New Order’s Peter Hook names his favourite acid house track
The Hacienda nightclub in Manchester gave birth to perhaps the most important British musical movement since punk. Before the Hacienda, there wasn’t anything capable of bringing house music to the masses. There wasn’t all that much cause to dance about, either. Most of the clubs had shut down, and youth culture was pretty much dead. By the second summer of love, however, Manchester was the beating heart of British youth culture, the centre of a musical revolution that was utterly redefining UK nightlife. We were fortunate enough to catch up with one of the people there at the very beginning, Peter Hook. Here, the Joy Division and New Order member reveals his favourite acid house track of all time, a track he regards as the “unofficial Manchester anthem”.
The people of Manchester were slow to embrace The Hacienda. Ben Kelly’s innovative design was so forward-thinking that nobody knew quite how to behave inside the space. For a long time, it remained pretty empty save for a few goths sipping ale and looking moody. At one point, Factory boss Tony Wilson and New Order manager Rob Gretton were so desperate they experimented with putting on a stripper to attract mid-week punters.
“The club seem to be too big and too cold,” recalled Peter Hook, who frequently performed at the Hacienda with New Order in those early days. “You were always fighting the architecture. People would come in and look at the club and go, ‘Oh my God, it’s beautiful, It’s wonderful – It’s like an art gallery.’ But they didn’t want to go dancing or get laid. You don’t get laid in an art gallery, do you? You get laid in a club with low ceilings, where it’s dark and steamy and there’s a load of corners and shit like that.”
Things started coming together in 1986, by which point the Hacienda had stopped putting on live bands, and electro and rap had started moving in. The DJs at the Hacienda had always been ahead of the curve, playing a lot of funk, soul and disco before eventually moving into Detroit House. “Suddenly, so many more people were interested in house music, and they all crowded into the Hacienda,” Peter explained. “And all of a sudden, it was steamy. And it was dark. And everyone was off their nut – it was the perfect place for acid house”
When asked to name his all-time favourite acid house track, Hooky said: “It’s ‘Your Love’ for me. It’s the bassline. It’s like the unofficial Manchester anthem, and when we play it at the Hacienda events (Fac 51), it really tunes into everybody’s, you know, appreciation for the Hacienda’s legacy and appreciation for life.”
First released as a demo in 1984 by Chicago producer Jamie Principal, ‘Your Love’ was only available to DJs on acetates or reel-to-reel tapes. Initially inspired by a poem Principle wrote for his girlfriend, Lisa Harris, the music was added using a humble four-track recorder. Widely regarded as the first-ever house track, ‘Your Love’ was later picked up by Frankie Knuckles, who played it regularly during his sets at The Power Plant Chicago. In 1989 it was released as a 12-inch in the UK for the first time, peaking at #59 on the UK singles chart that same year.
