This is when my official DJing career at the Hacienda began. I’d done half a dozen gigs there before, playing before and after bands (see the bits of autobiography on the LISTS pages on this site for how I got invited to DJ at the Hacienda). The Temperance Club playlist was very varied; I just thought DJing was about playing your favourite records one after the other and with experience you’d learn how to do that in a way and an order and a manner which would encourage people to dance. It’s still more-or-less my philosophy. So during the 4 and half years of the Temperance Club I played lots of New Order, Rolling Stones, Public Enemy, Mantronix, Sonic Youth, and the Smiths. But it was the bits in between which were curious, and probably made the night unique; EPMD one minute, the Brilliant Corners or the Go Betweens the next. The crowd and I revelled in that diversity. By 1988 and 1989 there were lots of Stone Roses records, plus the Pixies got played to death, and Beastie Boys records, Inner City records etc.

I remember Ian Brown getting into ‘Into the Groovey’ by Ciccone (Sonic) Youth. Journalist and writer John Harris has written fondly of the Temperance Club and hearing ‘The Taxman’ there. Miranda Sawyer used to be a regular from the early days. The Chemical Brothers used to come down when they were mere students; and one of Radiohead too; and Justin Robertson; and Noel Gallagher. Before they were famous; they had to queue, which makes me smile now. Bless ’em all.

In 2009 Richard Norris published his biography of Paul Oakenfold, in the course of which he quotes Justin Robertson talking about the lure and allure of the Hacienda in 1986/7, well before the Madchester moment went overground. Justin says this; “[In 1986/7] someone took me to the Temperance Club, which was Dave Haslam’s indie night on a Thursday. I remember walking into this stark, industrial space. Dave Haslam was playing Shinehead, ‘The Cap Fits’, which has this electronic backbeat that sounded incredible in there. I fell in love with the place, from going on that Thursday. I started basing my entire life around going there. Dave Haslam was DJing bits of hip hop, all quite drum-machine driven…it was very stark but massively cool.”