Going Against Sheffield's Humble Nature
One of the phrases that kept coming up in interviews with members of Sheffield's music scene was that 'it's not the place where anyone will blow smoke up your arse.' My manuscript looks to brag.
For a city that has borne the likes of Def Leppard, Moloko, Pulp, Arctic Monkeys, and Richard Hawley amongst other musical talent, there’s little physical evidence of it. A few names of Sheffield Legends outside Town Hall and that’s about it. No plaques, no guided tour and only a few (potentially ill-judged) references in the city’s bars.
I’ve just finished Andy Spinoza’s illuminating book, ‘Manchester Unspun: How A City Got High On Music’ and it’s well worth a read. One of the book’s central arguments is how Joy Division/New Order and The Hacienda ushered in Manchester’s cultural renaissance, an impact that still resonates decades later. The Hacienda is now flats with a plaque being the only marker for the building’s previous use. At least The Hacienda got to keep its name as well as getting a plaque.
Sheffield remains humble, happy to keep producing brilliant music, theatre, and other cultural exports. It’s arguably the Real Ale Capital of The World with 58 unique breweries, yet few would realise it. Indeed, the city has a knack for regeneration to stunning effect, which perhaps explains why there are few remnants of its successful past. It’s still creating, still moving on, still pushing itself forward. While other cities would be tempted to look back and reminisce, Sheffield is looking to the future.
A prime example with Sheffield’s music scene is linked to the city’s steel past. Vacant spaces that were once ‘little mester’ workshops to create cutlery became cheap rehearsal rooms for the next generation of bands. The late Seventies saw bands such as Heaven 17, ABC, the Human League, They Must Be Russians, and I’m So Hollow usher in Synth-Pop. According to The Guardian, Cabaret Voltaire used Western Works for their studio, specifically so they would not have to worry about time spent honing their craft or an engineer stumbling upon them laying down tracks. The band was left alone without the pressures that can come when the clock is ticking and you’re paying by the hour.
The city’s biggest musical claim to fame came a bit later with Def Leppard, who first rehearsed in a former spoon factory at Portland Works. Despite over 100 million records sold worldwide, you won’t find a plaque outside the building.
Fast-forward to 2004 and Arctic Monkeys were rehearsing in similar spaces. Thatcher had decimated Sheffield’s steel industry at the start of the Eighties. Though there were prostitutes walking the streets, Bruce Works was a somewhat ideal location on the way out of the city back towards the bands’s homes in High Green. The area around Bruce Works also offered Alex Turner some writing material for ‘When The Sun Goes Down’ (fka ‘Scummy Man’) due to the sex workers operating in the area. Not that the parents were that worried, even though the drummer’s Dad would tell me how he would be propositioned when he picked the band up from rehearsals in his blacked-out Jeep. Though the former steelworks is featured on the band’s second single, there’s no guided tour to find it.
![Bruce Works, as featured as the cover art to Arctic Monkeys' second single 'When The Sun Goes Down' Bruce Works, as featured as the cover art to Arctic Monkeys' second single 'When The Sun Goes Down'](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F891936e3-8c29-491c-910c-353a0532f640_318x313.jpeg)
That leads me to worry about what many Sheffield natives think of the manuscript. There are no books that talk of the local music scene that featured Arctic Monkeys amongst others. The closest thing is Martin Lilleker’s ‘Beats Working For A Living’ which covers 1973 to 1984. That absence leaves a nice gap in the market for a book that actively celebrates Sheffield’s brilliant music scene, alongside Leeds’.
Nick Simmonite, manager at The Frog & Parrot told me that he struggled to work out why there wasn’t a plaque at West Street Live to mark Human League’s first paid gig. Part of the reasoning is that some of those incredibly successful bands are still at it, still creating. While The Hacienda and Joy Division are remnants of Manchester’s past, Def Leppard and Pulp are still touring. While Liverpool has a few Beatles-guided tours, you won’t find an Arctic Monkeys one in Sheffield as they are now a stadium band. They’ve not disappeared, so there’s little point in nostalgically looking back.
There’s a sense that Sheffield prepares to knowingly undersell itself. Richard Hawley knew ‘fuck all’ about musicals, yet his first involvement has helped create an award-winning production. Rightly so too, Standing At The Sky’s Edge is a brilliant, heart-rendering piece of theatre that I’d implore anyone to go and see. Hawley’s songs feature in a production that showcases the fortunes of Sheffield itself, specifically the optimism of the Sixties and the decline of the Eighties. In a recent interview with The iPaper (published 31st May), Hawley said of the play’s success that, “we gatecrashed the West End. We don’t belong there.”
I beg to differ. Arguably, Hawley was best-placed to create such a generation-spanning piece of work and still make it resonate today. Likely, the play has hit a nerve due to how relevant it remains. How the story of post-industrial, cost of living struggle still hits home in 2024.
Not that it should bring you down, part of Hawley’s appeal is his genuine heart. That says a lot about Sheffield, about how many of the city’s inhabitants will tell you not to be so big-headed. That the best compliment you can expect is ‘not bad’. Many cities are far better at shouting about their heritage, with Manchester and Liverpool being key examples. Some of that is down to iconography, typically The Beatles and Peter Savile’s cover art for Joy Division’s album, ‘Unknown Pleasures’.
Perhaps one day, Sheffield will hark back to the mid-2000s when the city bore the likes of Arctic Monkeys, The Long Blondes, Bromheads Jacket, Milburn, and Harrisons. It helps that I’m not a Sheffield native, I can celebrate the city as it all seemed so new when I moved there for university in 2002. Maybe my manuscript can help alleviate Sheffield’s inherent humbleness.