The Haçienda Read Online Free PDF Page A

and Bryan Ferry clones and for this clientele the big draw was the Roxy Room, where they could hear DJ Dave Booth of Garlands fame playing David Bowie, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and Kraftwerk. Later, in January 1978, Joy Division’s first concert as Joy Division was at Pips.Bryan Ferry,after a Roxy Music gig at Belle Vue, was famously refused entry on the grounds that he was wearing jeans. The club closed at the beginning of the 1980s but later reopened as the infamous Konspiracy.
    The Reno
    The Haçienda’s first resident DJ, Hewan Clarke, cut his teeth playing jazz-funk at the Reno on Princess Road in the late 1970s. It was situated below the Nile, which played reggae, and together the two clubs had a fearsome reputation – as opposed to Rafters and Rufus in town, where the sounds were more commercial. A mainly black crowd would pack Renos until five or six in the morning, the air heavy with weed smoke, the dancing serious. Clarke later moved to Fevers, where he came to the attention of A Certain Ratio and Tony Wilson . . .
    Legends
    Based on Princess Street, Legends took over from Pips as Manchester’s main alternative hangout, especially on Thursdays. Wednesday nights, however, were presided over by DJ Greg Wilson, who, later, would also play a major part in shaping the Haçienda’s musical direction,educating audiences in a new, streetwise sound that was set to drag dance music out of the cul-de-sac offered by disco: electro. More on him later.
    Electric Circus
    Along with the Ranch and Rafters, the Electric Circus was one of the main Manchester venues to cater for the interest in punk after the Sex Pistols played the Lesser Free Trade Hall in June and July 1976; indeed, the Pistols would play this Collyhurst Road venue twice,further inspiring the home-grown bands. Around these venues, and with the Buzzcocks at its core, grew what we know today as the city’s post-punk scene (though everybody simply called it punk at the time), championed by journalists such as Jon Savage, Paul Morley and Mick Middles and spawning labels Rabid,Factory and New Hormones.Rob Gretton was part of the same scene.As DJ at Rafters,he had first seen Warsaw there, then later saw them again as Joy Division at the Electric Circus; he subsequently approached Barney at a Manchester phone box with an offer of management and got the job. The Electric Circus closed in October 1977, though Rafters, the Ranch and the Oaks in Chorlton remained popular punk venues.
    The Factory
    Wilson and Erasmus hosted the Factory nights at the Russell Club/PSV in Hulme between May 1978 and April 1980, before the idea of theHaçienda was mooted. As host of Granada TV’s So It Goes , Wilson was able to entice those who appeared on the show to play the Factory: thus the night hosted performances by a mouthwatering who’s-who of big names, including Public Image Limited, Pere Ubu, Magazine, Suicide, Iggy Pop, Stiff Little Fingers, the Pop Group, the Specials and Dexys Midnight Runners. Those who attended speak fondly of the Red Stripe, the goat pasties and the reggae played by the in-house DJ between bands.There was,they say,a very palpable sense of a scene developing.
    It’s fair to say that many of those involved in the early stages of planning for the Haçienda expected it to be like the PSV, which was quite dark and stuffy, had low ceilings and complied with most people’s expectations of a music venue. The Haçienda was to overturn all of those expectations – indeed, it would be instrumental in creating many new ones.

 
    It took a long time for New Order to recapture the ground we lost when Ian died, not to mention the emotional fall-out, which still gets me now. There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t think of him and what we achieved. But by 1981 we were climbing the ladder again. We were touring and visiting great clubs in amazing cities. We liked the sleaziness of the places we discovered in New York, places like Hurrah, Danceteria, Tier 3 and Eden. In