The Haçienda Read online

  Lighting System: 18-channel Pulsar Rock desk, Lee low-voltage framing spots

  Sound System: Reinforcement by Wigwam Acoustics, Denon multiplay compact disc

  Approach: a bar on Oldham Street

  Director: Paul Mason

  Manager: Leroy Richardson

  Design: Ben Kelly Design (Ben Kelly, Sandra Douglas, Elena Massucco, Peter Mance, Denis Byrne, Fred Scott)

  Graphics: Peter Saville/Johnson Panas

  Press Officer: Paul Cons

  ‘Whereas music in clubs is now pigeon-holed and segregated, in those first years of acid house, the dance floor was open minded. In retrospect DJs have tried to convince us of their purist underground credentials; that wasn’t really the case. In the acid-house era you would have heard house, and techno, but also hip-hop records, like ‘Know How’ by Young MC, New Order and Euro-disco tracks by Italian production teams.’

  Dave Haslam

  ‘It was never just a club. It became just a club with ecstasy and acid house.It was an artspace.We had bands,we had art installations.We had William Burroughs reading Naked Lunch, we had David Mack doing huge installations with 12-inch record sleeves. It was supposed to be a space for everyone to use, a meeting place. We’d all been to New York, and hung out at places like Danceteria, and the great thing about them – yeah they were fantastic clubs – but they were meeting places for like-minded people, creative people. Ecstasy changed it all. Because obviously everything went to the beat and to the instance on drugs. You know, the first two summers of ecstasy, of love, was the most special time you’ll ever have. But after that, it was just boring.’

  Mike Pickering

  From the minutes of a meeting held at Bromley House, Woodford Road,Bramhall on 8 February 1989:

  20. RG [Rob Gretton] requested an up-to-date business plan to take account of all the revised costs [for the Dry bar].

  (RG had a £100 bet with PM [Paul Mason] that costs would go up further and that the shareholders would be approached for more money).

  As 1990 began, Manchester was at the centre of another cultural revolution. The city wasn’t just raving: it had taken the sound, the ethos and spirit of rave and reshaped it into something brand new – Madchester.

  Suddenly indie kids were dancing too. Everybody was, and they were doing it at the Haçienda. The club lay at the heart of a previously unimagined surge in the city’s nightlife as the student population grew (at one point places for higher education in the city were ten times oversubscribed) and coach-loads of clubbers arrived in the city every weekend. Other clubs launched to capitalize on rave’s popularity. There was Konspiracy at the old Pips/Nite and Day venue, which would go on to become one of the city’s most infamous clubs – the subject of almost as many stories as the Haçienda itself. (The greatest of these being that Damien Noonan, who controlled the door there, was charging people to get out of the club – twice as much as it had cost them to get in.) On Osbourne Street, Newton Heath, was Thunderdome (the scene of one of Joy Division’s first successful gigs); and at Legends, Princess Street, London club Shoom hosted a residency and the Happy Mondays filmed their video ‘Wrote for Luck’. In the meantime a whole generation of music-makers were being inspired on the Haçienda’s dance-floor. Those having their eyes opened included Laurent Garnier (who worked at the club as a pot-collector); the Chemical Brothers, then student ravers; the Charlatans; and even Noel and Liam Gallagher, jobbing as floor-sweepers before they hit the big time (Oasis in fact played their first-ever gig as support to Peter Hook’s Revenge at the Hippodrome in Middleton in 1993); as well as the huge swathes of Madchester wannabes who sprang up in the wake of the Mondays and the Roses. London-based magazines began to pick up on the Madchester phenomenon and even America started to show an interest: that summer DJs Mike Pickering, Paul Oakenfold, Graeme Park and Dave Haslam went on a Haçienda DJ tour of America and were greeted like superstars; even Newsweek carried a Madchester cover story.

  As the movement grew there were mutterings that it was already becoming too homogenized; that the baggy Joe Bloggs/Gio Goi look had become a uniform.The Fall’s Mark E.Smith even wrote a song about it,‘Idiot Joy Showland’.

  At the Haçienda the management continued to investigate ways in which to capitalize on the club’s success. First Factory wished to buy the building, which would free them from the millstone of the twenty-five-year lease and make the club a much more attractive proposition. They’d made repeated offers to purchase since the club first opened and now, at last, the owner relented: Factory secured the property and immediately set about planning how best to utilize their newly acquired real estate.

  I remember being asked about buying the building while New Order were backstage at the Free Trade Hall (although I can’t remember why we were there). Rob gave us literally five minutes to make our minds up – as in yes or no. We again went with the flow; but, knowing how punitive the length of the lease had been, owning the building did seem like a good idea.

  One of the biggest criticisms of the Haçienda was that there was no cosy, funky part of it for people to hide away in. So it was around this time, with the money being apparently available (we were on the crest of a wave, remember), that the idea of developing the basement first came up: to form a club-within-a-club and drum up business for off-peak weekday nights and the smaller club nights. We’d used it for the occasional private party but we figured we could put the space to more lucrative use. We thought that it would generate yet more revenue. In the end, the idea went on the back-burner until 1994.

  The death of Claire Leighton in 1989 had begun a protracted and expensive battle between the Haçienda and Greater Manchester Police that would plague the club for the next eighteen months to two years. A blow for the club was legislation introduced in February of 1990 that gave the police greater discretionary powers over local magistrates granting nightclub licences. The police also launched Operation Clubwatch, aimed at targeting drug use within the city’s clubs.

  All of the Haçienda’s troubles had the police asking whether or not we should be allowed to renew our licence. Shit. Without that licence, we were just another empty building.

  We tried to get the local community involved, to see if that could help us solve the crime problem. There was precedent for this: in around 1986 Paul Mason had joined the pub- and club-watch safety committee.(He got into it by default:every time somebody applies for a licence, all the other pubs routinely object because they don’t want the competition. We were a bit on the outside to say the least, so he joined the pub-and-club network to find out how the business worked. Paul became very passionate about it; he enjoyed being involved and even headed the organization for a while.)

  To show our willingness to help solve the drug problems,we started a drug-confiscation scheme. When the door staff searched customers and found Es, dope, coke, whatever, the drugs were given to Ang, who put them in a safety-deposit box that was then locked in the safe. I’d harass her for it all the time, Pandora’s box, I called it, saying ‘gimme gimme’, dying to see what I could find inside, rooting around like a ferret. The doormen would even tip me off: they’d say, ‘I just handed over ten Es,’ and I’d nag her for them, enjoying the wind-up.

  She took her job seriously, though, and always refused (mainly telling me to ‘fuck right off’).Happily,since I didn’t know the safe combination, there was nothing I could do.

  Each Monday she’d remove the drug box from the safe and take it down to the police station. Before long, the police decided that she was putting herself at risk not only of being robbed en route but also of being arrested for transporting controlled substances. At that point they decided to come by and pick them up from her; this lasted a week, after which time she had to mither them constantly to come and collect the drugs. She’d sometimes be forced to destroy them, the stockpile having built up for weeks.

  The sheer volume of drugs we were handing over was making the cops very nosy. Ang soon realized that the more drugs she turned in,
the worse it looked for the Haçienda, so she’d wash some down the sink or flush them down the toilet. That whole rigmarole became the bane of her life. Then the police said that if we found drugs on somebody we should turn their face towards the security camera, so there’d be documentation in case they wanted to press charges – not when they pressed charges. Please. We were just trying to run a club. Do your own bloody job.

  Tony himself got very involved in taking the problems to the local government because we felt so powerless. His biggest beef was that nobody ever helped: the police, the CID, the licensing committee, the city council, none of them. We were so accustomed to going it alone, we certainly didn’t come to count on any assistance.Tony even applied for grants from the city council to preserve the Haçienda and Factory as a vital part of Manchester’s cultural and financial heritage,drawing up a detailed economic breakdown of how the club and the record-label earnings affected the entire UK.He didn’t get very far with that one.He and Ang went so far as to petition local members of parliament on the club’s behalf, with no results there either.

  He’d leave the donkey-work (like meeting four thugs with Uzis at some scummy council house in Salford) for us to sort out,whereas he and Paul Mason took care of the airy-fairy work (like meeting with the chief constable for tea in police towers) –and good luck to them; I knew where I’d rather be.

  We weren’t pulling a good cop/bad cop act. More like posh cop/working-class cop. I don’t think it would have worked any other way:the Haçienda,like Factory Records,crossed generations and social classes.It was gritty,down-to-earth and edgy and at the same time was arty and intellectual.

  In fact,in an attempt to cater to everyone in Manchester,we offered free admission, food and drinks to the homeless once a month. (The night was called Itch! Ha ha.) And this as we tried to project the image of a ritzy nightclub.

  ‘There were all kinds of undercover operations going on in the club,’ Tony Wilson told writer Mick Middles. ‘It was a bit bewildering, to say the least. We wanted very,very much to work with the police to help prevent the flow of drugs,but it seemed to be very much an us-against-them situation,which we didn’t, and still don’t, understand.’

  In May 1990 the police told manager Paul Mason that they intended to oppose an upcoming licence renewal. In response the club beefed up security.

  Nonetheless the authorities decided they wanted us all out of the way. Fearing any evidence of drug use that might play into their hands, we took the matter to our audience by issuing a flyer that laid out the facts:

  FAC 51 The Haçienda A MESSAGE TO ALL OUR CUSTOMERS:

  As you may already know, the Greater Manchester Police have told us that they will be applying to revoke the Haçienda’s licence at the next magistrates meeting on the 17th of May.

  We will of course be rigorously defending the action with all our energy.

  Despite our major efforts in recent months, the police feel we must do even more about removing the use of illegal drugs inside the Haçienda – this is where you come in: do not, repeat, NOT, buy or take drugs in the club – and do not bring drugs on to the premises.

  The prime role of your club is a place to dance to the most important music of the day;the only way it can continue in this way is by the complete elimination of controlled substances.

  It’s our club – and it’s your club – we’re going to fight to keep it alive and we expect you to be fighting with us.

  PLEASE MAKE SURE EVERYONE UNDERSTANDS HOW IMPORTANT THIS MESSAGE IS. LET’S ROCK – LEGALLY.

  Our licence actually came up for renewal in July 1990, and the hearing resulted in our case being adjourned until January 1991. We had the famous George Carman on our side.

  George Carman QC was already a legendary barrister, having defended Ken Dodd and Jeremy Thorpe.Legend has it that,on meeting the Factory men, his first bit of advice was to ‘Shut that loudmouth up’ in reference to Tony Wilson, whose constant public proclamations Carman believed to be damaging the image of the club.

  Carman was extraordinarily expensive but the money was proved to be well spent when he was able to get the licence hearing pushed back to 3 January 1991 – giving the club time to get its house in order.He did so by pledging the Haçienda’s commitment to stamping out drug use and drug dealing within the club, as well as producing letters of support for the Haçienda – in particular from the city council’s new leader, Labour’s Graham Stringer, who had pointed out that the club greatly contributed to the economy and vibrancy of the city centre (obviously having revised his opinion of rave since 1989).

  Carman beat the police in their attempts to close us down by refuting the evidence brought against us.

  He was very theatrical.In court he brought up what had happened when police filed charges against the club Konspiracy. The cops said they’d seen 150 acts of drug-related offences, meaning people buying, selling or using inside there.

  Konspiracy had fought the charges by pointing out that the club was so full of smoke and so dark that there’d be no way for someone to witness much of anything at all, illegal or otherwise. They took the judge, jury, police and everybody associated with the case inside Konspiracy, stood 50 people on the dance floor, started the smoke machine, put some music on and said, ‘Tell me how you can spot 150 separate crimes in these conditions.’ You couldn’t.

  By referring to the Konspiracy case Carman got the charges against the Haçienda thrown out. With so many people moving within the club, there was no way to see too much of what anyone was up to. Furthermore, anyone using drugs was careful about where they did them, making crime even harder to detect. The coppers had pulled a scam on us, but the legal battle cost us another £250,000 pounds. Carman charged £15,000 for his first day then £10,000 each day thereafter – for something like seventeen days in all.

  The police were furious because they’d failed to shut the Haçienda. They were really pissed off and now we were all marked men.

  Anyway, we put out an announcement to tell the clientele what had happened – and that they needed to behave:

  GOOD NEWS:

  The Haçienda licence hearing on 23rd July resulted in the case being adjourned until 3rd January 1991.

  This means that the Haçienda will remain open as usual until this date. FAC 51 the Haçienda now intends to redouble its efforts to keep our club open. This must involve the complete elimination of controlled drugs on the premises.

  In this we continue to rely upon your help and co-operation. Please do not, repeat, NOT, buy or take drugs in the club, and do not bring drugs on to the premises.

  Please make sure everyone understands how important this message is.

  Thank you for your support.

  We followed this with another flyer (Tony, treating the whole thing as an art project,called this one ‘Communiqué,Winter 90/91’):

  Dear Friend,

  Let’s face it, 1990 has not been an easy year for the Haçienda. Our problems began in May with the threat to our licence when we had no choice but to take drastic action in order to keep the club open.

  A major problem which we have also had to deal with is the increase in violence in and around Manchester’s clubs. This is an extremely worrying development to which there is no easy solution.

  It must be apparent to you that both these factors have seriously affected the way in which the Haçienda is run.

  We realize that things like searches on the door, video surveillance and high-profile security,while necessary,have had a damaging effect on the club’s atmosphere and we would be the first to admit that we have found it difficult to get the balance right between law enforcement and partying.

  We are particularly aware that the door policy at the Haçienda has provoked much criticism. One problem has been on the occasions regular customers have been turned away. We aim to remedy this situation in the New Year with a membership scheme for Saturday nights which will ensure that regulars are guaranteed admission,at a reduced price (details will be anno
unced shortly).

  However, we feel that it is worth remembering that the much-maligned Haçienda doorstaff are under a lot of pressure and while they may not always get it right they are having to work in a difficult situation and do deserve your support.

  So, our court hearing approaches and from January the 3rd we will get an indication whether the Haçienda has a future. We are confident that it does. To the pessimists, piss off.

  TO ALL OF YOU WHO HAVE CONTINUED TO SUPPORT US THROUGH THESE DIFFICULT TIMES, WE WOULD LIKE TO SAY A BIG THANK YOU.

  This was the era of the DJ.

  I didn’t know many of the Haçienda’s DJs very well, but took a dislike to some of them because of what I saw as their prima donna demands: £1000 and more per night (we still held the record for the highest payment to a DJ for a single night’s work: Todd Terry took home £12,500), plus hotel rooms, transport, a backstage rider (i.e., booze and food) and ‘sweeties’.

  It seemed excessive to me, but Saturday nights stood out as our big earners.

  On some nights we’d put three of them on. It’s no wonder that we couldn’t make a profit.

  It’s funny to think that the original DJ booth had been a hole in the wall. It evolved into a throne room, with locks on the door that were only unlatched to allow entry to the chosen few,friends desperate for a line, or to drug dealers dropping off their goods. Often I kicked that door for ages while those cheeky bastards just left me standing/fuming outside.

  The worse case was the club’s twelfth birthday,in 1994,when to celebrate we hired twelve DJs.

  There wasn’t a cat in hell’s chance of making enough money to cover the expense. In fact, there wasn’t a cat in hell’s chance of finding time for them all to play. It seemed like a death wish. The costs were astronomical, ending up with half the DJs fighting in the booth about who was going on where and for how long. That wasn’t even the first time we’d tried something like that. We’d had twelve hours’ of DJs back in 1983; and, although I wasn’t there, I’ll bet nobody else was either. Even when DJing at the Haçienda became fashionable we didn’t leverage its popularity to see if we could book people for less money. Rob continued to pay more for DJs, as he had done with bands. If a DJ asked for an extra £50, Rob would push his famous glasses up his nose and say, ‘Give him another hundred and tell him to fuck off.’