The Haçienda (24 page)

Suzanne in the kitchen cottoned on to this and started selling hundreds of bottles of water herself at £2 each.

She used to laugh at us, asking, ‘Why don’t you sell it?’

She earned a fortune,in direct competition with the bar.Rob knew this but didn’t care. The public might have thought that the Haçienda sold bottled water, but he knew otherwise; to him, that kept his principles intact.

Suzanne had previously DJed for a while (she was the first female DJ in Manchester).As kitchen manager she was the latest to try to make the kitchen profitable. Didn’t work. She leased it from us in the end, but never paid any rent – for fifteen years, she proudly boasts.

Everyone thought she took the piss,but no one else would run the kitchen – for the simple reason that it made no money. We had to keep the kitchen open because we needed a supper licence to stay open late. In other words, a full menu, but all anyone wanted was chips. Suzanne sold more Rizlas, poppers, chewing gum and bottled water than she ever served food.Who wanted to eat anyway?

If Suzanne fell out with you, she wouldn’t let you in the kitchen. She’d say, ‘Fuck off. Fuck off. No, fuck off,’ and refuse to have anything to do with you.

I’d stand there many times, dying for a piss, begging to be let in. She ran the kitchen like a club within a club with its own separate door policy.

We fought over daft things. One time I went in trying to get some drugs.She said,‘I’ve got a bit of speed here,but it’s really strong.Be very careful with it.’

I went, ‘Yeah, yeah. Fuck off, Suzanne.’

She gave me this wrap of stuff called Pink Champagne. And it was actually pink. I took a big fat line of it (‘I’ll show her’) and was wide awake for four days. I got rather well acquainted with my ceiling during that time. She laughed her ass off, phoning me up every day, asking,
‘How you feeling? Told you, didn’t I, you fucking, greedy pig.’ We really did enjoy a rather special relationship.

Another reason I needed the kitchen, remember: the Haçienda bogs were rubbish. The architects spent so much on the balcony, the plastic wall, the arches and all that crap, yet nobody had considered that for a club licensed to hold 1200 people we’d need more than four toilets for the men and eight for the girls. We let in 2000 people, so the bogs overflowed all the time and everyone in the basement walked around ankle-deep in piss and shit. Quite horrible, but it became a standing joke. ‘Haçienda trousers’, we called it. Everyone had to have them – or you weren’t a fully paid-up member of the Experience.

We had lot of problems because of the queues for the toilets. They became legendary for fights because there were so many punters in the stalls getting twatted, which stopped anyone else getting inside for a shit (vicious circle: they needed a shit because they’d been taking drugs). They’d all be bursting. It was a nightmare right from the start. There simply weren’t enough stalls. For years and years we tried to put that right but we could never afford to do it. Today, you wouldn’t be allowed to open a club with so few toilets.

The mood could get heavy, though. I remember thinking one night that I’d rough it and use the toilets. I was waiting to go in one of the stalls when this kid pushed past:a thin,wiry,psycho-looking little fucker.

I muttered, ‘Oh, fuckin’ hell,’ or something and waited for him to come out. When he did, I told him, ‘Hey, there’s a queue here, you know.’

He got right in my face – nose to nose – and went, ‘Fuck off, you cunt.’

His eyes were absolutely empty, like a shark.
Shit
.

After that, I thought, ‘Fuck that, I’ll stick to the kitchen and my famous Hellmann’s bucket.’

I’d stand there, peeing in my bucket, and Suzanne would be telling all the punters queuing up for chips and water, ‘Do you fucking see him there? The dirty bastard.He’s a director.He owns the fucking place and he’s pissing in a bucket in the corner.’

To get back at her, I’d chase her around with it. Thinking about it now, I should have kept it – I could have sold it on eBay.

In addition to the problems with the toilets, the cloakroom wasn’t big enough either (we had, after all, improvised with the location) and that turned into an issue as well. Everyone who worked there was so
off it they’d sometimes just give the coats away. It was located right by the main doors and created a real bottleneck, so there was lots of jostling and lots of aggro.

One night I was stood talking to one of the bouncers and some pissed-up kid lurched forward. The bouncer told him, ‘Back of the queue, mate,’ but the kid tried to push his way past.

‘Hey, mate,’ repeated the doorman. ‘There’s a queue here.’

The kid muttered something then tried again, and again so the bouncer lamped him. Sparkled the guy.

‘Well,’I thought.‘He did try to warn him ...’

We were so busy – yet still strapped for cash – that maintenance on the building was impossible. The floor had originally been painted grey, which made the place look bright, but after a while it wore down to bare concrete. After all the money we had lost on the set-up, and the really bad business we’d suffered during the first few years (cue tumbleweed),every penny was needed just to keep it afloat.

Not that it stopped us partying.Nothing did.When we hosted the Disorder party in the basement, celebrating New Order’s gig at the Manchester G-Mex in December that year, all of our friends were completely twatted. The party cost us £10,000, which was lucky because we’d just earned £10,010 for the gig. A profit of £10. But we just carried on. No one cared. We were that off it. I lasted ten minutes at the party before I got dragged home by the missus for being a naughty boy. I was gutted.

Present at that same party (which was assigned a Factory Records catalogue number, FAC 208) was Creation Records boss Alan McGee, whose label was struggling now that his biggest band, The House of Love, had left for a major label (although he remained their manager). All his hopes seemed to be pinned on an Anglo-Irish noise-rock band, My Bloody Valentine, who had been widely dismissed as third-rate by most critics in the years 1986 and 1987.

McGee had taken ecstasy that night – not for the first time, but it was possibly the most significant. As he stumbled on to the basement’s dance floor, he had an epiphany.

‘I heard acid-house music and suddenly I got it,’ he told writer David Cavanagh. ‘Something went click and I went into a new world. December 17 is when I got acid house. And that’s when Creation changed.’

McGee was then a regular visitor to the Haçienda. He, and Creation, spent 1989 partying, and by the following year he had introduced Primal Scream to acid house. Producer Andy Weatherall was found and the era’s anthem, ‘Loaded’, was released.