Beats Working For A Living - Sheffield Popular Music 1973-1984

Had no idea Comsat Angels were from Sheffield.

Anyway, gotta go with Afterwards, mainly because of this performance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HummmFD3bjk

Oops wrong link. Here's the Artery video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlR6POiqU9U

HOLY SHIT I NEED THIS COMPILATION YESTERDAY

mfktz is my new favorite poster. sorry gerald, mcb.

Apparently you can still buy it (with the book):
http://www.sheffieldvision.com/shop.php

damn son where’s you find this

where’d

I only know about 7 or 8 of these but find it hard to imagine there could be a better song here than Don't Try To Cure Yourself.

I found this when I was researching a blog about Pulp, the book is astonishingly detailed and covers more bands than you could imagine, including some famous ones (Def Leppard, Thompson Twins) who weren't part of the scene as such, best thing you could hope for when researching a scene. Martin Lilleker died in 2016 aged 62, he had another book about the years 1955-75, just wish he had lived to write another one about the late 80s / early 90s with FON/Warp etc.

The more famous Sheffield compilation is Bouquet of Steel from 1980, it's a bit patchy though, came along a year or two too late.

Anyway, here are a few things people might not have heard.

* 2.3 with All Time Low, an early post-punk act who only ever released this one single
* The Extras, a kind of pub rock Roxy Music, who were huge stars in the scene but never put out a single release before breaking up in 1979
* Artery, a huge name in the city, I have to vote for Into The Garden as it's one of my favourite pieces of music of all time, my challops maybe is that they were better than Joy Division, at least on the first LP.

And I just found some kind soul has put up the whole CD on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=https://youtu.be/YP0WgTNlpOU

Let's try that again shall we?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP0WgTNlpOU

mfktz is my new favorite poster. sorry gerald, mcb.

Oh, I see how it is. You look at every poll of obscure post-punk compilations while I wait on other threads...

Voted Comsat Angels, of course, but there's lots of good stuff here:
Love that They Must Be Russians track (which I first heard an an incredible post-punk rarity comp called '7" Up')
I have a good 2.3 single on the "Fast Product" compilation
Vice Versa, who were not very good, became ABC, who were for a while
Pulp were never my thing though they had their moments
The Past 7 Days single, all they ever did, is fantastic
In The Nursery I liked when they first appeared but their shtick got old quickly
Artery have a few tracks I dig but nothing more
I'm So Hollow were on another great obscuro comp "Hicks From The Sticks".

The Pulp track is an odd one as it's from late 1987, which is very much not 1973-1984, and it might sound familiar as a (IMO much superior) remix of it called Death Goes To The Disco was eventually used as the b-side of Countdown and was on various shoddy compilations put out by Fire in the 90s, also the sequel to it, Death II, was on Separations, and Death III was the working title of Countdown. Owen Hatherley wrote this about it:

“Listened to casually… …the song seemed to be matter of vengeful copulation, taken to the point of ridiculousness, much as you’d hear in a Different Class song like ‘Pencil Skirt’. It takes place in a similar space, as our protagonist ‘stalks these yellow-lit cul-de-sacs at night’, but – as you realise on third or fourth listen – the protagonist is death himself, and when he’s ‘taking’ all these people, he’s not showing them a good time. ‘I want your body and I want your soul’, he cries, but this revenge fantasy is more Carrie than Room At The Top”

Basically it doesn't fit on the compilation at all and I won't vote for it, but this was the first time it had been released, so Pulp people were a little excited to finally hear it - 'Rattlesnake' from the same session has since emerged, that's the real lost classic.

Wish somebody'd compile the box material together in one place. Saw them a few times in the early mid 80s. Not sure if i knew about Clock Dva beforehand and i think they're basically the Thirst line up minus Adi Newton.

I bitterly regret selling all my Box records. I saw them one time too, maybe supporting Shriekback???

Oh, I see how it is. You look at every poll of obscure post-punk compilations while I wait on other threads...

hey man, revive an adrian borland or romeo void topic and the championship belt is yours once again!

Listening to this comp in full really gives me an appreciation for the depth of the back bench in Sheffield during that era. Scenius!

That said, a lot of these bands are wearing their influences pretty flagrantly on their sleeve:

• The Box -> The Birthday Party
• Chakk -> Simple Minds
• Dig vs Drill -> The Stranglers
• 2.3 -> The Sound
• Artery - Afterwards -> JD - She's Lost Control

Also, that Pulp song does really stand out from the rest -- like Jarvis wore a day-glo jumpsuit to the goth club.

Book arrived: It's big!

(i'm awaiting the replies telling me which of those examples gets the chronology backwards)

2.3 released their single in 1978, a year before The Sound formed.

Interesting to say that Chakk sound like Simple Minds, guess the singer does a bit? One of those groups I like more for being important in various ways than for their actual music most of the time.

I was specifically thinking of 'Empires and Dance' era Simple Minds.

Mark G, check back in and let us know if the book is worth reading.

At first look, it's pretty comprehensive yes.

Well, "comprehensive" doesn't always make for an engaging read...
I just abandoned the 4AD book (Facing the Other Way) because it was so meticulously comprehensive, it felt like I was just reading Ivo Watts-Russell's journal.

What's the other 4AD book? That were good.. And I'm not a 4AD fan by any chalkm

I'll get onto it (the book) at some point, but I've got Mark S's book to finish, and the KLF novel next up, and I really should finish that Patti Smith one but it's mmm dull...

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Would have chucked Chakk a vote but I guess like most people I'm not familiar enough with a lot of these.

Out Of The Flesh is good (the demo doesn't sound all that different to the released version, if at all) but they rather lost their edge after signing to a major record label.

I remember seeing a video for OOTF on TV, was it on The Chart Show?

Possibly you saw this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YKRHqxvrOY

Chakk's LP was half a decade in the works and is barely worth listening to, however they did build FON studios in Sheffield during the process, which led to House Arrest, Forgemasters, Warp Records and is generally massively important for UK electronic music.