An Author's Introduction

The reasons behind my decision to write this book

Initially, this was only meant to be a few essays, or maybe even a podcast (everyone seemed to be releasing one). I then worked out that, if someone was to write about the New Yorkshire Wave, I was well-placed to do so. As I stacked up interview after interview, there came a point when I realised that I might have enough words to create a book.

The Credentials

One of the things I have learned through the whole submission process is the importance of being an expert. It’s essential for convincing a literary agent to sign you up or a publisher to physically produce your book. It's rather like a job interview, you need to demonstrate that you have the credentials to discuss your chosen subject, at length. Alas, as I am yet to write for Q, Mojo or NME Magazine, my credentials seem to fail to stack up for a typical music writer, certainly not one hoping to publish a book about a British music scene. Trust me, I’ve read the blurbs.

I’m treating this lack of credentials as an inevitable inconvenience, rather than a terminal drawback. If the manuscript is good enough, people will want to pay good money to own the book. The only question is my method of distribution, which increasingly looks to be via self-publishing and not a recognised book publisher. If that’s the case, so be it.

My Inquisitive Brain

They say everyone has a book in them. I'm not entirely sure I could have written another. I have an inquisitive brain so I often wondered how these bands came to fruition and how the music scene was formed. The book is as much me trying to find that out as it is hoping that the reader finds out something new. Part of the explanation is also that my writing fails to extend to creative, fictional works, and little beats the experience of actually being there when it was happening. Sure, you can read books, watch videos, or listen to podcasts but unless you were in the room at the time it barely registers. There’s a truth and a passion to my writing that I believe comes through, even though I try my best to narrate and not commentate.

‘Meet Me In The Bathroom’

During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, I read ‘Meet Me In The Bathroom’ by Elizabeth Goodman. The book showed me that you could use the testimony of others to tell the story of how a music scene began and evolved. I then openly wondered if there was a book already written about the New Yorkshire Wave. There was not and I was wholly disappointed given how important the music scene felt at the time. That’s essentially when the germination for my book occurred. ‘Soddit, I might as well write it given how close I got. Who else is going to do it?’

A Live Reviewer For The Sheffield Star

I got a little closer than just being in the room. After bumping into David Dunn, the Music Editor of The Sheffield Star, in early 2006 (at a Milburn video shoot no less), I was offered the chance to give my own opinion on those bands at the time. All I had to do was review a Little Man Tate gig as David was unavailable. The piece totalled around 250 words and I half-expected an email simply saying, 'Not bad, kid. Not bad'. Then I got a text from the frontman of the band thanking me for the review. The newspaper had printed it straightaway, suddenly I was a bona fide music journalist.

Granted, I still had the same access as every other punter (no backstage passes) yet I had a job to do. Back then, the experience of writing was more immediate. I'd get a free ticket to the gig, take notes on my phone, write up the review when I got home, and see it in the paper the next day. Writing the manuscript reminded me of those days, only I could now call on outside help and was given a lot longer to coalesce my own views and those of my interviewees. Plus, there was an immediacy to those reviews and a strict word limit. Here, I could take my time and was allowed as many words as I needed.

Memories can be hazy and, for the large part, it's been a struggle to confirm specific dates. The early noughties marked the start of social media and the internet having a marked influence on our lives. However, I had to rely on the microfilm of The Sheffield’s Star Gig Guide from Sheffield Central Library to find out particular dates of gigs and the odd physical release. The dates alone are helpful as you can create a narrative from the sheer lineage of instances. How a music scene develops can be drawn from that timeline as it becomes clear which bands are going places, and which are on the steady comedown. Hype can seem indefinable yet when you can mark a band’s rise in single releases and large venues then it makes more sense.

Weaving A Tapestry Of Narratives

Of course, my narrative and my experiences were solely my own. That's only part of the picture so I needed to speak to others that were there at the time. Perhaps at various points we were in the same room yet experiences can still differ. Expectations can range which is one of the great things about any form of art. We can each see the same exhibit and take home different points of view and experiences. Whether the individuals I interviewed were promoting gigs, in bands themselves, or simply there as punters. I needed a broad range of witnesses to build a picture and that's what I got from my Cast of Characters (more about them in an upcoming post).

Being there at the time gave me an authority to write about the scene and that also helps when you are trying to convince people to speak to you. I wonder if, were I another music writer who wasn't there, or a journalist, whether I could have been that persuasive. Over the course of a few years, I managed to garner a huge range of contacts. There are friends I first met on online messageboards and then in person that remain close.

When they weren't onstage or in the studio, I occasionally found myself hovering at the back of the same gig or in the same club as the bands themselves. Somehow I got the mobile numbers of a lead singer and the Mum of a certain drummer. I ended up living a few yards away from a bassist in another band and the lead singer from another. They say that Sheffield is less a city and more a collection of villages and experiences like this make that statement ring true.

After building up a list of Sheffield-based contacts, I was able to speak to those in the Leeds scene. Most of these individuals were ones I had hitherto not communicated with but you start small and, gradually, you find your way. Leeds’ scene was closely-knit too and after finishing one interview, you could be introduced to someone else and on and on it goes.

There were only a small handful of people who decided not to contribute to this project. Each of them had their own reasons, and I could see why they had come to that decision. Those who did speak to me understood that I was writing the book for the right reasons. After all, I was there.