The Sheffield Live Music Scene

LiveMusic — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 07:13:03 +0000

You would expect a city with a large university student population to have some dance clubs and other live music Venues that cater to a young crowd. To say that about Sheffield is an extreme understatement. The vibrant live music scene in the city has been the soundtrack to life for citizens of Sheffield for over 30 years.
Past and present Sheffield artists have enjoyed excellent success. Names from the not too distant past include Joe Cocker, Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker, Def Leppard, The Human League to name several. More recently the Arctic Monkeys, Pink Grease, and The Long Blonds are decidedly popular in and outside of Sheffield. The live music Venue s, such as club s, pubs, venue s, and stadiums fill the air with music, and vibrate the cities streets with a baseline.
So many skill ed acts come from Sheffield that’s seems an odd coincidence. Perhaps something in the water that endorses vocal cords develop, not like ly, but something has to explain the large volume of artists coming out of this fairly small area. Well, it is not that ample of a mystery.
It seems that in the early 1980s when the steel industry was on a down turn, a person on the Sheffield City Council heard about the ample resources involved in music. The multi-million dollar incomes of rock stars looked like an attractive way to bring many resources into the city. By 1982, a year that saw double-digit unemployment rates and 20,000 jobs lost, the City Council decided to do something about it by producing several rock stars of their personal.
It may not have occurred quite that way, but the fact is, the council got involved in the music business. They figured out that to have a excellent income producing music scene several things were needed. An infrastructure for the music industry was necessary, so the Council began funding projects related to music. A recording studio was required to attract top acts and lot of live music Venues were required to showcase the local/regional skill.
Sheffield City Trust owns Sheffield International Venues and operates Hallam FM Arena, and Sheffield City Hall to name several of the 13 Venues for music, sports, and entertainment. (SVI) Sheffield International Venues vision is to promote Sheffield as an international and cultural center point for sport, leisure and entertainment, something they have been quite successful at doing since 1988.
Red Tape Studios is a training website for Sheffield City Council. It offers training to individuals interested in careers in the music business. band Development, band and Artist management, Music Technology, Music Business Courses and even DJ training courses are available. Because these courses are part of a local/regional government backed system, they are competitively priced and the program really endorses promote the music scene in Sheffield.
Of course the City Council offers other training units. Aspiring caterers, ( Assuming that the re is such a thing) may educate at Sheaf Training alongside aspiring construction workers and customer service representatives. Tritec PC Training is the City Council’s IT training ground and every city has at least one of these. The fact that the city recognizes and encourages popular music is just so surp growing, and what’s more rousing and surp growing is how well it works.
That answers the question how one small area may create so many skill ed artist s. Not really a mystery, it is more of a plan. Council backing is only a small part of the music scene however, and the Venues that have been committed to growing the live music scene for the past twenty five or thirty years deserve much of the credit as well.
The Leadmill celebrated its silver anniversary in 2005, and has grown from a derelict flour mill in a rundown part of the city during the final stages of the steel industry’s demise. Unemployment and hopelessness was the consensus among young individuals at the time. A group of volunteers, students, artist s, and unemployed individuals, who described themselves as “insane but likable” came together to set up a center for arts and music for individuals like themselves who had nowhere to go.
The Leadmill has grown into a landmark, and the live music has grown legendary. The opportunity in 1980 of what was a performing arts center with jazz, pop bands, theatre, education workshops, and club evenings began a tradition of live music that Venues the world over have tried to emulate. The “insane but likable” founders turned out to be visionaries, except when they turned down a strange young blonde girl for a performance in 1983 who turned out to be Madonna. But who would have thought a club where the toilets backed up onto the dance floor would do so well. It’s not the bricks and mortar, but the bands and the experiences of the individuals who have been there time and time again that are memorable. The Leadmill is a launching pad for stars in the music business, and the place to see up and coming artists in Sheffield.
The Leadmill is of course not the only famous live music Venue in town, and is just one of the excellent live Venue s. There’s a club in Sheffield for whatever your taste is. Live Music, DJ & MC stuff, techno, synthpop, indie poppunk, and whatever other mixtures of music are left over are represented somewhere in the city. Starting from a forward thinking city council and bright young individuals who love music, the city of Sheffield has been producing artists like other cities create butchers for the past 30 years.

Live Music: HMV goes into live music

SyncWordpress — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 21:02:04 +0000

Live Music – HMV has decided to add live shows to their business model on the heels of Virgin Megastores announcing they will close their store in the first quarter of 2009 in Times Square. The British retailer will partner with concert venue operator MAMA and take ownership of 11 mid to large size live music venues. The venues include the Hammersmith Apollo in London and the Picture House in Edinburgh. With CD sales plummeting, HMV is trying to get in the lucrative area of live touring. Live touring is a 1.5 billion dollar business in Britain alone and it ultimately gives them a “360″ type of deal. They will now be able to sell their customers tickets, merchandise, Cd’s, videogames and it will be like one stop shopping.

On top of that HMV recently bought 14 stores from rival Zawi that has collapsed and is in bankruptcy. It appears to be a very good move for them as they needed a re-structuring of their model as the music business has shifted away from the CD and more towards the live touring. With this model they will be able to offset the losses with the part of the business that is really working.

Time will tell whether this was a good move, but clearly HMV had to make a move or they were going to be extinct shortly.

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The Sheffield Live Music Scene

Live Music: HMV goes into live music