The Special editions contain signed and individually numbered volumes, bang loads of previously unpublished material, and a vinyl 10” record in which the man in question revisits classic New Order tracks instrumentally and records a new one.
In addition, the Standard edition (400 copies) includes a mounted piece of The Haçienda’s dance floor, and the Deluxe edition (100 copies) and Ultimate edition (2 copies) additionally include a piece of The Haçienda’s bar top.
The Ultimate edition even comes packaged with a custom-made FAC51 Hacienda bass guitar constructed from the sweat and tears of the dancefloor itself.
We spoke to Hooky at the Groucho club in London about bygone eras, being paid £12 a week and limited edition books that contain expensive bits of wood...
What’s the scene with the new editions then Mr Hook? Explain yourself…
It’s funny really, being a collector all my life, to suddenly be the subject of something deemed as “collectible”.
Things was, at the beginning of compiling The Hacienda How Not To Run A Club, I was kind of under the impression that doing a book was like doing a record – but it’s not. They just put it out as a book, and it’s just like all the other books. And I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t do the detail really, and all the crap that Pete Saville puts into your record sleeve.
It wasn’t graphically pleasing, like the Hacienda was…
Yes, that’s not to say the story in a book shouldn’t sell itself, but when I was asked to do this I thought it was a blt of a blatant cash-in opp to be honest, and that I was gonna get slagged off for it, so I wasn’t really interested. Then when the designer showed me the way he was going to do the dancefloor and the bar top it began to take on a new life and become the book I thought the original would be. Especially with something as graphically dependant as The Hacienda.
Funnily enough, the designer who made the cover didn’t realise that he chose exactly the same stock of paper for which Peter Saville designed Tony Wilson’s funeral invitations. Fucking freaky huh?
Indeed. What’s your favourite thing about these special editions?
It’s the gravity of it really. The story of the Hacienda is much more deserving of that [picks up book] than it is of the first edition book.
When Matt (the publisher) wanted to put the floor in, that’s where the idea for the guitar came from. A mate of mine had two pieces of the floor in his hands and started doing heavy metal guitar posturing, so the idea for the guitar came from the book.
The floor itself still has the stiletto marks, you can feel it. The thing I like about that is, when you think about what has oozed into that dance floor, all that sweat, love, fear, drugs, fucking euphoria and music, that this floor has reflected and reverberated, I like the idea of using this thing that has absorbed so much to actually make music. In a cyclic kind of way, it’s kind of giving it back.
You also get a limited CD [one of which we have to give away, readers, see below] with the new editions, right?
Because books are books the idea naturally arose for me to do some “cover” versions of old New Order tracks to go with the limited editions, but after hearing Florence and the Machine’s You Got The Love, I didn’t really want to do that. So I came up with the idea of doing three New Order instrumentals: Elegia and The Happy One and Sooner Than You Think, each of which have a lot of bass guitar. I played them on the Pleasure Speaking tour which I did with Howard Marks. The fourth track on the limited CD is called We Are The Vikings and it’s a homage to the New Order fan club, who are called The Vikings.
Can I ask you some questions about the “old days”?
Sure you can.
Joy Division formed in 1976/77. A lot of our readers might think pubs have always been open all night and TV has always been 24/7. Can you describe what it was like going out in Manchester in 1977?
In the 70s it was very traditional. You had to wear a suit and tie to go out in Manchester, and you had to listen to bland pop music. I was 20 then and I was looking for something different and looking, I suppose, for what I wanted to be in life. Punk changed me. I just wanted to tell everyone to fuck off. The actually making of music came afterwards though.
Where did Manchester punks go?
There was nowhere. The only place punks were allowed to go was Foo Foo Lamarrs run by an old transvestite on a Thursday night. And then you used to take your life in your own hands because the Teddy Boys used to come and batter the Punks, which in itself now sounds odd. So, essentially, we built and ran the Hacienda so people like us had somewhere to go.
What were the pubs and clubs like? Violent? Where did you meet girls?
They were violent but in its pomp nothing could compare to the level of violence we encountered at the Hacienda. That was fucking ultra-violent. People died. So in answer to the question you’d have to say it quite normal until the Hacienda. London had a similar scene, but it wasn’t organised gang violence like it was in the Hacienda, and comparable to the sort of gang violence you still get in Manchester today.
What did you do before the band?
I worked on the docks in Manchester before I joined the band. I left school at 16 and went to work in Manchester Town Hall, and got sacked because I didn’t pass my O levels. The I got a job in Butlin’s which was shit and ended up coming back to Manchester to work on the docks. I was there for two years enjoying myself. Switching off at 5 is great. When you become a musician you’re working all the time. In comparison to that 9-5 happy-go-lucky lifestyle, being self-employed is shit.
I took a wage cut from about £32-a-week to about £12 to join the band, and my girlfriend was really fucking pissed off with that!
How long did it last down the pub?
Pints were 10p and drink wasn’t a big thing back then, so it was okay. Most bands get to the point where they believe the only reason they get into it is for the drugs and the dirnk, but in the beginning you get into it for the music. I’m an alcoholic, a recovering one, and once I gave up the booze I started making good music again.
In the early days we used to have to pay to play – you never earned anything from performing. In fact, Joy Division, from the moment we started to the moment we finished, never earnt a penny. When Ian Curtis killed himself we were all as penniless as when we started out. All the money from Joy Divison came afterwards. But it was great for the group, because we never argued about money!
At its height the Hacienda was losing £10,000 a month, and we were on £100 a week. Bizarre really.
What do you think of X Factor and the dominance of bland, saccharine, manufactured pop?
It’s not about music is it? I’m a self-taught, non-reading musician. So I can’t understand people who read music, let alone people who do cover versions. The whole thing I live for as a musician is writing my own music – that to me is the most natural thing in the world and ALL you do it for. So I just don’t get Alexandra Burke or JLS – I just don’t get it. If someone else writes a song and gives it to them, I don’t understand that. It’s like karaoke.
If you put Ian Brown in front of Simon Cowell. Or Ian Curtis. Or bob Dylan. What would he say? Fuck off, you’re not technically perfect enough. That’s what’s frightening because it’s scared of originality and music and performers who push boundaries.
It’s cheap TV and they treat you like shit because you have no power. When you’re in a band you have the power and not the fucking executives – that’s the difference. Being in a band is like a licence to get off it and act badly. It’s brilliant.
If there was an enjoyable period in New Order when was it?
I don’t know if there ever has been because it all came out of Ian’s death and we’ve obviously never forgotten that. Joy Division was a hell of a shadow to step out of, so when New Order gained some identity and recognition that was nice.
New Order was very fraught at the start because everyone was jockeying for position and you were trying to live up to Joy Division, trying to find a new musical direction and you’d lost someone who was really really important to you musically. For me, New Order’s always been pretty difficult ever since it started because of the way it started.
Then when the Hacienda started going bad then you used to blame it on the group. I reckon it lost between £15-18million in the 16 years it was going and it earnt probably a lot more that disappeared. We were great at music and shit at business, so people took advantage of us.
We set out to entertain Manchetser and we did, so we succeeded. We wanted somewhere to go out, get drunk, meet girls and lord it up – and it was fucking great. If we’d made money, I wouldn’t have written the book, would I? 
The Hacienda: How Not To Run A Club by Peter Hook is published by Foruli Limited Editions this month. See www.foruli.co.uk for pricing.
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