Authors: Peter Hook
Not far behind Paul Mason came Paul Cons, whose official title at the club was PR. Together they would turn the club’s fortunes around.
In May, Boardwalk DJ,
Debris
fanzine editor and Haçienda regular
Dave Haslam came on board to launch the Temperance Club on a Thursday night. Now the Haçienda had the two nights that would cement its reputation. Nude on Fridays, where house music was being tentatively explored, and the Temperance Club, where lies the roots of the Madchester phenomenon.
Temperance would play the funky end of hip hop and electro – Eric B and Rakim, Mantronix, the indie up-and-comers such as James and the Railway Children – alongside alternative favourites. On the one hand, Mark E. Smith once bought Haslam a pint for playing ‘Little Doll’ by the Stooges; on the other, Morrissey sat in his booth turning his nose up when he played Man Parrish.
For his part, Haslam, an ex-
NME
writer, was pleased to finally exercise a musical impulse he felt was stifled by the music press – a Londoncentric body that still tended to pit alternative music against dance music as two mutually excusive entities – yet was finding a voice in the club nights around the city. Thanks to Nude, and the groundwork of the DJs before him, he was able to reach an audience – a mainly student crowd — whose ears were already open to a mix of musical styles. Thursday nights did so well for the club that Haslam was asked to host a Saturday-night slot too, where he partnered Dean Johnson, who specialized in northern soul. The night was called Wide, and it began on Saturday 19 July during the Festival of the Tenth Summer.
If 1986 was a pivotal year for the Haçienda, and for the explosion of dance music and Madchester mayhem that was to follow and engulf the UK, then one event in that year can be said to mark its flashpoint: the Festival of the Tenth Summer. Aimed at marking ten years of punk – it being a decade since the Pistols played at the Lesser Free Trade Hall – the Festival of the Tenth Summer was a week of musical events helmed by Factory that ended with a gig at G-Mex. On the bill were the Fall, the Smiths and New Order, the latter of whom headlined, and it was followed by the launch of Wide at the Haçienda.
‘At G-Mex I played “Stoned Out of My mind” by the Chi-Lites and then struggled round the corner to the Haçienda with my records in a cardboard box and my £40 wage in my pocket,’ says Haslam. ‘It was the dawn of a new era.’
At last things were falling into place for the club. Until August that year, the Haçienda had only ever been full for bands. This changed one Friday night when the club enjoyed a packed night. At the time, Wilson had been
in China brooding over the future of the club. While the Festival of the Tenth Summer would in retrospect be seen as a watershed moment, it hadn’t had any financial effect on the club at the time. Exhausted from promoting the festival and downcast at not seeing the rewards through the door, Wilson was considering throwing in the towel. Then he put in a phone call to Paul Mason only to be told the good news. Times were changing.
JANUARY | |
Friday 3rd | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Friday 10th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Friday 17th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Thursday 23rd | Erasure |
Friday 24th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Thursday 30th | Nico and the Faction; Eric Random |
Friday 31st | NUDE Mike Pickering |
FEBRUARY | |
Friday 7th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Friday 14th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Monday 17th | Gone Hollywood (Jeremy Kerr art installation until 26 March) |
Tuesday 18th | The Swans; Gifted |
Wednesday 19th | Cabaret Voltaire |
Friday 21st | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Thursday 27th | CHANGE |
Friday 28th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
MARCH | |
Thursday 5th | King Kurt |
Friday 7th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Tuesday 11th | Kurtis Blow |
Friday 14th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Friday 21st | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Friday 28th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
APRIL | |
Friday 4th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Saturday 5th | BIG NOISE: MUSIC FOR THE MODERN DANCE FLOOR |
Friday 11th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Saturday 12th | BIG NOISE: MUSIC FOR THE MODERN DANCE FLOOR |
Tuesday 15th | Big Audio Dynamite |
Friday 18th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Thursday 24th | The Blow Monkeys |
Friday 25th | NUDE Mike Pickering; fashion show with Rosie Haywood/Armstrong Collins Sharp/Posh Frocks |
Saturday 26th | DISCO NIGHT Chad Jackson |
Wednesday 30th | LATIN QUARTER |
MAY | |
Thursday 1st | TEMPERANCE CLUB Hedd-Dave Haslam |
Friday 2nd | NUDE MP2 – Mike Pickering and Martin Prendergast |
Saturday 3rd | BIG NOISE: MUSIC FOR THE MODERN DANCE FLOOR Andy Miller |
Friday 9th | NUDE Mike Pickering; fashion show by Su King |
Wednesday 14th | Jesus and Mary Chain; Pink Industry |
Friday 16th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Wednesday 21st | FOURTH BIRTHDAY PARTY |
Friday 23rd | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Wednesday 28th | Art of Noise |
Friday 30th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
JUNE | |
Wednesday 4th | Crime and the City Solution; Ghostdance |
Friday 6th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Wednesday 11th | Gene Loves Jezebel |
Friday 13th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Saturday 14th | i-D MAGAZINE PARTY |
Friday 20th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Saturday 21st | BIG NOISE: MUSIC FOR THE MODERN DANCE FLOOR Rob Day |
Monday 23rd | Sandie Shaw |
Friday 27th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
JULY | |
Tuesday 1st | Black Uhuru; the Wailers |
Friday 4th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Tuesday 8th | The Alarm |
Friday 11th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Sunday 13th | FASHION: CLOTHING THE NAKED FLESH |
WITH PLASTIC FLOWERS (a Festival of the | |
Tenth Summer fashion show) | |
Friday 18th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Saturday 19th | WIDE Dean Johnson; Hedd-Dave Haslam |
Friday 25th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Wednesday 30th | Zodiac Mindwarp; MC Evil Bastard |
AUGUST | |
Friday 1st | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Friday 8th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Friday 15th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Friday 22nd | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Thursday 28th | TEMPERANCE CLUB |
Friday 29th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
SEPTEMBER | |
Friday 5th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Friday 12th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Friday 19th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Friday 26th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
OCTOBER | |
Wednesday 1st | Trouble Funk |
Friday 3rd | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Friday 10th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Monday 13th | New Order |
Set-list: ‘Sooner Than You Think’, ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’, of the Nation’, ‘Everything’s Gone Green’, ‘Weirdo’, ‘Sunrise’, ‘Temptation’ | |
Tuesday 14th | Erasure |
Friday 17th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Wednesday 22nd | Full Force |
Friday 24th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Tuesday 28th | The Fabulous Thunderbirds |
Wednesday 29th | RESIDENTS (thirteenth-anniversary show featuring |
Snakefinger) | |
Friday 31st | NUDE Mike Pickering |
NOVEMBER | |
Friday 7th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Thursday 13th | The Railway Children |
Friday 14th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Friday 21st | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Friday 28th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
DECEMBER | |
Thursday 4th | David Mach (art installation until 11 January) |
Friday 5th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Tuesday 9th | Spear of Destiny |
Friday 12th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Thursday 18th | TEMPERANCE CLUB Felt |
Friday 19th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Monday 22nd | CREATIVE CIRCLE PARTY |
Tuesday 23rd | SOUTH MANCHESTER COLLEGE PARTY |
Wednesday 24th | CHRISTMAS EVE PARTY |
Friday 26th | NUDE Mike Pickering |
Tuesday 31st | NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY |
FACT 51 Limited
Trading as: the Haçienda
FAC 51 Limited
Trading as: the Haçienda