Abstract
To the casual observer, late 1970s’ Sheffield was a grim place, littered with the charred decaying remnants of post-industrialisation and humming with the urban renewal of brutalist post-war dystopian architecture. Framed by the harsh northern landscape, it was seen as either the spectre of a dire past or the vision of a romantic, technological future. Drawing inspiration from this environment and fuelled on a cocktail of Roxy Music and A Clockwork Orange, electronic musical pioneers Cabaret Voltaire and the Human League appeared. These bands would establish a music lineage encompassing bands, clubs and labels through to the twenty-first century and placing Sheffield at the centre of the UK’s electronic music story.
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Notes
- 1.
Bobby Knutt was a Sheffield-born comedian and actor popular in the ‘Working Men’s Club’ and cabaret scenes of the UK. He was a popular entertainer who was a main stay of light entertainment television in the 1970s, as well as soaps like Emmerdale and Coronation Street.
- 2.
Gunrubber was a Sheffield-based fanzine and published seven issues between January and December 1977.
- 3.
Dave Berry (b.1941), a Sheffield-born pop singer whose top-ten 1960s’ hits included ‘Little Things’ and ‘The Crying Game’.
- 4.
Joe Cocker (1944–2014), a Sheffield-born rock and soul singer, who appeared at Woodstock in 1969 and had a string of hits through the 1970s and 1980s.
- 5.
Thelemic Castle is a reference to Thelemic mysticism, developed by Aleister Crowley in the early part of the twentieth century.
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Hollins, P. (2021). Resisting that Fascist Groove Thang: Sheffield as the Epicentre for Electronic Music (1973–2020). In: Darchen, S., Charrieras, D., Willsteed, J. (eds) Electronic Cities. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4741-0_3
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