GROOVY, LAIDBACK AND NASTY A History of Independent Music in Sheffield

Author:Daniel Dylan Wray

The post-war Sheffield music scene evolved, without external influence, for decades.

Terry Thornton opened the first jazz club, Club 60, in a damp cellar beneath a pub and, two years later The Esquire, in an old flour mill (which went on to become The Leadmill), with gigs by Vance Arnold and the Avengers, featuring local gas fitter Joe Cocker.

Across town, ex-con Peter Stringfellow hired church halls and set himself up as a promoter (and shagger) with gigs by Screaming Lord Such, some Scousers called The Beatles (whatever happened to them, eh?), before setting up The Mojo Club and hosting gigs by the likes of Ike & Tina Turner.

Sheffield got a reputation for being “The Arsehole of the Musical Universe” and local performers, including Tony Christie, were able to refine their acts away from the spotlight.

A 1971 City Hall show by T-Rex was the Sheffield equivalent of the Sex Pistols at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall half a decade later – in the audience were members of ABC, the Human League and Def Leppard.

The availability of dole, housing benefit, and ex-industrial buildings for peppercorn rent, provided fertile ground for the nascent Cabaret Voltaire, Human League, Vice Versa (to become later ABC), Def Leppard, Clock DVA, Artery, 2.3, the Comsat Angels.

Artist-owned recording studios (such as the Cab’s Western Works in a former cutlery factory) and record labels blossomed.

The early 1980s saw the Human League and Heaven 17 (who shared a studio) and ABC (with Trevor Horn’s production) battling in the pop charts, the Cabs in the indie charts, and a lanky schoolboy called Jarvis Cocker forming Pulp. A lull in their collective fortunes followed.

Post-industrial funksters Chakk signed with MCA for £250,000 and set up the first 24-track studio (FON – “F*** Off Nazis”) in town.

Later in the decade, dance clubs in empty buildings sprung up (like mushrooms on the surrounding hills), labels like Warp, an Acid House Church (which was later closed down as a cult), and even Pulp briefly went Acid House, albeit their wonky take on it.

Local acts continued to bubble up during the 90s – Longpigs (featuring Richard Hawley on guitar), Moloko, The All Seeing I, I Monster, Babybird, Pulp (again), along with official clubs like Gatecrasher.

The turn of the century saw Pulp fizzle out, Richard Hawley go solo, and Arctic Monkeys hit big and local indie acts like Long Blondes, nutters Pink Grease, Reverend and the Makers, post-metal acts like 65 Days of Static, Bring Me The Horizon (who remain globally massive and still completely DIY), dragged along in their wake.

Slow Club released four albums and one covers set before Rebecca Lucy Taylor went on to solo success as Self Esteem in 2021, the same year that the Cab’s Richard H. Kirk passed away, and the book ends.

Across 360 pages of (150) interviews and archive, this book attempts to thread a narrative together. No mean feat, it largely succeeds, and is a definite page-turner.

There was just as much going on in Sheffield as in Manchester, but it lacked someone like Tony Wilson to be a figurehead for the city.

I did spot a few clangers in my review – references to New Order’s “Living In Sin” (actually “Get The Message” by Electronic) and the Flying Lizards “I Want Money”. I hope they didn’t make it into the final print copy.

Length of Read:Medium

Might appeal to people who enjoyed…

‘Beats Working for a Living: Sheffield Popular Music 1973–1984’ by Martin Lilleker.

One thing you’ve learned

A schoolboy Jarvis Cocker wrote the Leadmill’s first Christmas panto. And, for years, one of Babybird’s early managers would later, whenever he saw him, punch Stephen Jones in the face.

9