The Hacienda: How Not to Run a Club

Much preferred Hook's other book. This one ... focuses on the defunct club that New Order co-owned. Despite some really cool stories here and there... it didn't grab me like his other book on Joy Division. Hook is a good writer... but this one got a bit tedious. Printing the budgets, and the lists of every appearance... I didn't think it was necessary in the body of the book. Maybe as an appendix... but I didn't enjoy that part of it. Honestly... I haven't finished it yet... don't know if I will. I'm like 75% there, and I've gotten the point. If I do revisit the book (I bought the electronic version on my Kindle), then I'll come back and update this review. Essential buying if you're a fan of NEW ORDER or a HOOK completist... for some background info you get. Wish there had been MORE photos of the club.

Growing up a Peter Hook and New Order fan I fantasized about visiting the Hacienda in my youth. I never did visit the Hacienda but I think I might have to visit Hacienda 251 instead. Either way, Peter Hook has a knack for being an amazing storyteller and I am so glad I finally tracked this book down. I read it from cover to cover in less than a week. If you want to know about Manchester in the 1980's, Acid House and what it was like to be an owner in a world renowned club, then make sure you read this. The gentlemen from The Chemical Brothers even get a nod in these pages. I'm just glad Hooky was able to live through all those faux pas and debaucherous leanings to give us more great music post Hacienda 1.0.Rock on, Hooky!

Amazing book! ❤️

An undoubtedly gripping tour of New Order's infamous pet project that weaves, rather swerves, it's way through the '80s and 90's like a hummingbird on acid. Hook darts into a topic or story as fast as he gets back out, meaning boredom is the last thing you'll feel ( this from a book featuring no fewer than 20 pages of company minutes, auditors reports and balance sheets!Better than an MBA for current or would be artists of every persuasion.

One of my my favorite recent music related books. In some sense it reads like a dark comedy. The nutty incidents cant be real but they are. Id say Hook is a great story teller and Im looking forward to reading about Joy Division and New Order. I started with this book because it was my least known subject of the three. Cheers.

Peter Hook's writing style might not be for everyone, but for brutally honest, self-deprecating, charming (if routinely vulgar) British wit, this is a treasure trove of entertaining reading. Reading this book feels like one of your best mates recounting a story from an epic weekend escapade - only this takes place over years and years. I only knew of the Hacienda based on media accounts; now I feel like I was there. Great book.

A very insightful and detailed behind-the-scenes look into the rise and fall of the legendary Hacienda nightclub. Peter Hook writes in a very natural, every-man style and his numerous anecdotes kept me laughing and shaking my head in disbelief at the same time. A highly recommended read for fans of not just Joy Division/New Order but of music in general.

This book is a padded out piece of s***e.While the bits about being drunk and loaded on drugs 24/7 and getting away with crimes is mildly amusing, this "book" could have been a 30 page pamphlet and been just as effective.There are pages upon pages of totally pointless transcriptions of meeting minutes and (as Peter Hook admits and asserts again and again [and AGAIN] throughout the span) financial projections, statements, and receipts that are totally fake and 100% made up at the time he and the rest of New Order were pretending to run the club business.WHY even include this completely BORING and pointless crap?? Oh yeah, to be able to pad out a complete book, which they could then sell for twice the price! Of course! Natural geniuses, they are!I'm pretty sure ol' "Hooky" would admit all this himself if you bought him a pint and asked him nicely.

INTRODUCTIONTime has perhaps been disproportionately kind to Manchester’s legendary - and indeed legendarily infamous, Haçienda club. A nostalgic if forlorn longing for the seemingly consequence-free excesses of youth often does that. And certainly there are few more befitting words with which to define The Haçienda than ‘excess’, especially during its late 80’s/ early 90’s ‘Madchester’ heyday. Yet conversely this industrial-themed testament to criminal fiscal malfeasance and boundless hubris would ultimately destroy a record label as well as reduce an otherwise hugely successful band to near penury.Primarily conceived by Joy Division’s (and later New Order’s) dilettante manager, Rob Gretton, The Haçienda first opened its doors in 1982. Assigned Factory catalogue number ’Fac 51’ and envisioned as a trend setting music orientated Mecca the club was directly inspired by (and partly styled upon) New York’s famed dance palaces. Despite experiencing negligible attendances during its formative years it’s owners remained hopeful that their bold, budget-obliterating venture would eventually click with the dispirited youth it had been built for. Better yet The Haçienda might also succeed in putting the much decayed, post-industrial Manchester back on the map as an unrivalled entertainment nexus…Whilst these lofty ambitions were undoubtedly commendable there was unfortunately one small problem: neither Gretton, his Factory Records co-founders (Tony Wilson, Alan Erasmus and Peter Saville) nor the members of New Order had the faintest idea how to actually run a club! This inexperience combined with an inhibiting idealism would ultimately see the precious millions generated by Factory’s premier act squandered as they learnt just how difficult it really was.And often they didn’t learn at all…THE BOOKIn Peter ‘Hooky’ Hook’s riotous ‘The Haçienda: How Not to Run a Club’ Fac 51’s spiralling debts and increasingly violent clientele are laid bare in this gloriously entertaining tome. Bolstered by the author’s bonhomie wit as well as his retention of numerous club related documentation ‘How Not…’ just might be The Haçienda’s definitive chronicle. Certainly as a former co-owner there are few better qualified than New Order’s estranged bassist to tell Fac 51’s now much mythologised story. Across a weighty 402 pages Hooky deftly describes the inept management, fiscal irresponsibility, copious drug consumption and eventual gang violence that engineered The Haçienda’s eventual demise.Considering New Order’s burdensome financial stake in Factory’s foray into club ownership the author has every right to feel bitter. Indeed, it’s sobering to note that even during its late 80’s apex and despite attracting international recognition, the club would never manage to turn a sizeable profit. Nevertheless Hooky’s a remarkably forgiving narrator, even when describing the band’s virtual obligation to constantly tour just to keep The Haçienda afloat. In fact he apportions not inconsiderable blame upon himself at times acknowledging that his own negligence, naivety and prodigious Bacchanalian vices only exacerbated the club’s parlous state.Best of all though ‘How Not To…’ directly contradict claims made in Tony Wilson’s 2002 semi-biographical memoir, ‘24 Hour Party People’. Indeed, Hooky affirms that Fac-51 was always Rob Gretton’s baby and not, as the ever unreliable storyteller Wilson later intimated, his. The cinematic adaptation of ‘Party People pushes this grossly inaccurate narrative further depicting Paddy Considine’s Gretton as not only an affirmed Haçienda sceptic but also even physically hostile over the club’s exorbitant costs!(Perhaps one shouldn’t expect any better from Wilson of whom was a notorious raconteur of the tall tale. Especially in the service of further gilding his own legend...)CONCLUSION:The raw, infectious charisma Peter Hook exudes across numerous TV interviews transitions well to this stirring memoir of The Haçienda club. Indeed, if nothing else Hooky’s uncompromising candour remains an indispensable antidote to Wilson’s myth promulgating fibs!Highly Recommended.

Having heard about the Hacienda as a youngster(it was just before my time) I was fascinated to read about it and how it became and existed in the most purest form about the love of expression, life, music and art. What an incredible testament to life that these folks created such a monumental cultural statement to life. As such it clashed in equally monumental fashion with reality and all the aspects of that world. I found it a fascinating account as it evolved through time. Like energy or vibration to eventually dissolve into the ether from which it came.

I fully accept that Hooky is writing a very personal account of his involvement in the well documented Hacienda fiasco. Perhaps he was just too involved and risked too much to be remotely objective. Of course the Hacienda's crucial role in introducing the whole concept concept of clubbing and the celebrity DJ cult is very well known. But the Hacienda opened every day , beer was cheapest in town, lesser known bands were encouraged to play, idealism, creativity and trust were going to replace capitalism .In reality the Hacienda made a vast loss, essentially propped up by New Order 's income and profits from the Joy Division back catalogue. Hooky shows that the Hacienda was assailed from all sides...and shares the club's accounts year by year . Increasing gang rivalry turning into horrendous violence,the staff looted what they could, a huge unpaid tax bill; became the proverbial millstone,and not nearly enough toilets. Bernard Manning performed on the opening night, and predicted disaster, refusing to even take his fee.It is a tale of woe.In the early 80's there were attempts to offer something different to the standard music business . Factory Records/ Hacienda and Anarchy Peace punks Crass tried to build genuine 'alternative ' scenes then Billy Bragg demanding a price freeze on his albums. ....and the tale of the Hacienda seems the most tragic simply because it had such a colossal impact on music, but not on the ethics of the music business.At times the tales of pill consumption and boozing get monotonous but there are enough anecdotes. Hooky claiming to be possibly the last known musician to see Nico alive, getting excited by putting John Cale on, only to find 40 people in the audience, and most of them talked through the set, the time Manchester scallies descended for a rave in Peter Gabriel's garden. Worth reading indeed.

Excellent book by Hookey. Both for those who remember the 'Hac' fondly and those who are too young (or too out of it) to remember. I was an original member back in the day (I wish I'd have kept my original plastic membership card).Some laugh out loud moments (The chapter on Ibiza had me absolutely p*ssing myself) and some sad moments as well (the young girl who overdosed on E).This book should be on the curriculum and form a case study for both business studies and social history students. Highly recommended and finally a message to Hookey. If I ever see you out and about I will give you that tenner.

I was a semi regular attendee at the Hacienda in the first two years but left Manchester well before the rise of the club as a dance and rave venue. This book therefore was interesting on a personal level as well as more generally. It’s a mix of popular culture and business as we get to see detail of the artists who performed there and the management of the club. The artist stuff is familiar ground - Sex and drugs and rock and roll. The business side is fascinating - car crash fascinating as the club manages to lose huge amounts of money continually. Then drugs and gangsters appear as the club becomes the place t9 be during the Madchester era.Well worth a read.