November 13, 2022

You Take Me Somewhere Strange

After a recent trip to a part of London I hadn't been to for a long while, which you can read at: Dead Beats & Kings Cross Indie 80's. I decided to take another little trip down memory lane at the end of October and revisit a place further afield that I haven't been to for over 20 years, so I took the couple of hours train journey to 'Steel City' aka Sheffield.

I used to work there on frequent spells and enjoyed my time and the people I met there at that time, catch another of my Sheffield related posts at Deity's Lament Sheffield Goth Rock.

I used to be a training consultant/teacher, I worked and part-time studied for a few years to get my Cert Ed/PGCE and managed to bag a job teaching people the job I used to do which was put into a 3 to 4 day course culminating in an exam for the students at the end to gain certification.

I obviously had to sit the exam myself and have a specific number of years experience in the field of the job before being 'accredited' by the exam board to teach it to others, so I knew how tough the exam was. I tried to make things as light as possible for the students as it was stressful enough for them having to sit exams some of them not having had to do that since they went to school many years ago.

I had to work in many parts of the country and did the job for 7 years, but Sheffield stands out as one of the friendliest and most fun, it was helped by the guy who used to organise and co-ordinate things up there, getting the right people to attend the course. He was a really nice guy and a huge 'Blades' (Sheffield United) fan and appreciated the lower league football teams (which I supported and still do), it always made for lively chat when we met. I wanted to go back and retrace some steps, visit some old haunts and hopefully take some photos of places I used to go to.

Ball Street Bridge Kelham Island Sheffield

Chesterfield St Mary's Church Wonky Spire

It has changed a fair amount over the years, but it was good to see and revisit some of the places I used to go to and see that they still exist, sadly some of the places are no longer there, but hey things have to change. Also managed to drop off in Chesterfield en-route just to get some 'snaps' of it's famous 'wonky spired' church as per the above photo.

So, as I am recently back from Sheffield/Chesterfield, I thought I would air some more sounds of the Industrial North...

Surface Mutants

Train is from 1982 from the Sheffield band Surface Mutants with a kind of an industrial/dub sound going on.

On the A side of the E.P. 'You Take Me Somewhere Strange'. Released on the independent Rock Steady Records label based in Manchester. The E.P. being engineered and produced by Cabaret Voltaire, I guess you can kind of get some of their influence in it.

The Track Listing

A - Train
B1 - Help Below
B2 - Somewhere Strange

As previously mentioned they were from Sheffield and were formed around 1980. They released their only other single called 'Anaesthetic ' in 1982 on Clönic Record Label, which I can only assume is a self financed release.

The Band Were

Pete Brennan - Bass/Vocals
Nort (Paul Northcliffe) - Drums/Vocals
Richard Parrot - Guitar/Vocals
Nigel Manning - Saxophone/Flute

Evidently according to Nort on Cargo Studios they were influenced by Joy Division and the singer Pete wanted to stand in exactly the same place as Ian Curtis in the studio when they recorded.

Cabaret Voltaire

You can get an idea of Cabaret Voltaire's sound with the track Obsession below:

And with their much earlier more 'industrial/electronic' sounding track 'Nag, Nag, Nag' released in 1979.

Cabaret Voltaire were formed in 1973 and consisted of Richard H. Kirk, Stephen Mallinder and Chris Watson, their early 'experimentations' with sound are caught on a triple album CD set "Methodology" which was released on Independent Label Mute Records in 2002.

The band's first gigs were in 1975 and in one incident Stephen Mallinder was hospitalised by objects thrown by a 'hostile crowd'. By the time of punk's arrival they began to be more widely accepted. In '78 they were signed to Rough Trade Records where they released to above track 'Nag, Nag, Nag'. Whilst 'Obsession' was released on the same label on the album 'The Voice Of America' in 1981. By 1983 they had signed to Virgin Records and opted for a more 'commercial' sound with the album 'The Crackdown', which appeared to work in that it reached #31 in the U.K. album charts of the day. Finally leaving you with another of my favourites by them 'Yashar' actually released in 1983 on the Factory Records label and reaching #6 in the UK Indie Charts of the day. The track was produced and remixed by John Robie right hand man to Arthur Baker who worked with artists such as Afrika Bambaataa (catch the track 'World Destruction' with John Lydon at the youtube link) and at the link New Order featured on this site at The Misery Of Cities - Stateside Indie.