Graeme Park on Hacienda’s legacy, United We Stream and the next episode for UK nightlife
Even Hacienda legend Graeme Park endured a tough 2020. But with United We Stream ringing in the New Year, he believes there might be hope for live music yet.
“I look at my life in chapters – and each chapter has its highs and lows,” Graeme Park explains.
When you’ve been in the music business as long as he has, compartmentalising your story in this way is probably the best approach. It makes it easier to pick out all the important moments from a kaleidoscopic catalogue of clubbing memories.
Still, wherever Park goes, there’s always one chapter he’s asked about most: The time he spun records at the greatest party on Earth.
“The Hacienda chapter was incredible,” Park tells us.
“It was the original British superclub and always will be. One thing you can always rely on, whether you’re in Sydney or some obscure beach resort in Uruguay, someone will come up to you and go: “Oy! Parky! ‘Aciendoooorrrrrr!
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“Always, always, always.”
The nine years he spent working at Manchester’s hazard-coloured nightclub are the best-known bits of Graeme Park’s biography. But as the DJ points out, it was a venue that played a huge part in other people’s stories, too.
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“People fell in love at The Hacienda,” Park remembers.
“People got divorced because of The Hacienda. People conceived their children after going to The Hacienda. Some people apparently conceived their children in The Hacienda, if rumours are to be believed!”
Paving the way for Park’s residency at the world-renowned nightclub was a prologue that featured three influential moments.
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The first was the day he got hired at a record store. It was the “job that everybody else wanted”, Park remembers, as he got to hear all the new music being released and play whatever he liked.
The second was when he “reluctantly agreed” to be the DJ after the record shop owner bought a local nightclub (“I never wanted to be a DJ, I played in bands,” Park explains).
And the third came much later – when Park stepped up to fill The Hacienda’s Friday slot for a few weeks in 1988 (a time which would later be remembered as the ‘summer of love’ when house music truly took off in Manchester).
The rest is history. Even now, almost 24 years after the party finished, the music of Madchester is still ringing in Park’s ears.
“It was a privilege and honour to be a part of it,” he states.
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“I was a massive Factory Records fan in the 80s, and I used to visit The Hacienda to see bands like Crispy Ambulance and A Certain Ratio – so to end up being part [of The Hacienda] was a dream come true.”
But all good things come to an end. The Hacienda, a club that infamously never made any money despite its huge popularity, fell into decline in 1997 and was eventually demolished before being converted into flats.
Post-Hacienda, Park embarked on a series of new adventures – playing to enormous crowds all around the world, launching a merchandise range, and even teaching music part-time.
He even travelled down the other end of the M62 and played at Cream in Liverpool (“I couldn’t have done both [Hacienda] and Cream at the same time; they’d have lynched me!” Park jokes).
The DJ’s career has spanned the best part of four decades. And his most recent chapter, 2020, has also been an important one. Albeit for very different reasons.
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Like so many other live performers during the past eight months, Park has found work very hard to come by – playing just five socially-distanced outdoor gigs since March.
Coronavirus has essentially muted most live music across the world, and it’s been a challenging period for everyone in the industry.
“90% of my income has just gone,” Park says, frustratedly.
Until gigs are back on, he’s been paying the bills with his part-time music lecturing – a role he was considering quitting not too long ago.
Park explains: “Three or four years ago, I said to my wife: ‘I don’t really need to be doing this lecturing any more.’
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“I was doing quite well and it wasn’t that much money a month. It was less than half I got for a gig.
“But she talked me out of it. She said: ‘You never know what’s around the corner.’
“It’s a bloody good job I didn’t. It’s my only income now. And it all disappears in a day on bills.”
Image: Katie Hall
In between lectures, Park has been trying to get the music scene going again – campaigning to Shadow Minister for Cultural Industries Tracy Brabin and Withington MP politician Jeff Smith for change.
The DJ says the sight of shoppers flocking to retail stores whilst the entertainment sector has stayed shut has been frustrating – with the industry arguably proving in summer it could indeed be ‘COVID safe’.
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“All the socially distanced events I did, they worked,” Park claims.
But still, whenever coronavirus cases in the UK rose at any stage during 2020, live entertainment and events were promptly put under lock and key.
“It’s frustrating because if you produce the evidence that says your industry isn’t going to be able to operate, you take it on the chin,” Park explains.
“But that evidence hasn’t been shown to anyone.
“That’s because the evidence doesn’t exist. Maybe that’s an argument for another time.”
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In a year that will surely go down as one of the most difficult Park – or any musician – has ever experienced, there has been at least one small and delicious crumb of comfort.
In spring, we got United We Stream – a gig platform set up by Greater Manchester’s night time economy adviser and Parklife/Warehouse Project founder Sacha Lord.
Back in April, Lord assembled some of the best DJs and musicians – including Park – to beam gigs into living rooms around the world.
It was an enormous success – raking in 7 million viewers during its initial run and raising £477,000 for 12 regional charities and good causes.
The project wound down in summer to focus on rebuilding the sector, but in November it was confirmed that United We Stream would return for four shows over the Christmas holidays – including a massive 24 hour stream on New Year’s Eve.
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“I did the two Hacienda house parties in March and April, including a 12 hour stream on my own which was amazing,” Park says.
“When they [United We Stream] approached me for the New Years Eve party, I just couldn’t say no.”
Park is assembling his Hacienda Classical project exclusively for the occasion – producing live orchestral renditions of the Hacienda’s flagship floor-stompers (‘Blue Monday’, ‘Voodoo Ray’, ‘Move Your Body’ etc).
There’s a limit on the number of musicians permitted inside the studio due to COVID, so some “technical wizardry” is being used to bring the full orchestra together – as the choir and solo singers perform their parts from home.
Once the final note is played, Park will then rush up to the DJ decks for a solo set.
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“There are so many great DJs on before me and after me, and it’s a fair assumption that house will be the predominant sound [on the night],” Park explains.
“So, I’m already planning on dropping a few surprises – just to make people smile.
“My biggest thrill that I get these days is digging deep into archives and finding tracks people have forgotten about… stuff people haven’t heard for 20 years but will remember as soon as they drop.”
Park’s always had an eclectic taste in music – dating right back to his teenage days working in the Midlands record store.
During those shifts, he would play a diverse range of tunes – which is what convinced the store owner to make Park have a go on the decks at his new nightclub.
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After realising people liked his music selection – and that he could actually mix – Park never looked back.
“I just play what I like and always have,” he puts simply.
“Sometimes it’s difficult to explain this to some half cut woman who clambers up to the DJ box and says: ‘But if you play it, everyone will go crazy’.
“And I’m like: ‘Yeah, but I absolutelyhate it.
“I don’t care how big it is.”
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Image: Katie Hall
Park has been given the prestigious honour of ringing in the New Year at United We Stream’s show on the 31 December.
“I’m seeing in 2021 in the UK – GMT midnight – so I’ve got one of the best DJ slots,” he reveals.
“Well, I say ‘see in the new year’. This time it’s going to be more like ‘good riddance last year.’”
Of course, Park is well aware that life won’t magically return to normal at the stroke of midnight.
“I think that masks, hand sanitiser and social distancing are still going to be around when we start opening up live venues again,” he admits.
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“Coronavirus isn’t just going to go away because of the vaccine. It’ll take time. It’ll be back to normal with certain caveats.
“Some live venues will never open again. Some people will have lost their jobs and won’t be able to go out for a while.
“Promoters are reviewing fees in the circumstances as well, saying: ‘I don’t know if I can afford this anymore’.
“Things will be different.”
Image: Ant Mulryan
With clubs closed for so long, many have attempted to recapture the euphoria of live shows and nights out by propping up their camera phones against walls and beaming live sets to YouTube or Facebook.
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But according to Park, United We Stream is one of the few to do it properly.
“One thing that really does my head in is that the internet is full of tedious looking blokes playing records now,” Park says.
“They’re all playing the same thing. You think: ‘Why am I watching this?’”
“The key [to streaming] is keeping it special.
“United We Stream is the perfect example. It’s going to be something else.
“It’s a huge, huge lineup. And visually, it’ll be fantastic.”
2020 has left the live music industry on the ropes. But nonetheless, Park is impressively calm and optimistic.
“It’s in my nature to be positive,” he states.
“I’ve got lots of great things to be thankful for in life. I know this cannot be forever.
“The sooner everyone follows the guidance fully, the sooner we’ll be back.”
There’s still a long road ahead, but in time, we might just look back at United We Stream NYE as the moment everything started to get a little better…
Celebrate New Year’s Eve by watching a massive 24-hour set from Hacienda legends – including Graeme Park – live via United We Stream here.
Feature
Manchester artists we’ve been listening to this month | November 2024
Danny Jones
Well, hello there; fancy seeing you all here – presume you’re waiting on another batch of new Manchester bands and artists you’ve not come across before?
Stupid question, of course you are. It’s the end of the month after all and that’s how we like to start the next one. Best foot forward and all that.
In case you happen to be new here, right about now is the time (as you’ve probably guessed from the title) that we round up five of the best musicians from in and around Greater Manchester that we’ve been listening to recently.
Let’s not muck about any longer, shall we?
Five Manchester bands and artists you should listen to
1. John Bramwell
His S-heavy voice cuts through so much this album in such a satisfying way.
First up on our list is John Bramwell, best known for his years with noughties alternative and indie band I Am Kloot, but he’s been enjoying his solo journey since 2016, and so have we. With his sophomore album released earlier this year, we finally found time to try it out – in a word: stunning.
Hailing from Hyde, the former frontman and guitarist released his standalone debut in 2017, but even before that he released a passion project under the name ‘Johnny Dangerously’ way back in 1989 entitled, You, Me and the Alarm Clock, once called “the best British album you’ve never heard” by The Guardian.
Suffice it to say, the 60-year-old has been on a long and winding road to becoming a straight-up singer-songwriter for some time now and it’s great to hear where his sound has got to. There’s a real 1960s and ’70s feel to a lot of it; we’d start with the title track, ‘It’s Just You’, and ‘I Am The Sky’, which shows a real range to those vocal tones.
2. Hollows
Second on our list of Manchester bands and artists for November is the alternative trio, Hollows, who after stumbling across a little while back we’ve now rediscovered following their release of their latest EP, Running With Scissors.
While it’s by no means heavy, they’re probably the most guitar-driven name on the list this month. We picked up bits of Placebo and even contemporary Smashing Pumpkins at times but, put most simply, they’re just a good rock band and we still think there’s a lack of those around these days.
Their newest stuff is undoubtedly their best but you’ve still got to start with ‘UV Lights’ in our opinion (simply because we did), but from there we’d encourage you’d move on to ‘History’ and ‘Talon’.
Shifting over to electronic for a spell, our next nod goes to rising DJ and producer Oldboy. Named after the cult-hit film, his sound certainly carries over plenty of inspiration from movies and TV – and not just because he samples Brad Bitt in Seven on one of his tracks.
Born in York before spending his uni days in Sheffield and eventually landing here in Manchester a few years ago, the rising Northern star – real name Max Carter – does garage, dub and house best but there’s lots of variety on show. He also has his own record label, Front Toward Enemy.
With a catalogue dating back to 2021 and a versatility spanning so many sub-genres, not to mention a truly great selection of instant earworm sampled, he can pretty much turn his hand to anything provided there’s bass and some distortion involved. ‘Grab Di Mic’ is his latest, ‘Find Da Cure’ is a great intro and his ‘Got Yo $’ rightly went viral on TikTok a while back. Give him a spin.
Amidst all these new Manchester bands and lesser-known artists, Oldboy’s live sets are a nice change of pace.
4. The Recreation
Penultimately, we’ll quite literally keep effing and blinding until you listen to the fantastic local five-piece that is The Recreation, who have quickly become a bit of an obsession of ours. They released their second LP this past May and the only thing we’ve been listening to the same amount is their first.
To be completely honest, we’ve only really chimed with the stuff from 2020 onwards, but let’s just say we really struggled to pick our favourite tracks from the Oldham lads because we genuinely love all of it so much. That being said, if you had to push for once from each album, we’d go ‘Summertime 35s’ from their debut and ‘Call Me Back Sugar’ from Love In.
A really special shout-out also has to go to the extremely stripped-back spoken word track, ‘remember the future? interlude’, which delivers such matter-of-fact but surprisingly moving Northernisms that we really urge you to find a quiet corner in a dark room and just experience it. Big up The Rec.
couldn’t have done it without the wizardry of @thekaratesuit and a huge thanks to Ramin Bostan for providing the luscious trumpets you hear on track 6 ‘Kharhi’. Both amazing talents in their own right!
Last but not least are the whippersnappers of the bunch, local lads Montello who were recently got onto thanks to the Stanleys lads, who named this little four-piece one of the names helping fly the flag for the mini music hamlet of Wigan.
When we say young by the way, we’re talking no one much older than 17 in this promising little outfit but they’ve already got a style and a sound that gives the impression of a band that has been at this much longer than they have and there’s definitely some similarities to The Lathums, Stanleys and more.
It’s no-nonsense indie rock and you know we love a bit of that. Better production levels and even more confidence will come as they inevitably mature but, at the minute, they’ve got three tracks you have no excuse not to work through them all. The Wigan scene really is growing and we’re here for it.
They also happen to be playing our Audio North stage at Year’s End Festival next month, so we best see your there and listening to live!
And we’re sorry to say it but, once again, that’s all for another month.
We sincerely hope you give these fantastic Manchester-based bands and artists a go over the coming weeks and come back for more recommendations for our final edition of 2024 at the end of December.
Featured Images — Press Images (supplied/via Facebook)
Feature
If this is a cult, we’re into it – Sleep Token hypnotise a sold-out Co-op Live crowd
Danny Jones
Tuesday night saw thousands head towards the Etihad Campus for two massive events: one of them being Man City playing in the Champions League and the other one, arguably the biggest metal gig of the year as Sleep Token made their Co-op Live debut.
The alternative prog metal group have had an unreal 12 months or so and while the mysterious, masked rockers have actually been around since 2016, the past year has been truly seismic for their now global profile – hence why they were able to sell out Manchester’s biggest arena at the first time of asking.
Bands don’t just walk into places like the 23,500-capacity Co-op Live arena; anyone playing gigs of that size needs to have earned a rather massive audience in order to do and, in the case of this particular artist, that following feels a little bit more cult-like and fanatical.
We mean that in the nicest way possible, by the way, and we now well and truly have faith in the musical and slightly macabre church of Sleep Token. It all started with an unforgettable intro.
Actually, first off, we have to give a huge hand to warm-up act Bilmuri. We were admittedly almost just as excited to see these guys for the first time and they pulled an absolute blinder landing the support slot for this modern metal gig as, much like the main event, their music is just a bit different.
In the same way that Sleep Token aren’t just straight-up heavy, thrash, death or any particular kind of metal for that matter, neither are Bilmuri. For one, they’re straight-up hilarious, with frontman Johnny Franck spending lots of time both cracking up and ‘cranking’ up the crowd by ‘the hog’ in between songs, amidst playing a mix of alternative metal, post-hardcore and pop-punk.
The various genres being fused on stage are truly wild. Growling and Kevin James at the Daytona 500 samples (yep) are followed by everything from catchy pop choruses to wonderful jazzy solos from their incredible saxophonist and backing singer Gabi Rose, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Point is, us fans in the crowd may have only been few, but it worked because their style is every bit as sprawling.
Bilmuri will be back playing the Ritz here in Manchester in March of next year; we sincerely recommend you give them a listen and grab a ticket because they were just non-stop fun. We can only imagine how good value for money a full headline show in a smaller venue filled their listeners is. Now onto the ‘cult’.
We love these guys so much – give them a try. (Credit: The Manc Group)
Sleep Token took Manchester to mass
Although the London-formed five-piece has fully lent into this whole semi-religious angle – even labelling attendance to one of their gigs and singing along to the often celestial vocals of their once anonymous frontman as ‘worship’ – it’s a theme that’s sadly been used as a stick to beat metalheads with in the past.
There is undoubtedly a gothic and somewhat satanic element to their aesthetic, especially on the face of things with the painted black arms, Japanese-influenced masks covered in ritualistic markings and dripping with blood etc., but when you actually look beyond the surface it’s simply good world-building.
Lead singer ‘Vessel’ (all of the band members go by specific monikers) had his identity figured out not too long ago, but the whole idea of his overall style, purpose and allure is that he’s supposed to be the physical embodiment of something bigger and a conduit within the wider Sleep Token lore.
Oh yeah, this stuff is super detailed.
Most notably, though, it was probably the visuals overall that really struck us the most. It wasn’t just in looking at the various slightly demonic-looking characters on stage and hooded figures that served as the most enchanting backing singers, it was the utterly stunning production levels.
When we say it was possibly the most impressive use of lighting and effects we’ve come across in our many years of gigging, we’re not exaggerating. From that incredible entrance and hanging LEDs dripping with colour throughout slow songs, to the smoke literally creeping along broad beams of light like some kind of ghostly presence, it felt like we were in a trance at several points throughout the gig.
Mesmerising (Credit: The Manc Group)
Metal isn’t just lots of aggressive guitar and drums – at least not any more
It was in moments like this that we were taken aback by just how wholesome the crowd had been all night – again, something that heavier rock gigs never get credit for. In fact, a current trend at metal shows is for people to hold up pictures of their cats and that was exactly what we walked into. Adorable.
The point we’re getting at is that while this particular show had plenty of headbanging of course, especially with how insane some of the bass and drum work is in Sleep Token’s many breakdowns, Co-op Live wasn’t pure moshpits and carnage. Far from it, to be honest.
When those aforementioned lights were tracing around the massive arena, we constantly found ourselves looking around the room and staring up at the sky, before immediately noticing thousands of other people doing the same. There were just as many heart symbols in the air as there were devil horns.
Phone torches were held high during ‘Euclid’ and the room lit up like a night sky. That’s nothing at gigs these days, we know, but it’s worth noting just to put things into perspective for those who may have long misunderstood the metal crowd, ‘moshers’ and ’emos’ – whatever meaningless word gets thrown around most these days.
Who wore it better?He truly was a godly figure up there on that stage at times.Cosplays and a Manc choir? There was nothing ‘devil-worshipping’ about this crowd, they were wholesome AF. (Credit: The Manc Group)
The highlights were as you would expect if you’re a fan: ‘The Offering’ got those grumbly distorted guitars in nice and early, ‘Granite’ had everyone from the goth girls to the middle-aged blokes doing their very best sexy dance; ‘Alkaline’ put literal chills on our spine – as did all of the vocals from start to finish.
It may have just been our ears playing tricks on us but Vessel’s voice and quivering hands were so full of emotion that we swear we could hear him crying through the lyrics on more than one occasion. Whether for the pageantry or not, there were plenty of very real people smiling up at him with teary eyes.
You’ll never hear quite as much genre-bending as you do in ‘The Summoning’ and watching everyone change gears from just pure, no-nonsense heavy metal to grooving out to the sudden shift to funk rock was a real joy. It was probably the standout of the whole night, but it was a triumph all-round.
We’ve been enjoying Sleep Token from afar for a while now and always really appreciated how technically impressive and groundbreaking the music felt, even just on a pure sonic level, but it’s only now we’ve been to one of their shows that we think we ‘get‘ the obsession and why more and more followers are flocking to see them live in the flesh.
Call it unique, strange, disturbing — call it whatever you want, the fans couldn’t care less. It was a pseudo-religious experience for a lot of people in that room and while it may take us a while to fully convert, we’re very open to the concept. Even if just for that magical intro alone, to be honest.
Live music has always been like church to us, so we can always get behind hero-worshipping like this.
The Manc -
27th December 2020 
