DJing at the Haçienda Club in Manchester: The Scene, the Gear, the Sounds

In 2022, the BBC broadcast a documentary that traces the history of the Hacienda, the Manchester club that helped transform the sound of electronic dance music in early 1980s England. Opened in 1982 by New Order and Factory Records owner Tony Wilson and kept afloat in the early years by the breakout success of New Order’s “Blue Monday,” that opening year the venue hosted ascendent touring bands including the Durutti Column, ESG and the Birthday Party, and supported one of the first rap tours when it booked Grandmaster Flash and Kurtis Blow.

This world has been the focus of books, movies and documentaries, most famously the stellar film 24 Hour Party People. The hour-long BBC documentary below offers a primer on the movement, its influence, and the ways in which, in the late 1980s, it helped propel to so-called British Summer of Love, when bands including Happy Mondays and Stone Roses mixed the sound of the nascent Chicago house music scene with British post-punk. It also served as home base for DJs Mike Pickering, Graeme Park, and Jon DaSilva.

One of the most surprising factoids about the space was its initial DJ set up, which was once described as “one of the worst thought-out DJ booths I’d ever come across, located in a separate room down some stairs to the side of the stage, with a narrow slit window enabling you to view little more than the feet of those outside in the club,” as explained by DJ Greg Wilson, who had a regular club night there.

The sound at the beginning was equally unrefined, wrote Joy Division/New Order bassist Peter Hook, recalling in his autobiography that during one early gig when the MC started talking, “Nobody in the audience could hear what he said over the PA because the sound system and acoustics were so terrible. A few months later, when Chris Hewitt from Tractor Music took down the original sound system, he discovered that of the 20 speakers only two worked; the other 18 had blown out immediately.”

Added DJ Hewan Clark, who was the Hacienda’s first resident DJ, of the Hacienda’s owners: “They’d been to America and they’d seen places like Paradise Garage and The Loft and all these places which had brilliant magnificent sound systems, you know, they brought it back to Manchester. They brought the size and the idea but they didn’t bring the sound system with them. That was the main thing that let the Haçienda down.”

As the club gained attention and success, the Hacienda invested in better sound, including JBL speakers, and moved the DJ booth to the man floor. Although much has been documented about the club, the details of the system have been tough to lock down. Detectives out there might find clues during this essential clip above: the first time the popular UK dance show The Hitman and Her visited the Hacienda, in 1989.

Read this interview with DJ Hewan Clarke, which has fascinating information about a transformational moment in club culture. Electrofunk Roots: Hewan Clark Interview.