Here’s a doc on the infamous Hacienda club in Manchester. Watch it. Now.
Back in the early 80s, New Order thought it would be a good idea to construct a state-of-the-art dance club for all their friends in Manchester. While it did become an epicentre for so much music for many years, the thing was an absolute financial disaster, sucking up any profits New Order made. In fact, it’s impossible to overstate how much of a boondoggle the Hacienda was. After all, New Order’s Peter Hook wrote a book about how NOT to run a club.
Now there’s a long-overdue documentary about the Hacienda. Produced by the BBC, it’s worth the 57 minute running time.
I’m a little late to the party but there’s a brilliant four-disc box set called FAC51 The Hacienda 1982 that was just release recently (got mine in the mail about a month back from the UK from Cherry Red Records). Came in a brilliant little cd sized book and eventually I will get around to reading the teeny text that is the liner notes on all the songs. Covers all the major players in the scene at the time and only a few erm smash hits (I suppose that was kind of intended! ) most of the songs are ones that most of us – even the die-hard new wavers/post punk types won’t recognize off the cuff. Bands? Oh, totally. Songs, surprises all around. CDs are meant to be listened to in order as if you were there (in my dreams!).
I still wish I could have gone on your Manchester holiday, Alan. What a treat that would have been. You must do that again, some time when/if all this inflation gets a bit more under control and let’s hope we don’t have to have a war or anything for *that* to happen.
Ruins