WHO REMEMBERS? The UK Nostalgia Podcast
A nostalgia trip for anyone in the UK who grew up on dial-up Internet, Findus Crispy Pancakes, and playground rumours that couldn’t be fact-checked online. We’re not historians — we don’t do dates, and we barely do facts — but science says reminiscing gives your brain a dopamine hit, so think of us as your weekly dose of hazy memories, childhood flashbacks, and confidently misremembered events.
Expect frequent arguments about who remembers things properly as we rummage through the UK’s collective memory box.
WHO REMEMBERS? The UK Nostalgia Podcast
Who Remembers........The Sheffield Music Scene Of The Mid Noughties?
A burned demo, a city of small rooms, and a chorus that started before the debut single—this is the story of how Sheffield’s 2000s music scene caught fire. We welcome Substack Sam (of Pinch Fanzine and the Pinch Podcast) to map the living web that connected Arctic Monkeys, Milburn, Harrisons, Reverend and the Makers, Bromheads and beyond. It’s less a straight line and more a circuit: shared producers like Alan Smyth, players switching line‑ups, and nights where four support slots minted tomorrow’s main acts.
We dig into the venues that taught bands to breathe with a room—The Boardwalk and its tiny under‑room, The Grapes’ upstairs, The Leadmill’s embrace, Plug’s perfect sightlines—and how those spaces made discovery addictive. Sam takes us back to the Beneath The Boardwalk CDRs passed hand to hand, the MySpace moment that turned curiosity into community, and the surreal thrill of seeing a tent of strangers sing every word months before a label was in sight. We talk rivalries and folklore too (including the infamous practice‑room brawl), then zoom out to why the timing landed: post‑Strokes and post‑Libertines, the UK wanted new voices with local detail and rhythmic bite.
The story widens as guitars meet Sheffield’s electronic DNA. We track Toddla T’s warehouse sets, Cabal nights, and the pivot from indie sweatboxes to bass‑heavy afters, all while nodding to the city’s lineage from Human League to Warp. Along the way, we weigh Reverend’s chart climb, Milburn’s enduring pull, and how later acts like Drenge and Slow Club’s orbit kept reshaping expectations. It’s a love letter to the specifics—taxis, sticky floors, narrow stairwells—and to the way a scene lets artists grow, split, and recombine without losing the thread.
Press play for a guided wander through the rooms, riffs and refrains that made Sheffield feel like the centre of the map. If the episode sparks a memory—your favourite venue, a first gig, a CDR you wish you’d kept—share it with us. And if this trip down West Street left your ears buzzing, subscribe, leave a review, and pass it to a mate who still knows every word.
Sam's Now That's What I Call Sheffield Music Of The Naughties playlist
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0e6PCzh80iisM7vRgBD7r9?si=a09398de970744f1
Toddla T's Ghettoblaster #1
https://www.mixcloud.com/oldschooltapes/toddla-ts-ghettoblaster-mix-1/?fbclid=IwY2xjawOSatpleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETF6UmJmZjIwVlRBZGZ5bHl5c3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHuMbP6Njh2cz-j3SEI7BfbmzvD8rCrz9LBNQO1CuYJsa1AEOEx2l3Zbzl9Fa_aem_dK57eWlliwP3hpotUn4gBA
Hello, welcome to Who Remembers the UK Nostalgia Podcast. As always, me and Liam are here. You're here, aren't you, Liam?
SPEAKER_01:Certainly am. Rare and certainly am.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but today we're welcomed by a special guest, co-creator of the Pinch Fanzine and the Pinch Podcast. Uh, if you listen to the Not the Top 20 podcast, you might have heard him mentioned there as Substack Sam as well. And it's our pleasure to give uh Who Remembers welcome to Mr. Sam Parray. How are you going, sir?
SPEAKER_02:Hi, mate. Yeah, I'm good, thank you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so we always ask when people like guests come on and things like that, we'll ask him to, you know, what do you want to do? How what do you want to choose? What do you want to talk about to reminisce about? We mean you had a few messages about what to talk about, and you couldn't really pin anything down, and then you you got you got very excited about this uh particular uh topic. So why why is it that you want to talk about like the Sheffield music scene in the noughties?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I think at first I suggested the new Labour years, which definitely wouldn't have been as interesting as this. Oh, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00:I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:We might get you back for that, Sam. That's probably good though. Well, I think so I was a teenager basically when the big Sheffield indie wave kind of opened up in the early mid-nougties, early to mid-nouhties, and uh yeah, I'd I this is a nostalgia podcast, and I'm not necessarily like the most nostalgic for every band's music, but growing up at a time when Sheffield was kind of the centre of or it felt like the centre of a sort of musical universe. I'm I'm certainly nostalgic for that and and the the city and how it felt at the time where you could kind of go out every weekend to one of 20 different menus and see a different thing.
SPEAKER_01:Did you Sam feel like this era was yours in the same way that when we did Oasis, we sort of said we were just at the right age that we felt this music's for us? Is that how you felt about this Sheffield Naughty's era?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, definitely. I suppose it's in a different way. Obviously, uh Arts and Monkeys was huge, but there was plenty of other bands that at the time I felt equally attached to, and you know, they were like either speaking about my city every time I went to see them, or you know, speaking about the world but from my city. So like Sheffield definitely felt like very alive at that time. Yeah, and it was that feeling, I think, more than more than the sort of thing.
SPEAKER_01:I suppose it's a bit different in it because with a Brit pop thing, we just felt part of something quite big, but this you probably felt quite connected to this. As we're going to come to, you actually are linked to various parts of this, aren't you? Through this, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I was gonna ask you this because you you this obviously before we started, you said you worked at the boardwall, but obviously Artie Monkeys are really famous for the the uh beneath the boardwalk. Um it is beneath the boardwalk. I always get that mixed up. Yeah, beneath the board, not under the boardwalk. I keep saying under the boardwall, that's the same.
SPEAKER_02:Well, under the boardwalk was the little venue under the boardwalk, but they called it like demo beneath the boardwalk.
SPEAKER_00:Beneath the boardwalk, yeah. But you obviously you've you worked there for a bit. And also the Art Monkey's first ever gig was 13th of June 2003 at the Grapes. Is footage of this or well, sorry, is it audio of this uh on YouTube that was listened to last night? They don't really sound anything like they sound more like the white stripes, but do you want to just talk about that? Like when you first heard of the Art Monkeys and like where that sort of when you like sort of first thought, hang on, yeah, these are let him speak, Andrew. Let him speak. 50 questions in one, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Well, uh disclaimer, I I wasn't working at the boardwalk when Arctic Monkeys first played there or the grapes. Um but I first heard I think I just got that dem the first time I heard Arctic Monkeys anyway, was I got the demo, the Beneath the Boardwalk demo from my dad's mate who was uh I think he worked for the Barnsley Chronicle and he just gave me a CD. And I'm gutted that I don't have that CD because it just had like written on a marker pen Arctic Monkeys Beneath the Boardwalk, and obviously they became quite famous for handing out those CDs and it being shared on MySpace and whatnot. So that's when I first heard of them and got that got that demo and was like, what on earth is this? And but really like having grown up listening to basically the music that my parents had on in the in the back of the car or whatever, like that was like a moment where I was like, Oh my god, there's a band from Sheffield that sound different.
SPEAKER_00:But it's an incredible feeling that when when you get that band who like the first like we've talked about with Oasis and stuff like that, obviously before. When you get that first band that feels like yours rather than like before that, I was listening. Like my dad were into madness and stuff, and I listened to Madness I like Madness, and I liked a bit of Queen and stuff because of Wayne's World with the Bobby Rhapsody scene on that, and then Oasis came along, Ambler and all these bands, and I'm like, oh, this is this is aimed at me. And I suppose this is the same. We were a little bit older, but we were still we were still pottering around, weren't we? In the clubs and stuff. We'd be obviously still finders, yeah. You can still find us. Yeah, we were like fading 20 somethings, I think.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think we'd have been like Sam that yeah, obviously, this was your first taste of this sort of upcoming Sheffield scene, but were were the Arctics the first, or chronologically, were Millbourne before them or after them?
SPEAKER_02:Oh well, that it sort of gets a bit murky there, I think. A few different bands in different guises were knocking about. I think Arctic Monkeys Harrison's Milburn and Reverend and the Maker's first incarnation as 1984. I think that was but for me it was Arctic Monkeys that sort of brought me to all those other different places. Right. More than anything, though, it was like just to you mentioned Grapes and Boardwalk, which I ended up doing the door in for a for a a few years. Um it was going to those places and like just part of it was discovery, but part of it was oh, you know, Millburner playing and there's these four other bands on before them. And see you had you had that mixture of like you know, finding something new, but also becoming attracted to these to these names that got bigger and bigger.
SPEAKER_01:Well they you might not know the answer to this, but were they did they all kind of get work together or was there quite a lot of rivalry, do you know?
SPEAKER_02:Uh rivalries is a good is a good question. So the the there's an infamous an infamous gig which I would have been too young to turn up at, but it was like Arctic Monkey's practice room, and the two the the two big ones at the start were Harrisons and Arctic Monkeys. I I think I'm remembering this right, but uh there's an infamous gig at Arctic Monkeys Practice Room where they invited the Harrisons to play. Each set of fans came to watch and something kicked off whilst Harrisons were playing, and there's like this massive 30-man brawl.
SPEAKER_00:Wow, when Mike Parry said that Beach Boy fans and Elton John fans had to be separated, segregated from each other. It's like that, but I am real time.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00:Um yeah, the Harrisons were I I remember seeing baby shambles around this time because I don't want to mention the Libertines actually, because I don't know if you I were really into the Libertines, and I think the Libertines were on the cusp of being absolutely huge at one point. I think they were really and I think they dropped the button completely, but I think their success showed that Britain were ready to embrace indie music again for the first time since Brit Pop. And I don't think necessarily the Arctic monkeys were the right place, right time. You have to be to some degree. There was a reason why they have might lasted miles more than the rest. But did you get that feeling as well that there was a gap? They were like you were waiting for something big to happen because it had been what it had been 10 years or whatever it had been since Oasis and Blur and all that had lasted the charts, and it felt like we needed another. Obviously, the strokes had come along a couple of years before, but it I think it always follows on a little bit from America, even if it's not the same music. So Grun Japan in America, which were massive, and they'd sort of um antidote to that were Brit pop, so that would but that obviously came from Britain. I think with this, the strokes came along, and that they were huge in the indie scene, and it were just like right, we need a zon band now, and the Libertines sort of did it, but obviously just disbanded in a trail of drugs, and then we were waiting for this band and for it to come from to you know, from our point of view, to come from Sheffield is incredible, really.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean I think for me, as I said before, Arctic Monkeys were kind of like the band that I latched on to first. It's a sort of 14-year-old, what would have been in year 10, but like Strokes and Libertines were bands that I came to afterwards as a result of Arctic Monkeys, and I suppose part of picking this picking this as a topic is that it was Arctic Monkeys and this wave of music in Sheffield that that brought me into listening to other bands that I might have missed, because yeah, as you say, like between Blur, Oasis, Pulp, like and up until Arctic Monkeys, it I didn't have a connection to the the music that was existing at the time. Even though Sheffield was you know, whilst we're talking about a specific time period, Sheffield was still pretty full of amazing people at the time. Like Richard Hawley was still knocking about, Long Blondes were knocking about, there were still some good bands, but nothing quite blew up like that.
SPEAKER_00:No, not at all. I mean, I think Sheffield's more known for its electronic scene before this with Human League and Evan 17 and Cabaret Voltaire and all the way up to Walt Records, actually, which is essentially it's his own scene, like IDM. But this was the first real time that I think a a true sort of explosion has come from this city. Certainly what I you know like from my age group anyway. So like you said, you first when you first heard the monkeys were from one of those CDs. Can you remember where you got that CD from? Can you remember how did you hear about the band before you'd heard them, if you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02:I had heard the I uh someone on the walk to school had got some of the songs on their phone, I remember that. Um yeah, yes, I said before I've not my dad's mate had got this CD, got got the CD for me. Um he must have picked it up at a gig. Uh I don't yeah, I don't know where I don't know where that's that CD has ultimately ended up, but it's probably worth a few Bob if I can ever find it. Um but it was yeah, eight that that that 18-track demo of uh Beneath the Boardwalk and I I think I messaged you earlier that I think it ages pretty well. He listened to that.
SPEAKER_00:I listened to it last night at night pro good. Yeah, I I mean I'll talk to Eggie, I might Egggy who obviously listens to the plot as well, and he thinks that's their best album. Uh above everything else, yeah. I mean they sound so different on it. Obviously, they sound like they do in the f on the first album, um, which obviously comes a couple of years later, which we'll get on to. But he sounds about five years old on it, Alex Turner. And I watched you some videos last night when they were um I think they were playing Cavern Club, I think it is in Liverpool, and it's just before the the first album comes out. I I it's incredible that he wrote all those songs before he were like 18-19.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean I I it's kind of like ridiculous that anyone would write, but they you get you get these like talented people that come across, like come along like once in a blue moon. I think uh Cameron Winter with Geese now is probably the same. He's like a tea teenager writing some of these tracks and they're incredible. But you get like one of these special people every so often, it just just so happened he came from Sheffield. And I think with Alex Turner, it's I think in in those early demos, he says in one of the later albums, I can't remember which song, but the album starts with um the lyric I just wanted to be one of the strokes. And I think you can tell in that first in that first demo that like he's kind of he's kind of putting on a voice. There's like that I said to you that sticking to the floor is a a great tune on that, but he you've got this like sort of American draw that he's putting on.
SPEAKER_00:I think he sounds like Jack Y. Obviously, not a poor version of Jack Y, but I think I think it's right that he didn't want to be the singer. I think that's right, where he just wanted to be the lyricist, and they had another singer whose name has escapes me now, but Glenn John, something like that. And um, he only lasted a couple rehearsals and he just sort of sang because you know, and I think it works though, because it's him singing his own lyrics and stuff, like the way he phrased it. What about you, Liam? Like, I mean, obviously we come from something I wanted to know by the way.
SPEAKER_01:I don't remember that demo album. I remember there being a bit of buzz about it, and I remember hearing it. But did any of the songs on that demo album go on to be sort of big hits for them, or were they a separate entity?
SPEAKER_00:Alright, they did. It were pretty much all the songs that ended up on the first album. I think they were only View from the Afternoon, maybe that weren't on it. I'd remember our mate Brendan having it. And and I think you were the same as me, Lima. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I'd heard about this band, and a lot of people I knew, because I was really into music, like I was still on, but like really into it at that stage, going to gigs all the time and stuff. And a lot of people said, Oh, yeah, this band like Monkeys from Sheffield's from Sheffield. And I did this sort of thing that you think you do sometimes when you're when you're obviously you were a teenager, I were in my twenties, and you're like, I'm not falling for that hype, you know what I mean? I'm I'm I'm not this new band, Arctic, what's that's a stupid name, Arctic Monkeys? I'm not having that.
SPEAKER_01:I remember liking them but not loving them. And and the biggest thing I sort of remember at the time was that some people used to say Arctic and some used to say Arctic, and I Arctic, yeah. I think to this day I um it confuses me because I hear people say both versions, and and when I see it, I always think, oh yeah, of course it's that, but I can never remember which way around it is.
SPEAKER_00:They're named I think after one of I think it's Alex Turner's dad's mates' old bands, was called the Arctic Monkeys.
SPEAKER_02:Man Helders, but it is it is like genuinely a terrible band name, which is an appalling band name, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00:I mean, I don't know. Do you know how Milburn were? Because this is an urban myth, I think, that me and Liam know about. I don't know if you remember this, Liam. I one of our mates worked, oh, he did a college degree. Brendan did a college degree with uh the guitarist out of Millburn. I don't is it Lewis? Lewis Carnegie. Yeah, um, and he told me about Milbourne before I'd even heard it, because I'm I'm working with this kid kid in a band called Milburn. I was thinking called Milburn, and he said, one of his mates said, I bet you dare call your band James Milburn. And he said, Okay, we'll call it Milburn. I don't know if that's I don't know if it is a bit of a I won't say he's a liar, Brendan. What would you say, Liam? He's more of a a a story weaver.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, a bit of a like just a trip to the shop can turn into like a sort of three-piece act if one plays for Brendan, can't it? There's always some drama.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know who that is. I think Harrisons were named after a road a road, Harrison Road or Harrison Street, which is in Walkley, Hillsborough. I think it's Hillsborough. Um don't know why Reverend and the Makers call Reverend the Makers.
SPEAKER_00:It's a bizarre name now, because I call him uh John McClaw the Reverend, and obviously like that's not and they always say we see him the Reverend.
SPEAKER_01:Um but I'd like to Was there any sort of part of you, Age, that maybe didn't buy into this?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely that's right. We call it.
SPEAKER_01:But did you see him as I almost saw him as like the other side of the city, like the the Wednesday bands almost? I don't know if that's true or fair.
SPEAKER_00:I didn't see it like that, no, but what I saw it as is like I say, I were really into the Libertines at that point, and I'd obviously just come off the back of her like Oasis and stuff. And I'd heard there was that much hype about him before I'd heard a single song by him, because everyone would tell them you've got to hear this band, you've got to hear this band. But I saw I really did sort of not even subconsciously, consciously sort of turned against it, thinking these are just gonna be a bit of a flash in the pan. And everyone had that that CD, that beneath the boardwalk CD, and Brendan we've just mentioned, like he was like, You've got to listen to it, and I'm like, Oh yeah, I'm not really bothered.
SPEAKER_01:I'm you know, so did that then Sam, did that get you were you old enough once you got into them to start gonna gigs, or was there a period of time before you'd start seeing them that you loved them?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I definitely loved them before I saw him. I think the first time I saw him was at Manchester Apollo, but it was like heard the demo, and if anything, I mean I loved the first album when it came out, but I'd heard I'd heard and listened to that that demo like so many times, and uh as as Andrew said, like it it basically has the same tunes on, re-recorded, reproduced, but so I was like waiting for you know I wanted I wanted more. To be fair, they released it to the fucker Arctic Monkeys like a month, six months, within six months of the first album coming out. So it was obviously like they're obviously waiting to put more stuff out. I probably saw him around the time first when they were touring the second album, but before that had started going and seeing like like other bands, and I suppose as you were saying earlier, Andrew, about like who I guess the chronology is kind of like it it all blurs into one now, but I think it was really Arctic Monkeys Harrison's Millburn, yeah. All knocking about at the same time, all produced by the same producer, at least on the other.
SPEAKER_01:And do you think that it was their music that put them ahead, or was it the giving out CDs, or was it both, or was it?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I never was always that that thing about oh Arctic Monkeys made it over my space, but like that. I I didn't experience like that at all.
SPEAKER_00:But that I mean this is what this is what were incredible about it. I I like I said I was sort of against it, blah blah blah. And then I saw him at the Leeds Festival, they were in the fifth biggest tent, which is the smallest tent at the Carlin tent at Leeds Festival. They were on about three o'clock in the afternoon, so one of the first acts on, and the the tent were and I thought that it was just Sheffield people who were over hyping Art and Monkeys by this point. I've not heard anything by him. And I went with Brendan, like I said, he was really into it, and I was like, This is fucking rand. This is this is mad. And everybody knew the words to every single song, every one of them. And I was like, Wow, hang on, this is a phenomenon. This is not just a you know, I've got it wrong here, you know. I've got this complete. I thought it was just a Sheffield thing, sort of everyone in check. Oh, have you heard that new band, Artic Monkeys? Yeah, they sing about. I remember people say, Oh, they sing about Rotherham and stuff. I thought, ah, that sounds a bit Timpot, really. Yeah, I mean, but then I saw them at Leeds Festival, and that one gig completely changed my view in them. Not just the fact that they were really good, I realised that these have got some amazing songs, but the the the atmosphere, the crowd knowing everything before they'd even release a single, is not I've never seen that before, ever.
SPEAKER_02:But that might speak a bit to the timing point. We're saying, like, did they come at the right time? And I and I don't know that the whole idea that they got big because people were sharing that demo over MySpace, but it it sort of tracks me because I remember I didn't I didn't do that, but later with bands that I loved, not just in Sheffield, but beyond I was always on the Dancing Jesus forum, if anyone remembers that.
SPEAKER_03:I do remember that, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:People just like would share leaked albums months before they came out. So that there was that there was that like culture in existence at that time that just doesn't exist anymore, I don't think.
SPEAKER_00:Well, this interesting that sorry Sam, carry on, sorry.
SPEAKER_02:No, I was just gonna say, like, I think it is the the it it the world has changed from from that point, like where it was like half of the half of the pleasure was like trying to find these bands before they before they turned up. And as I say, as I said at the start, like looking back now, I don't necessarily love all the music of these bands, but like at the time it was sort of like part of it was collecting their music before and like you know, it'd be on your iPod or you'd have it on CD, you'd have it on your iTunes, and your iTunes was yours, not anyone else's, and that that thing just doesn't exist anymore. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It's interesting because, like I say, ten years earlier, not even that, um B E N O came out by Oasis, and that was the complete opposite where there were no leaks for that. Even the journalists had to sign a contract saying you're not allowed to share this album, and the and the k and the the radio used to play the the songs off it, and they'd have to put jingles in between the songs so you couldn't record it off the radio. And ten years later, the art monkeys giving giving away CDs. I know it's different because they were a new band, but I think this is this is the the first time in the pop industry. Well, yeah, I think it's the first time in the pop industry, I think, where a band broke through solely off their own back. It wasn't a label thing, it was they didn't have a record label, in fact, when everyone knew the words of all the songs and stuff, and in a way that's what we do now. You're right that it's completely different now, but the the file sharing and things like that, we i it was this new way of consuming music. But to people not in that bubble, it felt like they had this instant fan base because everyone had got like you say, MySpace apparently were massive for a minute. I didn't hear them on MySpace, but it was the first time you could just go on the internet and type in Art Monkey, oh, is this band Art Tit Monkeys? And you it you know all the songs just ballast into it on on MySpace.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I think I think you're right though, about in that sort of post-well not post because they were still knocking about, but like in that sort of gap between Strokes and Libertines and Arctic Monkeys, there was a lot of people waiting and absolutely ready for the next big band to break. So I think because you know, if a mixture of and and and heavily weighted towards talent, let's not get let's not get that wrong. But like it's still it still was like a a perfect time, and I think if they you know if they just started recording the same music now, it would it would not explode in quite the same way. Um but yeah, I find I just I just think that that period that like from like I'd say 2003, 2004 up to 2010, like it was quite a different music world, as you say, different to what came before it, not just in the music, but in like how it was consumed. And I think it I don't know if it was just me, but it felt like gigs in Sheffield seemed to be like it seemed to be like a destination that not just Sheffield bands, but be like but because of Arctic Monkeys, people from around the country wanted to tour. And like the number of bands I saw, and I think and that part of the reason that I am nostalgic about it is like I I don't think I'd have seen half the bands that I saw if it weren't for Arctic Monkeys and it weren't for that wave of music.
SPEAKER_00:Do you think so even something like Tramlines?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I was gonna I was gonna end on Tramlines to be a bit more. Yeah, I'm sorry, can't yeah. No, no, it's fine, but I think I do I think it's interesting. I think maybe maybe we'll we should go through some of the the non-Arctic Monkeys bands, but like I think Tramlines in some ways was like the end of the chapter because it was sort of like Yeah, I don't know, it was like it was like Sheffield opening itself up to every other type of music and and non-Sheffield music.
SPEAKER_01:So just before we move away from them from that that initial wave, do you have any sympathy for the other bands that kind of felt like they didn't get the the success either financially or sort of critically? Did were they unlucky or were they just not as good, or what it seems strange that a few nearly made it, but only one sort of burst out of the crowd, really.
SPEAKER_02:I think if we go through them, like Milburn maybe not sort of commercially successful in terms of like album sales, but could could tour like a places now and still sell out venues.
SPEAKER_00:I've got a soft spot for Millburn, I have to say. I think some of it has I won't say data badly, but not really last of a test of time. I can still put a Milburn track on or an album.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, I've seen Millburn live and I really liked him. I've I've got a soft spot for them. I must admit, I don't really know of the Harrisons if I'm honest.
SPEAKER_02:So the Harrisons, I think there, if anyone was unlucky or missed out, I think it was probably the Harrisons because they had I think they put out their first single. So they were basically around at the same time as the monkeys. I think they put out their first single. Uh what was it called? Blue, something blue. Um, no, that wasn't Blue Note, maybe? No, Blue Note doesn't sound like that. But anyway, they put it out like um 2000, like same same year that whatever people say, um that's what I'm not, came out. So 2005, and that that track got into like top top hundred. I think they had two top two two singles in the top hundred in 2005. They didn't end up releasing that album until 2008, due to reasons. So like they I think they were the ones that were like set up and they were quite different to Arctic Monkeys, I think. Bit heavier, I don't know, sort of not at all, I would say similar, quite like, other than it being a guitar band.
SPEAKER_00:And because the milk Millburn, obviously, there are absolute do you reckon? I mean, obviously you can't really say this, you don't know, but would you say like these bands? I I think it's normal to happen in a scene like this. Did I say Millburn copied the Artie Monkeys, but more of an inspiration because people just I think the Artie Monkeys were so different, really lyrically and all that sort of stuff. That do you think other these other bands came on the back of it? Not the Harrisons, as you've said, but and thought I'm just gonna do that.
SPEAKER_02:I think I think Little Man Tate are probably the ones you could level that at most, I always felt. But uh Milburn, early their early demos, which I've also got, are quite a lot heavier, I think.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I I had that before the Light Monkeys, actually, because I said my mate worked with one of them, so yeah, and like I mean, and they were and they were they were uh got a big soft spot for Milburn, and I don't know, uh maybe it's just as you sort of move from making a demo to making an album, certain things happen and it it sort of goes that way. I think that you can't get away from the fact that they were the the same age, so certainly in their first albums, Milburn and Artie Monkeys are gonna be talking about the same stuff because they were what 17 to 19, and and what what other experiences did they have other than you know jumping and jumping and out of taxis and and going drinking under age?
SPEAKER_00:They're gonna be singing about shitting themselves at school trips and stuff like that. Call back. Uh but yeah, like like I say, I mean I think at the time, Liam, I'm pretty sure you preferred Milburn, didn't you?
SPEAKER_01:I think that I don't know if I'm putting words into your mouth there, but I think that what happened was that I didn't I I really liked Arctic Monkeys, but I just never kind of really fell in love with them. But then we went to a Milburn gig at lead mill, and it was absolutely brilliant. It just blew me away that the night, not necessarily the a particular song, just the full set list and the night and the the scene itself, they were a proper excitement, weren't they? I really, really enjoyed it, so I kind of fell in love with them a little bit, and then I think probably after this, we went to see Arctic Monkeys at uh in Rotherham, was it Mike Magnum?
SPEAKER_00:Magna Centre, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And and I know this is a really strange criticism, and I don't know kind of your stance on this, Sam, but I I like if I go and see a band live, I like it to be tweaked a little bit so that this performance was for for me on this particular occasion. They just kind of did a note perfect album, and it was great, but I kind of thought, well, I might as they might as well just have put a big screen up and just showed us the video of the band. Like, I mean, in some ways, you could argue that's perfect, but in others I just didn't feel like it offered me anything original.
SPEAKER_02:I can see that. I I certainly think that I mean we were probably at the same lab mill gig. Like Millbourne were epic live, like they were they were like so energetic, and I think probably because they weren't as big and didn't have to play to like, you know, massive Glastonbury audiences or whatever, like Artist Monkeys did. I think there was a they were they were comfortable in those like 300 to 600 people sized venues. They like they knew exactly they knew exactly what they were doing and they knew how to like work a crowd in that size venue. And like I don't think I have ever seen a Milburn gig that that wasn't great. I think I've definitely seen Arts and Monkeys gigs that weren't great, but it's it's almost like maybe it's unfair to compare them.
SPEAKER_01:I feel like if they're playing a much bigger, more spacious venue, it's harder to create that real kind of tight atmosphere, isn't it? I do I do see that.
SPEAKER_00:And I think it's interesting as well though, they but obviously they got big so quick, like you know, Indy indie rock bands don't get to number one with the first single, it just doesn't happen. Yeah, but obviously, I bet you look within the dance floor, straight to number one, and then what I still scroll scummy man um went straight in after that, and they obviously then they broke the oasis record for the fastest album. That that is such I think they only sort of learning their instruments when they were 16 and they were doing all this when they were 19, they'd not really had the time, and they're going straight to massive audiences. Yeah, exactly. He gets a lot of stick now, Alex Turner, because he's more of a showman and doing all the you know Elvis stuff or whatever you want to call it. I think that that must have been such a like a an incredible baptism of fire. Like you're just sort of I'm just playing this this song in in the grapes, as you mentioned, two years ago, and now I'm playing Glastonbury. It must be such a but how'd you play that?
SPEAKER_02:Exactly. I think I think I think they suffered for it. I don't I don't think I think it was a while before I saw Arctic Monkeys gig that I thought like, oh my god, that was incredible. Like obviously, it was it was amazing to see him for the first time. I saw him, I think I saw him in Manchester Apollo and then saw him at the cricket ground of Amy Winehouse. And like they just they just didn't feel like they'd quite grown into what they would become later. But I'll I think you could argue like over the I don't know how to turn this into who remembers Arctic Monkeys, but I think you could argue like over the sort of course of their albums so far, they've kind of they've changed so much, and even like the the way that they perform has changed so much and changes from album to album.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, they're not even the same. I don't even know if you listen to two albums if you'd necessarily know they were the same band if you didn't told that.
SPEAKER_02:I think that's probably the model of their success, to be honest, rather than a lot of these bands, like you know, Milburn, they haven't really spoken about Bromed's Jacket, but like Milburn, Little Man's Tate, Bromhead's Jacket, Harrisons, they all uh Paddy Orange as well on your thing, which I must admit I don't know them, but that's on the list you sent through. Ah, so Paddy Orange was quite different. Paddy Orange, I would say, sort of comes more out of the Reverend Electro Pop kind of. Ah, right, okay. Um so there was That's a little bit later. So basically, I would say that those those those Milburn, Bromheads, Little Man Tate, Reverend of the Makers, Harrisons, all kind of bracketed under the Arctic Monkeys banner that first gets waived with the demo. And then obviously Arctic Monkeys win the Mercury Prize and only just nicky off Richard Hawley, who isn't going to get a mention in this really because it's kind of Well, they got in a Renaissance, and I don't know how much to do with it.
SPEAKER_00:Obviously, win the Lompigs, weren't you, Richard Orlay? Yeah, he did have a solo career. But he he definitely come out of a different path, but I'm not sure if how much this explosion of the Sheffield scene helped him as well.
SPEAKER_02:I I mean it can't it can't have it can't have harmed it, and not Alex Turner doing the Some One Dale 999, Richard always been robbed when he picks up the Mercury Prize, probably put a few put a few pounds on it. But like I think, yeah, I don't think he's part of this wave. And then you had like for me, it felt like Reverend came later, but Reverend did to me, yeah. I think Reverend and Alex Turner were flatmates, or that they were certain they were certainly close at one point because I got the feeling the Reverend at the I keep calling him the Reverend John McClaw.
SPEAKER_00:Even then, I had and I don't think he is, but I had him like 20 years older than Alex Turner, if you know what I mean.
SPEAKER_02:He just found it, he's certainly older, yeah. But like because but he so that that song dancing to uh in About you looking on the dance floor, it's that lyric uh dancing to electro pop like a robot from 1984, and that's that's definitely a reference to Reverend's first band 1984. And then by the Arctic Monkey's second album, you've got Reverend writing on old yellow bricks, I think it is, and on Reverend's first album, you've got Alex Turner on something, the machine, and you've but you've also got like on on that so the Reverend album is quite interesting. Uh the state of things, which was what, 2007? Like that gets that's of all of them you asked earlier, Liam, about where you know how they all did. Like that's that's the the only album beyond Arctic Monkeys that really like does well. That's top that's five in the album charts, and heavyweight champion the single off it gets to eight in the singles charts, which is incredible.
SPEAKER_00:That by the way, like I'm not a fan of Reverend the Makers, cards on the table, but that's an incredible achievement though. And the fact he's they're still going as a band, and okay, they're not Harty Monkeys style, but they are much more known and selling out, I imagine, bigger places than the likes of Milburn and Officer Bromad's jacket and what have you.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but uh and and and and with that, like I think and maybe being a little bit you know, like just a year and a half later than the other bands, because I think Well, Well, Well by Milburn was 2006, so was the Bromhead's album. Little Man's Hate was 2007, but before State of Things by Reverend of the Makers. So I think like that little that little pause and the fact that they were not the same, like they were very much not the same as Artistic Monkeys. You got you got to be.
SPEAKER_00:So I think he's written this himself or someone related to the band. It says late in 2005, fellow Sheffield band Artic Monkeys released their debut single, and McClure was hounded by major record labels, reportable for him, up to sums of£150,000 to make an album like the Artic Monkeys. Citation needed. Um McClure declined the offer and decided to do everything his own way, managing to sell out the plug Sheffield venue twice to a capacity of 1,000 people while still unsigned. I don't know if you get that in a normal Wikipedia page sort of thing. I've surely he's written that.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, it's uh either that or like a super fan. That's funny. I mean, I in fairness, in fairness, and I would agree that I that like Reverend would I would never stick on the State of Things album now. What I would say about Reverend and the Makers, and I I say Reverend as well. Well, not the Reverend, I just call him Reverend. But I I I would say that he was incredibly good live for a sort of 15-16-year-old that is looking out at the world and you know, being like angry and and whatnot. But like as an adult, it's not something I'd go back to. But that that album is full of like other Sheffield people. You've got Tim from Bromads on it, you've got Alex Turner on it, you've got um James O'Hara, who started Tram Lines doing like a little skit on Bandit, I think the song's called Bandit. So like you've got all these people, like and it's quite it is quite interconnected. And one of the things that I find strange really is you sort of talk about them all separate bands, but actually like there's quite it's quite a small group of people, in it really. It's like it's not it's not that many, it's not many different people, they're probably all in the same places, all places.
SPEAKER_00:And that's why it's a scene and not something, you know, like that's why it's not just all these bands came out and they were all sort of separate, but you know, like say Human League of obviously M17, same band members, but obviously two of them, and it's similar in that in that sense. Just by the way, did you know that the Reverend in 2007? I want to say, and I I keep I'm gonna have to stop calling him the Reverend. Um, he's supported oasis at Wemblo three nights in a row, which is mad. Yeah, that's yeah, that's I mean, what a what an achievement that is.
SPEAKER_01:How many times did he sing Rat Race?
SPEAKER_00:You don't like rap race. Do you want to talk about your hate of rap race, Liam, as you call it?
SPEAKER_01:So obviously, they they did this themselves, they kind of to me they're a Sheffield Wednesday band, and they've kind of they've owned that. I think no, I think they have embraced that, and so that's so that's always put me off them a little bit. But the song that I used to hear all the time, and obviously this can't be true, but in my mind, whenever I heard a bit of the song, it was always card up in the rat race, card up in the rat race. Like I thought like that's the whole song basically.
SPEAKER_02:So it's definitely in it.
SPEAKER_01:That's that's heavyweight champion, isn't it? Yeah, heavyweight champion, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And obviously, I know there is more to it, but I just I don't like that line, and it seems like I always hear it whenever they're on.
SPEAKER_00:So we used to call him rat race wanker.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, I think I think as I said, like I think because as a teenager at the time, like I really got into it, but I sort of was intensely into Reverend and like and I don't dislike them now, just like intensely don't listen to them. But when you think when you're looking at your your your guy's a little bit older than me, like listening to lyrics, he says, you know, he says, uh one of whatever the whatever the song is he says, like, I am the reverend, I'll tell you about the state of things. It's kind of like you look back at that now and think, Jesus Christ, that is so arrogant. But I think he owned that arrogance, and I think like he owned it pretty well for a bit.
SPEAKER_00:I am the reverend alone, who's like just a fantastic writing that down as a lyric, it's sort of like Pied Piper.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's what you've got to admire though, is like with the with the Reverend and the Makers is because we've had this debate before, uh Ago Andrew, about if I've if I was successful, I would sell out immediately. I would just cash in, highest bidder, yeah. I'll come and sing your advert jingles or whatever. I think what what Reverend and the Makers have done is managed to cling to that their own identity. It doesn't feel like they ever sold out, and yeah, you have to give them credit for that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think so. I think they were always quite honest to themselves, and you don't have to have to like something to have liked it for a period of time. And I kind of feel Little Man Tate, I kind of feel like that as well. If if I I don't want to get into who was worst and who was best, but I sort of Little Man Tate were available to me when I was first first sort of going to gigs, and like they were I could see them whenever I wanted, and they their shows were fun, they were packed and fun, but I I I I would never listen to Little Man Tate.
SPEAKER_00:I think they played tram lines last year actually, Little Man Tate. They probably did, yeah. Yeah, they've re-released some new music, actually, but what what I will say, a lot of these bands that you've mentioned as well, as much as they're not massive bands or anything like that, they are pretty much all still going.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I think I I would make an argument they could all, certainly Milburn, maybe Little Man Tate, certainly Reverend, like they they could put on a tour in like not every city, but certain cities. I know Newcastle have always had a like Millbourne have always done really well in Newcastle and things like that. I remember going to I went to watch Yorkshire and about this is about five, six years ago, maybe ten years ago. God when was it? Anyway, whenever it was, like Millbourne had sold out London, like sold out the uh can't remember. But like, you know, this is ten years ago, we're still ten years after they they first were knocking about, so they've they've always had that that pulling power, and obviously they they weren't the biggest bands in the world at that time, but they were all still I suppose one thing we've not mentioned really is like the context of like the landfill indie that came to populate that that period as well. Like, but they were writing amongst it with the sort of I don't know, loads of touring bands, whether it's like I don't know, who who have we got? There's there's there was countless numbers of them, but like that that sort of like mid-level available to support or have a headline tour basically in the city in the country.
SPEAKER_00:They were all yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember like seeing the like you said, there were loads of bands around that era. One of my like soft spots, um, and I saw them last year is uh Future Eds. I love the Future Eds.
SPEAKER_02:I saw them uh saw them at the Maccabees gig this year, actually.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I I've got a massive sort of I think they're like a really really good band, but there were loads of bands like that, like you said, they'd be classed as Indie Landful. Like it's I mean maybe maybe the Maccabees, I don't know. I don't know if they're obviously a little bit after, but um but yeah, they look like block putting it in the back of the bottom. What about the uh the Cortinas?
SPEAKER_01:Were they were they too far away?
SPEAKER_00:A little bit later, I think, as well, don't they?
SPEAKER_02:But I I actually think they're quite a good comparison because in some respects, like they're nowhere near as big outside of Manchester. I may maybe someone would tell me that I'm talking shit, but like to me they don't do that. But it's like that sort of they they cultivate that place, don't they? Even if it's northernness, it feels like they've they've done to be honest, they've done incredibly well to sort of forge a career making basic indie tunes post this wave.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um I'm trying to think if there's uh any other like bigish bands we've not talked about. I suppose it talks about Bromads, but the Bromads were different because their lead singer and I think all the bands, they were like a university band, so I think they j they formed in Sheffield, and perhaps they're the ones that sort of jumped on the scene quite well because they were quite different, quite different.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, they were, I thought that, yeah, definitely. Yeah. Are they still going?
SPEAKER_02:I think they might have they definitely did a sort of comeback gig last year, and Joe Green from Millbourne was their drummer, so yeah, it continues to be all interconnected.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I actually do you want to mention about what we're saying about the Milburn, um obviously the connection with the Arty Monkeys and Millburn still to this day.
SPEAKER_02:Oh yeah, well, yeah, so I could go through a few connections to be fair. It's like it is I don't incestuous might be the wrong word, but like if you go back to the beginning and you have like Artie Monkeys and Harrisons having a big argument in in that practice room, yeah all of them so Arty Monkeys, Harrisons, Reverend, Little Man Tate, Milburn, all produced by the same producer, Alan Smythe or Smith. I never know if it's Smythe or Smith with the words.
SPEAKER_00:Smythe, I'd say, but yeah, yeah, maybe. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um, so they're all produced by the same guy. So they must, you know, it's a small circle, all literally in the same rooms recording tunes, and then all knocking about the same venues, like boardwalk, under the boardwalk, grapes, lab mill, practice rooms, whatever. The rivalries were like Reverend supposedly hated little man Tate. I remember going to a gig where Little Man Tate hated were hating on Jarvis Cocker. It wasn't, it was miles miles before this scene.
SPEAKER_00:But like what's all Jarvis done? My auntie met Jarvis and said he were one of the nicest men that she's ever met.
SPEAKER_02:So I I I hope he is. I haven't met him. But like it, I think I think Jarvis said basically they're shit. Um fair enough, then little man takes sort of pictures of them. But I don't remember like there was there was quite a lot of talk of these sort of rivalries, but then I don't remember if I'm having to pick a side or anything like that. And it did, as I say, it always felt interlinked. I've already mentioned about our um reverence in that dancing to electro pop lyric Turners on Reverends album. I don't know if I don't know if you either of you remember The Lords of Flatbush, the band. No. No. So they had they had a singer called Steve Edwards. He was always that Lords of Flatbush.
SPEAKER_00:I don't remember that, no.
SPEAKER_02:They were quite well, so he he, Steve Edwards, who's the singer, who's def who's definitely still performing now, he was the singer on the song World Hold On by Bob Sinclair. If if you haven't, if you if you can't remember what that song is, you'll know it if you put it on YouTube or somewhere else.
SPEAKER_00:Right, yeah, go on, go on. But he button Well, you're gonna do a playlist for us, I think, aren't you, afterward? We're gonna put in a link in the description, by the way.
SPEAKER_01:So I'm gonna have to now.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, I'd have to, because I don't I don't know what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_01:You're gonna do a thousand song playlists on you now.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know if half of them will be on it. Um but like so Lords of Flatbush were good, but they like he was on Reverend's album, Reverend's on Arctic Monkey's second album, Richard Hawley's on Monkey B sides, Andy Nicholson, original bass player in Arctic Monkeys, ends up playing for both Reverend and Joe Carnell at Millburn. Matt Helders, the Arctic Monkey's drummer, ends up playing on someone we've not talked about yet, but I think kind of ends this scene in toddler tea. Milburn's guitarist, what you were alluding to, Andrew, Tom Rowley, is now in the Arctic Monkeys, as a at least as a Tory member and has been for absolutely ages. And Tim Hampton, who was the lead singer of uh Bramads, uh built a bad studio in Sheffield now called the Crystal Ships, and uh the the producer, that's my main producer at the Crystal Ships, Ross Orton, uh has like produced everyone. So did Arctic Monkeys AM Slime and Reason by Roots Manoeuva, who also lived in Sheffield at the time. I didn't know if you know that. No, I didn't that Skanky Skanky by Toddler T, and then Strange Creatures by Drenge, who also caught the end of that scene.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, Drenge were one, yeah. So that would be obviously a bit later, but yeah. So where do where where would you so you obviously touched on Toddler T. Where would you say say it all ended then that scene? Or did it just sort of disperse naturally, or was it like a big bang sort of thing where it was like that? Right.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's kind of hard for me to sort of say I suppose when it ended for me might be when it ended for everyone. Sort of yeah, chronologically. I I I remember going to a lot of these gigs, particularly at boardwalk, plug, uh grapes towards the end, but that was most because I was working there, um Leadmill, places like that, and then sort of as I gate in like 15, 16, 17, people started going to Raves at up at a cliff, and then I just remember one night going, have you heard of the Cabal gigs that used to be knocked? Oh, they still are knocking about.
SPEAKER_00:Basically, Toddler team was yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I wouldn't say it's more.
SPEAKER_02:You're making us sound quite old and on the city.
SPEAKER_00:No, I do know this. Like more I'd class that as more like garage and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01:You don't know what he's talking about.
SPEAKER_00:I do.
SPEAKER_02:No, I don't anyway. It basically I Raves might not be the right word. I always think raves are a funny word. It makes I think it makes you sound about 12 if you say the word rave. But like Cabal put on these like gigs that was arguably like spoke more to Sheffield's like industrial electro music heritage, but they were still very much linked. Like the first one I went to anyway, and this is when it kind of ended for me because I think the fun that I was having on nights out watching bands kind of changed when I was going to these sort of other gigs, and it was it was at the it was near Plug, this venue. It wasn't a venue, it was like a co-op, you know, the co-op funeral places, it was like a co-op funeral place near Plug and it was full of like props of bodies and stuff, but then like Toddler T was playing in these massive, like massive empty rooms of this like disused funeral warehouse, and I was like, these bodies in this funeral.
SPEAKER_00:They were members of the Aritons, weren't they? Like they don't have a great room anymore.
SPEAKER_02:That's yeah, that's that yeah, it was uh it was a a a sacrificial pyre type thing. No, but that but that I saw I saw like half the people there. So I saw I remember seeing Reverend there, I remember seeing like different faces at that gig, and then I listened to it wasn't Todd T's album, which I'm not like I'm not a huge fan of Todd T's first album, but Todd T brought out a mixtape called The Ghetto Blaster, and that kind of just took me towards like other other music that I would get into. And I suppose all of that scene really and why I'm nostalgic about it, is probably because it it was the thing that got me into music. Absolutely, yeah, and that's where it kind of like and got me into going to gigs, and that I I guess that's that the bit that I'm I'm nostalgic about because I still I still go to a gig and can you know it's you get that that buzz when you walk in or whatever, and that and that's kind of all where it came from.
SPEAKER_00:And it's interesting that unlike, like I say, the the the the nearest thing I've got to it from my own point of view is obviously what we spoke about is Brit Pop. I do think there were a lot of hip-hop influence and stuff like that in a lot of like certainly Artie Monkey stuff, and obviously my elders have done some hip-hop stuff, and I do feel, although obviously Britty pop are far bigger, that was very we are just sort of I'm gonna say plagarized in the 60s, but it were all you know, all into that. I do feel like there were a lot more and I'm not surprised that those people were seen at these toddler T gigs and you know, like I said, the garage stuff or whatever it was coming coming after, or the hip-hop thing coming after, because I do think it were more inventive, and I do think one of the reasons monkeys were so different and and sort of stood out more is because the lyrics could have easily been hip hop lyrics in a way, you know, like a because they were so sort of they were like fast speaking. It was there obviously you could I think you can tell the hip-hop influence of the first Light Monkeys album.
SPEAKER_02:There's there's definitely like there was definitely that sort of I think the streets as well, maybe like yeah, yeah, yeah. I think street and I think you could definitely hear that in Bromheads and Arctic Monkeys. There's like a sort of yeah, sort of telling telling the world as it is and speaking about like sort of real concrete things. Obviously, that shifted quite quickly with Arctic Monkeys from but that first album, and that you know the the parallels with Oasis are really clear, but I actually think that first album is like more real than anything Oasis did, and then every album afterwards is more uh unreal, it's not the right word, maybe more impressionistic than everything else that Oasis did. And I yeah, I think I think that was the thing, and the reason that I'd I'd still say that like Arctic Monkeys are the one band that I'd go back to out there is probably because it growing up when they s first got big, and like growing up with their albums, like up to now when I'm what 34, like they've sort of changed with me, and I supp I suppose you mellow over time, doesn't it? And that that music certainly mellowed over time as well.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Would you be more likely to listen to modern day uh artics, or would you be more likely to go back to the retro stuff if you were gonna put some on a playlist? I love that question.
SPEAKER_02:I would say um I would cut out the middle to be honest, and maybe I'm maybe I'm but yeah, go to the book ends, both ends. Yeah, I like I like the first album a lot, I like half the second album a lot. I'm less bothered about that sort of phase where all the lyrics become like a bit I don't know abstract sort of yeah, very, very abstract. I mean it continue to be abstract later on, but like uh the the sort of last three um uh Tranquility Bass and The Car.
SPEAKER_00:And the Car. My favourite album is actually well fairly controversial, Suck It and See. So I'm sort of the I'm sort of opposite to that album. I absolutely love that album, but I I'm not a massive fan of AM, and everyone loves that. That will that seen as the comeback album. I don't know, it seems a bit I don't think they did this, but it almost feels like they sort of went back to being a a an indie pop band, if you know what I mean, rather than what they I thought they were sort of progressing up until that point. I think Tranquility of Bass Hotel is really underrated as an album.
SPEAKER_02:I would say that's possibly my favourite, like I but I think I think with AM it's not like my favourite, but it's almost like they were like they were so alone in terms of like other quality guitar bands from the UK around probably arguably even now, but like that they were just like, We're gonna make the Riffs album and you're all gonna fucking it's cool as thought, and there's some great songs in it.
SPEAKER_00:Do I do one or know is one of the and I'll you mine? In fact, the first two are are unbelievable tracks off it, but um but yeah, I don't know, it just had to be a little bit cold that one, and everyone because that's the one where they sort of came back into the public eye. I think a lot of people thought they'd lost it a little bit. They go they've gone to American with Umbug and took it and see, and now everyone thinks they've lost it because he's singing in his well that's I don't know if you listen like to um I was listening to certain romance from the forum, actually. I don't know if you ever saw a gig at the forum.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, Sheffield, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so they uh they're playing there and he's like singing Certain Romance, obviously. Um might wear classic reebok. And then I heard him sing it uh straight after it put the video on where he's singing it at uh Hillsborough when I don't know if you went to that gig actually in Sheffield, yeah. And he's doing it's the same song, and it just sounds so different. Like, I mean I don't expect it to sound like you know, like an 18-year-old, but he's like, well, they might work less reebox, and it just sort of changes what the song like feels like, you know what I mean.
SPEAKER_02:I do, I think it's harder to harder to square up that first album with the sort of current persona. Uh I quite I quite like the fact that he tries to do it a little bit, but I have to say that I think that that gig at Did you go to that giga at Hillsborough?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I did, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So I had that gig, I sort of that felt like back to the we're just gonna play the same set everywhere we go, we're a took we're a band tour in the world, and then I found that a bit sad and haven't really listened to him as much since. So I'm sure at some point I will I will go back because I I you know I like all their albums, but I did like the card. But I just sort of like I saw Oasis this summer as well, and it was the same. I was like, I never need to listen to Oasis again. And I was after seeing after seeing because but like it's never gonna get better than that for me, like because I never saw him the first time round, and it was superb. But I was like, I never need to listen to him again. Like with Artsy Monkeys after that gig in a different way, Artsy Monkeys sorry, Oasis were great, artsy monkeys weren't that day at Aillsborough, I didn't think. No, I um and it was just sort of like just was a bit flat and it sort of I suppose it it cast a bit of a shadow on all these sorts of things.
SPEAKER_00:What did you feel about that actually? Sorry, I know we're running on here. Yeah, I'll actually about this, Liam, as well. Uh I don't know if you remember after that Aillsborough gig, he were getting loads of steak because he didn't mention Sheffield. I don't know if you remember the discourse online after it were like it did it he sold out his roots, he's sold out his roots.
SPEAKER_01:Not even mentioned Sheffield.
SPEAKER_00:Do you think that's a I doesn't I'd sum up three people from Sheffield? I couldn't give a shit about that at all.
SPEAKER_02:No, I could and but the hives were supporting, right, weren't they? And like the hives uh it was I actually thought it was like the Arctic Monkeys like set was basically inspired by the hives because I the hives come on, they're just gonna we're the greatest fucking band in the world and then play the set. And Alex Turner, without saying we're the greatest fucking band in the world, basically just did that, like you know, we're just gonna tour the world and be the biggest and best band, and it was kind of like that. I think I think also with it being in Illswood Park and you could see the Wednesday ground, I think he was probably like, I'm not gonna mention it because I think it's kind of like you know, either you go in for that and you go in fully tribal, like fuck Chef United or something, or you just totally leave it alone.
SPEAKER_00:Melbourne played tram lines a couple of years ago and came on to um everywhere and nowhere babe requested. Yeah, yeah, I don't genuinely don't mind it. I really, really don't want to.
SPEAKER_01:Well, what do people want him to do? Like your little sort of I'm just I'm just wondering if these guys down here came from Atacliffe or Gleedless. Like what do they want? Like mentioned parts of Sheffield.
SPEAKER_00:Just like anyone a bit super tracked. People were furious, like I mean.
SPEAKER_02:It's funny though the amount of times they've done stuff like on I don't know, like Halders like playing on always playing with like 0114 on his drum kit, or like he Alex Turner was like at random gigs, just like sort of saying, I'm from iGreen, like really sort of quietly down the microphone. Like, you know, he's I think they've done enough for Sheffield to be able to come on and give the performance that they want to do.
SPEAKER_01:Somebody wanted him to open his guitar case and a bottle of Henderson's relish rolls it up and everybody's cheering.
SPEAKER_00:And you want to remember he left Sheffield when he were 18 because they became the biggest band in Britain immediately. So that's why. Um is there anything else you want to mention, Sal, before we wrap up?
SPEAKER_02:If I if I list some of the bands from around that time, yeah, absolutely. Do you want to say if you've heard of them before?
SPEAKER_00:Ah, go on then.
SPEAKER_02:Because I'm also intrigued to know who who if there's anyone else you were seeing around that time, because I'm obviously focused on the ones that I've spoken about. But uh so Paddy Orange I've mentioned, and that was.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I did I didn't know Paddy Orange, I've turned it. I think he's from there.
SPEAKER_02:I think he might have been from Rotherham, but I was like a electro poppy type thing. Mentioned loads of flatbrush went out of them. To be fair, I didn't really see them very much, they were kind of just like in and around, but they played Club 60 a lot, which was a great venue if you never went.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I saw about Club 60. I know I don't know if I've ever went, I do remember it. I must have gone, actually.
SPEAKER_02:Anyway, um so and a bit later, so basically I would say that this both tramlines, that Toddler T kind of album coming out, and then like the sort of new wave of bands that came after that sort of were still from Sheffield, but weren't like sort of proactively referencing Sheffield and everything they did. So there was obviously Drenger a bit later who I know, and they were I I thought Drenger great.
SPEAKER_00:Uh yeah, I really do like them, yeah. I thought they would be a lot bigger actually when they first came out. I thought they were gonna be something I don't know, they seemed to be a lot of buzz about it, and then yeah, never really got to that height that I expected.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but like they were that wave, I think uh we didn't necessarily start with Drends, but there was like a wave of other Sheffield bands that I thought were much better or certainly much more interesting than you Millburns and your Little Man Tates. Um my mate's band called Nerves, you probably you might not have heard of they didn't play that much, but um I'm not actually now, but I did listen to it because I think you might have put it on a list, and I can't remember it's on a lot. Well, more shoe more shoe gazy stuff, and there was those I can never remember the name of the band. There was another band that did get signed and got fairly big that was like quite a heavy shoe gazy band. Uh didn't do well in Sheffield, but like did quite well elsewhere. Uh there was Wet Nuns, they were quite they were pretty big.
SPEAKER_00:No, I've heard of the name, but not the company by them.
SPEAKER_02:They were sort of had a bit more Americ Americanery heavy rock. But like all basically, I suppose what I'm driving at is it it it changed quite quickly, and I suppose there's there's only a certain window in which you can embrace that, like yeah, oh yeah, we're from Sheffield, but also like without without that, I don't know if those other bands would have you know you can never know, but like it's quite it's it's kind of hard to imagine that had Sheffield been like a a desert of music in that period, whether all these other bands that ended up doing quite well or just starting out at all would have happened without I'm sure they would have because there was quite a big wave, people would have known like cousins or older brothers or or sort of family members or people from the same school that had had some success.
SPEAKER_01:There were there were quite a few bands in Dromfield where where I was, but I don't think any of them went on to have any real success. But I think they must have been inspired by that era.
SPEAKER_00:Just one band I want to mention that I I didn't know if you were gonna bring up yourself is Slow Club, who obviously they obviously the lead singer of that is self-esteem, who uh well she weren't known as self-esteem, I don't believe, at the time, but yeah, um but they they were too launched looking now, 2006.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's interesting. That's like a blind proper blind spot for me, Slow Club, although obviously I know self-esteem and she's great. But I yeah, I just I don't know if it was like the music or just didn't click with me or they weren't playing as much in Sheffield. I don't know. They didn't they didn't quite like never caught on with me. It's probably to be honest, a lot of it was to do with the fact that I had a lot of availability at weekends, and if you were playing, I was gonna see you.
SPEAKER_00:So probably two other bands I'd like to mention about a little bit before the Artics, I think. Have you had a Pink Grease? No, Pink Grease were a band that I saw a lot of unbelievable live band, pretty sure they're not going anymore. And uh the Long Blondes I saw quite a lot as well around that time.
SPEAKER_02:Well Long Blondes were great, but they they did pretty you know, they had like albums, didn't they? Like they were yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I didn't really class them with that Arctic Monkey scene at all, to be honest.
SPEAKER_02:Just just before, just before. Oh, another question before before we get off. I was I'm intrigued to to sort of know. I was trying to list all the venues that I could remember, and I I just I couldn't I couldn't stop listening. There was so many. You mentioned four of them, I hadn't got that on my list, and I was thinking it occurred to me the Harley other which was a little bit later, but you have a do you have a favourite favourite venue?
SPEAKER_00:I don't know, that's a great question.
SPEAKER_01:Let mill for me. I I had too many good nights, like club nights and band nights in there. I it's just far and ahead, easy to winner for me.
SPEAKER_00:I used to think the plug were a great venue for saw justice in there um when they first came out, and it absolutely blew my fucking head off to be complex. I don't know if I've ever seen a bad gig at Plug, actually. I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_02:I thought Plug was like one of those, so I mean, I'd probably have more fond memories of Lebnil, but like Plug was one of those venues that was actually like all cities should have a venue that can have a thousand people, and like it was just perfectly laid out for life music. I saw streets there, and Mike Skinner was like yeah, superb.
SPEAKER_01:Uh yeah, I probably I'd probably corporation was one that people liked. It was always a bit sweaty for me in there, but people liked corporation.
SPEAKER_02:It felt like during that scene that corporation was like you weren't allowed to play there, otherwise you were like too heavy. Like if you're gonna play Jingle Jangle India, you're gonna have to play in boardwalk or lab money.
SPEAKER_00:I think I've only ever seen one good corporation, public image. I think I think that's the only band I've ever seen.
SPEAKER_01:It much more sort of gothy, weren't it? In feel much, yeah, like you say, a lot darker.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but like I said, plug plug for me and um remember Fez Club. Oh yeah, was that the university? Oh, I believe so, I want to say so. I saw baby shambles in there. Um just after they'd got to number Libertines got to number two, we can't stand me now, and like that literally that day they got to number two, it was Sunday night. It were chaos, he were off his head, Pete Noah, to be honest. But it was just one of those things like he's number two in the charts, this guy, and there's about 50 people in this little place watching him essentially have a breakdown, but that's not the point.
SPEAKER_01:But what do you call the uh the old Roxy's where we saw the pogs and T2 churches?
SPEAKER_00:I don't like the O2 as a as a place. I think that I think they were good pogues and stuff, but I've been to too many gigs there where it's it's just I don't know, they sound shy.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I don't like it. I I I saw I didn't see the pogs there actually, but like again it was because I was like seeing these bands that when I think pogues played Manchester. Uh I think they did it every other year, didn't they? Like at Christmas time, but like Pogues played Manchester at Christmas, like got got on a mini-bus and went to went to Manchester. I don't think I would have done that, or I'd have been less likely to do that if there wasn't like an active music scene going on and like you know, I wasn't going to gigs in the first place. I think I don't know if you ever went to Grapes, but Grapes was probably my favourite. Not really to any gig, but because I worked there two or three nights a week taking money on the doors, as we mentioned.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, yeah, is that right?
SPEAKER_00:We used to go we used to go on Trippage quite a lot, didn't we, Match Like? We used to used to some Irish we went to as Irish stuff, aren't we? So we used to watch some. Dog and Parchridge quite a bit, weren't we? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think I think the Dog and Parchridge is the better pub, but uh yeah, I just like over time got to know the two the two guys that ran the sound desk up there. It was weird because the the the the music bit was like not really attached to the downstairs, and I know that the owner Anne, who has done like interviews about seeing the Arctic monkeys before, and I found it really strange because like Ann had nothing to do with the up the upstairs bit. Like that was that was Ash and Brian, and they were like two of the most opposite characters you could possibly imagine. Like Ash, this suck. Of rocker with long hair who like would shout at bands and tell them they were shit, and then Brian, the most chilled-out person in the world, who would be in bright green trousers and just be like really nice about everyone. But I there was just so many like characters like that across that across that scene, and it was just I I loved that venue because if you had 15 people in it, it could still feel like a decent gig. So uh it's a shame that that's that's no longer kicking around because I don't know if you're if you're a band sort of starting stuff in Sheffield, I know there's quite a lot of like um DIY venues almost, but like if you're a band starting in Sheffield, a place that's got like a capacity of 60 is is you kind of want that.
SPEAKER_01:I think the green room would be like a modern equity.
SPEAKER_02:That's also owned by uh I think that's also owned by the people that own uh the grapes.
SPEAKER_00:I'm off to the uh the foundry actually this Sunday as we're recording, uh straight after Sheffield Derby to watch Ash.
SPEAKER_02:Nice.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah, I've not been there for a long time. I think last time I saw there we must have been uh oh I don't know, DJ Yaouda, maybe I'm not sure, but anyway, yeah. Uh right, we should probably wrap up anyway. It's gonna unless you've got more to say, Sam, unless you've got more to say that is now thank you so much for that. I mean, obviously it's more nostalgic for you than it is for us being a bit older, but it's definitely like I say, we were still in his early 20s at that that scene. It's not like sort of you've talking 40 years, uh you know, uh 10 years ago or whatever. But yeah, really, really did enjoy that. It's made me go back to listening to the like all the old Artie Monkey stuff and b uh the boardwalk stuff and things like that.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, really good. Can I just one question before we finish? Is the Bromeds is that Brom Ed's jacket? Are they the same? Yes, right, okay. That that makes sense then. I've been struggling to find them, but yeah, okay, I'll uh I'll have a listen.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, right, yeah, and if you want this playlist, Sam says he's gonna make us a playlist of two million sort of thing.
SPEAKER_02:It's gonna be a personal playlist for every listener, so just I don't have Spotify though, so I'm gonna um just lob as things, I'll put it on the book.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, just a community text and we'll drop it underneath. Yeah, and we'll put it up. But thank you, Sam.
SPEAKER_02:Cheers, guys.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for listening to Who Remembers. If you want to get in touch with us, you can find us at Whoremembers Pod at Outlook.com. If you are a right wing fascist, you can find us on Twitter at Who Remembers Pod. Or if you're a wokener, you can find us on Blue Sky at Whoremembers Pod. Once again, thank you for listening, and we'll see you next time for more remembering.