The Haçienda (22 page)

Decadence.Complete madness.It’s a miracle any of us survived.

Stories differ as to how ‘acid house’ was created. Some maintain that Chicago producer Marshall Jefferson and DJ Pierre were messing about with a Roland TB-Bass Line bass synthesizer when the machine began to make a strange, squelchy sound. A sound that would later become the defining characteristic of acid.

There’s another story, also involving DJ Pierre: that he discovered the same acidic, squelching sound when the batteries on his TB-303 ran flat. Yet another has DJ Pierre and his mate Spanky messing around on a Roland TB-303, playing with the pre-programmed samples and discovering
...

What’s clear is that there was some combination of people messing around with a 303 and finding a sound that, combined with a flat 4/4 beat, led to the creation of acid house.

On the subject of which was the very first acid-house track,opinions once again vary:the credit belongs to either ‘I’ve Lost Control’by Sleezy D or ‘Acid Trax’ by Phuture, both of which were produced by Marshall Jefferson. Of the two it was certainly Phuture’s almost-twelve-minute epic ‘Acid Trax’ that had the greatest effect. It was a massive hit in the clubs of Chicago and New York, but it was in the UK that it had the most impact, arriving at the same time as the emerging Balearic scene from Ibiza and the drug ecstasy. Thus the acid of Chicago was but one element of the UK acid-house explosion in 1988. The scene had its roots as much in Balearic beat as it did in the Windy City and it stormed without focus, referencing 1960s hippy culture as well as house and techno and even early indie arrivals such as the Woodentops, Thrashing Doves and Finitribe.

Acid house spread like wildfire. Shoom had been opened by Danny and Jenni Rampling in November of the previous year and was followed by Paul Oakenfold’s Future, held at Heaven on Charing Cross Road. In January 1988 Shoom adopted the smiley-face logo for its flyers and from there the symbol became the ubiquitous mascot of acid house.

In April that year it entered the charts, courtesy of ‘Theme From S’Express’, the first acid-house hit single. Oakenfold’s Spectrum opened its doors that same month, ushering in the second Summer of Love. In June the Trip opened, held at the Astoria, the club that would become infamous for the spontaneous street parties that erupted after closing every night.

By August tabloids had begun to print stories about the movement. The
Sun
, which had initially been benign in its treatment of acid house – even going so far as to offer a smiley T-shirt – suddenly did an about-face when
it published an alarming report about Spectrum that focused solely on drug use.

As we obviously hadn’t finished the record in Ibiza, we booked into Peter Gabriel’s brand-new state-of-the-art Real World Studios in the village of Box,near Bath,to start again.It was the UK’s most expensive recording facility – now you’re talking.

The recording of the album went in typical New Order fashion (i.e., the usual love/hate relationship. What’s the easiest way to clear a studio? Answer:get your bass out!),but we loved the studio.It’s like Disneyland for musicians at Real World – the technology,living quarters,staff,everything – so we ended up doing all our records there from then on. Peter Gabriel’s had more of New Order’s money than the taxman.

We called the album
Technique
and to celebrate finishing it we held a rave that Wiltshire will never forget.

By this time Rob was almost completely back to normal. Not his full pre-nervous-breakdown strength, but definitely back in the swing of things. The plan for the rave – in the usual manner – was to buy in drinks and about a thousand ecstasy tablets, sell the lot and make a profit that would pay for the party.We bussed down anyone who was anyone from Manchester. All the Haçienda and Dry regulars, the staff and management, etc. The idea was they’d party all night, spend their money and go home.

Two coachloads arrived carrying 150 maniacs.Everybody we knew had come down and the party turned into an absolute free-for-all: Es here,Es there,Es every-fuckin’-where.

We’d put two lovely girls, Michelle and Tracey who worked at Real World, in charge of running the bar. But everyone just grabbed what they wanted, waltzing off with bottles and bottles of champagne in their arms. The girls couldn’t stop them.

It all went absolutely, madly fucking downhill from there. In the end the usual happened: ‘Look, don’t take money for it, it’s too much trouble,’ and we just gave the drugs and drink away. That bit of generosity alone cost something like ten grand.

Peter Gabriel hid himself well away. His only concern was that the party should be properly policed.To do that we’d brought in the security team from the Haçienda, who cordoned everything off and just about kept a lid on it. Just.

But as things got wilder the word spread and the good people of Bath got wind of the party and started arriving,trying to gatecrash.We just let most of them in, of course – the more the merrier – and those who came were introduced to ecstasy. No doubt they’d heard of it, but not seen it. We soon put that right. Here was a bunch of lunatics from Manchester handing it out like it was free. In fact, it was.

But it was insanity. Couples shagged in Peter’s custom-built lakes, scaring his imported swans, and anywhere else they could too. I’m sure a lot of people woke up with sore arses and 50p, as we say in Manchester.

What was I up to, you ask? Well, I planned to drive home the next morning to see my kids,so I started early,DJed on my own to an empty room while still off my head, then went to bed. Later that night someone came and woke me,saying one of the partygoers had freaked out. ‘You’ve got to sort this out,Hooky.He’s your mate.’I was the only one in any condition to do anything about it, it seemed.

Apparently my mate Dylan had swallowed something like five Es (after all, they were free) and with one hand had grabbed some girl by the hair while holding a fire-axe to her throat with the other. She was screaming blue murder,and you could hardly blame her.But everyone was just walking past. I looked in his eyes, he had definitely lost his mind; there was no one in there. I took the axe off him and gave him a slap. ‘What are you doing?’ I said. No response, he just wasn’t there at all.

The girl ran away, still screaming, and he wandered off too. He ended up shagging one of our female employees in a field full of cows and cow shit. Or so I heard.

After that bit of excitement I went back to bed and slept through the remaining madness of the party.I woke up the next day,got in my car and drove off with the party still in full swing. Then it was back to Madchester.

Which was perfectly poised to embrace the acid-house explosion of that year, not least because of the Haçienda’s traditional insistence of bringing differing musical styles together. A year or so later the sound of the Happy Mondays – Madchester and Baggy – would be described as Sly Stone meets the Velvet Underground. It was in the Haçienda that Sly Stone had met the Velvet Underground.

This meant that acid house wasn’t quite the Year Zero for the club in the
way it was for nights like Shoom and Future down south, where rare groove had ruled for years. It was a near-seamless continuation of a music policy that had begun right from the moment it opened the club opened its doors. Thanks to its prescient choice of DJs, its alliance with electro, soul and hip hop, its ties with New York, its open-door attitude to music and its lack of snobbery,it was in the position not of responding to the rave revolution but rather of having created the very environment in which it would flourish.

And flourish it did. Within weeks of ecstasy sweeping the club it was packed for every club night. The place was finally reaping the rewards of its musical open-mindedness. Nude was packed out, as was the Temperance Club and Wide. The Hot night began. A Guy Called Gerald and Graham Massey of 808 State would arrive, banging on the DJ-booth door bearing just-made tapes of acid tracks that DJs would play in their entirety. Suddenly the club’s acoustics sounded perfect. Phuture’s ‘Slam’ – a favourite of DJ Jon DaSilva, boasting thunderstorm and rain effects among the squelchy acid and window-shaking bass – would fill and dominate the space as though made for it. Acid house and the Haçienda fitted perfectly together.

I felt great to be in Manchester then. I’d moved into a flat in Rusholme Gardens,Levenshulme.It felt like everyone I knew lived in that place,it felt like a little Haçienda. And the Haçienda felt like a little Ibiza.

On my return I found E culture in full swing. A massive change had occurred and it either swept you away or left you behind. Some of us involved took to it like the proverbial ducks to water, others weren’t so keen, so we lost a lot of the old faces along the way.

I lost myself in it all,slipping into full-time party mode:I’d either be at the Haçienda or at one of the warehouse parties held by local crime families.E was readily available and I tried to introduce everybody to it, even the girl in the corner shop. I really did believe we’d found the world’s salvation. Tony Wilson thought the same. He’d say, ‘If the whole world took E, we’d all be all right.’ We’d chorus along with him.

That said, I was always chasing that first high. It’s generally the best one ever. Ecstasy is the same as crystal meth, coke, crack or smack in that respect. After that initial experience, you’re never going to get back to that peak again. Nothing that follows is ever as good, and you always need more and more of a fix to even come close, and then it’s too late – you’re going to pay a very high price.Be warned!

Ecstasy changed my life. I shed my inhibitions. Tony Wilson said that it made white men dance. And he was right. I danced. Suddenly I felt like the world had changed and I loved the new perspective. There’s another reason I took to it so passionately. The fact is that I was disenchanted with the group; I wanted to get away, to escape in my own head.

One of my favourite stories from this time involved a mate of mine. On his wedding day, he and his best man realized they didn’t have anything for the evening. They went round to see the dealer, who said the cupboard was bare.

‘But I’ve got these tablets from Amsterdam,’ he told them, ‘They’re called ecstasy. I’ve not tried it yet. Do you want two of them?’

My friend had already had a few pints, so he said, ‘Go on, then. We’ll try ’em.’

He and his best man rode to the church and decided they’d each take one before walking inside for the ceremony. Next thing he knew, the bride’s father was shaking him because he and his mate were lying in the cemetery on the gravestones, holding hands and watching the clouds drift by, telling each other how much they loved each other. Off their trolleys.

Ecstasy didn’t have that effect on everybody. But it was a different experience from anything we had ever known before. Before, getting wasted meant beer and speed. Now it meant ecstasy.

The honeymoon period was short,though.The quality of E declined as the police clamped down. A lot of the time the shit that was sold to you did nothing but make you ill – dog-worming tablets, at best. One guy sold Nurofen and blotting paper in the alcoves at the Haçienda, passing them off as E and LSD. He got caught eventually and received the same sentence as he would have done for selling the real thing.

Spiking became a local sport in Salford. In the Swan you couldn’t leave your drink unattended; you’d always take it to the toilet with you, otherwise someone would put a tab of acid in it as a joke. It happened all the time (still does:somebody spiked me at Mani’s fortieth birthday party and it lasted three days,the bastards).

My mate Twinny was terrible for spiking people. We used to argue about it all the time. One night at the club he spiked Tom Atencio, our American manager. Everything was going off, a proper good night during the peak of acid house, and were sat in a corner with a bunch
of Salford guys, when Twinny piped up, ‘Hey, Tom you getting on one, mate? You having a pill?’

Tom, with his Californian drawl, said, ‘No, no, man,’ and went back to talking to someone else.

Once he’d relaxed, Twinny went, ‘Hey, Tom,’ and the moment Tom turned around, he threw it in his mouth.

Tom coughed loudly, then choked a bit but swallowed it.

I thought,‘Oh,you bastard,’while everyone around laughed hysterically.

Tom yelled, ‘What the fuck, man,’ and complained, but didn’t make himself throw up like I said he should. He went for it, God bless him.

I just waited . . . It takes a while.

The anticipation built up. After about half an hour, I asked, ‘Are you feeling alright?’ Tom said, ‘No, no, man, I’m fine,’ but he got louder.

And louder.

And LOUDER.

Suddenly, he was on the table, whistling and yelling, ‘Come on, Manchester. Woah.’

Now it was funny, cruel but funny. We’d got so used to ecstasy it no longer had that effect on us, but Tom was going mental. He ran around the club like a madman. Finally, he returned with this girl, and I’m not kidding, she was no oil painting, but he was all over her. She turned to me and said, ‘Hey. Who’s that fucking guy?’

‘Him, you mean? Tom?’

‘Yeah. ‘E’s just told me ’e’s gonna take me to Hollywood and make me a fucking star.’

Apparently Tom was going round the Haçienda telling everyone he loved them and was going to make them famous. Funnily enough he told me the same. Finally, I dragged him back to his hotel room and left him dancing in the corner.

Twinny pulled that trick again later by throwing one into the mouth of another American visitor (talk about cementing Anglo–American relations),our accountant Bill.The little bastard had very good aim;he was an expert at it, should have played darts. Bill’s experience went pretty much the same way as Tom’s, only he ended up following girls around the Haçienda, stroking their hair. One of the doormen threw him out for being such a pest.

Artistically, all drugs – including ecstasy – affect me the same way: I
can’t make music. I am absolutely fucking useless when I’m high. I’ve always been that way. All it does to me is to send me to the pub, and they don’t have mixing desks in pubs. They’d get in the way of the telly.