Musical Chairs

#42 Leeds: The Mordor capital of Britain

It's well documented that a city's DNA can shape its music - the heavy rock template was forged from the famous steelworks of Birmingham (Black Sabbath, Judas Priest), the psychedelic soul of Liverpool (The Beatles, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Teardrop Explodes, The Coral) was nurtured by its port status and early access to American imports, and the electronic heart of Sheffield (The Human League, Heaven 17, Cabaret Voltaire) first skipped a beat in its disused factories and warehouses.

So, my question today is: What the hell was in the water in Leeds in the early 1980s? Blood? Fishnets? Hairspray? Boiling frogs? All of the above? Whatever it was, it left an indelible bootprint on the UK music landscape. Gotham City may only exist in the realms of fiction, but Goth City was real and spoke with a broad West Yorkshire accent.

Consider the following list of bands active in Leeds in the first half of the 80s: The Sisters of Mercy, The March Violets, The Batfish Boys, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, Salvation, The Rose of Avalanche and Ghost Dance - if you head a bit further out geographically you could add Skeletal Family, The Danse Society and 1919, and if you head a bit further out sonically you could add The Three Johns and Music for Pleasure. All in all, it's quite a list. But why this time and why this place?

Ground zero is widely agreed as the F Club, an itinerant punk rock club night started by John Keenan in 1977. Many bands played there (The Damned, Buzzcocks) but even more were formed as the city's youth bonded over its love of music. It was here that The Sisters of Mercy founders Andrew Eldritch and Gary Marx first met.

Perhaps the pivotal year was 1979 with the arrival of Keenan's famed Futurama Festival and two legendary club nights at the Warehouse (run by Marc Almond and Eldritch's one-time partner Claire Shearsby) and the Phono. The latter has been described as the world's first goth club.

As a city, Leeds was searching for something. Industrial decline, mass unemployment and The Yorkshire Ripper (a serial killer responsible for 13 murders between 1975 and 1981) had cast a long shadow. There had to be something better, and they found it - light from the darkness.

And that's the irony of goth - it can be almost spiritual in its capacity to uplift. Listen to Marian by The Sisters of Mercy, Talk About the Weather by Red Lorry Yellow Lorry or Celebrate by Ghost Dance. The goth tag may have been rejected by many of its so-called protagonists, but it was warmly embraced by those who saw the light. That light burned brightest in Leeds.