in Two’, ‘Up the Down Escalator’, ‘Don’t Fall’

  Wednesday 11th Grandmaster Flash

  Friday 13th Xmal Deutschland

  Thursday 19th Nick Cave & the Cavemen

  Thursday 26th Spear of Destiny; the Shillelagh Sisters

  Friday 27th Swans Way

  MAY

  Thursday 3rd Prefab Sprout; the Moodists

  Friday 11th Dead or Alive

  Thursday 17th FASHION SHOW

  Friday 18th Prince Charles and the City Beat Band

  Monday 21st SECOND BIRTHDAY PARTY

  Wednesday 23rd The Cramps

  Wednesday 30th Mary Wilson

  JUNE

  Friday 1st Paul Haig; Lloyd Cole & the Commotions

  Tuesday 5th Cabaret Voltaire

  Friday 8th Sex Gang Children

  Saturday 9th Sharon Redd

  Thursday 14th Play Dead

  Wednesday 20th The Bluebells; Friends Again

  Thursday 21st King

  Friday 22nd A Certain Ratio

  Friday 29th The Fall; Life

  Set-list (the Fall): ‘Smile’, ‘Lie Dream of a Casino Soul’, ‘Craigness’, ‘2 x 4’, ‘God Box’, ‘Kicker Conspiracy’, ‘C.R.E.E.P.’, ‘Lay of the Land’, ‘Elves’, ‘Oh! Brother’, ‘Garden’, ‘Hey Marc Riley’, ‘I Feel Voxish’, ‘Pat Trip Disp
enser’

  JULY

  Wednesday 4th New York

  Thursday 12th The Go-Betweens; Microdisney

  Thursday 19th Pete Shelley

  Friday 20th Zeke Manyika; Colour Code

  Wednesday 25th Shriekback

  Friday 27th Jonathan Richman

  AUGUST

  Friday 10th Section 25

  Thursday 16th The Armoury Show

  Friday 17th Salty Sea Dogs Birthday Thing

  Tuesday 21st THE HOMETOWN GIG

  Thursday 23rd Easterhouse; James

  Wednesday 29th Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers;

  Marc Riley

  SEPTEMBER

  Saturday 1st HOT Hewan Clarke

  Tuesday 4th THE HOMETOWN GIG

  Wednesday 5th Section 25

  Friday 7th Arrow

  Thursday 13th The Cult

  Wednesday 19th Freddy McGregor; General Smiley

  Thursday 20th Lloyd Cole & the Commotions

  Thursday 27th Working Week

  OCTOBER

  Tuesday 2nd THE HOMETOWN GIG

  Wednesday 3rd Tom Verlaine; the Room

  Thursday 4th Afrika Bambaataa (rescheduled from 15 June)

  Wednesday 10th Hanoi Rocks

  Thursday 11th Everything But the Girl

  Friday 12th NUDE Mike Pickering

  Saturday 13th HOT Hewan Clarke

  Tuesday 16th THE HOMETOWN GIG

  Thursday 18th The Fall (rescheduled from 25 October)

  Friday 19th NUDE Mike Pickering

  Saturday 20th HOT Hewan Clarke

  Tuesday 23rd THE HOMETOWN GIG

  Wednesday 24th General Public

  Thursday 25th Floy Joy

  Friday 26th The Gun Club

  Saturday 27th HOT Hewan Clarke

  Wednesday 31st Bronski Beat

  NOVEMBER

  Thursday 1st New Model Army

  Friday 2nd NUDE Mike Pickering

  Wednesday 7th Orange Juice

  Friday 9th NUDE Mike Pickering

  Thursday 15th Alien Sex Fiend

  Friday 16th NUDE Mike Pickering

  Saturday 17th Circus Circus

  Tuesday 20th THE HOMETOWN GIG

  Wednesday 21st March Violets, Inca Babies

  Thursday 22nd NUDE Mike Pickering; Nasty’s Mime Act

  Friday 23rd The English Menswear Collection

  Wednesday 28th The Kane Gang

  DECEMBER

  Tuesday 4th Spear of Destiny

  Wednesday 5th Wah

  Thursday 6th STYLE IN OUR TIME (hair/fashion event) the Jazz Defektors; Frankie’s Angels

  Friday 7th NUDE Mike Pickering

  Saturday 8th DANCETERIA COMES TO THE HAÇIENDA Mark Kamins

  Tuesday 11th THE YEAR’S BEST OF THE HOMETOWN GIG

  Wednesday 12th The Durutti Column with the Riverside Orchestra

  Set-list: ‘Sketch for Dawn’, ‘Sketch for Summer’, ‘Mercy Theme’, ‘A Little Mercy’, ‘Without Mercy Suite’, ‘The Room’, ‘A Silence’, ‘The Beggar’, ‘Missing Boy’, ‘Ornithology’, ‘Prayer’, ‘Friends in Belgium’

  Thursday 13th Lee Perry

  Friday 14th NUDE Mike Pickering

  Friday 21st A NUDE NATIVITY Mike Pickering

  Saturday 22nd ELEGANT PARTY NIGHT

  Monday 24th HOLY SOAP the Jazz Defektors

  Friday 28th NUDE

  Saturday 29th GENDER BENDER PARTY NIGHT

  Monday 31st (UN)HOLY SOAP the Jazz Defektors

  At the Style in Our Time night in December, one of the models joining the Jazz Defektors and Frankie’s Angels was Paul Cons, who later became the club promoter and launched the seminal gay night Flesh.

  In November, the Twentieth Legion performed at the Haçienda. Among their number was Damian Lanigan, who was so inspired by the experience that he decided to set up his own label. He thought better of it, however, and instead wrote the sitcom Massive, which starred Ralf Little (who played Peter Hook in 24 Hour Party People) and was about Manchester lads trying to make it big in the biz.

  ‘I couldn’t find a DJ. They all wanted to talk, they were all so programmed. So in the end, I just thought I could do better and started doing the Friday night. It was a real mélange of music at first, everything from salsa to electro to northern soul, and it really took off.’

  Mike Pickering, djhistory.com

  In February 1985 the German industrial-rock band Einstürzende Neubauten brought a pneumatic drill to their gig. They started it up during their set then attacked the central pillar with it. The crowd were mesmerized. We were, too. We may as well have been fiddling as Rome burned because none of us moved to stop the guy – even though that one beam held up the entire building. We just screamed, ‘Yeah! Go on!’

  I thought it was hilarious. Not so Terry Mason, who quite rightly panicked, ran over and started wrestling the guy with the drill to stop him from destroying the club. They shouldn’t have allowed him in with a fucking drill anyway, the idiots. At last Terry – with the help of a bouncer – prised the drill off him. The band relented and the show continued regardless. Listening to the music, you wouldn’t have known Einstürzende Neubauten were short a drill.They had another ten or so on tape.

  One young lady, a very wacky Haçienda regular (she used to bring a train set with her, set it up in the cocktail bar and play with it for hours), decided to have a bit of fun with the band while they were playing. She enticed them off stage one by one to screw them in the stairwell. She got through three of them and the audience never even noticed, the noise was that horrendous. The gig ended when the singer’s throat burst and he started screaming blood all over the mic.Our sound guy Ozzie got onstage and knocked him out. ‘I’d warned him once,’ he said.

  I must admit, I’m not usually a fan of that type of their music or their sort of anarchy. But as loud as they were the noise actually sounded fantastic. Dead powerful. Mega. When they got that jackhammer going I thought, ‘Wow, that’s fucking great. I think New Order could use one of those ...’

  Though it ended in an outright ban for Einstürzende Neubauten, theirs was yet another legendary gig for the Haçienda.

  Meanwhile, Hewan Clarke’s Saturday nights were still a bone of contention. In January the name was changed to simply ‘Party Night’, then in April it changed yet again, this time to ‘Body and Soul, Body and Mind’. Clarke’s days at the club were numbered, though, and in May he was replaced by the DJ team the Happy Hooligans.

  ‘Maybe the management felt they weren’t getting their Loft or Paradise Garage, so I had to go,’ he told writer Tim Lawrence.

  However, the Hooligans’ night, Will Saturday Ever Be, was not deemed a success and Clarke was invited back, only for there to be a final parting of the ways towards the end of the year. Clarke would be remembered with great affection by the Haçienda faithful, and it’s to his credit that he introduced a dance floor expecting wall-to-wall Factory records to a broader selection of music; he had an inbuilt love of jazz-funk. But even so, he was old guard. He belonged to the era of Lulu and the Thunderbirds theme, and the winds of musical change were already beginning to blow at the club.

  In June that year the Jesus and Mary Chain played, performing for just thirteen minutes under a hail of flying pint glasses as members of the audience attempted to storm the stage. ‘There were ten glasses – real glasses – in the air at every point during the set,’ gig-goer Andrew Perry told writer David Cavanagh. ‘The Haçienda has a balcony so a lot of these glasses were coming from very high up.’

  Even so,the Mary Chain returned in November of that year,shortly after the club reopened after being closed for acoustic baffling to be fitted. Some things at the Haçienda never changed: it was still cold, the roof still leaked and the sound still wasn’t up to scratch.

  I’ve got tapes of hundreds of shows I saw at the Haçienda. I recorded them all on the first-ever Sony stereo cassette recorder. Rob had bought us one each to record ideas and mine came in very handy; it was the same one I�
��d use to do all the New Order shows. Some of them sound fantastic. I’d stick the recorder on the stage or by the monitor board and capture them all.

  When the Jesus and Mary Chain played on their infamous 17 Minutes of Feedback tour in 1985, I thought, ‘That sounds quite interesting’, so made sure I worked security that night.

  They asked for a line of bouncers across the front of the stage, and I tell you they needed protection – they were shit. God it was awful, Lou Reed had done it so much better. The show lasted exactly seventeen minutes, all of them excruciating. The entire set was just feedback, just as it said on the tin. It was done purely to provoke a reaction. To me, it came across as a real con. But if you’re going to act that way, you’ve got to be ready to take the flak – and not expect somebody who’s working security for a tenner a night to get battered on your behalf. I was so wound up after they’d finished, I pulled the bouncers off and let the punters at them.

  The tour manager said to me, ‘I’m getting the band out of here now. Take our gear off.’

  I said, ‘It’s your fault, mate, take your own fucking gear off.’

  Man, did they panic. God bless you, Manchester. I’ve never seen equipment loaded out as quickly in my life. They soon fucked off back to the hotel.

  Funnily enough, Bobby Gillespie was on drums that night. He went on to form Primal Scream. Now, I fucking love Bobby and the Primals. One of the only true rock ’n’ roll bands left. Us and them were separated at birth,I’m telling you.

  In July the club hosted a Lesbian and Gay Miners’ Benefit which featured the Redskins and Pete Shelley, among others. It was promoted by Paul Cons, the first night he ever hosted at the Haçienda, having appeared there as model the previous year. The event did well. So in June ‘Gay Monday’ was launched, again promoted by Cons. This featured music and entertainment in the Gay Traitor bar, and would go on to include performances from Divine, the Communards, Gina X and Bill Nelson. It marked the beginning of a long and successful relationship with the gay community.

  Unlike those of us involved with the bands or Factory, who thought of the building’s potential only as a concert venue, Paul Cons saw it as a theatre. He decorated the place fantastically so that when his customers came in it literally took their breath away.He certainly knew how to put on a production, that lad. They’d even send him to New York and other cities (lucky sod) to steal ideas or, as he put it, ‘to gain inspiration’, which he then incorporated at the Haç. Tony absolutely loved it.