The Haçienda (18 page)

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Authors: Peter Hook

BOOK: The Haçienda
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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

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