Tony Hannon - Up Yer Ronson/Soak Promoter

It's hard work being a club promoter. For the last four years, Tony Hanoi and his partner Adam Wood have been out every single Saturday night. Last weekend saw them swinging from the rafters at an all-fighter in Nottingham where Gordon Aye was playing. The other night, Tony had to be carried out of Up Your Monsoon at three o'clock in the morning on a stretcher. Oh, it’s certainly a hard life.

This is no tuxedoed-up clubland jock. At either of his regular nights, Up Yer Ronson or Soak at The Corn Exchange, you won’t find Tony Hannon sitting in a gilded cage, looking down on his enterprise with a sardonic smile. He's getting blind drunk instead and on nights like that, anybody Djing at Up Yer Ronson has to be prepared to have a bucket of cold water poured over them - and that includes Sasha. "You won't find us propping up bars," insists Tony, "bars are propping us up!"

But don't let that fool you. Tony Hannon‘s Soak nights (nothing to do with buckets of water) at The Corn Exchange have been consistently selling out since he started doing them just over a year ago. He remembers the first night well. "l stood up on the balcony and saw the club going mad up here, knowing that we'd worked so hard for seven weeks to try and get it perfect, it just went off without a hitch. I nearly cried."

Tony gazes nostalgically into his cappuccino. It's lunchtime at Leeds Corn Exchange and the city‘s trendy outlets; Hip Clothing, Creation and The Listening Booth are doing brisk trade. Teenagers lean on the marble balconies, supermarket music floats out of the tangy and bounces off the huge dome shaped roof, with awfully grown biplane swinging underneath.

By day all is peace and harmony, by night, at least on the five Soak nights year, this place is a heaving mass of flickering humanity, it is the UK's premier venue. Driven on by a 42k sound system and powered by the likes of Sash, Mike Pickering, Graeme Park, Angel, Alistair Whitehead, Marshall and Danny Hussein.

You can‘t help but like Tony, a former midfield player for Sheffield Wednesday, he drifted into the role of club promoter completely by accident. Dissatisfaction with the state of Leeds’ nightlife and a timely introduction to a club owner resulted in Chaos at Ricki's which was soon forced to move to a bigger venue at The Warehouse. There the now legendary Sash learned his craft and Tony Hannon scored his hat-trick.

The cheekily-titled ‘Up Yer Ronson’ opened at the Music Factory in July '92, its name a reflection of Tony's opinion on the rest of club culture. "lt means up yer shiter," he grins, "at the time we were a bit disillusioned with what was happening in a few clubs so we called it Up Yer Ronson Lighter - not aimed at anyone in particular but at what some people thought was the right music."

Reared on a wholesome diet of Northern soul, for Tony the right music has to have a tune. Progressive house is a non-entity and hardcore techno - forget it. Both Up Yer Ronson and Soak are geared more to garage and uplifting house. Tony's favourite DJs are Sasha and Graeme Park, "probably the best two DJs in the country."

If a DJ isn‘t playing the music he likes they don’t get booked. Tony’s not into throwaway music. “Our music is stuff that you can listen to in two or three years time and still go 'Oh, that were a good tune' - like ‘Pennies From Heaven' or M-People's 'Colour My Life'. That‘s where a lot of clubs fall down, they look at the present instead of the future."

He also believes that it's now time for the up 'n' coming DJs to mature. Brandon Block, Marshall, Tom Wainwright and Angel - these were the people who made Up Yer Ronson a success. Visiting artists such as Sister Sledge, The Reese Project and Robert Owens bring an edge to it all and with Brandon Block resident on the top floor, playing music that "people can just go mad to," and Marshall giving a garage feel to downstairs, Tony seems to have hit on a formula that really works. Up Yer Ronson is consistent in being one of Leeds' top nights out and is still packing them in. He doesn‘t understand why other promoters haven't cracked the combination.

"You’re better off putting on two DJs so they can get into their own rhythm. lf you have five or six DJs, the night doesn’t flow, there‘s no beginning, middle or end. It's just mish mash." Aspiring promoters take note.

Neither does either club operate a strict door policy. If you've got a ticket, you're in. lf not, you're out. Simple. This is one promoter who doesn't care whether the punters are wearing Gucci or Grunge.

This month (April 14th, in fact) Tony fulfills one of his greatest ambitions with Soak at the Hacienda, coming along forth ride will be Kevin Saunderson, Sasha, Marshall and Inner City. As with many of his contemporaries, the Hacienda was where it all started off for Tony. The Hacienda on a Friday night. The halcyon house years. The mid-80s. Putting on a night there is a dream come true. One of the success stories of the 90s, for Tony dealing with DJs, bands, hundreds of souped up punters and all the other paraphernalia involved in running a club is like water off a Lesser Northern Spotted Canard’s back. But there‘s also a hard side. He has a two year old little boy who lives with him during the week. The result of a club orientated lifestyle was a rather painful divorce. "That’s show-biz," he smiles.

He's not greedy about the future. "What we've got, that's more than enough to do every single show to the best of our ability. My philosophy has always been to stay just there, just underneath, ticking over. l've always filled my nights and that's all l’m bothered about."