On The Buses with Tom Wainwright

Tom Wainwright was one of the history makers at the Hacienda. Every week for a few years, he was there in the early slot, warming up for some of the biggest acts in the world, but at a time when no guest DJ was ever bigger than the club. 

Back then the resident was king. Along with the likes of Mike Pickering, Graeme Park, Jon Dasilva and Dave Haslam, he helped define an era (listen to one of his sets below).

Off the back of his association with the Hacienda he became a bit of a cult figure across the north of England, headlining at institutions like Shindig and Bed, but he never had ambitions to go down the superstar DJ route.

Even at the height of his DJ career, he found time to do a French and Politics degree, so he always had an eye on a life beyond music. Nowadays his full-time living is as a lawyer, but he still DJs when he can (you can see him play at Gorilla for Retro on 14th November).

As much as he loves the good-old days of the Hacienda, we all know that story by now, so we thought we’d talk to him about his current life outside of clubland. Having done what he’d done as part of one of the most culturally important stories of our lifetime, how does he now just blend in to everyday life along with the rest of us?

Answer: he sits on the 42 bus every morning and judges people, and if he’s in the mood, he’ll tweet about it. Given that the 42 stops a matter of yards away from his next gig in Gorilla, our resident Manc-bus-route enthusiast needed no further excuse to put his anorak on and talk to him about all things 42.

So we sit here, literally opposite where the Hacienda used to be - it must bring back the memories. When you’re on the 42, do you ever ponder how just how banal it all is? Do you ever think ‘I used to rock it in the Hacienda… and now this, the daily grind.’

Occasionally. Sometimes you think ‘how did this happen?’, but, you know, I think DJing full time for me had run its course. You kind of get in a cycle - like a treadmill of gigs that aren’t very good and your heart’s not in it - and people can tell your heart’s not in it. So then you don’t get booked for more gigs after that, and then it’s kind of a downward spiral. 

I’d spent enough time in studios to know that I didn’t have a particular love for production, and I was never desperate to push myself all that much anyway. I did play internationally but really, my stomping grounds were up north, so Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Hull, Newcastle - I was comfortable with that.

I don’t really miss it that much. I still DJ from time to time as you know. I think - at the end of the day - I’m quite envious of people who know what they want to do in life. I don’t think I’ll ever know what I want to do in life. There are people who kind of sit around and wait to decide, and there are people who just get on with doing something, and law seemed as good as anything to me to be honest.

It’s a ‘proper job’ I guess. You can provide for your family and for yourself, so you can’t fault the logic of the career-change decision. But yeah, it can be a bit dull sometimes in comparison.

I can imagine. So when you’re on the 42, are there any people who you keep seeing all the time - people who you make small talk with but really wish you didn’t have to?

Funny you should say that actually. I had a load of building work done eighteen months ago, and it all went completely toxic with the builder, he made a complete mess of it, we had to fire him and get someone else in to finish the job. We were actually on TV on Cowboy Builders it was that bad.

Anyway, this builder who we fired lives on my street, and there’s this cafe in Didsbury Village that he basically holds court in like Tony Soprano every morning! And it’s right next to the bus stop - my usual bus stop. So after all that kicked off, I started having to go to the other bus stop.

A bit of me was like, ‘I’m not changing my routine for him’, but on balance I decided it was less stress to go to the other bus stop. But then, at the other bus stop was the husband of an ex-colleague. 

I’d see him about a little bit in the village, we’d have a chat, but there was that morning where I started appearing at his bus stop and we started talking, and it kind of dawned on both of us that we were gonna have to do this every day, and neither of us wanted to. 

So I did something about it. Instead of standing in the shelter, I’d stand about ten yards from the bus stop, so we don’t have to stand next to each other. We’ve now kind of got into a routine where when we board the bus, we just sort of say ‘hello’, and that’s all fine. And if we see each other in another context, we can stop and chat, but the bus thing...

Did you ever watch that episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry David’s faux pas was ‘…but I didn’t know it was meant to be a stop-and-chat? No way should that have been a stop-and-chat!’

Yes! I’m a massive Seinfeld/Curb fan, so most things that happen to me I can relate to a Seinfeld or Curb episode.

It’s amazing how each episode is basically the same - you just know what’s going to happen and how he’s going to put his foot in it - but seven or eight series later, it’s still funny.

Yeah! I guess it’s just that social ineptitude that makes you watch it again and again.

Anyway, back to the 42. Have there ever been any bonkers incidents? Like fights, racism, arguments with the driver etc.? There must have been things that you’ve seen where you think ‘oh God - this country’.

Surprisingly little. I know that most people don’t get the bus or don’t like the bus because they think those kinds of things are going to happen. In the mornings I’m too early for anything like that. I can count on one hand the times when it’s got a bit crazy on the bus. 

The main things that wind me up on the bus are.. I guess it’s the Larry David ‘I have rules in my head that nobody else knows, but I think everyone else should know them’. Although some of them are kind of accepted as wider bus etiquette. 

You know, bags on seats - that’s bad. There’s two levels to that. There’s the level where you just put it on your seat, on the aisle seat next to you, which is bad enough. 

But then there’s the degree up from that, where you sit on the aisle and you then put your bag on the seat by the window, so if someone wants to sit in that seat, they really have to make an effort.

Ooof, yeah. That’s serious.

So sometimes I’ll just deliberately try and sit on that seat, just to piss them off. I wouldn’t get on a bus which is pretty much empty and then sit on the seat with the bag on it, but once you get to that point where it’s full enough to mean you’ve got to sit next to someone, I will actively seek out people who have bags on their seat.

I did it last week and the person looked round as if to say ‘well can’t you sit somewhere else?’ and I was like ‘well no! I’ve picked this seat because you deserve it... up yours!’ 

Do you sit in a favoured seat if it’s available?

Yep. Where I get on is only about three stops from the end of the route, so when they’re coming in to town it’s usually pretty empty by then.

First is my bus company of choice by the way. So if it’s a double decker I go upstairs and sit about two-thirds of the way down on the left-hand side as you look at it, but of course that would be the right-hand side once you sit down.

Ah, I see. That’s a bit too far back for me actually.

It’s a good middle ground. It’s not like I’m saying I can handle anything that can happen on the back seat, but it’s not like I’m sitting by the stairs in case anything bad happens. 

Brilliant!

And you know, I got on the bus yesterday morning and the top deck was completely empty apart from one person on that exact seat, and I hadn’t realised how attached I was to that seat until that happened. 

Actually, that seat becoming my favoured seat was a hangover from the builder incident. So if I was to sit on the pavement-side of the bus, he can see me sitting on the bus, so I make sure I sit on the other side.

Now... I’m actually a front-right, top-deck seat man. And believe it or not, you’re partly responsible for this. 

Oh yeah?

Well when me and my mates used to go to Shindig watching people like you play - in fact, were it not for that, we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all - but anyway, we’d always be ‘front right’ on the dancefloor, which eventually became known as ‘third reich’ because it vaguely rhymed, so that made it a ‘thing’ in my head.

Hahahahaha… third reich!

And thus, almost everything I do does generally have a third-reich bias. Although I don’t mean in the sense of me being a holocaust denier or anything, I mean in a directional sense. But this choice is becoming increasingly difficult because of something my Dad said recently.

He told me a story from his childhood of getting a double-decker bus to watch his beloved Plymouth Argyle play, and that him and his brother plumped for the seat right at the front of the top deck, but his more responsible and officious elder sister insisted that they didn’t sit at the front at all, because she said it was unsafe.

They were like, ‘what? why?’ but had no real choice but to back down, and I imagine, sit in Wainwright-territory in the neutral middle. And then what happens? A low-hanging tree branch comes through the top windscreen and smashes the glass, but of course they were fine because they’d listened to their sister.

So now every time I sit third reich on the bus, I have this vision of a branch coming through the windscreen - it just bullies me. Some days I’ll face up to it and just sit there... 

Well I guess you’re conquering your demons!

...but increasingly, if I’m offered the slightly safer option of the seat one behind the front, I’ll take it. That’s the conservativeness of middle age for you.

I’ve only been in a bus crash once, and that was when I was very small. It crashed into a lamp post.

So were you haunted by this?

No, not really. I guess I’ve been in the odd bus breakdown, but no major incidents on the 42. It’s a good bus really - I accept the odd breakdown.

I have to admit that the 50 is my favourite actually.

I’m quite fond of the 50 in fairness. I used to live in East Didsbury where it was a tossup whether you got the 42 or the 50, and once you got out of peak time, it was like the bullet train! 

Oh aye. It comes to life at off-peak times all right. The 50 just seems to get me everywhere I need to go. I’ve lived in four different Manchester addresses, all of which have been served by it. Such a loyal bus.

There’s always a bus like that. When I was finishing my A-Levels, the 85 was the one. The old route mind you. It used to do everything. It stopped at the end of my road in Didsbury. It would take me to my best friend in Heaton Mersey. I was in a band that recorded in Stockport quite a lot so it got me there as well. 

Then when I stopped with the guitar and it became all about house music and the Hacienda, I’d use the other end of the 85 route. It’d get me to the Hacienda, it’d get me to my flat in Hulme, it’d get me to my girlfriends’ in Whalley Range. It’d just go everywhere.

What a bus. I guess what the 42 has going for it as well is the fact that a lot of people across the country will remember it fondly for getting them home late at night when they were students. I think you could genuinely call it a cult bus route!

Well yes... I’ve been meaning to show you this actually (he reaches into his bag and pulls out a copy of the book: '42 Bus, by Claire Atkinson: Urban Photographer')

What?! That’s unbelievable. That trumps the 50, definitely. In all seriousness though - and I’m not just saying this to be clever - but I think the 42 is a good snapshot of society. You’ve got Didsbury hipster-types on there, you’ve got students, you’ve got people like yourself commuting etc.

All human life is on that bus!

It’s got it all.

Although you don’t get many Didsbury commuters these days though, because the people that think they’re too good for the bus… they get the tram! 

But are you saying that the tram is not even quicker than the bus?

Errrm, well I used to try and argue that, but I have to say, I’ve now lost that argument. The tram is quicker.

But you feel people are on it for the wrong reasons?

Well yes. You save about 10 minutes, depending on the time of day. Maybe a bit more at peak times. But the experience is so horrible - it’s so busy. Busier than rush-hour tubes sometimes. You never ever get that on a bus! And it’s a lot more expensive than the bus. The bus is a pound.

A quid?!?

It’s a price war. Since First came to South Manchester, there’s a price war so Magic Bus and First are a pound. And the First buses are new, clean, fast. We’re in a golden age of cheap bus travel!

Hahaha! I hope the editor puts that statement in a pull quote in bold somewhere.

[Laughs] yeah. But basically, there’s a snobbery about it. People will get a train or a tram just so as not to get a bus... I don’t get it! I don’t get why the bus is the poor relation. If you don’t like the bus, then you don’t like the fellow man.

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