The Hacienda: How Not to Run a Club

The Legendary musician and cofounder of Joy Division and New Order tells the whole story—the fun, the music, the vast loss of money, the legacy—of Manchester's most iconic nightclub Peter Hook has been shaping the course of popular music for 30 years. He provided the propulsive bass guitar melodies of Love Will Tear Us Apart, as well as Blue Monday and many other songs. As co-owner of Manchester's Hacienda club, Hook propelled the rise of acid house in the late 1980s, then suffered through its violent fall in the 1990s as gangs, drugs, greed, and a hostile police force destroyed everything he and his friends had created. This is his memory of that era and it is far sadder, funnier, scarier, and stranger than anyone has imagined. As young and naive musicians, the members of New Order were thrilled when their record label Factory opened a club. Yet as their career escalated, they toured the world, and they had top 10 hits, their royalties were being ploughed into the Hacienda and they were only being paid £20 per week. As Peter Hook tells the story of that exciting and hilarious time, all the main characters appear—Tony Wilson, Barney, Shaun Ryder—and he tells it like it truly was—a rollercoaster of success, money, confusion, and true faith.