In this extract from a new book on Sheffield’s musical history, Monkeys drummer Matt Helders and the cream of the city’s indie scene look back on the febrile mid-00s – from brilliant tunes to ‘brainless violence’
In 2005, enough of a storm seemed to be brewing in northern British indie music that NME tried to coin a new genre to encompass it all: New Yorkshire. “Forget LA, New York or London,” the feature read. “New Yorkshire is the best new band scene in Britain.” The magazine lumped together a bunch of disparate bands such as Sheffield’s Arctic Monkeys, the Long Blondes, Milburn, Harrisons and Bromheads Jacket, along with a Leeds and Wakefield bunch comprised of Kaiser Chiefs, the Cribs, Black Wire, the Research, ¡Forward, Russia!, the Ivories and the Sunshine Underground.
The New Yorkshire tag, though, had overlooked a fairly noticeable split in Sheffield at the time between the artier indie bands, often students, and the more traditional local indie outfits.
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