If anyone is going to make sense of legendary club brand The Hacienda’s 30th anniversary it is similarly legendary DJ and producer, Marshall Jefferson.
He’s flying in later this week to “take care of” an extra special birthday party at London’s KOKO venue. He really, really can’t wait, as Defected’s Ben Lovett found out…
“It’s going to be an amazing, hysterical night” Jefferson opens. “I first played The Hacienda, in Manchester, back in 1987 and was struck by just how magical the atmosphere was. There was all sorts of music and such freedom on the dancefloor. I could play what I wanted and it was totally appreciated. There was a unique vibe, in the same way that the Paradise Garage had a unique vibe.”
The clubbing history books have covered Hacienda’s rise and influence at great length several times over. The venue opened on May 21, 1982 and after several years of finding its stylistic feet eventually established itself as a cornerstone of England’s radical house revolution, alert to the emergent club trends of US cities Detroit, New York and Chicago and keen to bounce them back across ‘the Pond’.
“There were a few places in the UK that had started to notice what we were doing in America and what was being played in places like Ibiza but not many of them, from my perspective, truly got it” Jefferson explains. “When I first started coming over a lot of the clubs were filled with people in suits and ties and I was like ‘what the fuck!?’ The two places that did get house were Nottingham’s Rock City and the Hacienda. Everyone knew all the tunes and responded with this incredible energy. And in the case of the Hacienda, DJs like Mike Pickering were mutherfuckin’ jammin’. I think some commentators have criticised Pickering in the past but he was tearing it up, playing like Ron Hardy [like Jefferson, another legendary Chicago figure] every time.”
Owing to problems with finance and crime, The Hacienda club eventually closed in 1997, before being demolished and converted into flats. However, the name has continued to thrive, reinvented as a highly successful globally touring (and merchandising) party brand. “I think that’s because the same core of people has been involved with running the name and looking after it” Jefferson says. “They’ve maintained the vibe and the variety which, today, is a rare thing to find on the circuit. Whenever I’ve played for The Hacienda – and that has been on and off over the years – I’ve always felt like I’m playing a stadium show. I just can’t describe it.”
Jefferson plays KOKO on December 15, alongside fellow Yank heavyweight Todd Terry and the aforementioned Mike Pickering, long-standing Hacienda resident extraordinaire. The club’s 30th birthday bash coincides with a special commemorative triple-disc mix album, Hacienda30 – mixed by Pickering, fellow veteran resident Graeme Park and original co-owner Peter ‘New Order’ Hook, and featuring vintage dance music delights from the likes of Inner City, MAW, Robert Owens, Murk, Inner City and ‘Madchester’ favourites The Stone Roses – and precedes a Christmas party at Manchester hotspot Sankeys, also featuring Jefferson, Park and Hook.
“It may surprise you but my very first experience of the Hacienda wasn’t a good one” Jefferson recalls. “I saw all this concrete and industrial finishing, and thought the space was too hard... too cold. Of course, when the club opened for business my impressions changed. I always think of that moment now when I come back to the family.”
What does he think of clubland’s current landscape? He’s in a suitably lofty and long established position to appraise it accurately and how it has changed since the Eighties: “It’s maybe embarrassing but I like artists like Deadmau5 and Skrillex. I mean, theirs is not my style of music but I appreciate their songcraft and production. Too many artists today are only focussed on the beats and that’s not enough. Electronic music has its cycles and spin-offs but the good stuff is always driven by excellent songwriting and production.”
Is he confident that the good stuff can prevail in a mass-producing, oft bedroom-based industry of digital grooves? “It’s difficult” he begins. “The production and approach to the studio is improving right now but the outlet for songs and these detailed, well-crafted dance records is not there. Record companies aren’t sure. The singers are often older and we know how the industry is stuck on youth. It’s a shame.
“There’s nothing wrong with EDM or whatever you want to call it but some of the emotion and rawness is missing and I’m not sure if things will change any time soon. Everyone has to look good and the drive is image not the music. I’m not saying we need more ugly people producing house and shit, but there has to be a re-balance. Dance music isn’t anonymous anymore; it’s a big business with plenty more going on than just music.”
The state of the industry has informed much of Jefferson’s current agenda. “Put it this way, I’d love to be helping young artists come through but I’m not convinced I can raise them up at the moment” he confides. “I used to work with a lot of different artists, in one way or another, because of the music, yes, but also because that music made us money and allowed us to keep pursuing our careers. People like Felix Da Housecat, Roy Davis Jr, Lil Louis...we all had options and avenues. Today, the talent is strangled because everything has to be so formatted and convenient; I’ve met young kids as talented as the Rolling Stones, Isaac Hayes, Curtis Mayfield, even the Beatles but...shit...the industry is still so messed up that there’s little hope of getting those heads onto the ladder...standing out and making things happen.”
In turn, Jefferson works fairly casually on his Chi-Town label, Open House Recordings – signings including Jungle Wonz, of which he is a member, Virgo and Louie Gomez - as well as contributing the occasional standalone production himself: “There’s no pressure. I work on the ideas that appeal and hope that the people who follow me also find them interesting. I have a loyal base. I enjoy doing what I do. There are no plans just ideas and my own momentum.”
Of course, Jefferson’s reference to Lil Louis earlier begs a question or two on his friend’s high-profile entanglement this week with an Australian promoter and alleged fraudulent activity. Lil Louis has been called out by said promoter on a Resident Advisor forum because of his refusal to return payment for a series of dates Down Under which for various, complicated reasons he was unable to honour. Louis has attempted to reschedule; the promoter has continued to question and flag the whole sorry saga in the public domain. It got to the stage late this week where Jefferson himself was wading in and, within minutes, facing a barrage of forum comments himself.
“I’ve spent plenty of time this week trying to stick up for my boy” he says. “I’ve had some praise, as well as abuse...it’s a sad situation all round. It’s challenging because Lil Louis is a proper businessman and I think there’s been this huge misunderstanding. Why would he deliberately miss a set of shows and a payday?It doesn’t add up. And now he’s feeling the full force of the anonymous natives on the web.”
In an age where dance music has fully matured and the industry driving it is shaped, in large part, by business frameworks, as well as digital connectivity, it’s perplexing (and concerning) that such complications should be allowed to surface. Is the road still a bumpy one for the touring DJ? “It can be” Jefferson reflects. “There can be stress points for the artist as well as the promoter. But, me, I work with a number of booking agencies; I know Lil Louis doesn’t. I’m not saying that’s the reason why my friend is where he currently is but, me, I get directed to my shows and told what to do. There’s no brain work and no stress, which makes life simpler.”
Jefferson is, in the best sense of the word, a veteran - house music’s true ‘godfather’, the man who helped define acid house and created the classic house piano riff; Mr ‘Move Your Body’ no less.... How does he keep himself motivated? It must be tempting to ride out his remaining musical years on the tidal wave of past achievements. No?
“Friends actually tell me that I’m more animated in the DJ booth, and in the studio, than I was when I was starting out” Jefferson grins. “I appreciate the work that I get to do, and the places I get to play. It’s crazy; for whatever reason I’m getting more work this year than ever. And people are interested in finding out what I’m playing and beautiful young girls are still throwing themselves at me for sex. OK, I might get a heart attack if I followed them out of the club but it’s flattering man! I don’t go in for all of that now, I appreciate it but have my focus on my health, and on music; that works just fine.”
Is there anything else that he still wishes to achieve? “There are always things but I’m feeling great man” he concludes. “There’s no pressure, or certainly I don’t feel any. I have no plans, as I say, I just go day to day and enjoy my life. Right now I’m thinking about the Hacienda and how great that 30th party is going to be. I’m going to tear it up, I promise....”
Words: Ben Lovett
Marshall Jefferson plays the Hacienda’s 30th anniversary party (and Hacienda 30 album launch; the record, on New State Music (UK) is out now) at KOKO on December 15; he plays the Hacienda’s annual Christmas party at Sankeys, Manchester on December 27. Click here for tickets
