The Hacienda - The Club That Shook The World - Sat BBC2 10.15pm - featuring me

[johnnytapia]

I watched it with my wife last night. She was into clubbing, but she's not from Manchester and had only heard of the Hacienda. I was too young to have gone to the Hacienda, but our friends with older brothers and sisters all talked about it. The music and the acid house videos absolutely blew me away at the time, I'd never heard anything like it before.

Anyway, assuming you were the guy with the grey hair @Didsbury Dave we thought you came across really well! Well done mate, it's not easy opening up like that in an interview.

I've said for many years that the cultural impact of the Hacienda on Manchester is absolutely incalculable. Quite simply, it incubated the Madchester scene and launched club culture here. The music, style and identity just smashed Manchester onto the map as THE cultural hotspot in the UK in the late 80s. It then attracted people from all around the UK to the Universities in Manchester and made it into the progressive city it is now. Those people created the new industries, the Northern Quarter etc etc and it's no exaggeration to say that Manchester still continues to be the dominant cultural centre outside London - a world city.

I honestly think that the combination of the Hacienda and United - sorry - threw Manchester around Europe into the 90s. United at the top, City at the bottom and it created that perfect back story for what came next. City rose from the ashes, just like Manchester did in the 80s, and became the best team in the world. You cannot separate Manchester from music and football.

It's really quite sad - but a reflection of modern Manchester - that an iconic venue has been converted to flats. We will always have the music, City and United in Manchester but there's something missing for me. We have had the National Football music and the museums at City and United to showcase Manchesters credentials as one of the great world football cities. However, we have nothing to show for the music. The music from that era - Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets, Guy Called Gerald, 808 State and the DJs etc etc aren't recognised as such.

How fitting would it have been to have converted the Hacienda into the Manchester Museum for Music? At least something to say to the world "we're fucking proud of the music we have you and we really hope you enjoy it!".

Let the music speak for itself.

 

[johnnytapia]

Good post mate and thanks for the comments. You really would think Manchester could support a sort of Hard Rock Cafe venue filled with memorabilia from the City’s musical past. I’m surprised Hooky hasn’t done it as he’s cashing in on everything else.

The moment you started to type “a sort of Hard Rock Cafe...” should have tripped all the inner alarm bells and flashing warning lights. A huge, fuck-off neon light should have fallen across your retinae: NO! NOT EVER.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

The moment you started to type “a sort of Hard Rock Cafe...” should have tripped all the inner alarm bells and flashing warning lights. A huge, fuck-off neon light should have fallen across your retinae: NO! NOT EVER.

I never said it was a good thing. I said I’m surprised nobody has done it.

 

[johnnytapia]

I never said it was a good thing. I said I’m surprised nobody has done it.

I read that as you supported it! You’re right about Hooky.

“You really would think Manchester could support a sort of Hard Rock Cafe venue filled with memorabilia from the City’s musical past”

 

[Didsbury Dave]

I read that as you supported it! You’re right about Hooky.

“You really would think Manchester could support a sort of Hard Rock Cafe venue filled with memorabilia from the City’s musical past”

I wouldn’t be arsed one way or the other. It’s too late. The whole thing has been repackaged and sold and carted around the country with Hacienda Classics and the new New Order and Hooky’s “Joy Division” gigs and Stone Roses stadium gigs and FAC51 themed clubs and t shirts and documentaries and god knows what else. My days of being a purist/snob are behind me now as that ship sailed a long time ago.

It was great to be young and there when it mattered.

 

[johnnytapia]

I wouldn’t be arsed one way or the other. It’s too late. The whole thing has been repackaged and sold and carted around the country with Hacienda Classics and the new New Order and Hooky’s “Joy Division” gigs and Stone Roses stadium gigs and FAC51 themed clubs and t shirts and documentaries and god knows what else. My days of being a purist/snob are behind me now as that ship sailed a long time ago.

It was great to be young and there when it mattered.

Yep. Seeing the Roses in Wigan, Widnes, International, Hacienda just before they went big time. Mondays too. Was a great time, loads of great gigs, great records, clubs playing great local music. Every week the NME or Melody Maker seemed to have a Mancunian cover.

 

[Deleted member 77198]

I thought you were Dave Haslam!

I do a great Dave Haslam impression… although you’ll just have to trust me on that as I can’t do it on here!

[my predictive text changed Haslam to Haaland then!]

 

[Deleted member 77198]

I watched it with my wife last night. She was into clubbing, but she's not from Manchester and had only heard of the Hacienda. I was too young to have gone to the Hacienda, but our friends with older brothers and sisters all talked about it. The music and the acid house videos absolutely blew me away at the time, I'd never heard anything like it before.

Anyway, assuming you were the guy with the grey hair @Didsbury Dave we thought you came across really well! Well done mate, it's not easy opening up like that in an interview.

I've said for many years that the cultural impact of the Hacienda on Manchester is absolutely incalculable. Quite simply, it incubated the Madchester scene and launched club culture here. The music, style and identity just smashed Manchester onto the map as THE cultural hotspot in the UK in the late 80s. It then attracted people from all around the UK to the Universities in Manchester and made it into the progressive city it is now. Those people created the new industries, the Northern Quarter etc etc and it's no exaggeration to say that Manchester still continues to be the dominant cultural centre outside London - a world city.

I honestly think that the combination of the Hacienda and United - sorry - threw Manchester around Europe into the 90s. United at the top, City at the bottom and it created that perfect back story for what came next. City rose from the ashes, just like Manchester did in the 80s, and became the best team in the world. You cannot separate Manchester from music and football.

It's really quite sad - but a reflection of modern Manchester - that an iconic venue has been converted to flats. We will always have the music, City and United in Manchester but there's something missing for me. We have had the National Football music and the museums at City and United to showcase Manchesters credentials as one of the great world football cities. However, we have nothing to show for the music. The music from that era - Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets, Guy Called Gerald, 808 State and the DJs etc etc aren't recognised as such.

How fitting would it have been to have converted the Hacienda into the Manchester Museum for Music? At least something to say to the world "we're fucking proud of the music we have you and we really hope you enjoy it!".

I’ve said before that we should have a Manchester Music Museum.

Between me and @BlueMoonRisin’ we came up with a list of Manchester bands, artists and venues during lockdown. Just look at this list (Madchester, the Haç and Factory are just a small part of all this):

10cc, 808 State The 1975, Audioweb Badly Drawn Boy, Beady Eye, Bee Gees, Black Grape, Blossoms, Elkie Brooks, Buzzcocks, Chameleons, Courteeners, Doves, Elbow, Freddie and the Dreamers, Liam Gallagher, Noel Gallagher, David Gray, Gary Barlow, Happy Mondays, Herman's Hermits, High Flying Birds, the Hollies, inpiral carpets, James, Joy Division, Lisa Stanfield, M People, Magazine, Morrissey, New Fast Automatic Daffodils, New Order, Northside, Oasis, Puressence, Railway Children, Sad Cafe, the Seahorses, Simply Rag, Slaughter and the Dogs, the Seahorses, Slow Readers Club, the Smiths, Take That, the Verve.

‘Just to add to your list:
Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seager, The Dakotas, The Toggery Five, Georgie Flame and the Blue Flames, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, St Louis Union, The Monkees, CrosbieStillsNash&Young, John Mayal and the Bluesbreakers, Barclay James Harvest, Brian and Michael, Stack Waddy, John Cooper Clarke, A Certain Ratio, Section 25, Quando Quango, The Durutti Column, The Fall, Frank Sidebottom, Mike and the Mechanics, Swing Out Sister, The Bodines, The Mock Turtles, Paris Angels, The High, Intastella, King of the Slums, Electronic, Monaco, K-Klass, The Charlatans, D:Ream, N-Trance, Urban Cookie Collective, Diane Charlemagne, The Future Sound of London, Amorphous Androgynous, The Chemical Brothers, Lamb, Northern Uproar, Mr Scruff, Jim Noir, Starsailor, Ian Brown...... even the original line-up of The Coral had a lad from Withington in it.

And probably many many more!

All Mancunian artists or bands, or bands with Mancunians in, or bands part of Manchester scenes, or bands from close to the city.

When you look at our lists and think we haven’t even exhausted it! And things like the Royal College of Music is here, we started the Northern Soul scene at the famous Twisted Wheel, TOTPs was filmed here, the famous Lesser Free Trade Hall gig, Factory Records, the famous Haçienda, Madchester, psychedelic Baggie, warehouse parties, Sankeys Soap (in 2010 voted #1 club in the world by Mixmag), the busiest indoor arena in the world and another on the way, to little places like The Boardwalk that started bands off; how we don’t have a Manchester Museum of Music is criminal!’

 

[denislawsbackheel]

I’ve said before that we should have a Manchester Music Museum.

Between me and @BlueMoonRisin’ we came up with a list of Manchester bands, artists and venues during lockdown. Just look at this list (Madchester, the Haç and Factory are just a small part of all this):

Roy Harper…

 

[manimanc]

Just watched it, was really good, took me back to summer 89 when I started to really get into my music, football and clothes.
I was too young to go into the Hacienda, I started going to Ruby Tuesday nights in 97 quite religiously, cheap beer and great nights.

Shaun Ryder talking about raves and going to car parks after a night at Bowlers or Angels, yep we did that in 91.

And @Didsbury Dave, you came across really well, anyone told you that you got a look of a young Rob Gretton?

How did you get the gig to be on the programme?