12 Comments

I quite agree that it would be futile to recreate those early 80’s days upstairs at the Hallamshire. It would probably break a few modern health and safety rules too. There was a compilation album of many of the bands of that era from Sheffield called ‘a bouquet of steel’. I don’t know if you can still get it, and if that was too pretentious, having featured on John Peel, there was a more down to earth parodying compilation available on cassette called ‘a Bucket of Sleet’ featuring Mark Mywords, Sheffield’s punk poet. An era that was gone and forgotten til this article appeared!

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Not forgotten at all by many of us, Christopher. It seemed most of Sheffield was in a band in those days. As one of the founding members of Heroes of the Beach, I remember Nick and Jarvis borrowing the title when we were away somewhere in the 1980s. Side project indeed. We taught young Cocker almost nothing of what he now knows.

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Just to let you know that the band playing at the New Hallamshire described as 'A band playing at the New Hallamshire' is The Bowie Contingent. https://www.facebook.com/TheBowieContingent/

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The description of Heroes of The Beach playing unfamiliar instruments reminds me of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band number Jazz - Delicious Hot, Disgusting Cold. Having a few minutes left at the end of a recording session, the band members each passed their instrument to the person to their left...

Pedant's corner: "... hard on Sheffield Tape Archive" - Freudian slip, maybe? But the laces of the landlord and his wife were "strait" (constraining) rather than "straight" (undeviating).

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Thats not a young audience is it ;-)

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We were once

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Yes my first thought on seeing the photo.

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Overlong piece.Thank God they have got rid of the ridiculous name and highlighted the superb tiled frontage.

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Yes it is a beautiful building.

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Pedants Corner #2. "Pulp's first ever gigs weren't/wasn't the most auspicious of beginnings." Yes, well done, author! You've correctly spotted that there are times when you've got a singular on one side of the verb "to be," and a plural on the other when neither is/was nor are/weren't looks or sounds right. The verb "to be" just isn't up to the job, so you need to find a different verb. "Pulp's first ever gigs didn't constitute the most auspicious of beginnings." It's not exactly cheering or friendly, but it's correct. You could try "didn't comprise" or "didn't make for," or similar. Identifying the problem was the clever bit here: and you did it 👍

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What a disgusting opening anecdote.

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Will be very hard to recreate what a special place it was but great to see back as a music venue

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