The Haçienda (19 page)

Ruth Polsky was killed by a runaway taxi on the steps of the Limelight club in New York on 7 September 1986. It was the first time she had ever queued to get in a club: this was one of the first AIDS benefits and the Queen of New York City was making an important statement.

From 1979 until her death she had been responsible for breaking innumerable British bands in the States thanks to tireless work in promotion and as talent buyer at Hurrah and Danceteria. She had booked the fateful Joy Division tour, then New Order’s first tour as a three-piece. Others who owed her a debt of gratitude included the Smiths (who dedicated the ‘Shoplifters of the World Unite’ single to her memory), Sisters of Mercy, the Cocteau Twins, and Echo and the Bunnymen.

On 5 December 1986 New Order performed a benefit gig for her at the the Roxy in New York, during which they played ‘Atmosphere’ and ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’as encores – the first time the two songs had been played live since Joy Division was dissolved.

‘Mason told me it was “full of art students” and although I couldn’t work out whether he considered this a good or a bad thing he later called me up and asked me to start a Thursday at the Haçienda from 1 May 1986; the Temperance Club, the night was going to be called. I still hadn’t met Mr Wilson or Mr Gretton. No one talked to me much, although I did have another conversation with Paul Mason, who said I could play what ever I liked and I would be paid £40 a week.’

Dave Haslam

The year began on an optimistic note. The latter half of 1986 had seen numbers steadily increase as the club’s policy of staging DJ nights rather than live gigs (though prompted by necessity rather than choice) appeared to be paying off.

At the beginning of 1987 the Hacienda had three regular club nights: Thursday’s Temperance Club, busy laying the groundwork for Madchester; the ever-popular Nude on Fridays, hosted by Pickering and Prendergast and preparing the city for the explosion of house music that was to come; and on Saturdays there was Dean Johnson with a night named after the music policy: Wide.

By 1987 New Order’s constant touring of America had paid off and made us even more successful. We had graduated from playing clubs and theatres to headlining huge arenas and we were playing bigger crowds than Oasis or the Spice Girls ever did,plus we were still making great music (thanks to the taxman, remember), so it should have been a happy time.

It wasn’t, though. As people, we’d grown apart. The music kept us together but we had no rapport and there was a general feeling of being in the doldrums.Partly this was because of the financial situation: we felt like we were a money-making machine, working just to get the Haçienda and out of a hole; plus Rob was sorely missed. He may not have been the most efficient boss in the world but, in the words of
Shameless
’s Frank Gallagher,‘he knew how to throw a party’.Everyone missed that when he was ill.

It took Rob a while to get back his health back and during that time Tony was number one, working closely with Paul Mason on all aspects of the club – a move I think a lot of the staff resented. Rob and Tony had very different ideas,and Rob was definitely the most popular with the staff. He was a man of the people.

I didn’t get to many management meetings during this period because I was always off touring with New Order, but one thing I do remember was the strange phenomenon of ‘financial projections’, where they’d write lists and lists of projected attendances for the club. Well, you can write anything you want on a piece of paper. Who actually turns up is a completely different matter. It almost seemed like they made it up as they went along. Today, I know that you never open a club or put a night on until you can afford to lose the highest figure, but at the time we convinced ourselves that it was great to carry on as usual. We’d look at the projections (all of them based on wishful thinking) and go, ‘Well, that’s not too bad, is it?’

I compare it now to mass hypnosis.Furthermore,music goes in and out of fashion. Even if you had a great year in the past, there’s no guarantee of even having a great week in the future. We learned that the hard way, too.

That year, New Order released the singles compilation
Substance
, two sin
gles, ‘True Faith’ and ‘Touched by the Hand of God’, and toured with Echo and the Bunnymen and Gene Loves Jezebel in the US.

Being in a group, I went to a lot of different places. But this didn’t educate me. Touring should have opened my mind, opened my thinking, but whenever I came home to Manchester and the Haçienda, I’d be so glad to be home. I knew exactly where I belonged, and it was here. I enjoyed the stability. I’d go off performing all around the world with New Order, come back and find my mates sitting exactly where I left them. Thank God. Rock stars have our cake and eat it. You go away, act like a complete idiot, then return and expect a nice, quiet life. They’d ask how the tour was and all of us would say the same thing, ‘Quiet, you know?’

Of course, as soon as I became involved in the Haçienda, all of that changed. If you want a quiet life, take my advice: DON’T OPEN A FUCKING CLUB.

One cold Monday night in March 1987 the Chicago House Party Tour arrived at the club, featuring Marshall Jefferson, Adonis, Frankie Knuckles, Kevin Irving and Fingers Inc. Though the event signalled the impact house music was having on the club’s owners and DJs, it was not tremendously
well supported. Still, the sound remained a staple at Nude and Wide. Patiently, the Haçienda waited for the rest of the world to catch up.

The video screens never worked properly – this was blamed on the cigarette smoke, funnily enough – so when they completely broke, around 1987/1988, we did away with them for good.

They’d always had a bit of a chequered career anyway. After a while, Bessy had stopped doing his controversial installations and we’d hired Tony Martin to do the lights and video.Although not as confrontational an artist as Claude,Tony took his work very seriously.He was followed by two lighting guys named Jonathan Unsworth and Mark Smith, professionally known as Swivel, until they too left, to be replaced by Steve Page.

As for filming, we got an employee to film the shows at the Haçienda and project them on the screens. The bands were given the tapes for nothing at the beginning – in true Factory fashion – which is why that Birthday Party gig lives on.

It meant we had video footage, with sound, of performances by virtually every band that played in the club – which was just about every band playing in England at the time. Most groups demanded we erase the tapes. In the early days this was because they didn’t like to see themselves playing to a half-empty club; later it was because we were asking for payment and they didn’t want to cough up for them.

Luckily they never got erased, though, whatever the band demanded.
Un
luckily for all concerned the tapes disappeared when Factory went bust and later appeared when they were released by a number of third-party video companies, who even released New Order performances without our consent.

So, anyway, with the video screens broken we just stopped using the equipment and because of that we never properly filmed anything during the acid-house era that followed in 1988 and 1989. Again, we should have sent cameramen round to capture it all; it would have been gold. We never thought to do that. We were too off our heads, I suppose. Instead all we have are snatches, a few news items . . .

Zumbar launched in October 1987, promising ‘an adventurous mix of live entertainment, fashion and disco, a night of exotic variety’. It boasted a Spanish theme, featured live acts and karaoke in the Gay Traitor bar and
was hosted by Fred, who was better known as the club’s maintenance manager. The opening included a ‘wheel of fortune’, which dictated the price of the booze, and legend has it that Tony Wilson fell out with manager Paul Mason when the needle stuck at ‘free drinks’ three times. (Maintenance manager Fred had weighted the wheel so this wouldn’t happen and it never did during hours of rigorous testing. Mason was later reinstated.) Zumbar went on to become one of the club’s most popular nights, and would host Julian Clary (as the Joan Collins Fan Club,with Fanny the Wonder Dog),Jerry Sadowitz and Frank Sidebottom. In November the night hosted a ‘live happening’ involving artist Phil Diggle doing ‘action paintings’, which saw the club hit with four insurance claims in its wake, including one from Barney, while the Christmas special featured a visit from
Coronation Street’
s Vera Duckworth. A week or so later the club ushered in the new year with a ‘mega firework display’, and
...

Our money went up in flames. We’d routinely hire guys to come to set up indoor fireworks; this was overseen by Paul Mason, who got them to set up the fireworks on top of the big main room bar.

We were taking so much money, it being New Year’s Eve and all, they couldn’t shift it so they started stashing it behind the bar, where there was a small room. When the fireworks went off at midnight the sparks rained through the gaps in the bar and set fire to the money, burning all of the notes inside.

I still have this drunken memory of Paul Mason on his hands and knees,patting all this cash,trying to put it out.

‘Am I fucking tripping?’ I thought. ‘There is all our money, ablaze. No, no, no, I must be imagining this.’

That cost us, like, five grand or something. Happy New Year.

Little did I know, it would be. Maybe popular culture caught up to us. Maybe that pyrotechnic bungle served as a burned offering for good luck.Whatever the case,within the next few months,everything – and I mean everything – changed. For me, New Order, the Haçienda, Madchester and the entire world.

Acid house had arrived and the Summer of Love would soon be in full swing.