MAKINGLegends in the words: ANDY THOMAS THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF THE HACIENDA MANCHESTER’S PRE-RAVE BLACK CLUB SCENE 20 “Nowadays, people naturally want to talk to underground music would come under the lighting and behind an incredibly advanced me about The Hacienda and how incredible umbrella term Electro Funk. sound system that Greg Wilson, a wide-eyed it must have been for me to work there [as Obscure 12”s had begun arriving on DJ from Liverpool’s suburbs, first hit the switch one if its original resident DJs]. Given its import in the UK, and were avidly snapped up marked Electro. Cutting up the boogie of labels subsequent worldwide recognition, I can by those DJs and dancers eager to plug in to like Prelude and Beckett and the productions appreciate how difficult it must be for them the ‘New Thing’. While the likes of West End, of Francois Kevorkian and Patrick Adams with to fully comprehend that, although I had some Prelude and Beckett released forward-thinking the sci-fi beats of The Jonzun Crew and Man great nights at The Haçienda, it couldn’t disco or what in the UK became known as Parrish, Wilson created a deep and futuristic begin to compare with the intensity of what boogie, the output of imprints like Emergency, mix. Every Wednesday, a mainly black crowd was going on at Legend.” (Greg Wilson) Sunnyview and Streetwise was far more would come up from across the North of futuristic. And while it is true that it was disco’s England and the Midlands to check out his sets. At the dawn of the 1980s, the common left turn at the start of the ‘80s that would help One such head was a young Gerald Simpson, perception in a divided England was that it create the blueprint for house music, to Greg a 15-year-old dancer, now better known as was “grim up North”. Post-industrialisation, Wilson’s ears the sounds of what became A Guy Called Gerald. Looking back on those chronic unemployment and the beginnings known as electro (usually more associated with times, Gerald is only too pleased to give credit of Thatcherism had blighted towns b-boys and hip hop) was a missing link in dance where credit is due. “Though I was underage, like Manchester, Liverpool, Wigan and music’s evolutionary chain. I managed to get in. The atmosphere was Huddersfield. Closed factories, disused office something I’ve never ever seen repeated. blocks and empty shipyards were a sign of the “Though I was People would come to Legends from all over times, and in 1981 inner-city riots broke out underage, I managed to the country just for that night.” in Toxteth, Liverpool and then in Manchester’s Meanwhile, over at an intense session infamous Moss Side after 1000 youths get in. The atmosphere named Berlin those with a more soulful impulse converged on the police station, fed-up with was something I’ve were spinning and dropping to the deep jazz, day-to-day prejudice, harassment, and lack of soul and disco of the legendary Colin Curtis, any opportunities. never ever seen who would become a big influence on young Yet out of the austerity and oppression jazz dance DJs like Gilles Peterson. In the mid grew a flower that blossomed to give new life repeated. People would ‘80s, Curtis would also play alongside another to the area. While it was acid house and the come to Legends from Manchester legend, Hewan Clarke, at The whole Madchester scene (centred around Playpen where House music really first took the Happy Mondays and Factory Records) all over the country hold. It was at these groundbreaking clubs that made The Hacienda famous worldwide, just for that night.” where future Hacienda DJ Mike Pickering Manchester’s club scene has a much deeper would receive his musical education. and black-rooted history. And it’s a story that Yet while house music was rocking the has been largely forgotten, although it was in Like techno and house later in the decade, dance floors of the black underground clubs, fact responsible for laying the foundations for this exciting music had its roots in a wide Hewan Clarke was often fighting a losing battle Manchester’s house music explosion and the variety of electronic music – from the German at the Hacienda where he was the resident DJ subsequent cultural regeneration of the city. techno pop of Kraftwerk and Japan’s Yellow when the club opened in May 1982. He would The genesis of this scene can be traced Magic Orchestra to British futurists and new play a diverse and often bizarre mix of music back to The Reno, Moss Side’s strictly romantic acts like Visage and Human League. to suit the disparate crowd (everything from underground club where DJ Persian spun Just as importantly it was a direct continuum of serious Factory Records types to cutting edge soul and funk to a devoted crowd of dancers the experimentations of black sonic scientists black jazz dancers), blending underground throughout the ‘70s, many of whom also – from Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis to classics such as Riuichi Sakamoto’s ‘Riot in frequented Rafters where DJs John Grant Stevie Wonder and of course, the afro-futurism Lagos’ and jazz cuts like Kalima’s ‘Smiling Hour’ and Colin Curtis held court. At the turn of the of George Clinton. When the next generation of alongside a whole host of offbeat indie-pop ‘80s, with jazz-funk holding sway across the producers like Newcleus, Warp 9 and Hashim singles. UK, a new and exciting form of American black finally got their hands on the new technology Tony Wilson, founder of Factory Records electronic music was about to hit the UK club it would only be a matter of time before they and the Hacienda, dreamed of creating a scene and it was in Manchester where it first would create deep alien machine funk that club in his beloved home town to match the landed. would rock the nation. Paradise Garage, where the likes of New Order While in America these records were Legend was a state-of-the-art club in and A Certain Ratio had hung out while in New known by a range of terms including electric Manchester’s city centre, which looked as York. But Manhattan was a long way from boogie and freestyle, for DJs like Greg Wilson futuristic as the music that was being played Manchester. “Tony Wilson had expressly told in the North of England this new and vibrant there. It was here beneath the space age me that he wanted me to play black music,“ Hewan Clarke recalled. “And so you had all (3 of them), its light show was described in music slot on Britsh radio these people who had grown up on Siouxsie Black Echoes magazine as like something back then, was a former Legend regular. A Guy and the Banshees and stuff like that in The out of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. Called Gerald was, once again, a former Legend Hacienda, and here I am playing Sharon Redd The atmosphere in a club like Legend was regular and someone who’d been on the scene ‘Can You Handle It?’. It freaked them out and absolutely intense - this was no hands in the air since the Jazz-Funk era - 1987 certainly wasn’t they freaked me out, you know, cos of their party vibe, but seriously good dancers losing Day 1 for someone like Gerald, and although reaction.” themselves in the music. it’s termed ‘House’, you can clearly hear the It was another few years before Mike influence of Electro, and indeed Jazz-Funk, in Pickering’s Nude night took off in 1987 and AT: You’ve made the case that rather than ‘Voodoo Ray’ – it’s very much a hybrid track, acid house exploded across the North. But being a footnote in UK dance music, electro hence its out and out uniqueness. by then the majority of the black dancers who and electro funk was the missing piece of the had made underground clubs like Legend their jigsaw – can you expand? AT- How much was this golden period a home had mainly moved on. To help us delve GW: The Electro-Funk era was the catalyst response to the pressures of Thatcherism etc? deeper into their forgotten culture we track that enabled the old to become the new – it GW: From a black perspective, clubbing was down Greg Wilson, who continues to drop the was right at the crossroads as far as British a serious business. It wasn’t just about going electro funk bomb across the globe. dance culture is concerned. Without it things out to party, it was far deeper. These were kids could never have worked out in the way that who during there normal day to day were being Andy Thomas interview with Greg Wilson they did. Had it been a white led movement, regularly stopped and searched by the police, like Northern Soul or Rave, the question would many picking up drug convictions for having AT: After moving from Merseyside you built have been irrelevant, for its place in the great little more than a spliffs worth of grass on their your reputation playing Jazz Funk at Wigan Pier scheme of things would have been documented person. As I said, most were unemployed – it - can you describe this scene? in depth, and its influence on all that followed was difficult enough to find a job if you were GW: At its peak, every Tuesday there’d be white working class, let alone black.