Life After Dark

by Dave Haslam

  In August 1988 the Sun ran an expose of Spectrum at Heaven, claiming, ‘Junkies flaunt their craving by wearing T-shirts sold at the club bearing messages like “Drop Acid Not Bombs”.’ Oakenfold shut the club for a few weeks and then relaunched with a new name for the night – ‘Land of Oz’. Media pressure didn’t deter new warehouse party operators from getting in on the act, including Genesis, who began hosting warehouse parties in East London. Sunrise attracted 4,000 people to a rave in an old gasworks. The tabloid newspapers went into overdrive. Tintin Chambers and Jeremy Taylor – the men behind the ‘Energy’ raves – were described by the Sunday Mirror as ‘Evil Acid House Barons’. The Star revealed ‘Plans To Flood Britain With Killer Pills’. Tony Colston-Hayter was dubbed ‘Acid’s Mr Big’.

  Warehouse party operators were often able to stay a step or two ahead of the police, but only for a short while. It was the same for club promoters, as James Barton discovered. He’d become mates with John Kelly and together they organised a New Year’s Eve party at a little club off Victoria Street called Nights Alive. It was a success, so Barton and Kelly decided to go weekly, renaming the venue the Underground. The Underground attracted the attention of the national press – John McCready wrote about it in The Face – but it also came to the notice of the police. Looking back, Barton concedes that he and his cohorts were a little reckless perhaps. ‘There were too many drugs, it was all a bit vague on the ownership structure, and there were too many stay-behinds. We’d close the doors and carry on and we’d still be going at six o’clock in the morning playing music and the cops would be outside banging on the doors and we’d be like “Fuck ’em”.’

  A new police commander appeared on the scene, who changed the tactics. Faced with a club full of ravers locked in at 4.30 in the morning, he ordered his officers to rip the door off its hinges, closed down the club and revoked the licence. The police then threatened to bring criminal proceedings against the team, believing the Underground to be a front for drug-dealing, money-laundering and all kinds of gangster activity. ‘They were sure there was more to it than met the eye,’ says Barton. ‘I was making around two hundred quid a week and spent most of it on bloody records and the rest on stupid-looking T-shirts and trousers. I think eventually the police realised we weren’t part of some conspiracy, they were just like, “These guys are just bonkers, they’re just dead-heads”.’

  The organisers of illegal raves in London during the first months of 1989 also found themselves subject to more stringent policing and many of the parties moved from inner-city areas to the countryside. Soon there were a number of regular events, among them Sunrise, ‘Biology’, Energy, ‘Back to the Future’, always with their locations kept secret until late in the day when meeting points would be arranged and word spread via pirate radio, mobile phones, BT messaging services and by word of mouth. On 24 June 1989 Sunrise promoted ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ in an aircraft hangar at White Waltham Airfield near Maidenhead in Berkshire and over 10,000 people attended. Evil Eddie Richards, Judge Jules and Fabio were among the DJs, who played for ten hours, 10 p.m. to 10 a.m. The Sun on the following Monday claimed that ravers included ‘youngsters so drugged-up they ripped the heads off pigeons!’ Readers were told, ‘11,000 youngsters go drug crazy at Britain’s biggest-ever Acid party’.

  Not all the tabloids jumped in with fiction and sensation. For example, it’s striking how different coverage of the event was in the Mirror, where journalist Linda Duff talked readers through the event. The ‘Trippies [as she calls the revellers] hate discos. You won’t find any girls in Dolcis cream stilettoes at an acid house party. There’s no chatting up, and no dancing round handbags . . . The drug ecstasy or “E” will keep the party rocking for the good ten hours that’s required. Users say “E” makes them feel sexy, fit and carefree.’

  At the Haçienda, Mike Pickering had been getting a Nude night crowd with a good racial mix, but as the ecstasy culture began to dominate, the black crowd drifted away. The chaos and euphoria intensified, and a night at the Haçienda became as unhinged as the door of the Underground. However, the liberal door policy, the prevalence of ecstasy and some of the other ingredients key to how the Haçienda became what one journalist has called ‘the spiritual home of acid house in the UK’ also contributed to its demise.

  The police in Manchester were also paying close attention to rave clubs, especially following the death of Clare Leighton on 14 July 1989. Clare had borrowed an older girl’s birth certificate to gain entry to the Haçienda, travelled from her home in Cannock, Staffordshire, with three friends, and took one of four pills her boyfriend had bought from a dealer in the club. She’d previously taken the drug two months earlier at the Haçienda but on this second occasion suffered an ‘idiosyncratic reaction’, collapsed, suffering massive internal bleeding, and died in hospital. The tragedy wasn’t widely reported at the time, partly because, despite the club from Wednesday through to Saturday attracting over a thousand people every night, the goings-on at the Haçienda were underground, barely written about and far from public consciousness.

  More media interest was generated following the inquest into Clare’s death in December 1989, when the coroner recorded a verdict of death by misadventure. Coverage was greater, partly because the circumstances had become clear but also because between July and December the Haçienda’s profile had risen as bands like the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays, closely associated with the scene in Manchester, were picking up radio and magazine interest, and both had made their Top of the Pops debut.

  Police attention in Manchester city centre gave a boost to raves out on the surrounding hills and mill towns. ‘Joy’ at Stand Lees Farm, Rochdale, organised by Anthony and Chris Donnelly, took place in August 1989, followed six weeks later by ‘Live the Dream’ near Blackburn, which included a fairground, a chillout area and a number of DJs from London (including Paul Oakenfold and Nicky Holloway) with Manchester names like Jon Dasilva, Steve Williams and the Jam MCs. Raves were breaking down the traditional enmities between people from different cities; James Barton and John Kelly were also on the bill.

  Word about Live the Dream was spread via pirate radio stations, including Fantasy FM and Centreforce. ‘Freedom is a right not a privilege’ announced the flyer, and ‘We want to dance, so we are taking a chance’. The slogans captured both the idealism and the paranoia of that summer. Chief Superintendent Ken Tappenden of Kent Police had set up the Pay Party Unit in order to gather information about organisers and share this knowledge, and ideas and tactics, with other forces. Between the beginning of June and mid-September 1989 over a thousand raves were investigated by the Pay Party Unit. Tory MP Graham Bright pushed the Entertainments (Increased Penalties) Act through Parliament; the Act became law in 1990, with a range of penalties for organisers of unlicensed parties.

  Matthew Collin, in his Altered State: The Story of Ecstasy Culture and Acid House, tells the story of the unravelling of Tommy Smith and Tony Creft’s Blackburn raves. The first crunch came on 24 February 1990 at a party in Nelson, which 200 police raided, after which Smith and Creft decided to hold back from any further involvement in Lancashire. Five months later, Smith was involved in organising ‘Love Decade’ at an industrial warehouse in Gildersome, Yorkshire. Riot police with horses and dogs closed the event down, arrested over 800 people, confiscated Drew Hemment’s records and charged DJ Rob Tissera with inciting a riot and what was described as the ‘Dishonest Abstraction of Electricity’. He served three months in prison.

  As the 1980s became the 1990s, the line between the perils of illegal raves and legal club nights were blurred in a few places, especially in Manchester. One club that was intense, druggier and darker than the Haçienda was the Thunderdome on Oldham Road. It had been known as the New Osborne, where Alan Wise had staged a gig by the Cure in 1980, but was originally a bingo hall. It was situated in a part of the city Darren Partington of 808 State describes as ‘rough-arsed’. According to Darren, ‘The Thunderdome was full of all sort
s of lunatics, hooligans and vagabonds, but that didn’t matter because everybody had come to dance.’

  Various gangs infiltrated the Thunderdome, including the notorious Cheetham Hill. But DJs like Steve Williams and Jay Wearden kept drawing capacity crowds. For a while Mike Pickering was a resident at a night called Hypnosis. ‘It was great,’ Pickering recalled in an interview with Clash magazine. ‘I used to DJ and people used to come up and give me presents. I remember one night I got a mountain bike. Just came up and gave me it. I remember one night someone gave me an acid tab in my drink. That wasn’t as nice.’

  Konspiracy, under an adult book and video shop on the north side of Manchester’s Corn Exchange, began featuring one-offs in the summer of 1989. Inspired by his early visits to the Haçienda, Justin Robertson had immersed himself in the culture. He DJ’d at Konspiracy on 1 August 1989 alongside John Tracy and Greg Fenton. Justin and Greg then launched ‘Spice’ there on Sunday nights. Chris Nelson, one half of the Jam MCs (with ex-Reno DJ Tomlin), became more involved, alongside Marino Morgan. Sasha was one of their regular DJs. He had made Manchester his home, and got many of his first gigs by taking slots Jon Dasilva was too busy to accept. As we shall see in the next chapter, Sasha would go on to make his name playing full-on, ravetastic house at clubs like Shelley’s, but not every gig he did was on that tip. Early in 1990 he was playing a regular Wednesday gig at Konspiracy alongside dancers Foot Patrol with a playlist the flyers described as ‘Jazz Soul Fusion’.

  In May 1990, after months of surveillance, the police informed Paul Mason they were going to oppose a renewal of the Haçienda’s licence at a hearing six or seven weeks later. The summer of 1990 then became the most intense period in the club’s history. On the one hand, it was getting recognition not just from the British music press, but abroad too. In June 1990, Elektra Records financed a Haçienda DJ tour of America, the first time DJs from a British nightclub had toured the States. And yet, all the while, hanging over this was the threat that the club would be closed almost as soon as we returned home.

  The management had secured the services of George Carmen QC, who the previous year had successfully defended the comedian Ken Dodd on charges of tax evasion. They’d also got support from Manchester City Council, having argued with some justification that, despite the problems, the Haçienda was a focus for a music scene bringing profile and positivity to the city.

  Konspiracy was having similar problems. Within a few months of the club’s launch, it was getting rougher, shadier, though busier. In this period, it wasn’t just a case of avoiding the attentions of the police but trying to stay ahead of the gangsters. In Altered State, Matthew Collin compares the end of Konspiracy to the story of the Haçienda. ‘Chris Nelson and Marino Morgan couldn’t afford a lawyer of George Carmen’s calibre and they didn’t have the public profile to secure backing from the Council and the NME. They couldn’t even control their own doormen or prevent Cheetham Hill gang leaders like the feared “White Tony” Johnson making Konspiracy their base.’

  A year or so ago, I met with one of White Tony’s associates. He didn’t take his coat off, he drank tea, he was calmer than me. He described to me how the gangs that had controlled districts of Manchester, Salford and Cheetham Hill, earning from the supply of drugs and from protection rackets, began to move into town as clubs became busier and, specifically, when ecstasy use boomed. Gangs that had previously been involved with armed robberies and wages snatches, then found out how lucrative the ecstasy market was. He told me the key was not to be too greedy. He worked three or four dealers a night in Manchester, found them ecstasy from a contact in Amsterdam – a thousand, two thousand pills most weekends – divided them between the dealers and protected them while they dealt drugs in the clubs (mostly the Haçienda and Konspiracy); then they’d split the profits. The protection was easy; he carried firearms and a reputation (he’d been arrested and charged twice with murder, but the charges hadn’t stuck). He says the best kids were from Beswick, Miles Platting, and a kid from Stoke. The kid from Stoke drove a grey hatchback up every Friday and Saturday. He could move Es like no one else, eight hundred a night, maybe. ‘He was making good money and I was making good money. I could spend the evening in the Haçienda and earn two or three grand. From doing nothing.’

  It was becoming clear to some of us that if the police didn’t close the Haçienda, the violence would. The lucrative ecstasy market was creating a turf war. White Tony’s associate was on course to make £100,000 from the Haçienda. ‘Things were boiling up in the middle of 1990,’ he says. ‘The music scene, the crowd at the Haçienda; there was money to be made, and you saw all these guys swarming around, it was a buzz. People got caught up in it, the hysteria.’

  Konspiracy closed, but on 23 July the Haçienda received a stay of execution and was granted six months to bring the availability of drugs on the premises and the associated violence to an end – which was easier said than done. The management discussed establishing a membership scheme – one had been in operation in the club’s early years – hoping it would keep away undesirables. In addition, in the autumn of 1990, the doormen were asked to initiate a door policy on Thursdays, allowing entry only to NUS card-holders. The policy was abandoned the following week, but other changes were permanent, including stopping Nude night altogether. This was September 1990.

  It sounds primitive and far-fetched, but before texts and emails you’d be used to communication by letter. In Tony Wilson’s case, I’d write letters to him at his home address, and he used to write back. The change in the atmosphere and the various decisions being made to head off violent gangs contributed to my decision to leave the club. I expressed my exasperation in a letter to Tony. He replied, exasperated at my exasperation. ‘Do you not think that the people who run the Haçienda hate every fucking minute of the way it is? Do you not think it is a constant argument at board level? Do you not think that whatever is happening it is to preserve this very special place for the people of Manchester? It’s tough. Things happen. We have to get on with it.’

  Unfortunately things got tougher, although the news at first seemed good; at the 3 January 1991 hearing, the magistrates noted there had been a ‘positive change in direction’ and renewed the Haçienda’s licence; the club celebrated with a ‘Thanksgiving’ night featuring Electronic (featuring Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr) playing live. Behind the scenes, though, pressure from the gangs was intensifying. Attempting to refuse admission to someone, members of staff were threatened with a gun. This was one of several nasty incidents. On 30 January Tony Wilson announced the club was closing voluntarily, with immediate effect. It had been a journey from innocence to experience. ‘When we started up the club we had no idea that these were the sort of people we would have to deal with. It’s the best club in the city, that’s why they want to terrorise it,’ said Tony at the time.

  During the temporary closure, ‘White Tony’ Johnson had been killed in a gun attack and associates of the gang the police suspected of being behind the killing negotiated to take full control of the Haçienda door (no one has ever been successfully tried for the murder). The closure lasted just over three months, before the club reopened on 10 May.

  The influence of the pioneers and their clubs was already spinning off in all directions, inspiring DJs and music-making. Paul Oakenfold remixed ‘Wrote for Luck’ by Happy Mondays and then co-produced their Pills ’n’ Thrills and Bellyaches album. Terry Farley and Andy Weatherall from Boy’s Own began to run their own parties and began a Boy’s Own record label. Weatherall remixed ‘Loaded’ by Primal Scream and then co-produced their Screamadelica album. Drawing on experiences at Shoom, Helena Marsh, married to Jon Marsh of the Beloved, became part of the group and featured on the Beloved album Conscience, which included the single ‘Sweet Harmony’ – a Top Ten hit in January 1993.

  A new generation of London club promoters was emerging. There was ‘The Brain’, for example, founded in 1989 by Sean McLusky and Mark ‘Wigan’ Williams on War
dour Street. As well as featuring DJs, it gave a stage to some emerging acts playing live, such as Orbital, the Shamen and Adamski, as well as DJs. McLusky later established ‘Love Ranch’ at Maximus on Leicester Square. Charlie Chester opened a record shop on Dean Street called Flying and then, hearing that Dean Thatcher and Brandon Block were going to launch a party out in Colnbrook, Berkshire, (near Heathrow Airport), he got involved with them and the club night ‘Flying’ was born. When it moved to the Soho Theatre Club, Flying really took off.

  By the end of 1991, over in Leeds, the first night of ‘Back to Basics’ had been held at the Chocolate Factory, which was later renamed the Music Factory. Founded by Dave Beer and Ali Cook, Back to Basics would go on to be a legendary club night in Leeds. Tragically, though, Ali Cook was killed in a car crash in March 1993. According to an interview in Jockey Slut in August 1997, Dave Beer’s first taste of acid house was at the Haçienda. ‘At the time I didn’t know where the records started or finished myself. We used to just go in there and get hammered and dance about all night. The beauty of it was that everybody was the star all of a sudden. There was no band, it was faceless music. And the facelessness of it, or the offyerfaceness of it, was perfect for me.’

  In Sheffield, even when Jive Turkey came to an end its legacy was secure. One of the other important elements in Sheffield’s fledgling dance music scene was the FON record shop. Steve Beckett and Rob Mitchell worked there and Winston Hazel joined them, building up an import dance section. Winston then went into music-making, linking up with his friend Robert Gordon, who had an Akai S1000 sampler and knew his way round a studio. Together they created a ‘Track with No Name’, credited to Forgemasters. The plan was to press 500 copies of the track. To help deliver this idea, Beckett, Mitchell and Robert Gordon set up a label, Warp. Parrot and Richard H. Kirk from Cabaret Voltaire collaborated on a record for them: Sweet Exorcist’s ‘Testone’. The label’s fifth release ‘LFO’ went Top Twenty in the UK singles chart in July 1990.