Factory Records FACTORY RECORDS FAC421 Factoryrecords.net FACTORY RECORDS-----FACTORY RECORDS-----FACTORY RECORDS------FACTORY RECORDS-----FACTORY RECORDS-----FACTORY RECORDS If you have any new information to contribute, please click here to let me know and I will post it! FACTORY RECORDS What: Factory Records , legendary label responsible for the birth of the "Madchester" scene in the 1980s Where: Manchester, UK (though now defunct) Label Founders: Tony Wilson, Alan Erasmus, Peter Saville, Martin Hannett Founded: 1979 The Early Years: Club Origins: Factory Records began as a club in 1978, started by Tony Wilson and Alan Erasmus. They were joined by designer Peter Saville and Producer Martin Hannett to form Factory Records and released their first EP, A Factory Sampler, featuring acts that had played at their club, in 1979. A very small operation at first, the label was initially run from an office in Erasmus' apartment. Success, however, was just around the corner.

Joy Division and New Order: The first album released by Factory was 'Unknown Pleasures' by melancholic Mancunian rock band Joy Division in 1979, at the same time that their manager Rob Gretto joined the label. The album received great critical acclaim, the band appeared on the front cover of the UK music mag the NME and recorded a session for influential BBC DJ John Peel . Wilson credits this success with turning the label into a “true business”. Plague by ill health and depression, singer Ian Curtis committed suicide in 1980 just before the release of their 2nd album. The remaining members went on to enjoy huge success with Factory as New Order . Other Factory Records Acts: Joy Division and New Order are the two Factory Records acts that have had the longest lasting impact on music, but it wasn't all about them. Factory worked with other well known acts, including: A Certain Ratio Factory didn't only put out records, however. The label was at the center of a music scene of their own making - the so called "Madchester" scene - named, of course, for Manchester, Factory Record's base.

And at the center of that scene was a Factory Records run club, the famous (or infamous) Hacienda. The Hacienda: Start to Finish: In 1982 Gretto had the idea to open a Factory Records supported club in Manchester, and thus began The Hacienda. The club was pivotal in the evolving music scene in Manchester in the 80s, and many world famous DJ started their careers behind the decks there. Designed by Saville and Ben Kelly, the club was immediately popular, but due to a policy of too low entry and drink prices (and the fact that the large majority of customers were spending more money buy drugs from the bouncers than drinks from the bar), the club rarely made a profit. However, Hacienda outlived Factory, finally closing it's doors in 1997. Tony Wilson: Wilson, initially a TV presenter in Manchester, unquestionably was the driving force behind the label, and he loved his city as much as he loved his label. He was dubbed Mr Manchester for his work in the development of the city and towards the end of his life lobbied heavily for a devolved parliament for the North of England.

After Factory's, demise he set up In The City , an annual music industry festival often held in Manchester that has been responsible for launching the careers of numerous bands. He died from a heart attack in 2007, leaving a hole in the cultural life of Manchester. The Rest of Them: Wilson tends to get all the credit for Factory, but the other partners were actually very crucial to the label. Seville designed all the labels early sleeves and had a long running relationship with Joy Division and later New Order. His designs were a big part of Factory's image, and his aesthetic fitted with Wilson Situationist leanings. Producer Hannett's work on the early Factory releases defined the post-punk sound and, according to bassist Hook, “he created the Joy Division sound”. Joy Division's manager Gretton insisted that the band sign with a Manchester label, which gave the label it's initially success. Catalogue Numbers: Unlike most record labels Factory had a eccentric system of catalogue numbers for it's releases. Rather than running in the normal chronological order different sets of number were used for each band, for example Happy Monday's releases usually had a catalogue number ending in a 2.

Other “productions” by factory were also given numbers, FAC01 is a poster advertising a club night. FAC61 was the number given to a law suit brought against the label by former partner Hannett. FAC501, the final catalogue number, was given to Tony Wilson's coffin. The End: Financial trouble eventually brought Factory to a close. The Hacienda was swallowing money, the label was financing the recording of a Happy Mondays album in Barbados, New Order's second album costs were spiralling out of control, and the label faced bankruptcy. A potential rescue deal with London Records fell through and the company was declared bankrupt in November 1992. After Factory's demise, many of the acts moved to London records, often taking their back catalogue with them. A semi-fictional account of the story of Factory Records was depicted in the film 24hr Party People in 2002. “True Business” - Well, Maybe Not So Much....: While Wilson credits Unknown Pleasures as the start of Factory as a “true business,” it is fair to say that the label was never run like any other company.

Few of the acts had contracts, a fact that cost the label what would have been a life saving deal with London Records. When London realized that Factory owned none of the recordings that they had released as they'd never had contacts with the bands, they recinded their offer. In addition to not having contracts, the labels finances were always on shaky ground - New Order's Blue Monday became the best selling 12” single in the UK, but due to high production costs the label lost money on every copy sold of the original die cast cut sleeve. Sending The Happy Mondays to Barbados to make a record and allowing recording costs for New Order's album to spin out of control into the hundreds of thousands of dollars range set the label up for almost certain failure. Despite all of these questionable decisions, Factory remains a lauded label - why? The answer is probably down to a combination of really great music, the force of nature that was Tony Wilson and the label's knack for creating a story about itself. Since Wilson's death, there have been rumors off and on about the re-launch of Factory, but even Wilson tried that himself in the mid-1990s to no great effect. Factory is as much a moment of time in music as a great label.

Anthony Wilson, the music mogul behind some of Manchester's most successful bands, has died aged 57. The Salford-born entrepreneur, who founded Factory records, the label behind New Order and the Happy Mondays, had been suffering from kidney cancer. Wilson, who was also famous for setting up the Hacienda nightclub, underwent emergency surgery in January to remove a kidney. He died on Friday evening (August 10th 2007)at the Christie Hospital surrounded by family. A spokesman for the hospital said: "Tony Wilson died peacefully at the Christie Hospital at 6.05pm this evening with his family by his bedside. "Tony was a very great supporter of the Christie and this is extremely sad news. "We would like to extend our sympathy to Tony's family." Doctors had recommended he take the drug Sutent after chemotherapy failed to beat the disease, but the NHS refused to fund the £3,500-a-month treatment. However, members of the Happy Mondays and other acts he supported over the years stepped in and started a fund to help pay for it. His vision and determination played a key role in helping to put Manchester on the map for its music and vibrant nightlife and his entrepreneurial skills inspired people everywhere.

Phil Saxe, who used to work at Factory Records with Wilson, said: "Part of me, part of Manchester, part of modern British music has died tonight. "Tony was a genius, basically. "He was a visionary in that he helped bands, who otherwise wouldn't have made it, who were a bit out of the ordinary. "He helped them realise their dreams and through that probably realised himself to be Mr Manchester". 'An inspiration' BBC journalist Kristan Deconinck sought advice from him in the early 1980s on how to launch an independent record label shortly after Wilson had started Factory records. "He couldn't have been more helpful and more patient," Kristan said. "He inspired me - and countless others - to have a go if you believed in something. "That in itself is a great legacy, apart from the vision he had with his label, his shows, his attitude - his contribution to a new culture. "When I later met him, I found him far more amenable than scurrilous rumours had led me to believe and my esteem for the guy never diminished." 'Soundtrack of my life' Speaking before his death, Wilson reflected on life and death.

"I used to joke in my early 50s that I'd had such a fantastic life, I'd be happy to die," he said. "And then suddenly, I find some other reasons for living and just like get excited again about life when it comes along. So that was slightly annoying. I think I was a lord of my own presumption for thinking I'd be happy to die". Tributes to Anthony Wilson have been flooding in from across the globe - both from people who had worked with him and those who had enjoyed the entertainment he brought to the world. Speaking on News 24, Radio 2 presenter Stuart Maconie said: "There was no more influential and important figure in music in the last 30 or 40 years. "He was incredibly generous, giving, enthusiastic and supportive of bands around him. "He wasn't a businessman. He just loved the music." The BBC, which employed Wilson, paid its own tribute. "There will never be anyone quite like Tony," a spokesman said. "He was a true free spirit and a passionate advocate of Manchester - the city, its people and, of course, its music." Fan Lewis Hart, from Hyde, Greater Manchester, wrote: "A one off who was an ambassador for Manchester.

A huge shock." Another fan, Ross Burton, from Annapolis, Maryland, in the USA, summed up his many achievements with a poignant eulogy: "Thanks Tony for helping to bring me the soundtrack of my life. Rest in peace mate." Obituary: Tony Wilson Record label owner, broadcaster, journalist, pop impresario and nightclub founder - Anthony Wilson was famous for many things, but perhaps he was most famous for being a self-styled professional Mancunian. Tony Wilson was widely regarded as the man who put Manchester on the map for its music and vibrant nightlife. He remained active on the city scene until his death on Friday aged 57. He was born in Salford's Hope Hospital on 20 February 1950. He attended De La Salle Christian Brothers' school, before going on to read English at the University of Cambridge in 1968. In the 1970s he went to work for Granada Television in Manchester, where he fronted programmes including music show So It Goes and current affairs magazine World In Action. He later went on to be long-time host of the early evening Granada Reports.

Wilson was a founder of Factory Records in the late 1970s, the label behind Joy Division, New Order and The Happy Mondays. The Hacienda was one of the most famous clubs in the world He continued to work in television even at the height of his work with Factory records. In 1982, he set up The Hacienda nightclub, which became known as perhaps the most famous club in the world in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It became the heart of the "Madchester" scene, playing host to bands such as New Order, The Smiths, The Stone Roses and Oasis. Even Madonna played her first UK gig at the Whitworth Street club in February 1983. The club was famous for its dance nights, particularly house music nights where DJs Mike Pickering, Sasha and Dave Haslam regularly played. In the early 1990s the club was blighted by cash flow problems and it closed its doors in 1997. Devolution call The building was demolished in 2002 and apartments were built in its place.

The semi-fictional story of the club, the music and Wilson's life was documented in Michael Winterbottom's 2002 film, 24 Hour Party People. His character was played by comedian Steve Coogan to critical acclaim. Wilson later went on to set up the annual Manchester music conference, In The City, with long-term partner and former Miss England Yvette Livesey. But it was not just in the music world that he made his mark - he was also a key player in local politics and supported a campaign for a regional assembly for the North West. Emergency surgery In 2004 he set up an unofficial coalition calling for regional devolution, called The Necessary Group. More recently he presented radio shows Ground Rules and Talk of the Town on BBC Radio Manchester and Sunday Roast on Xfm Manchester. He was the main presenter of the BBC's Politics Show North West. Wilson fell ill in 2006, before undergoing emergency surgery to have a kidney removed in January 2007. Doctors diagnosed him with cancer and he started a chemotherapy course at Manchester's Christie Hospital. The chemotherapy failed to beat the disease and he was recommended to take the drug Sutent, which is not funded by the NHS in Manchester.

Members of the Happy Mondays and other acts he supported over the years had started a fund to help pay for his treatment. ******************************************* “Being from another country, Tony Wilson was representing not only a record company “Factory Records” but a whole city. He was in my eyes Mr. Manchester. He signed many legendary bands including Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays etc.. I had the privilege to meet him couple of times when I visited Manchester. He was always a pleasure to be around him. It has been a real honor to cross briefly your amazing path. You are and will always be a true legend. My Deepest Condolences to the Wilson family. David Sultan The Hacienda Manchester buy the soundtrack ‘Twenty Four Hour Party People’ is concerned with much more than the Hacienda, though; it follows the fortunes of Factory label. Spurred on by punk, Tony Wilson and Alan Erasmus put on gigs, hosting ‘Factory’ nights at the Russell Club in Hulme in June 1978, which led to the formation of Factory Records later in the same year. Rob Gretton instigated a joint venture between New Order and Factory Records, looking for a site for a club of their own.

Others involved in the record company took some persuading. There’s an episode in the film when Martin Hannett - New Order’s producer (and co-director of Factory) - throws a massive strop; he wanted to spend any spare cash on recording technology. Late in 1981 Gretton and friends took a lease on an old yacht showroom on Whitworth Street West in a semi-derelict part of town overlooked by a rusting gas works. Making full use of the warehouse layout - the industrial girders, iron pillars, and high ceiling - Ben Kelly set about designing the Hacienda, a very different place to most clubs in Britain with their sticky carpets and potted plants. The ‘Architectural Review’ called Ben Kelly’s Hacienda a “pioneering interior”. Open from May 21st 1982, the Hacienda was a members-only club, open sometimes five or six nights a week. Bills weren’t getting paid and no money being made. Fortunately for the whole enterprise, New Order had commercial success with 'Blue Monday'; the single spent 34 weeks in the charts in 1983 and became the biggest selling 12” record of the era.

The band were persuaded to part with proceeds from their record sales to support the club’s high losses. For all its aesthetic glory, the Hacienda was cursed with bad acoustics and poor sightlines. The first resident DJ, Hewan Clarke, was hidden away in a little boxroom to one side of the stage. He lobbied for the DJ box to be moved from the bunker and a wooden structure on the balcony was eventually built, overlooking the dancefloor. Ben Kelly claimed his design was being compromised, but it was the perfect move, pre-empting the shift to club nights and the rise of the superstar DJs. Ben Kelly Designs - Plans and Elevations features The Hacienda & Dry Bar buy the book But in those early years the club would often be empty. I’d sometimes be there, a paying customer, possibly the only one. I’d sit at one of the balcony tables watching the videos projected onto a big screen and listening to the sound Hewan’s electro selections echo round the hall. Claude Bessy was the video jock; he’d splice together bondage videos, old black and white films and weird psychedelia. An amazing character, although he’s not in '24 Hour Party People'.

On one occasion the club hosted an installation by David Mach; thousands of vinyl copies of New Order’s ‘Confusion’ single were glued together in huge piles round the dancefloor pillars. This is not in the film either, although at the time it was impressive. To me, at least, and probably around two dozen other people, although they never made a film about us; the twenty four arty people. The smaller clubs were more fun; The Venue, Berlin, The Playpen, The Man Alive. The busiest club night at the Hacienda up to 1985 was their ‘No Funk’ night on a Tuesday. On Saturday nights in 1984 the big tune was Lulu’s ‘Shout’ (you can’t believe this can you?). When Mike Pickering instigated ‘Nude’ night on a Friday it all changed. He had the perfect playlist to lead the club from post-punk to electro funk. He’d play stuff like Whistle ‘Please Love Me’, and the SOS Band ‘Just be Good to Me’. There were no rules. He was playing house before anyone else. Paul Mason arrived in January 1986 from Rock City in Nottingham and, with Paul Cons, instituted a new regime.

These two men were pivotal in the story (though they were unrepresented in ‘Twenty Four Hour Party People’); they were responsible for the day to day running of the club and the promotion and marketing. In this era, there were chaotic board meetings when New Order would be cajoled into pledging more money, and Wilson and Gretton would air more differences of opinion (the tension, enmity, between the two men is one of the best things in the film), but Mason, building on the success of ‘Nude’, accelerated a switch into club nights. Tony Wilson - 24 Hour Party People what the sleeve notes never tell you buy the book Although there were some memorable gigs at the club - ‘The Tube’ filmed Madonna there in 1984, and the likes of the Birthday Party and The Smiths had played there too - but by 1986 live music was clearly not making the Hacienda any money. I’ve always believed that starting some club nights was a last resort; at that time having DJs playing was so much cheaper than booking bands. I was invited to launch a Thursday ‘Temperance Club’ night in May 1986.

The first night five hundred people came in, which was pitiful in the context of what went on later, but it was enough, at the time, for me to be given Saturday nights as well. By the end of 1986 my DJing was deemed a success and I was given a pay rise; £110, for two nights work. I wasn’t looking to make money out of this DJing lark; I might even have done it for nowt, if they’d asked. There was no plan. No-one got round a table to mastermind the perfect strategy to ensure we were playing the right records to win ourselves a place in music history. We were DJs who understood the people in the queue, and we played what we liked. On Thursdays I played hip hop, New Order, The Smiths, The Stooges, and Public Enemy. Saturdays were more funky, then housey. Mike Pickering had already been joined by DJ Graeme Park and ‘Nude’ was already legendary. By the end of 1987 the famous Hacienda queues were there from Wednesday through to Saturday, each night having its own identity. At 9pm the queue would be round the building.

Ironically, considering what was to happen in the club within a year or so, it was a friendly crowd. There was more violence at Manchester’s mainstream nights where lager louts would battle it out with broken bottles at closing time. A conclusive change came in 1988. Ecstasy use changed clubs forever; a night at the Hacienda went from being a great night out, to an intense, life changing experience. The new sounds of house and techno seemed to survive the club’s poor acoustics; cluttered music sounded a mess bouncing off the walls of the club, but thudding beats, piano lines, and minimalist bleeps rocked the room. The music sounded even better on drugs. Generation Ecstasty buy the book I’ve glimpsed it since in other clubs, looking out of the DJ box and seeing steam rising, seeing the bodies pressed together, moving together on the dancefloor. The DJs weren’t in control; it was like trying to tame a thousand maniacs. The nights were unpredictable, hard to handle. One night a girl came into the DJ box, took alll her clothes off, lay on the floor and started pulling at my trousers.

I resisted her charms; no-one ever cleaned the floor, I reasoned, what was she thinking of? The most intense night was Wednesdays, ‘Hot’, launched in the second half of 1988, the quintessential Summer of Love experience piloted by DJs Mike Pickering and Jon Da Silva. It was like a mini-midweek Ibiza, with a swimming pool next to the dancefloor, and airhorns and thunderstorms and pianos filling the air. DJs weren’t quite anonymous, but they certainly weren’t the stars. The audience was just so crazed, devoted; nothing would have been achieved without them. Whereas music in clubs is now pigeon-holed and segregated, in those first years of acid house, the dancefloor was open minded. In retrospect DJs have tried to convince us of their purist underground credentials, that wasn’t really the case. In the acid house era you would have heard house, and techno, but also hip hop records like ‘Know How’ by Young MC, New Order and Euro disco tracks by Italian production teams.

Hacienda Classics download For a couple of years, the Hacienda could boast sell-out crowds four nights a week, but there was massive energy throughout Manchester at the time; clubs like the Thunderdome and Konspiracy were also attracting big, discerning crowds. Downsides to all this activity were becoming apparent, though. In July 1989 Claire Leighton took an 'E' given to her by her boyfriend, collapsed in the club and died thirty-six hours later. By the middle of 1990 there were problems on the door of all the best clubs in Manchester; the scene was being wrecked by drug dealers. I finished the 'Temperance Club' night in October 1990; in attempts to control the crowd coming in, the doormen had started requesting student ID, which is always a bad sign. Unbeknownst to me, Liam and Noel Gallagher had just started hanging out in the club. Noel was a roadie with the Inspiral Carpets, Liam was a devoted fan of the Stone Roses. It was a wonderful community. The older generation would hang out too.

Mark E Smith of The Fall would be there, nursing a pint, grumbling about hairdressers and students in the club. Happy Mondays and their mates would be underneath the balcony, surrounded by the thinnest girls in the club. The Hacienda was a great community but escalating drug use meant the club became a major market for drugs, and violence ensued as gangs battled for control of the door (and, thus, the supply). There were less welcome visitors to the DJ box. At the end of one night a lad drew a gun on me and demanded my records. Jon Da Silva has since told me that my choice of records sucked, but thinking about it, at least the gunmen was threatening to shoot me because he liked the records I was playing, rather than shoot me because he hated them. So I must have been doing something right. Gang War buy the book During 1990, the management fended off attempts by the police to have the club shut down, but in January 1991 they closed the club voluntarily. The violence was increasing and the disastrous publicity was scaring away customers.

Tony Wilson usually stays opimistic, talking things up, but these were bad times, and when he announced the closure anxiety was etched on his face. The closure was temporary, and three months later the club re-opened. In later years, there were some great nights in the club, but the Hacienda no longer had the monopoly on good ideas and big crowds. There was a belated attempt to exploit the brand, and t-shirts were printed and sold (another job for Fiona Allen; she ran the shop). In 1992 Factory Records went bankrupt, struggling with unsuccessful new signings, the faltering career of Happy Mondays and the reluctance of New Order to make another LP for the label; the financial problems compounded by the high borrowings incurred on a new HQ on Charles Street. At the Hacienda there was recurrent violence and Mike Pickering finally severed his connections with the club just after the 11th birthday after he’d had a knife pulled on him, and guest DJ for the occasion, David Morales, had a glass thrown at him. New clubs arrived in the city; Paradise Factory, Sankey’s Soap in 1994.

Through the mid-1990s, Paul Cons ran the huge monthly gay ‘Flesh’ nights and Graeme Park kept the flag flying on Saturdays with his choice selection of American-style garage (ably assisted by Tom Wainwright who was another unsung hero), but most of the city’s successul nights were elsewhere; ‘Bugged Out’ at Sankey’s Soap, ‘Life’ at Bowlers, ‘Yellow’ at the Boardwalk, ‘One Tree Island’ at Jabez Clegg, and ‘Headfunk’ at Time. In Liverpool, ‘Cream’ learned important lessons; trying not to make enemies of the police, getting the merchandising right. The world had certainly caught up with the Hacienda. Discotheque Volume 1 - The Hacienda Factory Records Manchester - The Hacienda, Peter Saville and Ben Kelly Oliver Wood Photography A brief guide to the Factory Records design style by Oliver Wood. The 2004 exhibition of Peter Saville's graphic design work at Urbis in Manchester inspired me to write my own take on some of his highly influential graphic design for the iconic Factory organisation. Factory was more than just a record company.

For my generation of Mancunians Factory's unique design styles and range of conceptual ideas not only revolutionised the way music was packaged, but also established the essence of a new and vibrant cultural identity for Manchester in the late 70s. The Manchester thing, eventually became the Madchester cult. Most of the material shown here was designed by Peter Saville and demonstrates the general breadth of the Factory organisations design remit. I have arranged the material into categories of style, which are not necessarily chronological. Saville seemed to work with many disparate ideas simultaneously and it is not generally possible to identify any one style with any one particular period of Factory's operations. All images are from Dennis Remmer's Factory Discography website. All text © Oliver Wood C2004. Essential Reading:- Factory Records, The Complete Graphic Album - Matthew Robertson ~ Joy Division, Piece by Piece - Paul Morley ~ Who killed Martin Hannett - Colin Sharp ~ From Joy Division to New Order - Mick Middles ~ 24-Hour Party People - Tony Wilson Industrial Parody FAC1 Early poster for the Russel Club C1978. This poster is one of Peter Saville's first items of commercial art/design for Factory Records.

It promotes one of the first Factory nights at the old Russell Club in Hulme, intended to showcase some of the company's staple bands. The design is a very obvious visual pun based on the look of BSI work-site hazard warning signs, and it firmly established one of Factory's multifarious design remits. The conceptualisation of this item alone seems to embody quite a range of ironies, the allusion to industrialism strikes a chord with the ethos of Manchester as the worlds first industrial city. The design concept resonates with that embodied by the word 'Factory' though there was a popular belief / assumption that the organisation took its name from Andy Warhol's famous New York studio. FAC2 Cover for an early Factory sampler EP c1978 An example of Factory's principal logo. c1978 Factory's principal logo was evidently based on industrial corporate design and seems to evoke the famous ICI logo with its controlled wavy lines. This simple yet memorable graphic became quite an exciting icon for all of us number crunching Factory consumers, and promised innovation and exciting home grown talent, often with high or quirky production values. FAC145 Christmas Card. FAC18 Industrial fantasy packaging c1980.

This sleeve design concept for Section 25's single "Girls Don't Count" in some ways presaged Saville's later constructivist inspired work that was to manifest as an ironic celebration of product. FAC16 Another example of playful thematic packaging for ACR c1980. Deliberate Cool FAC25 Joy Division's famous 'Closer' album sleeve (c1980) marked an important and influential turning point in Saville's style. This is one of Saville's most famous covers, and it was certainly quite a radical stylisation for a rock/pop music sleeve of its time. In fact, this was the first example of a much-copied style that came to be known as "deliberate cool". The style was characterised by quasi pictorialist photography, distressed textures, understated colour, strong visual delimitation, rigid composition, and classical art values, all of the qualities manifest here. Other designers also copied the framing arrangement. The album has an infamous reputation for its morbidity and contains lyrics that are supposed to disclose Ian Curtis' suicidal state of mind.

The album was probably responsible for starting the mini 80s cult of pre-Madchester miserabalism, the cemetery pop and elegiac urban gothic of The Smiths et al. FAC55 ACR - Sextet - album cover c1982. Although Closer is the essential model of deliberate cool, this attractive sleeve concept also meets some of the criterion in so far as it is presented as a strong yet restrained artistic statement. The combined effect of the post-impressionistic painting and copper plate font is one of mature sophistication and it very effectively qualifies the 'cool' yet sensual quality of the album itself. The title may allude to a piece by the American minimalist composer Steve Reich whose work is supposed to have inspired some of ACRs minimalist contrapuntal dance music. FAC75 New Order's Power Corruption and Lies cover (c1983) represents something of a logical conclusion for the deliberate cool style Another very famous Peter Saville creation.

The industrial/technical lexicon is once again addressed by the colour coding strip (top right) some claim this spells FAC75 in the esoteric alpha/numeric 'bogbins' colour coding system familiar to BBC and telecoms technicians or a print calibration reference, it's almost a visual incongruity. This cover appears in just about every top sleeve design compilation list and often in the top 10. It's also something of a classic embodiment of Factory's daring and artistic sense of paradox to package this classic "lads band" in such an evidently whimsical and colourful way. Constructivism & Product Iconography FAC50 New Order - Movement - album cover c1981. Another approach adopted by Saville alluded to the constructivist design style, and post-constructivist Bauhaus retro. This mode always seemed to be configured into a kind of neo-brutalism that ultimately usurped the idea of 'branding' or the indulgence of personality cult marketing by placing all of the emphasis on catalogue numbers. FAC93 New Order - Confusion - single cover c1983. Here the factory catalogue number (93) has become a prominent feature of the sleeve design and consequent identity of the item.

FAC88 The Wake - Talk About the Past - single cover c1983. The notion of this kind of meta language of product reaches its logical conclusion in the design of this cover for a single by The Wake. Now the Factory catalogue number has become the only mark of identity almost as a cipher effectively forcing the collector/end user to engage with Factory's (at this time) obsessive interest in numerical identity and the quasi-industrial brutalism it implied. The design of this sleeve is also interestingly suggestive of Soviet style machine markings. Anti Product FAC10 Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures - album cover c1979. One of Factory's earliest album releases and also one of the most iconic Factory and Joy Division albums ever. 'Unknown Pleasures' was years ahead of its time in many respects but the concepts embodied in the design of the cover alluded to a notion of anti-product and anti-commercialism. The album was packaged with no descriptive information of any kind and understated to the point of ego-phobic anonymity, something elusive quietly skulking in the shadows. The irony was that this enhanced the elite feel of ownership and sense of being 'in the know' with JD fans.

I always found this deliberate obscurantism to be synonymous with exciting and even dangerous progressive 'underground' ideas. The discovery of 'Pleasures' was an epiphany for many and the beginning of a fascination for everything Factory did. FAC14 Durutti Column - Return of The Durutti Column - album cover c1979. This harsh intentionally auto-destructive sandpaper cover belies the whimsical beauty of Vini Reilly's first album release with Factory. Return of the Durutti column was the first nod to the situationist ideals that Factory was intended to embody, according to Tony Wilson. The sleeve was almost completely devoid of markings and made of rough sandpaper; inside and out. It was formulated as another anti-product gesture intended to damage both itself and other adjacent covers - a metaphor for anarchic post-punk nihilism that is again strewn with more than a hint of playful irony. The Prelude to Madchester FAC59 52nd Street - Look into My Eyes - 12in Single c1982. From the early 80s Factory began to sign a wide variety of home-grown R&B and Jazz/funk based artists.

This very rare single release by 52nd street was Factory's contribution to the burgeoning Brit Funk scene and found its way on to many Hacienda play lists in the late 80s. The sleeve design may not be one of Saville's creations but it is still unmistakably 'Factory'. 52nd Street were probably the most 'main stream' Jazz/Funk act in the Factory stable but many others such as ACR, ESG, Quando Quango and Kalima were bending the genre in interesting new ways with unconventional production and rhythm structures. FAC102 Quando Quango - Atom Rock - 12in single c1982. FAC220 Happy Mondays - Bummed - album cover c1988. To many the Mondays were the quintessential 'Madchester' band mixing rock elements with hip hop and warped Northern Soul vibes. Though the Roses were always contenders. By the late 80s when the 'madchester' scene was in full swing and Factory had become a leading proponent of the new 'house' music culture in the UK, much of the design was provided by out sourced agencies or a large group of in-house designers at Factory.

This famous cover was the work of Central Station Design in Manchester. The Haçienda Years From 1982 Factory seemed to become much more skittish and light hearted in terms of design and marketing. The industrial motif itself began to appear in a range of increasingly self parodied forms with an emphasis on frivolity and playful colour, ultimately alluding to a sort of clash between constructivist styling and psychedelic aspiration. The industrial feel of Factory's (Peter Savill's) design vision was non the less still very much in tact and an obvious foundation of much of the design. This was also the period when Factory's famous industrial design ethos was assimilated into the UK packaging of the new House music phenomena through the cult of the Hacienda, and in one way manifest as the reapropriation of industrial clothing as fashion. The House music 'scene' in the US (Chicago) was more associated with sports styling.

FAC51 The Hacienda interior The Hacienda interior was loosely based on a trendy New York disco and designed by Ben Kelly who was commissioned by Factory in the early to mid 80s to design the companies corporate and recreational spaces including the Dry Bar, The Area, and Factory's new HQ on Princess Street, later The Paradise Factory club. Kelly's approach was obviously sympathetic to the industrial design concept followed by Saville and in many ways also seems to evoke the feel of constructivism. Though the Haçienda is probably not one of Kelly's most notable examples (the Dry Bar & Paradise were more striking in my opinion) it does non the less incorporate very evident references to the De Stijl aesthetic possibly even the famous Schröder House style. Though Kelly also seems to assimilate these classic indexes of modernism into the form of almost whimsical industrial parodies conflated with stark 80s minimalism and the BSI industrial colour pallet Hacienda House wine label c1983 This is a bit of a curiosity.

The design of this label also appears to make a passing reference to the fashionable David Lynch style dystopian kitsch and complimented the retro industrial canteen feel of the Hacienda's early bar spaces. FAC83 Hacienda 1 year celebration This was the first piece of promo art work by Saville to use Kelly's hazard stripe motifs as iconic decoration, which by now had become synonymous with the Haçienda and emblazoned all of its items of publicity and merchandise, see the wine label above. Haçienda 5 years celebration. The constructivist mode of design is so strongly evoked here that this poster could almost be a cover for a constructivist manifesto designed by El Lissitzky circa 1924. FAC518 Haçienda 8 years celebration. Something of a break with tradition seems to be evident here. This poster was designed at a time when the Haçienda cult was beginning to run out of steam and when the attendant Madchester phenomenon was also post peak. It's very difficult to categorise this "end of typography" information theory obsessed style with the classic Factory remit as defined above and it seems like a desperate attempt at attention grabbing funky commercialism.

More Factory Records info at Cerysmatic © 2004 Oliver Wood - updated 2016 Copyright © Oliver Wood - Art Photography - Cheshire 2017 High quality originals available for all photography on this site. site hand coded by Oliver Wood in HTML5 & CSS3 Home - FAC251 - Factory Manchester FAC251 – Head Office of Factory Communications Ltd… Built by Tony Wilson. Designed by Ben Kelly. Paid for by New Order. Broken by The Happy Mondays… THE FACTORY is located in the heart of Manchester City Centre on the corner of Princess Street & Charles Street, at the centre of the student heartland of the Manchester Universities. Piccadilly Train Station is 5mins walk away down Whitworth Street. Manchester International Airport is a 15min train ride or 20min taxi ride away. Get In Touch… Factory FACTORY HIS STORY History by John McCready, The Face 97 It's hard, at first, to see how a story about a building could also be a story about memory, status, nostalgia, money, madness, despondency, magic, luck, simple greed (and saintly generosity), drugs, youth, life, death and violence. Even music.

Not really a story at all then. More like a soap opera. As far as most people are concerned, the story of a building which became a club before becoming an idea and even a lifestyle, begins in the middle. In a blur if you were lucky. And the end? Well, there isn't one yet. Because this story is a cultural autopsy with the death certificate lost forever in the post. The Hacienda is fifteen years old. Five would be an achievement. Ten worth writing home about certainly. But fifteen? Seems to me that having got this far, a 30th birthday will be no surprise. The idea of opening a club was not a new one. Obviously. Since 1978 Tony Wilson, television presenter and punk rock enthusiast had hosted The Factory at The Russell Club in Hulme Manchester, putting on local names and likely chancers - big national, even international names for spitting kids in ill-fitting jackets. Tony had a record label also called Factory and Rob Gretton managed a local group called Joy Division who had put some records out on Tony's Label. Joy Division, after the truly tragic suicide of their singer Ian Curtis, had by late 1980 become New Order.

By this stage, with The Factory gone, Rob was thinking of a different type of club. A place purpose built that you actually owned - not some badly lit basement with Bostik carpets - a place you borrowed temporarily from some thug in a camel coat. When asked many years later why he had come up with the idea, Rob, typically flip, would claim he wanted somewhere he could go to 'ogle birds'. In truth it really had more to do with his secret artiness, and the need of a shop to talk shop in. Music may also be a factor. By the summer of 1981, the things were under way. Factory sleeve designer Peter Saville mentioned his friend Ben Kelly as the man to turn an unassuming interior into a club environment to equal the likes of New York's Danceteria, Fun House and Paradise Garage - places Rob and Tony, now traveling with the truly international New Order, would enthuse about as ultimate night time spaces. Kelly, later described by Rob as a, 'Poncy Southern git', saw the Whitworth Street ex-yacht showroom Factory had secured for the club and jumped at the chance.

Somewhere close to schedule, with the walls still wet and planks on the floor to negotiate areas of unfinished floor, The Hacienda opened on May 21st 1982. This impressive new space was christened with it's own Factory catalogue number - 51. The name - The Hacienda - (Mexican for big beautiful house) had come from some swanky Situationist text that Rob had been leafing through. On the 21st it was invite only - the new wave hierarchy were out in force. Hewan Clark was the DJ. He went on to DJ every single night the club was open for the next four years, a significant fact considering the initial madness of a decision to open seven days a week. Dance Floor Under Construction 1982 Northern irony being no better back then than it is now, slug-like comedian Bernard Manning was hired to slither across the stage and cut the ribbon, as it were, in his broad north Manchester accent. He later disappeared, puzzled and waving his usual fee. The Architectural Review declared the club, "a pioneering interior".

For people who just listened to records and just needed a big space to do it in, your first time at the Hacienda was (is) a crash course in the aesthetics of design which simply takes your breath away. It's impossible to escape the idea that the club, like the label had, through Ben Kelly, realized a unique vision of how things should be - changing the expectations of UK club-goers used to being treated like dirt, overnight. Kelly recently commented that his inspiration really came, "from the building itself and my arrogance in thinking I knew what a club designed for Factory and New Order should look like". By the end of the first year some of the dust had settled and the paint had dried. A regular membership of post-punk trendies had now claimed the space as their own - most of them making rather too much of the club's association with Factory Records. DJ John Tracey, now sharing Hewan's considerable load during a seven day work week, started playing Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds theme so they could all wheel about in circles with their arms stretched out at the end of a night.

And the music, as we can see from the members newsletters and play lists of the time settled as a schizophrenic mix of Simple Minds and Willie Hutch; Iggy Pop and Sharon Redd. Obviously things were a long way from Ce Ce Rogers "Someday" and Pacific State at this point. It cost five pounds 51 to become a member of The Hacienda and for that you would get a pound discount on everything. Which meant you got in free half the time. Drink was alehouse cheap at this stage. Many people came simply to get slotted and found themselves sitting on the floor listening to William Burroughs reading aloud from his mucky books. In the pre-house era; due to Mike Pickering's knack of booking bands at the point just before they broke big, you could see Frankie Goes To Hollywood or Culture Club for 2.50 (Pickering was then a member of Factory's Quando Quango - the idea of Djing yet to occur to him). The straight-laced Local Times sent Robert King to 'review' the club in 1983. Interviewing a dead pan Rob Gretton in the Gay Traitor bar he asked what kind of people the club was aiming to attract.

"The kind with two arms and two legs", was the reply he should have seen coming. Robert wrote the conversation in the cu was, 'a mouth to ear affair', and dubbed the crowd 'a hairstyle exhibition'. "There can't be many clubs where men wear dark overcoats well into June", he added, concluding: "Go if you've not been already. By all means put setting gel in your hair but don't feel that you have to". Television program The Tube visited for a nose in January 1984, bringing an unknown called Madonna with them. Proper dance music from various schools started to make a real mark on nights like Mike Pickering's long-running Nude which began in 1985. John Tracey's The End: A No Funk Night died a natural death at the end of 1984. There was a revolution around the corner. By 1986 electro legend Greg Wilson had had a night at the club playing the solidly black percussive New York sound to a set of new faces. For the princely sum of 3.50 you could have seen Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five dressed up like the Glitter Band.

By August 1986 The Hacienda was full with what is quaintly described in its own records as, 'a band-less disco'. Money was starting to be made too and Paul Mason became Manager of the club, poached from a successful Rock City in Nottingham to keep it that way. Paul remembers his induction during a board meeting Factory-Style where Rob Gretton during a heated discussion with Tony Wilson threw his chips at him. Tony and Rob ended up grappling on the floor. There are, sadly, no pictures. Fac 51 The Hacienda Exterior Sign Then the bomb dropped with no warning that I can remember. Apart from maybe DJ Jon Dasilva's siren sound effects. People always used to use the phrase Acid House. To me that has never made any sense. In the beginning, as somebody with a deep voice used to say, there was a house. Records with singing in them, almost like gospel with big, pushy rhythms and vaguely spaced dubs. House certainly sounded new back then (obviously we weren't as clever as we are now in spotting the disco roots of the sound) but it was still polite.

Acid was a different sound altogether - menacing, growling, ungrateful and volatile, as its best like a starved dog prowling circles around an unopened can. The Chicago House Party Tour which stopped at the club in March 1987 with Frankie Knuckles, Marshall and the rest of them getting their first taste of gullible limeys paying through their nose for their instinctive magic, showed that house , now a big part of nights like Nude and Wide, was here to stay. But acid sounded like coded radio signals, a kind of dance instruction from another planet. At least until some wayward holiday makers brought us all a present back. According to Shaun and Bez, interviewed some time after the event, and not usually known for being good with dates, some of their mates had been away on holiday in Valencia and Ibiza and had brought back some Ecstasy tablets. People tried them out and they seemed to fit the music perfectly.

Many lost their inhibitions overnight - feeling comfortable enough to get on stages and podiums and wave their arms in a state of, well, ecstasy - hearing things in the music that they couldn't hear before, NME's Danny Kelly, at the height of Madchester, famously commented that ecstasy had "made the white man dance". Perhaps someday soon the neat magic of Acid dovetailing into Ecstasy will be revealed as a CIA plot to see what ordinary kids from Harpurhey looked like when they were off their heads. Whatever, a new low rent crowd had started mixing with the converted hairdressers and Factory obsessives of old. It was, at times, a volatile mix. But the drugs turned an often socially confusing crowd into one sweaty nation under the influence of a groove twisted out of a small silver box - the Roland 303. I asked Paul Cons where The Hacienda would have been without house? He replied that a better question would be, 'Where would house be without ecstasy?' Things seemed like they couldn't get any stranger. I imagine Bez with a sinister, Hammer baddie expression as he commented some years later, "The Hacienda didn't change us - we changed the Hacienda.

It all went off under the balcony in the left hand corner." But this madness needed a name and a night if it was to really make an impact. Paul Cons installed as part of the management team since 1986, and struck by the fact that you couldn't breathe in the club on a good night, came up with a Hot concept - water, ice pops, a swimming pool in the middle of the dance floor - a fairly standard in the Balearic Islands at the time, but unusual nonetheless for northern England. Hot didn't last long - from the summer until Christmas'88 - but is perhaps the best remembered night in the club's history. Jon Dasilva (who had recently taken Dean's place alongside Dave Haslam at the Saturday Wide night after Dean had left, fed up with being pestered for house during his famed Latin break) and Mike Pickering sound - tracked the madness. A Guy Called Gerald and Graham Massey of 808 State would turn up unannounced, banging on the DJ booth door with tapes of deranged 20 minutes acid tracks which were gratefully played in full. Dasilva got himself a rep for using sound effects of thunderstorm and rain to underline the insanity.

People threw water about and nobody got upset. Minus the tales of chemical excess, these were the times you might want to tell your grandchildren about. Architectural detail of the trade mark pillars Paul Cons insisted Hot should end on a high and jacket it in with spirits still hovering ten feet above the ground in anticipation. But there was still Zumbar, a retarded cabaret night with fire-eaters and a Wheel-of-Fortune. DJ Dave Haslam's Temperance Club continued too; breaking new ground with idiosyncratic and open-minded mix of music from James to Mantronix; James Brown to The Smiths, which had much to do with the wide-trousers revolution called Baggy and the fact that, from the great Happy Mondays down, all Manchester bands began sounding like James Brown's Funky Drummer played by The Velvet Underground. Manchester and The Hacienda in particular was, as a direct result of all this, an underage tourist attraction. The Crowd at the 10th birthday Party A scally sub cult called The Baldricks (named after RowanAtkinson's comic creation with the daft bowl headed hair cut) were led by little Martin who DJ-ed alongside Pickering at the increasingly frenetic Nude Fridays.

Dressed in clothed four sizes too big for them, they got a photo taken around Bernard Sumner's new Mercedes. The English Acid phenomenon made the cover of Time and Newsweek. Void, Shiva and Hallucienda nights followed Hot. The portable swimming pool at Hot had made such a splash that Paul Con's tried a one-off called Wet at Hathersage Road baths not far from the club. A Wet flyer promised, 'synchronized swimming and water dodgems'. On paper all this now looks like gimmicky bollocks with just a hint of exploitation. At the time it was more a case of people just wanting to do stupid things while off their knackers. It was at this time that, during a London photo shoot lining up the main house offenders for yet another What The Fuck's Going On? piece, Mike Pickering met Graham Park - one of the very few DJ's outside London who, like Pickering, had become obsessed. The two got on like an Acid House on fire and phone numbers were exchanged. A few weeks later Mike called the Scots refugee in Nottingham and asked if he could fill in for him while he was away. Graham jumped at the chance.

By the time Mike got back, things had gone so well with Graham playing on Fridays that it was decided that the two would share the night from then on. Graham, like Dasilva, was a superb and inventive mixer who made his mark on the club in no uncertain terms. Wear Hearing Protection Relying on what was written at the time, from 1989 onwards, you might have thought The Hacienda did little more than fend off the attentions of the Police, watch people get stabbed or die from taking ecstasy, close, re-open and close again while struggling to maintain the place dictated by 1988 and all that. But we're talking about eight years to date.

And in that time The Hacienda has hosted the ultra successful Gay night Flesh (all the madness of Hot in high heels), let a former fan called Sasha play a few times (queues around the block and then around again), ripped up a well used dance floor and sold it (10 quid a piece, you planks) let Rolph Harris on stage for a can-you-tell-what-it-is-yet painting class, and allow a proper wedding to take place on stage giving journalists like me the chance to go on about The Hacienda as a church at great and pretentious length. In a Coals-To-Newcastle sensation the club had even toured America to enthusiastic response from white people who had techno explained to them in a thick north Manchester accents. All of this however, is still overshadowed by the death in July 1989 of teenager Clare Leighton, the unfortunate victim of an extreme reaction to ecstasy. Drugs had helped the club plot its peaks and, during the post '88 period, they would shadow it's worst times.

The comparatively innocent and embarrassingly titled Summer Of Love, a kind of blissful narcotic honeymoon, was soon spoiled by greedy dealers and cash-counting drug bosses fighting for control of a drug-taking frenzy on a scale none of them had witnessed before. The Hacienda became the backdrop to a struggle for control and supremacy. During 1990 with Clare Leighton's tragic death obviously in mind, the police had, under Operation Clubwatch, infiltrated The Hacienda seeming to conclude that the dealers, the problem and the club were one and the same. In May 1990 they informed manager Paul Mason of their intention to oppose an upcoming license renewal. At a hearing on 23 July 1990, having secured the assistance of George Carmen QC, fresh from helping fence-toothed comedian Ken Dodd in a much publicized tax rap, the club was granted six months to sort out the problems - no mean task in anybody's book. By January 3rd 1991, at the postponed hearing, the magistrates there had been a 'positive change in direction' and renewed the club's license.

The management themselves decided to re-introduce the original membership scheme they'd had to try and keep some of the troublemakers out. Within just a few weeks, on January 30th, Tony Wilson announced that the club would close voluntarily after door staff had been threatened with a gun as a result of a refused admission under the new membership scheme. "We are sick of the violence", he commented. Nerves were understandably frayed. Tony Wilson remembers one strained directors meeting. "I said to Barney (Sumner), 'I know it's been one long saga of human hell, but if there was a button you could press and the club would never have existed, you couldn't press it.' He replied "Where's the fucking button?". The Hacienda took the time out to apply a new Ben Kelly color scheme and install airport style security measures of it's own like the metal detecting arch still there today. It opened again on May 10th. By this stage though, the long running Saturday with Park and Wainwright, the phenomenal success of Flesh, or even Rolf Harris weren't news enough for the papers who circled like vultures waiting for stabbings and drug stories. During all of this support came from some strange quarters.

One Sun news piece called The Hacienda, 'The most important venue since the Cavern'. New Order who were never that visible in their financial association with the club wheeled themselves out to talk and have their pictures taken on the hallowed dance floor. "Basically", said Peter Hook, "This place has got to stay. It's the only place in Manchester that will let me in with jackboots on". What with all of this some people forgot about the music - playing forever on like in that song by Sterling Void. And while those that took their cues from The Hacienda (Step Forward, Cream and Hard Times among many, many others) enjoy the ride on a cultural roller-coaster the club almost single handedly created, The Hacienda catches its breath. I asked Tony Wilson a stupid question: Can it all happen again? He replied: "Of course it can. Somewhere around 1999 to 2001. And it probably won't have a thing to do with house music". And of course he's right.

And the music will change (I'm sure you'll join me in hoping we're not dining in swimming pools to trip hop come the millennium) but the building will be there for it - heading for a twentieth birthday - still fighting, still breathing, still giving a damn. And Rob Gretton will be perched in his favorite ogling spot ('the upstairs lighting booth', if you must know) confirmed a bonafide house hero alongside Farley, Marshall, Frankie and the rest of them if you want to start adding it all up. In September 1998, the company that owned and ran The Ha�ienda nightclub - Fac 51 - declared half a million pounds of debt and cessation of all club nights at Manchester's prime venue. A disused warehouse transformed into a birthplace of house music, The Ha� represents fifteen years of club anthems, drug culture and DJs and will be sorely missed until it reopens. Tony Wilson Int Hacienda 1984 - YouTube Tony Wilson Int Hacienda 1984 Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. The interactive transcript could not be loaded. Loading...

Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Uploaded on Aug 12, 2007 Tony Wilson Int from The Tube 1984. Sums Tony up, one man talking sense in the great club and in a crap jumper! Category How we made: Ben Kelly and Peter Hook on the Haçienda club | Culture | The Guardian How we made: Ben Kelly and Peter Hook on the Haçienda club ‘We even had an inflatable pool in there one night – and it burst’ How we made: Ben Kelly and Peter Hook on the Haçienda club ‘We even had an inflatable pool in there one night – and it burst’ Monday 2 July 2012 19.51 EDT First published on Monday 2 July 2012 19.51 EDT Pinterest Ben Kelly, architect New Order had visited all the happening clubs in New York with their manager, Rob Gretton, and they wanted one of their own. When the band's sleeve designer Peter Saville was shown the premises, a former yacht showroom, he was horrified at their scale.

"I can't do this," he said, "but I know a man who can." The two of us had designed an Orchestral Manouevres in the Dark cover together and I'd also designed a fashion shop above his office. I'd never lived in Manchester, but I knew the Factory ethos. As an architect, being given a massive blank canvas was a dream. The building had a rickety balcony and needed huge structural alterations; it was bound to cost more than they thought. But I'd visited Danceteria [the 1980s dance music mecca] in New York and could see the possibilities. Up until then, UK clubs had been of the Peter Stringfellow ilk with flocked wallpaper and a mirrorball, or just shithole basements painted black. Everything Factory Records made got a catalogue number, so they issued one for this: FAC51. We cut a 5 and a 1 into the entrance doors and didn't bother having a neon sign: there was just a 12in granite plaque carved by someone who did gravestones.

The idea was to create a sense of surprise and discovery: once past this tiny plaque, you'd emerge into a vast cathedral-like space with yellow-and-black-striped columns rising around the edge of the dancefloor. That was partly for safety – the floor was raised – but it gave the club the language of a real factory, where hazard lines warn of forklift trucks. It was great to see kids being so taken by surprise when they came in, being made to think about things like architecture. I remember two lads standing there with pint glasses saying: "Fookin' 'ell!" In his infinite wisdom, Tony Wilson , [the Factory Records manager], got Bernard Manning in for the opening in 1982. He came on, looked around, and said: "I've played some shitholes in my time, but this beats the lot." His jokes didn't go down well and he returned his fee. The sightlines were crap for live acts because of where Tony had wanted the stage sited, and I forgot to include any cloakrooms – which Tony loved, typically. But the venue would later prove perfect as an acid house mecca, earning it the nickname the Halluçienda .

They had fashion shows, too, and Madonna's first performance on British TV was filmed at the Haçienda in 1983 . We even had an inflatable swimming pool in there one night – and it burst. That's what was great about the club. It set up possibilities. Wherever I go in the world, people say it changed their life. Peter Hook, co-owner Joy Division had made a lot of money and arguments were raging over how to spend it. Tony and Rob wanted a club. They were dreamers who lived for the moment. When you have that mindset, you can do wonderful things. They told us it would cost £45,000 and if the band put up half we'd get our own nightclub – with free drinks. It ended up costing £450,000, a huge sum back then. Clubs in New York were dark, intense and mysterious. We got the exact opposite, but the architecture was wonderful. The idea of having a video jockey in a booth playing film clips was ahead of its time, but the VJ, Claude Bessy, got us into all sorts of trouble.

The Jewish Chronicle did a front-page story about Tony along the lines of "TV presenter shows Nazi propaganda in own club". But it wasn't him, it was Claude – and it was all done in a very punky way, commenting on events of the day. The sound on stage was great but the same wasn't true elsewhere in the club, particularly under the glass roof. . We had some great gigs but it was practically empty for seven years. Then acid changed everything. Nobody bought beer because they were on E, but Rob thought it was demeaning to sell water so we kept losing money. Rob and Tony wanted Valhalla, heaven on earth, in the form of a social club where people like us could go every night. It was a valiant effort, but in the 1990s gangsters moved in to sell drugs and fought among themselves. When the licensing committee visited, someone got hit with a wheel-brace and the magistrate got covered in their blood. In the end, we just ran out of money : the club lost New Order and Factory £10m plus tax. It was a ridiculous folly.

But as Rob said: "You can't buy history, Hooky." • The Hacienda is recreated in British Design 1948-2012, at the V&A, London SW7, until 12 August. The Hacienda: How Not to Run a Club by Peter Hook is published by Simon & Schuster.

Question: Who was the owner of Manchester’s Hacienda Club and Factory Records?
Answer: TONY WILSON