Inside Jacket

The Hacienda: How Not to Run a Club by Peter Hook


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I am going through a British pop star memoir thing at the moment, and I couldn’t resist Joy Division/New Order’s bass player Peter Hook’s book on his (well co-owned by all of New Order) The Hacienda. It’s interesting that he didn’t write a proper memoir of life with Ian Curtis, etc. But perhaps he feels that there is already too much literature on that subject matter. So, instead he focuses on the legendary Manchester music club The Hacienda.

As a business venture it was a total disaster. Peter Hook was too drugged out, too drunk, or too busy making music with New Order to really suss it out. This book in a way is his self-discovery of the horrible mess that is called The Hacienda.

At first it was sort of an artist/collective vision from Factory Records paid fully by New Order’s income. When E hit the fans, it came a paradise. But with paradise comes violence and criminals. And in the end, all the music-loving fans disappear and were totally taken over by tough gangsters.

And this is the most interesting part of the book, is Hook’s slight admiration and fear of these men (and sometimes women). Like all the other British pop music memoirs, this is also a book about how the British sees themselves. But how groovy can turn into horror within a very short period of time.

Peter Hook is a great bass player, and maybe a fantastic DJ, but his character is not as strong as others in his world with respect to his book. Various gangsters, Tony Wilson, the New Order manager – all of them have a strong individual – eccentric- even streak in their make-up. Hook is pretty normal compared to his pals and enemies. Hook is totally likeable, but at the least in his writing, he doesn’t show much character – for instance like Jah Wobble in his memoir.

But in the end of the day, it is an important document for those who are interested in Manchester pop culture – but it’s not the best book in the field. Tony Wilson’s “24 Hour Party People is a much better book.

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Raw footage of New Year’s Eve 1991 at The Hacienda

How’s this for a Halloween trick? Amid the online book price war being fought by Walmart, Amazon and Target — which drove the price of upcoming best-sellers below $9 — the mega-retailers are limiting the number of copies customers can buy. The move could be a response to a threat by indie booksellers to stop buying from publishers and starting buying in bulk at the stores.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Walmart has limited online customers to two copies of certain bargain books, Amazon.com has a three-copy maximum on certain discounted titles and Target Corp. has a five-copy limit online. The price war involves the top 10 hottest book pre-orders.

Taking a closer look at book pricing, Publishers Weekly says that "based on the published discount schedules of the major publishers, there is no way Amazon and Wal-Mart can profitably sell the 10 titles that are being discounted. The highest published discounts offered by publishers for new titles is 48% for books shipped to retail distribution centers; retailers can earn a 50% discount for books bought nonreturnable. The discounts offered by Wal-Mart to customers for books it prices at $8.98, however, range from 74% (Under the Dome, list $35) to 59% (Ice, list $22), which would mean Wal-Mart is losing $8.52 on Dome and $2.02 on Ice."

The price war has led an association of independent booksellers to call for a Justivce Department investigation of alleged "predatory pricing."

An evil octopus, a half-naked French maid, Al Capone—any could be your Halloween costume. They’re also illustrations from the expansive book “Cult Magazines: A to Z: A Compendium of Culturally Obsessive & Curiously Expressive Publications.” What exactly is a cult magazine? As the book’s editor, Luis Ortiz, writes, “The only thing they all seem to have in common is that they serve a need. The editor and author Damon Knight once attempted to define science fiction by saying that it was whatever he said it was.” In that spirit, the best way to learn is to look. Below, a slide show.

• The golden age of cult magazines began in the nineteen-twenties and continued until the seventies, when larger businesses (like Condé Nast) stepped in as owners. Here, an undated issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland, a popular magazine from the sixties.
• Amazing Stories was the first magazine devoted to science fiction, or “scientifiction” as its publisher, Hugo Gernsback, first described it. Here, an issue from 1949.
• The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction was introduced in 1949, as sales with Amazing Stories sagged. It would soon become the queen of science-fiction magazines, with a stable of well-respected editors and writers. Here, an issue from 1951.
• The Great Depression saw a slew of risqué magazines, like this one, from 1935.
• Along with the risqué was the pulp. The Octopus was one of the many pulp fictions produced by Popular Publications in the thirties. Here, an edition from 1939.
• Mobster Times was started as a satirical forum to attack J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon in 1972. Here is its first cover, with a bullet-riddled Al Capone.
• Cult magazines also provided a space for cartoonists. Here, a 1961 edition of Help!, a magazine started by the cartoonist Harvey Kurtzman. He published notable cartoonists like R. Crumb, Gilbert Shelton, and Jay Lynch

(Images courtesy of Nonstop Books.)