An inconceivably vast amount has already been written about the transformative days of Manchester’s acid house explosion. Running in parallel with Danny Rampling’s Shoom night in South London, Tony Wilson’s iconic Haçienda club set the tone for the country’s ongoing love affair with dance music and clubbing. One of the most repeated adages when it comes to the famed nightclub is that it smashed through boundaries, bringing together art school kids, hippies, fashionistas and football fans from the terraces, all raving side-by-side. The result of that, unsurprisingly, is that those once disparate scenes began to bleed into one another and the boundaries began to evaporate. Of course, the fact that Manchester was already spoiled for choice in all three areas, made the northern city the ideal venue for this intersection.

One of the most pivotal figures behind the Haçienda’s most heady highs is Jon Dasilva, a phenomenally influential resident at the club who revolutionised the way DJs approached set-building and can count Sasha as one of the many big names to have been inspired by the acid house titan. As he explained to us when we spoke to him about PUMA’s new Manchester City kit and the incorporation of Haçienda’s iconic stripes into the design, both his own sets and the house music scene in general have narrowed a lot in focus over the years. In the formative years, when the term ‘house music’ was still finding its definition, DJ sets were a wild west. Anything from hip-hop to African music, batucada to techno, could be thrown in at any point.

Although his DJ sets have changed in that sense, Dasilva still keeps his horizons broad and eclectic. With his band The Virgo Mechanically Replayed, he’s already released one album, with a second on the way. Their first album, appropriately titled Factory Fatigue, took in a vast array of influences—electro-pop, industrial, punk, new wave, psychedelia and more—and it’s anyone’s guess what the next album will sound like. In a sense, Dasilva’s music with The Virgo Mechanically Replayed is a call back to the anything-goes attitude of the Haçienda as it is a look to the future.

In celebration of Manchester’s proud cultural and sporting history, the Haçienda’s monumental legacy —which was centred around the nightclub’s base on Whitworth Street on the south side of the Rochdale Canal—and the role that the club’s location played, PUMA is tying it all together in swift move with the release of their new capsule collection and sneaker pack. Both the kit and the sneaker styles wear their MCFC allegiance proudly, combining the soft blues of the football club's iconic colours with the bold, black-and-yellow iconography first conceived by Haçienda artist Peter Saville. The PUMA CRACK ‘93:20’ and ‘AAFC’ are available now, and the BLUE STAR ‘KIPPAX’ and BLUEBIRD ‘WHITWORTH’ are launching October 25 at size?.

With that in mind, we thought it the perfect time to catch up with Jon Dasilva to talk about his musical history and his thoughts on the Haçienda-inspired Manchester City kit and capsule collection that PUMA’s created through its melding of both entities’ iconic visual aesthetics.

TRENCH: Manchester has always been a passionate football city. How did that feed into the Haçienda scene when it was kicking off in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s?

Jon Dasilva: I was very aware of the passion for football of so many of the people I met at the Haçienda that year, having moved into the city in January ‘88. I lived 300 yards from the Kippax throughout 1988 and went to matches sometimes but very often met up in the pub before games with Haç’ people like Rob Gretton, New Order’s manager and owner of the Haçienda, and his mates.

Did you see terrace culture become influenced by acid house as well? Lots of people seem to think it became safer and more inclusive after the rise of house music.

Absolutely. I think Friday nights in the Haçienda merged into Saturday afternoon football, and let’s just say the euphoria of the club rubbed off on the rest of the crowd! Certainly with the waning of club culture in the late ‘90s, we saw the return of elements of football culture.

What were some of the key style signifiers associated with acid house?

Baggy tees, bum bags, dungarees… Ohhh yes! Purple loon-style trackie bottoms! I tried to rock the latter and obviously failed [laughs]. Muslim prayer hats and beanie hats were de rigeur too. On our feet: Timberland boots, Palladium pumps, hi-top sneakers and those horrid Kickers!

How cool is it that Puma have used Haçienda iconography in their Man City strips? Did that surprise you?

Looks great, and no: not at all. The pride in football and club culture in this city is so intertwined and obviously very cogent.

Will the legend of the Haçienda ever die? What was it that made it so special?

Hopefully not! We may have lost the venue, but the spirit lives on. So many elements made the club special; its beginnings as New Order’s answer to the New York club of the time, alone, would be enough. But add to that Ben Kelly’s stripped industrial, witty interior design utilising traffic bollards, hazard stripes, battleship grey walls and a thoroughly minimal aesthetic throughout, a music policy from the get-go that was way ahead of its time, and you’ve got a legendary club right there! Future music found the perfect club context as was seen in ‘87/‘88 when the scene kicked off. That period—‘88 to ‘91—saw the Haçienda become, allegedly, the most important club in the world.

Early on, you were known for the intricate way you build your sets, with lots of samples, acapellas, etc. How has your approach to mixing/DJing evolved over the years?

All those ideas still swirl around me when I work. The technology has changed, so a lot of the things I wanted to do back then are available now more readily, like edits and fx. I think, musically, it’s narrowed a lot more over the years so the breadth of music—from hip-hop to African, batucada to techno—isn’t represented as much now in my sets, which I regret. I think I was braver in terms of mixing back then.

Tell me about your band, The Virgo Mechanically Replayed. I've read you have a new album in the works—is that true?

Yes: the follow-up to Factory Fatigue is on the way! Only three years in the making! Well, it’s very much a labour of love, not commerce. The band came about when I felt the urge to write with guitars again, in different genres, and was in many ways an antidote to the music I was completely immersed in for so long: house music. It feels good to work in that way, keeping a balance. The other guys in the band, Ally Kidd Cameron and Chis Hughes, are so great to work with creatively and get my wonky approach to working very readily.

Were you influenced at all by any of the many iconic bands you’ve worked with over the years?

I am a huge Joy Division/New Order fan, so remixing New Order recently as Hallo Halo with Jonas Nilson, was obviously a great buzz. I’ve had a long relationship with A Certain Ratio, remixing and DJing for them, which is equally as exciting. It’s great going from fan to friend with these people. I’m also back on tour this winter with another legendary Manchester band: the Happy Mondays!

A lot of UK clubs and venues have been closed down. How do you feel about the current state of the UK rave scene?

It’s moving to bigger, festival-sized venues in so many cities. It has to be seen if this is sustainable in terms of attendance and how it affects the local scenes. As much as it’s great to play to 10,000 people, the smaller clubs offer so much in terms of intimacy and atmosphere.

Where do you feel is the best place in the world for dance/rave culture?

Lordy! That’s hard to say. Europe is such a big playground for us now. Well, maybe less so now thanks to Brexit. The UK is still kicking it forward along with the German scenes, so the future’s gonna be interesting.

Beyond what we’ve talked about already, what are your plans for the future? Are there any goals you’ve yet to achieve?

I’m working towards an artist album which is 30 years overdue. There’s a lot more music on the way, some of which will be under the guise of anonymous monikers—which is often the best way to develop in new areas of music.