Dear readers — it seems The Tribune is having a musical week. On Saturday we reported on the Sheffield Beatles Project and their attempt to recreate the spirit of 1968 and The White Album. Today we’re going forward a decade and looking at Sheffield’s musical revolution of the late 70s and early 80s. A time of intense creativity gave birth to much of the city’s enduring musical legacy: Pulp, The Human League and Cabaret Voltaire among them.
Today’s fascinating piece from Daniel Dylan Wray looks at a subculture within that culture: the fanzines. With virtually no budget, rudimentary printing technology and an anarchic disregard for convention, these fanzines chronicled — and shaped — this incredibly formative period. Many of the creators would go on to play leading roles as musicians.
But before that, we have important news. The Tribune is getting a new website!
Since the beginning we’ve been hosted on a platform called Substack. Substack is incredibly easy to use — helpful for us technophobes — but we’ve begun to outgrow it. It doesn’t allow you to design the look of your website, is pretty expensive, and has a few other limitations. So we’ll be switching over to a new platform tomorrow.
If you normally read us in your inbox, you don’t need to do anything. Our e-mail list will be transferred over and there shouldn’t be any hitches, but if by the weekend you haven’t received anything more from us then please e-mail us here to let us know (please don’t use the normal editor inbox as we get sent lots there and it will make it harder to find you!).
If you normally read us in your browser, you don’t need to do anything. We will continue to be at www.sheffieldtribune.co.uk — though you’ll hopefully notice it looks a lot prettier.
If you normally read us in the Substack app, this will no longer be possible. We know from our stats that this is only around 1-2% of readers — but if that’s you, apologies. We hope to one day build a Tribune app, but until then you’ll have to stick with using e-mail or browser.
Your Tribune briefing 🗞️
🚨 Sheffield city centre is to get a public space protection order (PSPO). Councillors on the communities, parks and leisure committee voted eight to one in favour of the PSPO at the committee meeting on Monday. Only Green Councillor Marianne Elliott voted against. The vote means that people involved in anti-social behaviour could be asked to leave the city centre for 24 hours or fined up to £1,000. Behaviours covered by the order included drinking alcohol in a way likely to cause anti-social behaviour, begging or loitering in a way that could cause harassment, alarm or distress, taking illegal drugs and urination/defecation. Sheffield Council have previously said if passed, the order could come in next April. For more, see our piece from last week.
🐕 South Yorkshire Police have defended the actions of their officers after a dog was shot dead in Hillsborough. The dog, an XL bully, was killed on Saturday afternoon following reports that a woman had been bitten and a dog walker had been intimidated. The owners of the XL bully, named Ghost, have since claimed on Facebook that their pet wasn't an immediate danger to the public and was being held by the collar by officers shortly before the shooting. However, in a statement, Ch Insp Emma Cheney confirmed that the dog “was loose at the time with no owner close by” when the decision was made to destroy it.
🏫 Dozens of parents of children at Firth Park Academy have joined forces to fight against what they say are unreasonable new behaviour policies. A Facebook group, Firth Park Academy Parents, has been set up to fight the changes and a meeting of concerned parents took place at a local community centre last week. Further meetings between parents and teachers are taking place this week on a one-to-one basis. Concerns included some pupils being given “constant suspensions” and the school not having adequate special educational needs provision. Firth Park Academy is part of the Lift Schools multi-academy chain which recently instigated a no mobile phone policy across all its 57 schools.
🎺 The Sheffield Carols season continues on Thursday night with a session at Grafters Bar in Kelham Island. Join them for a mince pie, mulled wine and a special open-air performance by the talented Stannington Brass Band who will be playing all the festive favourites plus the local carols. Tickets are £3.50 for adults (free for children) and the show runs from 6.30pm-10pm. Dan went to this two years ago and it was great fun, but make sure you wrap up warm!
Gun Rubber, Cosmic Pig, NMX
By Daniel Dylan Wray
In 1977 Paul Bower was in London and picked up a copy of the Sniffin’ Glue fanzine. Capturing the burgeoning punk scene of the time, it was a homemade magazine, with early issues made on a children’s typewriter, headlines written in felt tip pen, wonky layouts, and anarchic grammar. “I thought it was a bit rubbish,” Bower recalls. “Being from Sheffield, and thinking we were better than people in the South, we decided to start something of our own.”
Comments
Sign in or become a Sheffield Tribune member to leave comments. To add your photo, click here to create a profile on Gravatar.
