There is a new about Sheffield’s ever-fertile music scene out next week. Groovy, Laid Back and Nasty: A History Of Independent Music In Sheffield has been penned by Daniel Dylan Wray and as the title promises, focuses on the city’s scene from the punk era onwards.
An extensive extract has been published in today’s Guardian, one that throws an interesting light on the rise of the Arctic Monkeys, whose debut album turned 20 earlier this year.
It’s hard to remember now, but at around the time, there were a number of indie bands from Sheffield and Leeds jostling for prominence (the NME, as was their wont, even invented a name for the scene: ‘New Yorkshire’). The Monkeys’ contemporaries included names like Milburn, The Harrisons and Little Man Tate, some of whom became rivals. Wray writes about one gig that featured the Monkeys and the Harrisons that ended up in fisticuffs.
Article continues below“It kicked off horribly,” recalls the Harrisons frontman Jubby Taylor. “My best friend, Tim, who was the singer in Gas Club, was quite handy and was one-punch knocking people out, while another mate of mine was hitting people with a pool cue.”
Taylor says he can recall Alex Turner looking flabbergasted at this. “He just looked like he’d never seen anything like it before. I think it was a culture shock for him to see such brainless violence. But we were used to it because our mates were idiots.”
We also learned that some of the mums of the various bands formed their own group, called Mother Superior, as Jon McClure of Reverend And the Makers recalls: “They would go down to my studio. And Penny, Alex’s mum, would rework the lyrics to our songs and my mum would be lead singer.”
It soon became clear that the Monkeys were the outstanding band on this scene. Throughout 2005 their reputation grew. At the time, they were sold as a grassroots phenomenon, powered by the Internet and a then-novel platform called MySpace rather than ‘hype’. Wray though, suggests the reality was slightly different.
McClure says that Geoff Barradale, who managed both the Monkeys and Reverend And The Makers, suggested to him that he spread some 'interesting' stories about the former. “Geoff said to me, with the Monkeys, the tunes are amazing but it’s boring. So I need you to make them sound interesting.
"So he used to get me to write blurbs online. I was on the dole, so that was my first paid job in music. He was like: they need a story because otherwise it’s just four lads from High Green (Sheffield suburb), who gives a fuck?”
