Dan Feeney

Well, 2012 is looking rather Indiepoptastic isn’t it? Just as a small re-cap of some of the highlights so far, it seems about time for a video-update, especially as every one of these super bands is playing this year’s Indietracks festival – hooray!

Tigercats – Full Moon Reggae Party

It’s been around for a wee while now, but its worth saying that Tigercats’ debut album, Isle of Dogs, is a real treat; indiepop at its best, in turns toe-tapping, infectious, joyous and – if I’m allowed to get away with saying this – life-affirming. Full Moon Reggae Party is very much a party track, and the video, animated by the band’s own Duncan Barrett is a lovely bit of tropical, psychedelic loveliness.

tigercatsband.com

Allo Darlin’ – Capricornia

It shouldn’t really come as any surprise that Allo Darlin’s second album, Europe, is a bit of a blinder. More mature and assured than their debut, and yet still as tender and heartfelt both lyrically and musically. Capricornia is a perfect showcase of this, and the video – directed by ‘Friend of PYT’ Nik Vestberg, is rather super.

allodarlin.com

This Many Boyfriends – (I Should Be A) Communist

Well, Nik’s been a little bit busy really, as he’s also directed this little beauty for This Many Boyfriends, for their new single which is due out later this month. Anything that involves bear suits and the Brudenell gets our vote.

thismanyboyfriends.com

Standard Fare – 051107

Another one that’s been a while, but still worth revisiting as far as we’re concerned! A train into the Peak District provides a perfect backdrop to this singalong gem.

standardfare.co.uk

Well, things are getting busy for PYT it would seem! So much so we’re offering you not one, but two gigs in just one week. Ahead of the Jack Lewis show at the Red House, we’re VERY happy to be welcoming those swoony popstrels The School to Sheffield. I’m sure you won’t be surprised when we tell you that their new album, Reading Too Much Into Things Like Everything, is simply gorgeous (and also happens to be released tomorrow!), and we can’t think of a better way to brighten up a Monday evening…

The School

Ahead of releasing their Bacharach-esque new LP, we are delighted to bring Cardiff’s finest popsters to Sheffield. Combining such influences as indie-pop and the brightest shimmering 60s productions, The School’s style is a Brit version of sunshine pop with moments of light and shadow, the kind of infectious, hyper-melodic pop you can simultaneously cry and dance to. Sophisticated, happy songs, with a little melancholy thrown in them, inspired by The Beach Boys (and the fantastic American Spring, produced by Brian Wilson), The Beatles, Phil Spector and girl bands from the 60’s. Not forgetting, of course, other current bands with whom they share references and tastes, bands that also wrap their sweet melodies in wonderful keyboard and string arrangements, bands like Belle and Sebastian, Saturday Looks Good To Me, Camera Obscura, Jim Noir, Lucky Soul, The Brunettes or Little My.

http://theschoolband.co.uk/

Standard Fare

In a year where indiepop records are coming thick and fast, Standard Fare set the standard (sorry, pun intended) right at the top to kick things off with their terrific second long-player Out of Sight, Out of Town. As ever, it is a delight to be able to put on one of our very favourite bands.

http://standardfare.co.uk/

The Sweet Nothings

You already know who The Sweet Nothings are right? They’re that Sheffield band that make the noisy but twinkly popsongs about accounting and socialism. They’re dead good. You’ll really like em.

http://thesweetnothings.co.uk/

Tickets £5 adv from http://www.wegottickets.com/event/165793

HURRAH! We are absolutely over the moon to announce that we are starting a new clubnight in Sheffield!

When we moved PYT over the Sheffield we always knew that it would take a bit of time to find a new home for the night, because we needed to find a venue where it felt just right. Well, after quite a lot of time spent drinking in lovely places around the city we have found the right one! Not only that, they want us to do a disco! So, we are absolutely delighted to announce that as the end of April the last Saturday of the month means only one thing - Pull Yourself Together at DAda!

Here at PYT we think that Saturday nights should be about having a great time with friends right? Well, what better place to do that than at an ace disco! Pull Yourself Together will be the place to combine these things, and have an awesome night dancing to some of your favourite popsongs. After three and a bit years soundtracking Manchester’s Northern Quarter, PYT are ready to carry on in just the same way in the Steel City – great popsongs, brilliant drinks and loads of fun. You bring the friends, we’ll do the rest.

For anyone who doesn’t know it, DAda is a cracking bar on Trippet Lane, which is one street down from West Street in the city centre. It’s got a lovely feel to it, and most importantly has room for dancing and a brilliant selection of drinks – it is a Thornbridge pub! We’re really looking forward to making DAda our new home, and hope that you can join us on Saturday 28th April to celebrate our first night!

The brilliant poster comes from the pen of Adam at Croatoan Design, and we think it is absolutely ace!

We are super excited to announce the first of a heap of gigs we are going to putting on around Sheffield over the coming months. We’re teaming up with our good pals at Pop-o-matic to bring Jack Lesser Lewis to the Steel City. I know a lot of people might not agree with this, but we reckon Jack is actually the cooler of the Lewis brothers, and can’t wait to see him at The Redhouse!

PYT-o-matic! presents…

Jack Lesser Lewis’ Awkward Energy
with support from The Middle Ones

Friday 15th June, The Redhouse

Tickets £4 in advance – http://www.wegottickets.com/event/165151

Jack Lesser Lewis’ Awkward Energy

Despite the self-deprecating moniker, Jack (the “lesser” Lewis in question) is in comfortable possession of a style every bit as noteworthy as that of his brother, antifolk magnet Jeffrey Lewis. Whereas the latter employs words by the deluge Jack and his band Awkward Energy tend to favor far more melody and far less vicious satire in their muttering indie compositions. This has made for a style so unassuming as to have gone halfway unnoticed in Jack Lewis’ adopted Portland hometown, but it’s much more an issue of lack of volume than lack of quality.

http://awkwardenergy.bandcamp.com/

The Middle Ones

The Middle Ones are Anna Knowles (guitar, vocals) and Grace Denton (accordion, percussion, vocals) and both hail from the north of England, but formed the band whilst at university in Norwich. Over the last couple of years they have won fans from around the world, shared the stage with the likes of Jeffrey Lewis and Calvin Johnson, and toured with Rose Melberg and Best Friends Forever. Their debut album, It Is The Rehearsal That Will Make This (Stitch-Stitch/Discount Horse) is a triumph of melody and beautiful echoing tenderness. Vocal harmonies weave tender, honest songs that betray a knowing melancholie, as well as a care-free, starry-eyed joy for life – a joy for simply singing, for stamping feet, for shouting out loud.

http://themiddleones.bancamp.com

Ladies and Gents, Allo Darlin’ are coming to Sheffield TOMORROW NIGHT! HURRAH! To get you in the mood for the fun and games at Queens Social Club (you do all remember that the gig has been moved there right? More room for dancing!) on Friday night, here are some songs from all the bands who will be playing the pop for you to dance to! Tickets are only £7, and we would definitely suggest buying them in advance as it is going to be busy tomorrow night, so you don’t want to be wasting time queueing up with your pennies to get in!

Allo Darlin’

Allo Darlin’ – Tallulah from Will Botting on Vimeo.

Allo Darlin’ – Capricornia by Slumberland Records

Standard Fare

This Many Boyfriends

The Passing Fancy

When we booked Allo Darlin’ to play in Sheffield as our first gig in our new city we always knew it was going to be a popular show. However, we certainly didn’t expect it to be the first show on their tour to sell out and leave us with people getting in touch left, right, centre, over and above about the fact that they had missed out on tickets. So, due to overwhelming public demand, we are moving the gig to Queens Social Club.

Allo Darlin’ – Tallulah from Will Botting on Vimeo.

All original tickets will remain valid, you’ll just need to bring your confirmation as normal. The lineup for the gig remains the same, only now there is room to get even more people in to enjoy four of our favourite bands around at the moment, and more importantly – everyone has more room to have a dance to them all!

Tickets are now back on sale to anyone who missed out – just hit the link below. Tell all your friends that they can now join you for a good old dance to some ace music!

PYT presents…
Allo Darlin’

with support from
Standard Fare
This Many Boyfriends
The Passing Fancy

Friday 24th February. Queens Social Club, Sheffield.
Tickets – £7: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/143788

Well, not DEAD per-say, but not all that alive. We are very sad to share the following communication with you from Nik and Bill. We would like to shout from the rooftops about how wonderful it has been working with the band over the past 12 months or so since we started discussing releasing their music, and continue to be delighted every time that someone tells us how great they think the record is.

We first kind of heard about this crazy band when we put Allo Darlin’ on for the first time many moons ago, and this Swedish guy who was going around with Elizabeth gave us his CD. Jump forward to May of 2009 and we have just put the band on in Fuel, and are now back in Hannah’s flat looking at sexytime photos of Chuck Norris. A beautiful friendship was born. We’ve had some proper proud moments since releasing Album of Death, including seeing MOI smash Indietracks apart twice in a weekend, and of course their bloodgutsandall album launch show in that London.

Goodbye Moustache, maybe you really did overdo the cheese this time.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Hi all,

Yesterday, me and Bill decided to call it a day with the band. It was a hard decision to make, but it feels like the right one. I’m sure we’ll do something together again at some point in the future, but at the moment this just feels like a good time to stop. There are just too many other things going on in our lives that need to be prioritised.

We will play the remaining shows listed on our website, but then that’s it. A big massive thanks to all of you for the support over the past four years. It’s because of you guys we kept at it as long as we did.

The music will of course continue to be available, most of it for free. If you haven’t gotten yourself a physical copy of Album Of Death, you still can. But, you better hurry cause they won’t last forever. If sales continue at the current speed all CD copies will be gone by June 2034. You’ve been warned.

But, as I said…we still have some unfinished business to take care of…six more shows and we’re planning to bring some serious levels of awesome to each of them.

03/02/12 – Fever Dream single launch at The Others, London
04/02/12 – Ace Bushy Alldayer (with The Middle Ones, Standard Fare etc), The Victoria, Birmingham
10/02/12 – Silver Bullet, London
18/02/12 – The Victoria, Hitchin
01/03/12 – The Cellar, Oxford (with Allo Darlin’)
16/03/12 – Singapora Lounge, Rochester

And we won’t stop making music. Bill is going to be a busy bee this year with Allo Darlin’ and their forthcoming album would make Chuck Norris proud. It’s truly awesome.

I’m going to attempt to record a couple of songs myself, hopefully to be released as a cassette EP on Fika in the not too distant future. Expect endless film references and a lot of Game Boy J

And me and Bill will try to find some time to record one last song as Moustache of Insanity in the next few weeks. It’ll be a cover, but that’s all I’m allowed to say I think. Anyway, it’ll be a fitting way to say good bye.

I’ll leave you all with our live “video” for Cheese & Freckles, made back in October 2008, a week before we played our first ever show. It’s pretty cringeworthy, but it makes me smile.

Thanks for being awesome! Hope to see you at one of these final shows. Come up and say hi…or good bye.

Nik and Bill xx

Rather late on the uptake here (please excuse our tardiness once again), but in case it has escaped your notice, Darren Hayman and Fika Recordings have been pursuing rather a delightful project throughout December, giving away free, Christmas-themed MP3s every day over at the Fika website.

This musical advent calendar includes tracks by the likes of Ballboy, Bill Botting (of Moustache of Insanity and Allo Darlin’ fame), Moustache of Insanity themselves, Standard Fare’s Emma Cooper, and a rare musical outing for Josie Long amongst others. Every day has brought a new delight and they are all available to play and download at fikarecordings.com/christmasinhaworth – we would thoroughly recommend that you get in on the action. Plus if you’re quick you may still be able to buy Darren Hayman’s Christmas in Haworth EP, which sparked the whole thing off!

We teamed up with Fika in the summer to release Moustache of Insanity’s Album of Death, and they have released many other fine (and beautifully made) records and cassettes by the likes of Amida and Red Shoe Diaries. And if that wasn’t testament enough to their status as all-round good eggs, they’re only going and releasing the debut album from Tigercats, one of our favourite new bands of 2011!

Here’s to a Merry, Music-Filled Christmas

PYT xx

In December of 2010, whilst driving back to Manchester from a weekend of excess at ATP in Minehead, Pull Yourself Together Records were trying to get enough 3G connection on a phone to listen to what was about to become the first release on their new label. Now, 12 months on from Patterns’ New Noise EP, via Christopher Eatough’s heartbreaking debut album and Moustache of Insanity’s noisepop monster, PYT Records are celebrating their birthday in the only way they know, by releasing a single from a band they love.

Advances In Mathematics formed in Manchester when guitarist Ben Ambridge advertised for a band to play his post-rock-meets-dream-pop demos. Ben’s previous effort at making post-rock had ended in a flurry of “jazz drumming and bad singing” and in the meantime he’d become drummer for indie-pop sextet Help Stamp Out Loneliness.

Guitarist Iain Mitchell answered an advert posted on a message board in a guitar shop, a method that seems almost less antiquated than Adam Comstive’s recruitment via MySpace. Ben had promoted a number of gigs for the bass player’s former band, who he knew had recently split. Having carelessly misplaced a third (or maybe fourth) drummer late in 2009 the band ended up with former Billy Mahonie guitarist Hywell Dinsdale in the hotseat. The frenetic, creative style of his drumming quickly added the missing ingredient to the band’s pot, and the finally-settled 4-piece set about building a live reputation in their adopted city.

By this time the band’s name had been selected at random from a list of scientific journals, and their range of influences expanded to reflect not just the shoegaze, post-rock sound of the early rehearsals, but a tighter, melodically-driven indie edge and dynamic guitar progressions owing as much to folk and country as the immediate genre cornerstones of Mogwai and Explosions In The Sky. Support slots with the likes of Vessels, Nine Black Alps and A Sunny Day in Glasgow followed, with 2010 seeing Advances feature as the opening act of In The City, playing to a packed-out venue alongside the hotly-tipped Patterns.

The Sad Xmas Present EP is the result of a year of writing and recording, playing a limited number of shows while figuring out how best to capture their live sound from the confines of windowless rehearsal room. The limited edition physical release of the EP will be the epitome of a Sad Xmas Present, with each CD individually wrapped, hand stamped and numbered.

Tracklisting
1. Border
2. Sad Xmas Present
“Advances in Mathematics have the curious distinction of being the only post-rock band that I’ve ever heard an indiepop edge to.”  – High Voltage

“A beautiful lament that manages to convey immense poignancy without needing words” – ManchesterMusic.co.uk

“ chiming instrumental indie-post-rock that’s as closely related to The Chameleons and I Like Trains as it is Mogwai…each tune simply flows beautifully, expanding and contracting, soaring and diving, crashing in a hail of drums and slipping away through the echoes of a delay pedal.” – ManchesterMusic.co.uk

FAQs about Advances in Mathematics

The ‘Sad Christmas Present’ in question is the Tremelo pedal Ben asked for 4 years ago. He got it, then felt like a bit of a loser. It features heavily in the song that carries its name.

The best excuse they’ve had for being late to a gig in 2011 has been “Sorry, I got drunk with my drums”.

The worst name they’ve given a new song, which was debuted at a gig in May 2011, was “It’s Ryan Giggs”. It seemed terribly clever at the time. The song has subsequently been renamed ‘Slow News Day’, thank God.

‘Border’ from the ‘Sad Xmas Present EP’ was the first song the band wrote as a 3 piece. It got the name because the chord progression means it borders on being a country song.

as a city which has been torn apart by conflict, it would be impossible to write about berlin and not consider how war has impacted upon the place, and how it is remembered. unsurprisingly there are memorials to the loss of life right across the city, with the spectre of the second world war and ongoing loss of life which resulted from the occupation of berlin displayed with a blunt matter of factness which i think few cities would attempt. berlin knows that it has a lot to remember, and doesn’t hide the fact. here i am going to consider two very different, but just as powerful approaches to memory and the differing traces, footprints and impressions they place into the context of the city.

the soviet war memorial at treptower park, like much of architecture of the former russian side of berlin, is about memory and scale. moving from the weeping russian motherland at one end, through to the gigantic red army soldier at the zenith of the gardens, this is an act of the soviet union states remembering those who fought in the battle of berlin, the role they played in the defeat of facisim, and more importantly acting as a ground on which to celebrate the lives of the 5000 men buried here.

the establishment of soviet strength cries out from each different facet of this monument. the weeping mother represents russia, morning her lost sons; looking on from here the scale begins to strike home. the shattered russian flags, fronted by red army soldiers bowed in reverence, cut perfect lines, furthering the sense of how small the individual is in the face of both the war, and the soviet state.

sixteen stone sarcophagi representing the states of the ussr carry the words of stalin, and in places the great leader manages to sneak in as a soviet worker; even in commemorating her dead the russian state was furthering stalin’s image – any opportunity is a propaganda opportunity. yet of these murals it is the image of lenin above a row of red army troops which is most powerful. the perfectly straight line appear once again, with a sense of perspective enforcing the strength of the succesful soviet army.

however, this all shrinks away in comparison with the twelve metre tall statue of a soviet soldier , holding a child, a sword (which held surprisingly tsarist overtones in my opinion…) and standing atop a broken swastika. the statue purports to represent nikolia masalov, a sergant of the guards who risked german machine gun fire to rescue a three year old german child whose mother was missing. this may be the tale behind the monument, but the unmissable message is that the soviet state is powerful, that you are insignificant in the shadow of it, but that it is also at its heart caring for you. a hugely powerful monument, a fitting memorial of those russians who died to defeat nazism, but steeped in hugely political overtones.

moving across the city, the second memorial i’d like to consider is denkmal für die ermordeten juden europas, which directly translates as the memorial to the murdered jews of europe. located right in the heart of berlin’s district of historic power, just down the road from the reichstag and brandenberg gate, this memorial is at the heart of the city, and in a way could be seen to define how berlin, and possibly germany or indeed europe at large, is seeking to bring a different manner of thought into memorial . scale is once again at play here, though in a hugely different manner to that seen at treptower park.

next to the shining american embassy, and just across the road from the tiergarten, the holocaust memorial appears far more understated in comparison to the soviet memorial. there is no huge statue dominating proceedings. in fact, from the street the 19,000 square metre site appears understated to say the least. 2711 grey concrete blocks, seemingly of minute difference across the vast area seem to lack a real impact. at first glance, other than the fact that a site of such size has been set aside for a memorial site rather than maximised for commercial opportunity, this is a possibly too understated monument.

yet the power of the holocaust memorial is evident as soon as you start to move throughout the maze of grey stelae. starting as low level protrusions, indeed seeming not much more than a series of concrete benches, as you move further into the memorial site the stelae slabs become more and more imposing, as the ground level undulates creating a sense of scale and loss. the concrete blocks vary in height from 20cm up to just short of 5 metres, and as you move further into the maze of monuments to lost life you find an inescapable sense of uneasiness, somewhere between loss, claustrophobia and confusion. where the memorial at treptower park makes its point by placing the viewing in a relationship of awe, here you are forced to face a grid system which appears ordered, but offers no support.

in amongst the concrete labyrinth there is a bunkered ‘place of information’, which i’ll be honest, i didn’t find. that said, i didn’t know it was there until i read about it later. what struck me most about this monument was the sense of peace which is created by the downward slope of the floor, which leaves you standing some way below street level and surrounded by concrete which muffles the city. you are faced with this contemplative silence, whilst also facing the anxieties which the structure itself brings on. i know that this memorial has caused a fair amount of controversy due to its lack of a monument or recognised symbols of grief/remembrance, but the questioning of a system of order, brought about by human design, is massively powerful when considering the lives of those taken away during the holocaust.

having spent the best part of half an hour getting deeper into the monolithic towers of the stelae, the sombre mood was shattered by a group of school children tearing around the memorial screaming and shouting. at the time i was really quite offended by this, they were clearly not respecting what this space was all about. yet after i got back i started to think about this memorial in a different way; the central positioning of this site places it very much in a role as an active role as part of the fabric of the city. would stopping kids from using a public space in the manner that they would naturally not be a tiny tiny tiny baby step vaguely in the direction of the problem that this memorial is here to recognise? the decision not to have an obvious entrance point with directions, signage and rules has been very carefully taken, so the means of use must be openly considered. one thing is for certain, this isn’t the kind of behavior that the imposing red guard soldier would abide…

i have recently returned from a short break in berlin, and want to write about a few of the things i saw there, and the impact they had on me. i guess that this is going to spread into a few posts about specific points, so i’ll use this one to give my general sense of the city.

berlin has always been a city which has interested me. as an undergrad history student with a particular interest in the birth of modern europe, the unification of nineteenth germany was always one of my key interest. berlin has been a city with the weight of modern history place well and truly upon its shoulders, from the rise of fascism, the collapse of hitler’s germany through the escalation of the cold war, up to the unification of germany and the current role of the german government in the future of europe. this is a city which is important.

lets start with the people. the cosmopolitan attitude of the people i encountered was pretty reminiscent of places like barcelona and manchester. bar culture meant that sitting with a beer until whenever you wanted to was pretty easy to achieve, and in the morning/afternoon afterwards nobody would bat that much of an eyelid as you tucked into your first bockwurst of the day. berlin seemed like the kind of place you could set yourself up pretty easily if you wanted to, which was pretty much confirmed by the fact i was staying with a friend who had done just that.

so, onto the city itself. i think big and heavy is the way to describe it best. yes, going in january meant that the oppressive nature of much of the architecture was accentuated by a foreboding winter sky and chilling temperature, but the thing that strikes you as you walk done streets in the east of the city is that this is a city which has no consistency to it at all. berlin is a place which has been torn apart and put back together so many times, by so many different people, that a true sense of architectural identity is pretty much nul.

yet in places where a swathe of one style dominates, you really do get a sense of what different ‘owners’ have tried to do with the place. around the brandenburg gate and the reichstag the influence of western victors is clear in some pretty bland, pretty corporate looking bits of shiney-ness. the real interest is when you hit the former soviet areas.

karl-marx allee is probably the part of berlin which will stick with me most in terms of scale and scope. here is a road which was designed to remind the people of east berlin that they were very very very small, and that the soviet union of which they were a part was really really really big. this grand statement of soviet strength, saw a whole street dominated by huge modernist architecture, with the boulevard being mostly constructed over the 1950s at which point it was still named after stalin.

the soviet process of destroying the cult of stalin led to marx’s name being added to this stretch of road in 1961. the huge buildings, housing everyone from workers up to luxury apartments, have mostly been refreshed to reflect their former grandeur – though the haus der stastistik, former home of the stasi, is notable by its emptiness. probably the highlight of the street is a 1960s addition though, the kino international cinema.

yet once you stop looking up and being generally overawed by the size of the city, and the weight of events and history upon it, berlin is really accommodating. the rumours of having to know which unmarked doors to go through to find the best bits are definitely true, and this trip benefited from knowing someone who know where these doors were. great little coffee shop lurk behind curtains, bars playing nondescript (but exactly what was needed) house music are just off staircases that would be better suited to a multi-storey car park.

in terms of culture the place really came up trumps. my own stupid decision to not see enough stuff over the weekend meant that a lot of the galleries i wanted to see were closed on the monday, but visits to both the neues museum, recently reopened after being very thoughtfully restored by david chipperfield, and the hamburger bahnhof were both excellent.

i don’t think enjoyed is the right word to describe the emotion i felt after this trip. under conventional circumstances it would be, but it seems to be a bit remiss to describe a trip in which you’ve spent a good chunk of time crying about the horrors of very recent european history as enjoyable. if you don’t know the place already i would highly recommend berlin.

*this whole story is developing all the time, see the comments at the bottom for the latest*

fairly regular readers of this blog will know that over the summer i moved over the hills from manchester to sheffield. since arriving in sheffield i have been enjoying getting to know a brand new set of museums and galleries, which i have generally been impressed by. yes, everything is on a much smaller scale than those which i used to frequent on a near daily basis whilst studying for my MA whilst in manchester, but i try not to see them as comparable institutions. weston park museum is a very well curated introduction to a city, and includes some really nice flourishes of delivery including the gallery built around snowy the polar bear. in the city centre the millennium gallery has proved a reliable place to head for when i’ve needed to see things to either calm thoughts or spark inspiration – in particular the kid acne exhibition and the ruskin gallery struck me last year.

there is one gallery which i have not yet fully got to grips with, and that is the graves gallery. working in an art gallery means that you sometimes end up completely missing others, especially when they have restricted opening hours. this has been my issue with the graves gallery, which i have seen a total of three rooms in. i was a bit shocked at how much work there was in the gallery when i first stepped in, presuming that their limited opening hours belied a limited collection. instead, i think that they may be the tip of an iceberg which sheffield is unfortunately ploughing straight towards.

last week the arts council announced that, despite a very strong bid, museums sheffield has missed out on £4.2million of funding over the next three years – which represents a cut of at least 30% in funding for the city. reports suggest that this leaves funding for the arts in sheffield at around £4 per head, whereas nearby leeds is sitting pretty with over £20 per person. it is frankly shocking that a city of sheffield’s stature, with an arts scene which seems to be growing around the work of museums sheffield, has been cut adrift.

i can still recall the consternation of the last round of funding cuts when i was working in a manchester arts venue (which was allocated its money), and the issues which were faced by those who missed out. at least one major venue has gone the way of dust as far as i know. sheffield is now facing a situation where the museum service must find ways of meeting an £800,000 shortfall for their current budget, let alone the dark times yet to come. talk is of around 50 jobs going, an end to the expansive exhibitions policy which has seen major national shows exhibited in the city, and potentially worse.

museums sheffield have been very upfront about what this funding decision means for their service. combative posters have appeared across their venues appealing for the people of the city to support them in this dark time, and they have made realistic announcements about what these cuts mean. an end to big name exhibitions, cuts to family engagement, the wrapping up of outreach programmes.

yesterday i attended sheffield council’s public consultation on the budget cuts it is facing itself. the council is losing around £24million of their own budget from central government, and is thus being forced into cuts of around 10% across all its’ services. yet they chose not to apply this to museums sheffield, instead implementing a cash standstill which would support the outstanding arts council bid, and the industrial museums’ hlf bid. so here we are with a council which is willing to draw back on other areas to support the visual arts and heritage, but even that is not enough to see these vital services protected.*

so what next? museums sheffield held discussions with arts council england’s yorkshire team yesterday to discuss the short term issues, and the application of ‘transitional funding’ parachute payments which are being rolled out to those renaissance funded institutions who have missed out on the current round of funding. talks are also ongoing about an appeal to overturn the decision, which whilst i support in principle of the need of these funds in the city, you have to wonder how the arts council could begin to find the money to offer sheffield any form of funding? remove it from services who were successful in the initial bidding process?

i am hopeful that a solution can be found, whether via an appeal process or through a succesful application by museums sheffield for the arts council’s renaissance strategic support fund. either way, action is going to be needed from the people of sheffield to show their support for their arts institutions. now is the time to make use of those politicians who you put in power, be it at local or national level. make a noise about how important these museums and galleries are to the city, to you personally, and to the lives of those who need them most. contact you mp. write to your councillor. go direct to the arts council.

most of all, get to the museums and galleries. you know those gift aid envelopes you normally walk past? use them. that family birthday coming up – get them something from the gallery shop. sheffield, support your cultural institutions now, whilst you still can.

museums sheffield blog – help us make the case for culture in sheffield

*it must be noted that sheffield theatres and site gallery have both seen their funding cut in line with sheffield council’s budget cuts.

“a neat and appropriate monument has been erected in norfolk-road, opposite the shrewsbury hospitals, in memory of those who died in sheffield from the ravages of the cholera in 1832, and who were buried on this spot. the disease ravaged from the beginning of july till the end of october. the numbers attacked were 1,347, of whom 402 dead.”
illustrated guide to sheffield, pawson and brailsford (1879)

1832 was the year which the asiatic cholera pandemic, at the time simply the second pandemic, reached the uk. the disease swept through cities indiscriminately, decimating east london, manchester, swathes of nottingham and sheffield to focus on but a few. around 22,000 died across the country, of whom 402 were buried in the cholera pit in the norfolk park area of sheffield, just off from park hill. the disease reached the city in july of 1832, and was considered somewhat under control by november; reportedly the dispensery at sheffield university issued over 3500 leeches that year, against a normal figure of around 100.

by 1834 construction had begun on this monument to the dead, financed in part by sales of models of the sculpture, and also with the support of the duke of norfolk. the monument itself was completed in 1835, with the gardens around it following in 1850. by 1930 the norfolk estate had handed the grounds over to the city, and the monument has since been struck by lightning, seen its top scattered around the gardens by the weather, been rebuilt and grade II listed, alongside a green flag for the park.

this was my first walk up to this area of the city, looking out across sheffield from a brand new perspective. this is going to keep happening, as i discover new ways of viewing a city which i now call home. coming down through the city i crossed the train station bridge, which is under threat as a public access route thanks to the lovely folks at east midlands trains, and came out at the base of the steel steps which rise up to park hill.  carrying on up and to the right, you follow signs for the memorial, and after a brief wrong turn reach a real haven on tranquility within five minutes of the city centre.

this is the kind of place that i always bemoaned the lack of in manchester city centre, an area of green, quiet, contemplation, and no sign at all of offices, fast food, pedestrian crossings or chuggers. the memorial grounds lead off a quiet residential street, which by the bye has some beautiful tudor style villas on it, and once through the gate you are drawn straight through the park towards the monument. the die straight path, and trees on either side, work brilliantly to accentuate the monument, which appears to be rising up from just below the level of the path – a really nice piece of planning from those who put the grounds together nearly 200 years ago.

the pevsner guide to sheffield sums the monument up as ‘an earth-bound gothic pinnacle or spire,’ with the man himself suggesting it as a gothicist’s obelisk. in fact, there are probably a few links that can be drawn between the cholera monument and darwen tower, the rocket-esque beacon that looks over east lancashire. much as darwen tower is currently lacking it’s nose-cone (nb – it was actually replaced only two days ago!), the cholera monument was only restored to past/current glories in 2005.

alongside the great views of the monument itself, this spot is a fantastic spot to take in the geography of sheffield city centre, and acknowledge just how dominated by the hills around it the city really is. in every direction from here you can see the land rising above the city, and on a crisp cold january afternoon it looked stunning. with just the sound of birdsong, and the odd rumble of a tram, this was as far from life in a city centre as i’ve found thus far in sheffield, and way more than anything i ever found in manchester. the city of hills is starting to show her cards a bit…

over the past couple of months i have started to experiment with my style of writing, which has recently come to a head. last week i sat down with a typewriter, two sheets of paper, and wrote a story. this is the first piece of fiction which i have written since i was researching for my undergraduate dissertation six years ago. i can place that so well because i can picture the exact moment i last wrote a short story, sat drinking a cup of coffee in a cafe in temple bar before watching a film at the irish film institute. as i finished writing it i realised that i really didn’t enjoy putting the piece together, disliked creating the character, hated the situation which i had placed them in. with that, i moved away from fiction writing.

yet recently i have started to explore what it is about fiction writing i did/do still enjoy. my little brown moleskin of writing has seen a few fleeting glimpse of events or situations hitting the page which have come mainly from my head. last week i sat down, and it happened; for three or four days preceding this i couldn’t get the first few lines out of my head, so i wanted to commit them to paper, but i certainly didn’t expect what happened next. the words kept coming, all of a sudden the situation had an atmosphere, and then there was movement – a story was starting to emerge on the page.

reading it back i realised that the story i had produced was looking a lot like the photographs which i tend to take. i’ve never been one for capturing people and/or places in my photos, and more likely than not they will contain a vast expanse of sky. here are a few examples which have been on this blog before as proof…

on reading back ‘the dam,’ the piece which i had produced, i found that it was full of sky. even at this stage i’m not really sure how many characters there are in the story, but it is quite clear that a moment, an event, has been captured. i’ve found that on my return to fiction writing i have done more to create a sense of place and atmosphere than build personnel, probably not that much of a surprise given the characters who forced this pen down in the first place.

an interesting start to the year, and possibly the start to a new adventure. alongside starting to re-wander down this path, i have been speaking to some other creative types whose work i really admire about their process, so hopefully this recently discovered vein of inspiration will continue to bring forth the goods.

this has been a really interesting year. i’ll admit, 12 months ago i never saw myself reflecting on a year in which i’ve started working at one of the best new  art galleries in europe and as a result have an ever growing interest in the visual arts. i don’t think i have ever seen myself as a ‘art’ person. during my masters course i stuck far more closely to the museum studies side of things, yet since april i have been delving further into the world of art. and i’ve been really enjoying it. so, here as a quick roundup of the shows that have really grabbed me over the course of 2011…

rachel goodyear, yorkshire sculpture park

this is easily one of the most beautiful things i have seen this year. goodyear’s drawings are somewhere between mundane and macabre, creating a world inhabited by mostly animalistic characters living lives somewhere between love, death and pain. her simple-looking drawings contain such a sense of atmosphere, which is heightened even more by the small sculptural pieces which see her drawings sliding off the page and into the three dimensional world. i can’t put into words how much i enjoyed this exhibition, which you can still see until the third of january.

dark matters, whitworth art gallery

i have always enjoyed visiting the whitworth, so upon coming back to manchester for a weekend recently it was always high on my list of things to do. i’m really glad that i did get up early on a monday morning to see dark matters, an exhibition bringing together the work of ten artists dealing with themes of shadow, darkness and wonder. i was particularly taken by how well the different media of this display fitted together, from daniel rozin’s interactive pieces through two stunning videos from r. luke dubois and hiraki sawa. for me the most impact came from elin o’hara slavick’s series of cyanotopes featuring objects left over from the debris of hiroshima – a powerful sense of what shadow can mean. once again, you can catch this at the start of 2012, it is still on until 15th january.

adolphe valette: a pioneer of impressionism in manchester, the lowry

i love valette. i have done since the first time i saw his work in manchester art gallery the first time i went in there years ago. this exhibition brought together work from across his career, delving further than the usual ‘manchesterscapes’ which meant so much to me. this was a very well put together show, with a great flow to it around the gallery spaces. ok, so at points it made a bit too much of a point about valette being one of lowry’s art teachers, but you can hardly blame them. a fantastic collection of work from one of my favourite artists – must see. oh, and this one is still on next month too, till the end of january.

kid acne: kill your darlings, millennium gallery

i went to this expecting to enjoy it, but get that ‘ohimanindieboylookingaturbanartimabitoutofmydepthhere’ feeling. which i didn’t get at all. kid acne is sheffield’s foremost urban artist, and his work has a really dark edge which chimed perfectly for me. alongside photographs of his large scale outdoor work, this exhibition saw kid acne’s stabby women leap off the page and into film and installations in the gallery space. a small but perfectly captured show, and a fantastic introduction to my new city.

lucy crouch, westgate studios

i’ve never really known any artists that well before, so this year is the first time that i’ve seen someone going through the process of putting their heart and soul into a collection of work for all to see. i’ve known enough musicians to understand the emotions folks go through, but seeing my good friend lucy putting this exhibition together felt different to that. it was a bloody brilliant show too. lucy’s work captures a real sense of trace, with fractured globes and memories of trees offering a story of a moment in time which may or may not lost to the ether. inspirational stuff for me, and i was really proud of her.

darrell viner: early work, henry moore institute

this was a real unexpected treat. i had never visited the henry moore institute before, so felt like i should give it a go. having been left a touch underwhelmed by the mario merz exhibition, i stumbled upon this display of viner’s experimental voyages into computer based art. as with crouch, viner creates a sense of trace which i really enjoyed. not an artist i knew anything about, but really glad to have discovered.

the hepworth wakefield

and finally, the place that has seen me really developing my arty side. having been working at the hepworth since april, i have become quite used to spending the day with some of the most brilliant art around; sometimes you need a jolt to remind you of just how great this is. i got said jolt last week, watching the culture show’s end of year review that included the gallery as one of the highlights of the art world in 2011. the place that i work, every day, is one of the bbc’s highlights of the year. this kind of swept away the snowblindness a bit for me, and left me felling really proud. if you haven’t visited yet, i can’t recommend the hepworth enough. galleries 3 and 6 are so inspiring, and i can’t wait for our spring exhibitions which open in february, promising some post-apocalyptic views of the future – really exciting stuff.

so, this blog now lives in sheffield. guess i should probably mark the occasion with a look at what i believe is going to become one of my favourite parts of the city. over the past few weeks one of the most consistent views i have had of sheffield has been walking down the hill from the public library down towards the train station, with park hill sitting above it all, peering down on the city. yet this isn’t the park hill that was built as a bright new hope for the city at the turn of the fifties into the sixties. six years ago urban splash, those of turning half of manchester’s old factories into swanky apartments, took over at park hill.

for those who don’t know anything about the building, park hill was built over 1957-61, and replaced masses of sheffield’s inadequate social housing. the massive estate, designed by the city architects jack lynn and ivor smith, moved whole communities into its ‘streets in the sky’ – walkways in front of flats that were famously big enough to drive a milk float down. here was the epitomy of brutalist architecture, with some incredible details such as the orientation of every one of the around a thousand flats planned to maximise sunlight. yet it wasn’t just architectural rhetoric, park hill had shops, pubs, a school – it had community. over time this, and parts of the building, appeared to crumble. yet unlike the crescents in hulme, park hill stood up defiantly, up to the point in 1998 when the concrete shell of the building was granted grade II* listed status, making it the largest listed building in europe.

so here we are. i went to a talk at park hill tonight by the chap who has been project manager of the refurb for urban splash since they started to put ideas together six years ago. it was the first time that i had been up close to the estate, and was really taken aback by the sheer scale of the place. i’ve read loads about it, and have seen it from afar, but nothing quite prepares you for both the height and length of the place. which reminds me, i’ve not waxed lyrical about the different heights of the block. at one end park hill is a 13 story building, but a the other end it is just 4, yet if you look at the building the roofline is absoloutely flat right the way across. i tested this theory by trying to balance my phone across the top of it when looking across the whole estate, and it worked. an absolutely stunning architectural achievement.

back to the talk. urban splash seem to have put a lot of thought into what they see park hill as, and where they see it being positioned. as anyone who knows the style of project which they work on in manchester will know, urban splash quite often talk a good talk about social housing, but are very very good at selling fancy apartments to young professionals. which is exactly what they are doing here. one of the finest pieces of social housing design in the country is being converted into aspirational flats which the likes of me are supposed to be snapping up. indeed, they are being snapped up – they shifted five on the first day of opening to the public on saturday.

with the approval of english heritage, the developers have knocked down all but the concrete struts of the first phase of their refurbishment, and replaced the old flats with new apartments which match the needs of a ‘new set of social dynamics.’ gone are the original three levels of brick which signified the different levels of homes between the ‘streets’; in are bigger windows (a massive positive) and some fucking horrific day glow panels (a massive negative). the streets in the sky, which were always open to public access, are now there for residents only, as part of a new access control to the building. the decks had been seen as one of the main negatives of 1980s park hill, as clear escape routes for criminals; yet no-one has tried to close roads in any other part of the world – surely they are the clearest escape route for those on the rob?

what about the flats themselves? i got to have a poke around the showflats, and was impressed by the building, underwhelmed by the apartments. the views out across sheffield from one side, and the rest of park hill on the other, are simply stunning. as a man with problems with heights i was a bit shocked at quite how much i was dashing out onto the balconies to stare out across my new homeland. so, views good. i also really liked the touch of leaving bare concrete on show in all of the apartments, with the integrity of the building shouting out against the newness of other bits. yet seeing the concrete on show did make me feel a bit like i was in a park hill theme park, as that surely wasn’t/isn’t the case in the original flats? we’ll say that the concrete is good though.

what about the negatives? well, all three of the different designs i looked round felt a bit pokey. the use of the orignal park hill idea of split level ‘flats’ still worked, yet there was barely any room for things. all the rooms felt like they would be fine as they were, but there was no storage. anywhere. are urban splash looking to market park hill specifically at people who don’t own books, or records, or clothes, or just stuff in general. oh, and don’t even get me started on the marketing. in one of the showflats was a clothes rail with aspirational tshirts (yes, aspirational tshirts), whilst the twisting of a piece of graffiti which resulted in a woman turning a man down is now being used as a bullshit rhetoric about how if sheffield loves park hill then park hill will love it back. at least someone in the urban splash team has a sarcastic bone in their body, a copy of owen hatherley’s new ruins was out in one of the show flats…

so i left park hill feeling pretty similar to how i entered. i love the building. it is an absolutely stunning piece of design and engineering (even if a certain sheffield band once called into question the integrity of the building in the face of a thousand orgasms), dealing with the topography of its location and makes the most of it. i’m still undecided about the refurb. park hill was in need of some tlc, well in fact a lot of tlc. urban splash-ing the place means that it is gaining a new life, and that people are going to go on living in it. this is obviously a good thing, as a building as impressive and important as park hill should still be in use.

yet surely it should still be in use as social housing, rather than pushing out council tenants and communities in favour of young professional types. i can’t claim to be anywhere near an expert on this, but it just still seems to be going against the reason that park hill was built in the first place. i know that urban splash are making an effort to include social housing, 26 of the flats in the first phase of 78 are available for part-ownership. i think this one is going to rumble on in my head. the one thing that i am certain of is that park hill is really impressive.

further reading

guardian report on re-opening
observer review of the new park hill
owen hatherley on the social housing repercussions of the new park hill 

ah the first of october, a time when the trees are golden brown and losing their leaves, whilst the air turns cold and you are in that in between stage between a bare neck and a scarf (or in my case, bringing out the small, autumn scarf). or not. this weekend i went for a walk in the baking sunshine, which drifted from the top of a hill down towards a pub with a packed beer garden, full of families enjoying the near tropical climate.

this was the first weekend i’ve had off from doing anything since moving to sheffield, no thoughts about work to do on the house or anything like that. so, following a quick trip to a popular high street book seller to pick up the ordance survey map that covers the bit of the peaks not included on the one used for getting around edale, it was time to jump on the train from sheffield to grindleford. whereas manchester to edale takes 40 minutes at the other end of this train line, sheffield to grindleford is a short hop of 15 minutes via the totley tunnel, which is the second longest inland railway tunnel in the uk.

enough of the train ride. from the sleepy railway platform, the map led us up the hill, through an amazing old forest. the trees had this wistful air of longevity to them, and as if to prove that they were somehow better than me one of the oak trees lobbed an acorn at my head. there were some lovely bits of stonework, which i honestly couldn’t tell you whether they were natural or man made. the path for example, not the faintest idea how long it had been there, or indeed if the rocks were there first and a path second. needless to say, the national trust appeared to be doing a cracking job of looking after padley gorge.

once out of the forest, we hit what appeared to be picnic point. families chucking around flyaways, hipsters in their toms, the works. it was dead nice, but not where we were planning on stopping for our lunch. no, more hard work required first. more good nt work was seen at the longshaw estate, from where the map continued taking us up the hill towards wooden pole. which was a wooden pole, quite a good name actually…

from wooden pole, with it’s ominous looking crow (which flew away from atop the pole as i got my camera out) and confused looking sheep, it was off to totley moor, and a walk over the top of a ridge which pretty much followed the route of the afore mentioned railway tunnel. this moor offered the kind of desolation that reminded me a fair bit of hiking in peru (which at the time i did comment on the fact it looked a lot like yorkshire). a quick lunch stop, accompanied by an inquisitive/confused sheep wandering around in the background, offered a view down the city of sheffield in the distance. this was the first time that i could really quantify just how close to home i actually was, whilst being in the middle of nowhere. i get the feeling that this access to the countryside is going to more and more become one of my favourite things about moving to sheffield.

onwards and downwards, after lunch there was only one aim. well two in fact, given that i’d already decided that the pint of shandy would definitely need a pint of ale to back it up pretty swiftly. an hour or so later we came out at the cricket inn in totley, which was the perfect place to be on a late summer’s afternoon. in fact, so good was the experience here that i was back in the pub for lunch this afternoon – they have amazing food to go with the excellent selection of thornbridge ales. of particular note beer-wise was the thornbridge brown rabbit, which was surprisingly crisp for an autumnal beer. pretty apt actually, given the weather.

for the past few weeks i’ve been working on a new piece of writing that more than likely isn’t going to appear on this blog. for the first time, i am putting work into a group exhibition called interior lightning, alongside a real mixed bunch of art. i’ll admit, i was feeling like it wasn’t that big a deal until i went into the warehouse we are working in the other day and saw people hanging their work. these guys are artists, i’m just someone who writes some words about going for walks and stuff.

that said, i’m really quite happy with the piece i’ve written, in pursuit of space… i feel like i have introduced a lot of ideas that i’ve been trying to get to grips with for a while to do with notions of space and energy, and placed them into cultural contexts that haven’t come up that often in anything i’ve been reading recently. it has also helped that some of the people i am exhibiting with have been nothing short of amazing, and made me feel like what i’m doing does fit into this show, for which i am hugely grateful.

whilst i’m at home in an art gallery, which i bloody well should be by now as i’m working in one day in day out, being the one whose work people are going there to see is a whole new concept to me. i guess with writing it has always been that i produce a zine or a blog, then it goes out into the world and lives a life. with this i feel very aware that it has my name slapped on it.

anyhow, if you haven’t been over to the hepworth wakefield, the gallery that i’m working at these days, then i suggest you do so over the next 5 days. come to see the gallery, then head one minute round the corner to navigation warehouse for the interior lightning exhibition. it is a real pleasure, and indeed honour, to be involved in this show, and to have my work alongside some of the fantastic pieces which are on display.