27 August 2012

Exhibition celebrates the Sheffield musicians who “did it themselves”

Hoping to inspire the musicians of tomorrow and celebrating the succession of homemade stars the city helped create in the post-punk period of the late 1970s, a special exhibition of record sleeves, fanzines and period photographs has been created by the University of Sheffield.

Charting the rise and fall of Sheffield based musicians who went on to create some of decade’s biggest bands, including Cabaret Voltaire, Human League, Clock DVA and ABC, the weeklong Do It Thissen exhibition takes place at Montgomery Hall on Surrey Street, opposite the Town Hall, from 22-30 September 2012.

“Do It Thissen”, Yorkshire for Do It Yourself, is part of the University of Sheffield’s Festival of the Mind event which is a collaboration between the University of Sheffield and the city to showcase cultural strengths and the University’s civic connections and roots.

Event organiser Dr Matthew Cheeseman, a Research Fellow in the University’s School of English, said: “The material focuses on post-punk and demonstrates links between students and the city, emphasising DIY culture and local labels, set up by people from Sheffield, who created music, made fanzines and put on gigs. Everything will be accessible online if people can’t make the events, including all the photographs.”

Highlights of the free exhibition include exclusive, never before seen, pictures of many of the era’s bands, featuring recent honorary Doctorate and ABC lead singer Martin Fry who graduated from the University in 1979, taken by fellow alumnus Mark Morreau for the student newspaper, Darts.

On Saturday 29 September from 6pm until 8pm Sensoria will be launching a musical map of the city, featuring bands throughout the ages including Richard Hawley, the Arctic Monkeys and many more, as well a performance by “live coder” Alex McLean, who will be turning scans of record sleeves featured in the event into digital coding to create techno music.

Contemporary artists Tim Allcard, Couk, Lesley Guy and Syd & Mallory, will show their work – inspired by the exhibition – and DJ Jon Downing, one of the curators of the event, will be performing throughout the week as well as valuing visitors’ own memorabilia.

At the opening on Saturday 22 September 2012 from 6pm–8pm Martin Lacey, legendary editor of NMX fanzine, and a former DJ at the Student Union’s Now Society, will be guest speaker and later in the week there will be be a special showing of Eve Wood’s film, Made In Sheffield at 8.30pm, Wednesday 26 September in the Festival of the Mind's spiegeltent in Barker’s Pool.

Dozens of flyers, posters and ticket stubs for gigs at venues across Sheffield which became the hot bed for the city’s burgeoning music scene will also be on show, for example the University’s vaunted Now Society held for several years in the Students ’ Union from about 1977.