How not to run a club
New Order bassist Peter Hook on Manchester’s The Haçienda
INTERVIEW | ELIZABETH ALKER
PORTRAITS | JAMES MARTIN
“IT WAS THE MOST FANTASTIC DREAM ANYONE’S EVER HAD – at times scary, at times wonderful but I am looking back and saying it was well worth it,” says Peter Hook of the time he spent running one of the most famous night clubs in the world. The rock-star-studded, punk-spirited and drug-fuelled story of the Haçienda in Manchester has been told and re-told as many times as Hooky (as he is universally known) had good ones in the iconic warehouse–turned–party-haven. In his new book, The Haçienda: How Not To Run A Club, the New Order bassist details the gross mismanagement of the Haçienda in a hilarious and shocking exposé of one of the most chaotic business co-operatives of all time.
“They had a business that allowed them not to grow up, basically. A lot of people in the music industry have that Peter Pan quality. They didn’t want to be held back by boring constraints; they just wanted to go for it.”
Hooky, now 53, is referring to Factory Records, the Manchester label run by local pop impresario and TV presenter Tony Wilson and his business partner Rob Gretton.
Along with the members of Factory band New Order, they started the Haçienda (issuing the club with a record label catalogue number, FAC 51), initially as a venue where groups from the city’s burgeoning music scene could perform and socialise. The inspiration was taken from Leaving the 20th Century: The Incomplete Work of the Situationist International, a “1974 book declaring that society had become boring, and the only way to put everyone back on track was to create jarring ‘situations’ by combining all types of art, including architecture.”
And so, with money from the sale of Joy Division records, a hefty investment from New Order, an overly ambitious business plan, a wildly optimistic budget and the will to ‘give something back to the city’, they took the lease out on a huge warehouse space, turning it into the venue of their dreams.
“It was losing £10,000 a month in the first six months,” says Hooky, shaking his head into a tomato juice at a hotel near his home in the well-to-do neighbourhood of Alderley Edge. Only with hindsight and sobriety can one of Britain’s most treasured bass players fully comprehend how much of his fortune was poured into the financial black hole that was the Haçienda.
These days, he may count Premier League footballers Rio Ferdinand, Edwin van der Sar and Peter Crouch amongst his many millionaire neighbours, but even in their heyday, New Order were expected to live off a very modest weekly allowance, while the thousands they were actually earning was spent on making the Haçienda the best designed but least profitable club on the planet.
It was a similar story over at Dry Bar, a smaller venue opened by Factory to try and catch early hours customers. “Tony loved the scallies at the cocktail bar carving their initials into the Jasper Morrison stools and burning holes in the Conran sofas with their fag ends. He liked the idea of destroying art.”
You’d think losing £60,000 (a lot of money in early 1980s) in six months would make any sane person re-evaluate their business method, but not Gretton and Wilson who continued to spend New Order’s money on this extravagant vanity venture. A different design of beer glass was required for every night of the week, free drinks for staff came in at £4,000 a month and during the Acid House era, when drugs became a big part of the culture, Factory decided to pay gangsters to be bouncers to ‘solve’ the growing problems with gun crime they had in the club.
Yet, it was part thanks to the Haçienda that Manchester became the home of Madchester and Acid House in the north. New Order, the Happy Mondays, The Stone Roses, The Charlatans and Inspiral Carpets were all part of a community of musicians which used the club as a focal point.
The freedom given to the staff and the artists, at huge expense to Factory Records, created an environment to make great music. Manchester was transformed from a bleak post-industrial town into a Mecca for clubbers, creatives, musicians and pop tourists from far and wide.
However, it literally was too good to be true and even at the height of Acid House in 1988, when the Haçienda was packed to the rafters, the club was still losing money due to dire management.
“Making me part owner was like asking a drunk to steer a ferry into the dock,” Hooky laughs, admitting his own part in the eventual downfall of the venue, which went into liquidation in 1997.
“Business-wise we were a joke but creatively people can only look at it and marvel at what Rob Gretton, Tony Wilson, Factory Records, the Haçienda and Ben Kelly all achieved. People in other bands look at what we’ve done and say ‘I wish we were as cool as you’. Tony said, ‘You’ll thank me in 30 years’ time,’ and he was exactly right.”
Hooky’s hangouts
THE HAÇIENDA PLAYED A HUGE PART IN TRANSFORMING MANCHESTER FROM A DINGY NORTHERN TOWN INTO A SHINY, COSMOPOLITAN CITY. A DECADE AFTER THE PARTY, PETER HOOK GIVES HIS TIPS FOR SLIGHTLY QUIETER DAYS AND NIGHTS OUT IN MANCHESTER
NORTHERN QUARTER CITY CENTRE
“The area around High Street in the Northern Quarter is good for bar hopping. It’s full of liveliness on weekend evenings. The Bay Horse, Centro, Odd and Socio Rehab are all quirky and individual, not to mention Cord Bar which has got, you guessed it, corduroy on the walls.”
CORBIÈRES
2 Half Moon Street
“Just off St Ann’s Square, you’ll find the best jukebox in Manchester at Corbières. It’s an unusual place with strange decor – a unique wine cavern-style basement with bumpy walls and a dark but welcoming atmosphere. There’s a good selection of drinks, tapas-style food and plenty of great Manchester music, including some of mine, on that legendary jukebox.”
BRITON’S PROTECTION & PEVERIL OF THE PEAK
50 & 127 Great Bridgewater Street
“A couple of pubs which have been around even longer than I have are the Victorian hostelries Briton’s Protection and the Peveril of the Peak (pictured), both on Great Bridgewater Street, and both round the corner from where the Haçienda used to be.”
CUP
53-55 Thomas Street
“A great breakfast can be scoffed down at Cup. Owned by Mr Scruff, the popular DJ, producer, cartoonist and tea drinker, Cup attracts a bohemian Northern Quarter crowd and offers a mix of food, music and art.”
RUBY LOUNGE
26-28 High Street
“The best of the live music places which have sprung up recently is the Ruby Lounge. They have great guitar bands there and a slightly less studenty clientele than places like The Roadhouse and Night and Day.”
CITY INN
1 Piccadilly Place, www.cityinn.com
“The City Inn, situated right next to Piccadilly station is a cool place to lay your head. This is a modern, welcoming hotel with a great restaurant and a pretty stylish bar. Only a five minute walk from the Northern Quarter, and even closer to the Village.”
AFFLECK’S PALACE
52 Church Street, www.. afflecks.com
“For all the family, Affleck’s must be the heart and soul of the Northern Quarter. It opened the same year as we opened the Haçienda, 1982. It’s still there – an emporium of interesting nooks and crannies stuffed with vintage clothes, jewellery, furniture, food, hairdressers and tattooists. Very retro.”
URBIS
Cathedral Gardens, www.urbis.org.uk
“Urbis is the ultra-modern ‘ski slope’ glass building, which everyone wants to photograph when they get there. It’s an exhibition centre about city life. You can leave the kids in the exhibition and enjoy the panoramic views with a cocktail in The Modern bar at the top floor.”
VERMILLION
Hulme Hall Lane / Lord North Street, +44 (0)161 202 0055, www.vermillioncinnabar.com
“Vermillion is a fantastic restaurant – a riot of Asian colour and interior design with a brilliant Thai menu and an upstairs bar called Cinnabar. It’s an amazing place and I always make an effort to go there.”
