The Haçienda (40 page)

Extract from the minutes of a weekly management meeting held in the Round House on Thursday 23 September 1993:

The Haçienda

The opening of Home has not made any impact on Saturday-night attendances. There was currently no Friday night in terms of a club night but the bar was open late. At the last Flesh night Paul Cons was handing out promotional material for their Saturday, which he is promoting. This was put a stop to as soon as it was discovered.

The police had requested to see plans of the club in order to inspect the fire exits and potential means of entry. As a result PM [Paul Mason] had not allowed as many people in the previous Saturday as he was worried that the police could have been filming.

RG [Rob Gretton] asked if the metal detector was working properly. PM explained that it either worked too well or not at all. It was suggested and agreed that it should be set off occasionally by the door staff to give the impression to customers that it did work, and that it should be done on known potential troublemakers and their friends.

Any other business

PM had £5 bet with RG that Manchester would get the Olympics. [Paul Mason won: the Olympics went to Sydney].

Extract from the minutes of a weekly management meeting held in the Round House on Thursday 30 September 1993:

Other potential investors

There was a discussion as to who might consider investing in the business in the event of there being no assistance forthcoming from Whitbread or other breweries.

The following list of potential investors who could be approached was put together (in no particular order of sanity):

Elliot Rashman/Andy Dodd

Messrs Jabez & Clegg

Tom Bloxham

Pete Waterman

Gareth Hopkins

Jim Ramsbottom

Richard Branson

Ed Bicknell

Quincy Jones

Carol Ainscoe

Peter Gabriel

Chris Blackwell

It was felt that AHW [Tony Wilson] was the best person to approach these people if it came to this.

Extract from the minutes of a weekly management meeting held in the Round House on Friday 28 October 1993:

Haçienda Album

AM said that a friend of hers had heard a tape of the album and was keen to release it if we were no longer interested.

RG pointed out that it wasn’t the fact that we were no longer interested. When the album was first due to be released there were not sufficient funds to finance the project. He had hoped to put it out to his own label, but has had to put all his spare cash into the Haçienda to keep it going. There was also the problem that several of the tracks needed to be licensed from Polygram. We do not want to alert Polygram about the album so there [can be] no chance of it falling under ‘the deal’, and so there could be no progress with the project until ‘the deal’ was completed.

With regards to financing the project, AW said that Vini Reilly had recently received some money, and maybe this could be put into the album project.

RG asked AW why the money could not go into the Haçienda instead to help with various cash problems. AW felt that he could not recommend this to Vini as he thought it was too risky.

RG stressed his amazement at the statement as he and PH had put in considerable sums of their own money to keep the club going, thereby risking their own financial position.

It was agreed that the album would eventually come out on our own label but not until the Factory/Polygram deal had finally been completed.

Any other business

RG had a £5 bet with AE [Alan Erasmus] that Manchester United would be knocked out of the European Cup.

Extracts from minutes of a weekly management meeting held in the Round House on Thursday 18 November 1993:

New Year’s Eve

AM said that there was potentially a problem with Roger Sanchez as we might have to pay for a flight, but he was also playing at Hard Times so we might be able to split the cost with them.

RG said he was very surprised if he was playing at another club on the same night. PM said that apart from Tom Wainwright all of the New Year’s Eve DJs were also performing at other clubs on that night.

On-U-Sound night

This had been cancelled on Monday as only forty tickets had been sold. The only cost to the club was the flyering and this was being refunded by the promoter.

Flesh

No progress had been made as Paul Cons had been away. PH [Peter Hook] asked if it was felt that Cons might take the huff and maybe move the night to Home, but it was felt that as long as it was handled properly there would be no problem; and anyway it was already agreed that Haçienda owns the name.

Extract from the minutes of a weekly management meeting held in the Round House on Friday 17 December 1993:

Thursday nights

It was agreed that the current Thursday was dead and that it will need to be re-launched in the new year. It was agreed that by the next meeting people would have come up with some new ideas, but there was also discussion at the time.

RG had attended the trance night at the Airdri and reported that it seems to have been a very successful night, although most of the people there were openly smoking dope, something it was felt that could not be allowed to happen in the Haçienda.

AM and LR had been to the trance night at Heaven and said that it was the same there as well.

RG had been in touch with the Trance Europe Express people but they were not available until late February,which would be too late to use them to launch a new regular trance night in the New Year.

It was noted that on Thursdays other clubs were organized by outside promoters.

‘Fundamental Uncertainty:

The company is dependent on continued finance being made available and the ongoing support of its shareholders in respect of the amounts owed to it. Continuing financing is required both to enable the company to meet its liabilities as they fall due and to operate without the immediate realization of its assets. The directors believe that continuing finance will be made available and that it is therefore appropriate to prepare the accounts on a going concern basis.’

From Ernst & Young’s ‘Fac 51 Limited Report and
Abbreviated Accounts’ for the year ending 30 June 1993

Clubland had moved on. It was the beginning of the era of trance and the superstar DJ. The era of Cream, Renaissance and Ministry of Sound. The Haçienda,however,had history on its side and therefore retained a powerful allure and, for about three years, operated as much like a ‘normal’ nightclub as it ever had or ever would. It ‘ticked over’.

Our worst promotions of all were the Jolly Roger nights in 1994. They featured two DJs called Luvdup. As part of the deal they asked us to build them a pirate ship in the club;this ended up costing a fortune,plus we’d signed a contract to do six performances. It turned into the biggest loss-maker of any night in the Haçienda: about £30,000 altogether. I went mad. It was a complete balls-up. Literally about six people turned up for each show.The whole sorry saga was relayed to us each week at the Director’s meetings.

Attendances at the club were down. Not only was the Jolly Roger night a flop, but also Transform, the Haçienda’s shot at keeping up with the trance phenomenon, attracted just 452 clubbers, few of whom had paid.

It’s funny but, because I took so many drugs, the actual situations I found myself in were far removed from anything I would have gone near sober. I think a lot of us associated with the Haçienda were desensitized. We adapted to the strangeness; insanity just seemed like the norm. I’d spend hours in the Salford corner, holding the fire doors closed to stop people coming in for nothing. I’d be screaming, ‘Get a bouncer! Get a bouncer!’ and everyone around me would just laugh.It was surreal,hallucinatory.

One night on our way to a party Cormac said he wanted to pop home and get his stash. When we arrived at his place he said, ‘I wonder where Albert is?’

I sat on the settee – twatted – while he kept going on about looking for Albert.I thought that must be his mate.

‘That’s weird,’ he said. ‘I’ve not seen him for weeks. I really don’t know where he is.’

Finally asked, ‘I’ve never heard of him. Who is he?’

‘Oh,he’s my snake.Albert’s an eight-foot boa constrictor.He’s probably down the settee.’

I jumped up from the settee, terrified. We looked and there he was, hibernating. Like I said, strange things happened to us while we were high.

Even stranger still, I got married that year – marking the beginning of an eighteen-month period when I literally didn’t set foot in the Haçienda. Still went to the management meetings, which, sober, weren’t any better but . . .

Christ, what was I thinking? There I was, having the time of my life: a different girl every night;all the drugs I wanted;my own nightclub,one of the hippest places in the world. And I turned my back on it for what I thought was love.

Listen, if you learn anything from reading this book the first thing (obviously) should be: never open a nightclub with your mates. The second thing:never marry an actress.

Marry in haste, repent at leisure, my mum always said and bloody hell she was right.

Things were fine at first. Of course they were; we wouldn’t have got married otherwise. But things soon changed. It wasn’t long before she found she’d had enough of clubs and drugs and gangsters, and dropped the lot. And, because I was married to her, I had to drop them too. No matter that I owned the bloody nightclub. That was it. It was either her of the Haç, and I did what I thought was the right thing at the time.

The downside of this was that I dutifully stopped going to the club and obediently dropped all my mates. Mad nights out became a thing of the past and comedy clubs replaced nightclubs.

The upside – at least there was
one
– was that I got off class As. She absolutely hated drugs and never took them. If I did, she physically stopped me. If she knew I’d taken them she’d go nuts, absolutely berserk, and it was a terrifying sight. To be honest, I was too scared not to stop.

Of course the downside to the upside was that I swapped them for
booze and together we became heavy drinkers – something that would take a heavy toll on us both.

Tell you what, music is a doddle compared to TV. In TV they’re all arse kissers.I was all right,because everybody was terrified of me.No idea why, they were just scared of my reputation (ha ha). Being in a band, you can just tell people to fuck off all the time and get away with it; it’s expected of you. But comedians? They have to kiss some major arse or they can wave their careers goodbye. In TV comedy if you cross anyone you’re fucked and you’ll never work again. I saw up-and-coming comics say one wrong word to the wrong person and then disappear, never to be seen again.It’s an awful industry to work in:there’s no loyalty and no allegiance. It makes rock ’n’ roll look secure, I’m telling you.

Eventually my wife and I split, and began divorce proceedings. The split seemed to drag on forever;it was really tough and this became a very,very bad time for me.There was a ruckus at Bill Wyman’s Sticky Fingers restaurant when I ran into her and her new boyfriend – the less said about that, the better. It was a setup that backfired. Another tip: if you plan to try and assault a club owner make sure he is not with one of his head doormen at the time. Turned out the photographers had been tipped off about the action to come and the trap duly sprung. But as they struck good old Leroy leathered the lot of them. I couldn’t get a punch in; I couldn’t get near anyone. They got thrown out and the manager looked after me every time I went in after that. (‘You can’t buy publicity like that – thanks!’) Wonder what Bill thought? I suppose us bass players should stick together.