How Digital Music Propelled The New Yorkshire Wave
The proliferation of digital music shook up the music industry in the 2000s. Even after Napster closed down, bands in Sheffield and Leeds undoubtedly used the new technology to their advantage.
Despite becoming somewhat obsessed in securing tickets to Oasis’ reunion tour, I was too young to get fully involved in Britpop when it actually happened. My musical upbringing came shortly after those heady days so bands that appeared in the New Yorkshire Wave were around the same age as me. There was also a shared experience of those early internet days.
Napster had ceased operations in 2001 yet the genie was already out of the bottle. Copyright infringement remained an issue for major record labels and their bands, but those who were upcoming seized these new opportunities. The onus was on them to distribute their own music, and organise their own shows.
Ripped CDs
Having arrived in Sheffield in 2002, it was not until the end of my university degree three years later that I finally noticed the local music scene (I was always late for these things). Trap2 supported Kasabian at The Leadmill and I wondered out loud how an increasingly bluesy version of Led Zeppelin could have escaped my attention for years. I paid a couple of quid for their Sheffield Sky EP (produced by Alan Smyth), went home, and played it to my university chums. I was hooked and the next time I saw them, again at The Leadmill, Jon McClure was fronting his new band, 1984, and Arctic Monkeys were headlining a Tsunami Benefit Gig.
By early 2005, Arctic Monkeys and Milburn were already honing their live shows and had spent time in the studio. The bands were about to be signed, so I’d clearly missed their years of toil and the chance to pick up one of their demo CDs. Suffice to say, those rare demo CDs are now worth a pretty penny. Local bands would spend £300 for a session of 2Fly Studios with Alan Smyth, come out with four or five recorded demo tracks, and then burn them onto CDs to give out at their next gig, for free.
Matt Helder’s father, Clive, told me how he was told that his mates still had demo CDs of his son’s band. “Loads of my friends have still got them, somebody told me the other day “I've still got this CD, amazing”, “I can't remember giving you that!””. Matt’s mother, Jill, confirmed that they were listening to the debut album in demo form a full eighteen months before it was to be made publicly available. Soon enough, thousands of music fans were.
Jill would also bring in a ripped CD to play in her office at work. Remarkably, for an office with a wide range of ages, ‘nobody objected'. Amidst all the ripped Arctic Monkeys demo CDs, Milburn also produced their own. One featured the tracks Steel Town, High & Dry, and Tommy. None of those tracks were to be officially recorded, which indicates how early the recordings were.
MP3s
While ripped CDs were an important way of sharing music, the MP3 became the dominant commodity amongst music fans. The mid-2000s seemed like a zenith period, certainly for how easily the files were available and then readily exchanged. Several bands in the New Yorkshire Wave were still to record their debut albums, yet their demos were already out there.
While many tracks would merely become b-sides, my daily playlists would consist of tens of raw demo tracks. Not just the tracks from Arctic Monkeys but Little Man Tate, Bromheads Jacket, Milburn, even Harrisons who were the scene’s newcomers. I recall feeling disappointed by the shiny, polished commercial versions of those same tracks I had listened to for months, when they appeared on the band’s debut albums.
As it became increasingly clear that this set of bands was something special, their demo tracks provided all the proof you needed. There was certainly enough evidence for the record labels to take a chance on them. By Spring 2005, the Sheffield-based record label, Thee SPC, was offering a free CD with the second edition of their magazine, Thee Humbug. A full year before either band was to release their debut album, a demo track from The Long Blondes (Darts) and Arctic Monkeys (A Certain Romance) had a wide enough local release. Sure enough, fans of either band had likely already downloaded the tracks. To have them on a, somewhat, official CD release means that the issue #2 of Thee Humbug remains highly sought after as it showcased both bands to a nationwide audience.
Following on from the success of Napster, peer-to-peer sharing became a bona fide way of distributing audio files. If demo tracks were not being swapped via a modem, you could simply download the tracks directly from the CD once loaded into a PC.
If you were smart enough, you’d use the internet to both download and then deliver tracks rather than ripping them onto a CD to post, as I had done with an auntie in Texas. That soon seemed wholly archaic and peer-to-peer sharing was partly responsible for Arctic Monkeys becoming viral. Mark Bull was the instigator in having the foresight to upload the Beneath The Boardwalk tracks (all 18 of them) onto a hosting website to then message the link to a friend. He also left the link on the band’s online message board and then on The Libertines’ message board just as the band broke up with the implication that if you loved Up The Bracket, you’d love Arctic Monkeys.
Message boards
Of course, Bull could barely have anticipated how popular those tracks would prove. The hosting website could not cope and duly crashed with a fine having to be paid. The tracks were so well-received that many Arctic Monkeys fans on the message board personally donated to help the fine get paid. The owner of Do It Thissen Records, Jon Downing, contributed £50 as he adored the tracks that much.
Aside from being a destination to share tracks, message boards also helped populate the band’s venues. Gary Jarman from The Cribs could announce a last-minute concert on his band’s message board in the full knowledge that hundreds of fans would be making their way there. Introverts felt more comfortable messaging online and could form relationships with other music fans prior to meeting in person at a gig. Soon enough, introverted music fans built up their confidence to leave the house and meet the friends they’d made online.
One of the prevailing arguments in the manuscript was whether the New Yorkshire Wave could have occurred at any other moment in time. Think about it. The Strokes had arrived to make guitars cool again in 2001. Bands formed on that basis and could record their own tracks easily and relatively cheaply. Already au fait with the internet, Myspace pages were set up, and record labels could see which bands were worth paying attention to. Tracks were already being shared online, demos were being handed out via ripped CDs and message boards offered bands a direct means of communication with their fans. The songs still had to be great, yet the distribution model had shifted with power returning to the bands and their fans.