UKHC Files: Leeds
In modern times, Leeds is often hailed as having the most definitive punk and hardcore scene in the UK outside of London, with the likes of Higher Power gaining attention from high profile publications like Kerrang and Revolver, and even the Guardian releasing an article on the scene in 2009. And, for full disclosure, this is my scene. I’ve been attending punk, hardcore and metal shows in Leeds since I was fourteen, so this is where I grew up and this is what I understand a music community to be. Also, I know the name's not particularly accurate because I'll cover a lot of different topics in this article, but it's an easier descriptor than “All of the Extreme Music Scenes that have Ever Been in Leeds”
Without a doubt, the centre of the scene is the Temple of Boom on Millwright Street. If you were to walk past it, it may appear like a rather unassuming industrial building, other than Shepard Fairey’s looming Obey design being present on one of its walls and the high number of crust punk, powerviolence and grindcore band stickers on one of its guttering pipes. However, the former slaughterhouse is in fact home to three stages (that have hosted everyone from Madball, Discharge, Agnostic Front, Hellbastard, Doom and Strife to Code Orange, Infest, Voivod and Slowthai) as well as a vegan café and wrestling ring. Opening its doors in 2011, the venue quickly become the epicentre of all extreme music in the city, being the home-away-from-home for the crust punks, SHARPs, hardcore kids and metalheads in Leeds. As the story goes: Leeds hardcore mainstays the Flex, who had been practising at the then-rehearsal space requested a gig to be put on there, and the rest is history. Attending the venue really is an experience like no other, with no barrier, a stage the height of my knees, a smoking area frequented by the crust punks, thousands of band stickers all over the walls, bird men drawn in the bathrooms and the Gorilla Biscuits gorilla painted on one of the walls. You really do have to live it to understand, every time I go, I find something new.
The Brudenell Social Club is one of the furthest venue from the city centre, being based in Burley, but only a few minutes from the Leeds-Harrogate-York train-line station. It’s an odd experience being here, because it is a 1910s social club, with day-drinkers not attending the gigs and all. Its original venue room shows that very obviously, but its newer “community” room not as much. Its frequented by punk classics like GBH, the Angelic Upstarts, Steve Ignorant of Crass, the Misfits, the Dead Kennedys and HR from the Bad Brains, in addition to groups like Bingley pop-mathcore-turned-alt-rock behemoths Marmozets, crossover legends Municipal Waste and nu metal giants Mushroom Head. Even mainstream pop rock bands like Franz Ferdinand, Busted and the Kaisers Chiefs have played here. It’s one of the mainstays of every musical subculture in Leeds, not just punk.
Venues such as Chunk and Wharf Chambers are co-operatively run, and while they have held shows from groups like Zounds and Nekra, they also play host to non-concert events such as parties and karaoke nights. Wharf Chambers generally hosts more bands relevant to this article, and definitely presents itself as more akin to an old-school punk and hardcore venue, with its heavily graffitied toilets, smoking area and overall gritty Sutcliffe-era vibe. However, I do have to admit that its one of the hardest venues to mosh in, as when it gets hot (and it does gets hot), the floor becomes slippery like no other venue I've ever attended. But, it's still one of the most exciting venues in the city right now.
Damnation Festival is a one-day extreme music festival that relocated from Manchester to Leeds Becket University in 2007 and then to Leeds University in 2008. Damnation hosts heavy weights every single year, including Napalm Death, Bloodbath, Cannibal Corpse, Sodom, At the Gates and Bolt Thrower in addition to being the sole UK date on Carcass’ 2008 reunion tour. It is without a doubt, more of a metal festival than a punk one but it still frequently hosts extreme hardcore groups like Nails, Leeched, Doom and (the aforementioned) Napalm Death.
Back into the realms of undoubted hardcore, Outbreak Festival entirely shows the motives behind the current wave of UK hardcore, by taking the feeling of US hardcore shows in the ‘80s at venues like CBGBs and bring it over the pond. It’s quite often headlined by US hardcore bands like the Cro-Mags, Turnstile, Gorilla Biscuits and Comeback Kid and filled-in with modern UKHC bands like the Flex, Higher Power, Renounced, Year of the Knife and Big Cheese. The Temple of Boom is often also home to its pre-show and afterparty, which bands like Payday and Blind Authority play, while the main festival is at Canal Mills (but is unfortunately relocating back to Sheffield for 2020). The organisers also organise various shows all over the city, namely being host to the reunion for US straight edge legends Have Heart’s sole reunion show in the UK, which was held at Leeds University in 2019, and reflected the same energy as the festival (yes, I went. Yes it was great).
Slam Dunk is a festival that began in 2006, as an urban festival (being based in multiple venues across the city centre, within a blocked-off area like Leeds Becket student union, the O2 Academy and the First Direct Arena) up until 2019, when it was relocated to Temple Newsam, making it a rural festival on the outskirts of the city. The festival features many different styles, in 2019 it even featured a secret set by pop rock band Busted, but its Impericon stage may as well be called the “Outbreak stage”, being frequented by the likes of Turnstile, Gallows, Knocked Loose, Brutality will Prevail, Trash Talk, Bane, H2O and Comeback Kid. The stage is a counterpart to its Jägermeister stage which features more metalcore akin bands like Atreyu, Wage War and Beartooth. In 2019 and 2020 its even included the Punk in Drublic stage, which was organised by Fat Mike and featured ‘90s(-style?) punk groups like Anti-Flag, Bad Religion, the Interrupters and Lagwagon. Slam Dunk festival is run by Slam Dunk Music, an organiser in association with the Key Club (the successor to the Cockpit), which itself features all the musical styles present at the festival, having hosted everyone from the Regrettes and the Wonder Years to Bleed from Within, Lotus Eater and Leftover Crack. The venue is also home to a nightclub most nights, which you gain free access to with tickets from one of the organiser’s shows, leading to it becoming a meeting place for some of the city’s pop punk, emo and hardcore crowds.
The Leeds punk scene began as early as the mid-1970s, with the Mekons and Gang of Four forming in 1976 at Leeds University, both of which recorded sessions for BBC Radio 1 DJ John peel in 1978 and 1979, respectively. At this point in time, the meeting place for the, admittedly small, scene was the Fenton on Woodhouse lane. These early bands rejected many of the sentiments of the (more prominent) London scene, like its male dominance, masculinity and bands like Gang of Four and Delta 5, and second-generation bands like Girls at Our Best and F-3 even embraced influences from all over the musical spectrum, becoming some of the earliest proponents for post-punk. The Fenton is still in operation but its prominence in the music scene isn't any higher than most other pubs in the area. Another bar frequented at the time was Tiffany's, which was upstairs in the Merrion centre. Then-fledgeling bands also played the venue like U2 and Madness. During this period, the area was also being perverted by the serial killer dubbed “the Yorkshire Ripper”, leading to an unofficial curfew for many of the women in the scene.
John Keenan started the F Club, a punk and post-punk club night in Leeds in 1977 at Leeds Polytechnic. Over the years it relocated three times to: the Ace of Clubs, the Continental Club and finally the basement of Brannigan’s (where it was renamed to “Fan Club”). Although originally intended to be a place for the local punks to congregate, the F Club was mostly filled with experimental and arty types and led to the creation of the goth subculture. Gothic rock existed outside of the night, as bands like Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division and the Cure played at it, however as a subculture with a cohesive dress sense and attitude, it did not, and the members of the scene created it by taking influence from the aforementioned bands. Many groups were formed through members meeting at the club, most notably the Sisters of Mercy, along with the March Violets, New Model Army, Skeletal Family, Southern Death Cult, Soft Cell and the Danse Society. This scene expanded even further when members of the Sisters of Mercy split off into multiple different acts including: the Mission, Ghost Dance and Sisterhood.
La Phonographique (or simply the Phono) was another club in Leeds, however this time it was founded with the intention of housing goths. Founded in 1979, and outlasting the F Club’s 1983 closure, by lasting until 2005. The Phono was the first goth club in the world and would influence the founding of the most well-known goth club ever: London’s the Batcave. Older goths who were in denial about being a part of the subculture often ridiculed it, despite no one in particular also writing a song about the club called “Floorshow” (not point any fingers; *cough* Andrew Eldritch *cough*). If anyone wants to go to where it used to be, it was in the basement of the location that Next Moves Estates is in now at in the Merrion Centre. Genuinely thirty seconds away from it for many years was the entrance to the Bassment, which began as a goth club but later embraced many other subcultures. After the Bassment’s closure, that space was used for another bar called the Subculture, and after that closure, the space became the Key Club.
John Keenan from the F Club also started Futurama Festival, which was held in Queen’s Hall (which was right beside the Dark Arches in Granary Wharf). In its first iteration in September 1979, it billed itself as a “science-fiction music festival”, and hosted groups like Throbbing Gristle, Joy Division, Public Image LTD and Adam and the Ants. By its fifth iteration in 1983, the Yorkshire Evening Post had termed Leeds, while the festival was on, “Gothic City”, which people claim was the first instance of “goth” being used to describe a group of people that weren’t early-Germanic tribes, those who made Cathedrals in the Middles Ages or those who wrote dark fantasy literature in the Victorian-era. And this comparison wasn’t even made seriously, it was simply pulling fun at the gloomy 19th century-esque dress of many of the attendees. But a few years ago John Keenan revealed that he had told the author to use the word goth, so take everything I said in those last two sentences with a grain of salt.
The late-‘70s and early-‘80s also saw the emergence of the city’s anarcho-punk scene. Abrasive Wheels were the earliest band from this scene, forming in 1976, influenced by the punk of the Vibrators and the Stranglers, and would be followed shortly by S.O.S., in 1977. Abrasive Wheels would end up being cited frequently as an influence by the subsequent bands in the scene like the Expelled and Icon AD. At this point in the time, the seen was heavily tied to the scene in Leeds’ conjoined neighbour city Bradford which hosted the likes of Anti System, Morbid Humour and late period Doom.
Although not formed in Leeds, the members of Chumbawamba resided in a squat in Armley in Leeds for much of the ‘80s, leading to them becoming one of the key players in the anarcho-punk scene. Of any band in history, Chumbawamba were definitely one of the most actively political groups, as not only did they preach their politics during performances and in songs, they chose their members not on the basis of musical skill but how active they were in the local community and politics. Their animals rights and anti-violence views led to the scene often being referred to as the “peace punk” scene. However after sometime their politics caught up with them and they stopped congregating as a part of the punk scene, instead spending the majority of their time with miners and working in food banks. I also don't know if they were every really a “punk band” or if they were a “punk band by association”, because their music was incredibly experimental and jarring, there are arguments to be made for them being considered post-punk or folk punk at times, however they also show a significant amount of influence from vaudeville, pop, acapella and dance.
Adam and Eve's was located at 2 Central Road, just around the corner from the Corn Exchange. Some of the most notable performances here I've heard stories about are: Napalm Death's headline performance in 1986 (pre-Scum) with Deviated Instinct, Ripcord and the totally under-appreciated '80s extreme metal act Lord Crucifer who were from Italy and briefly included Adam Lehan of Acid Reign, Cathedral, Deadline and (currently) Workshed; Discharge's 1986 performance (during the atrocious “Grave New World”-era), which had a bootleg recording of an unreleased track called “Taste the Burning”, and included a a pre-LP performance by Swedish crust legends Anti Cimex (which was also bootlegged); the Cult Maniax's 1984 performance which led to them getting signed to Xentric Noise record; a 1986 performance by Sonic Youth, just a day after the recording of their iconic session for John Peel; Extreme Noise Terror's 1986 live demo; and GBH's two performances with just over a month in between each other. It also hosted other iconic bands in the scene like Fields of the Nephilim, D.O.A., the Subhumans and the UK Subs.
In the mid-1980s, the Duchess of York on Vicar Lane began hosting shows, thanks to John Keenan (thanks John Keenan) quickly becoming one of the places to congregate for the city’s anarcho punk population, due to frequent performances by the Macc Lads and Chumbawamba. By 1988, it had become Leeds’ premier punk and metal venue, with Fugazi, Scream and Naked Raygun playing there that year, shortly followed by Prong, Lawnmower Deth, Primal Scream, Senseless Things, All and Acid Reign. One of its most well-known performances was that of Nirvana’s in 1989, which saw much of the attendees being unappreciative crust punks, in addition to Oasis playing in 1994, just days after being featured on “the Word” and leading to the venue being far overcapacity. If you were interested in any form of extreme music at the time, you would have found yourself here frequently as C.O.C., D.R.I., Rollins Band, the Melvins, Bikini Kills all played in its tenure. However, the venue closed its doors in 2000.
Joseph’s Well, later renamed the simply “the Well”, was on Chorley Lane, behind Leeds General Infirmary. After the Duchess of York’s closure, it was the main venue for travelling musicians, witnessing the presence of bands like the Distillers, Strike Anywhere and Against Me. This is also the place where Kaya Tarsus, vocalist of Blood Youth and Book of Job (both from Harrogate) saw Trash Talk and reached the decision to pursue a career heavy music. The Well eventually closed its doors as a venue in 2012, currently being used as a general office space.
By the late-90s and early-2000s, much of the Leeds punk scene began to embrace the sound of Epitaph Records and Fat Wreck Chords skate punk and melodic hardcore bands, which had gained a lot of traction in the US at the time due to the likes of NOFX, Bad Religion and Pennywise. The first of which was Joe Ninety, who formed in 1997, wearing their influence of London skate punk band Snuff on their sleeve. Other bands like Eighty Six, the Mercy Suite and Dropnose followed suit. All four of these bands were signed to the non-profit label Bombed Out Records, which at the time was based in Leeds but has since relocated to Harrogate. It was founded in 1998 by Alex Hurworth and Joe Ninety guitarist Steve Hunter to release the band's “Short on Ideas” EP. The Sex Maniacs, made up of members of Voorhees and the Mercy Suite also took part in this scene at the time, however were instead signed to Eccentric Man Records. Fig 4.0. (who were signed to Bombed Out) quickly became one of the main attractions in this scene, with their melodic take on thrashcore. Their final show was played at Joseph's Well in 2004, half of the band’s line-up went onto form the Dauntless Elite with members of Joe Ninety soon after.
And None of Them Knew They Were Robots, signed to Pigdog Records, were a part of this scene, however played emo, somewhere between Rites of Spring and the Promise Ring. Their influence would ring through through later-on, helping to define the sound of the city's mid-2000s indie rock scene, exemplified by Forward Russia, This Et Al and the Lucida Console. And while I usually wouldn't include indie in an article about extreme subcultures and their music, this is definitely relevant to it, as these are not like the later proponents of the Leeds indie scene like Kaiser Chiefs and the Pigeon Detectives, because a band such as Forward Russia showed their influence from post-hardcore and emo prevalently in their sound and were making more than Strokes-influenced pop rock.
The Autumn Years also gained prominence for a similar emo style to ANTKTWR around the same time, releasing their debut album "It’s Better To leave While You Still Love It, Than To Leave Something Because You Hate It" in 2002, which is a contender for the most obviously emo album title in history. For a while they also included Kevin McGonnell from ANTKTWR, so go figure.
One of the few extreme music practitioners that gained any real success in the early-to-mid-2000s was Send More Paramedics, who were formed by members of And None of them Knew they were Robots in 2001. They self-described as “zombiecore” and made crossover thrash about horror movies. In their short six-year lifetime, they played Reading, Leeds, Download and Damnation Festivals, won BBC Radio host Zane Lowe’s “Fresh Meat” competition and opened for Avenged Sevenfold and the Offspring. They’ve even been cited by pop horror punk behemoths Creeper as an influence.
Although general disassociated with its hardcore scene of the time, Leeds has a mathcore scene that was thriving in early-to-mid-2010s. But Leeds mathcore had its own interesting spin: if you associate the genre with iconic acts like Botch, the Dillinger Escape Plan or Converge, you’ll be way off. Leeds mathcore, somehow, was chaotic but not heavy, to the point that many of the acts called themselves math rock or noise rock, despite bearing even less resemblance to This Town Needs Guns, Don Caballero or Big Black than they did to Converge. For the most part there wasn’t really a “best known” band in the scene, during its runtime, due to every band seemingly being about equal in popularity, but some of the ones I was most aware of were Classically Handsome Brutes, Irk, III III III, Two Trick Horse and Cattle. Despite not being a part of the scene, Bingley’s Marmozets took heavily from the sound of Leeds mathcore on their debut record, merging it with elements of mainstream alt rock, which they transitioned fully into by the time their second record was released. This scene was unfortunately one of the most overlooked scenes that happened in Leeds, so much so, that it never even had a real “home” to call its own. The closest was probably either Chunk or the Brudenell, but most bands played just as much at local bars as they did those two venues.
Today, the scene’s largest proponent is that of Higher Power, merging the vocal melodies and harmonies of ‘90s alt metal acts like Alice in Chains and the shoegaze-inspired guitar textures of Deftones with Leeway-style crossover thrash, who formed in 2014 as an experiment between brothers Alex (of Blind Authority) and Jimmy Wizard (of Violent Reaction, Shrapnel and Abolition), attempting to make New York crossover thrash with clean vocals. They’re basically the UK’s equivalent Turnstile right now.
Violent Reaction, although originally a solo-project by Tom Pimlott in Liverpool in 2011, soon moved to Leeds and hired other musicians. They’re one of those “NWOBHC” bands that merged elements of oi and street punk with USHC. They were probably the biggest band in the scene until their breakup in 2015 being name-dropped by Mike Clark of Suicidal Tendencies in Tony Rettman’s 2017 verbal biography of the history of straight edge and being covered by Metal Injection. Almost every single members of this band went on to be, or already were, members of the biggest bands in the scene, from the Flex to Big Cheese to Arms Race to Higher Power.
The Flex are another notable act within the modern scene, having formed in 2012 featuring Andy Jones (Closure, Whipping Post, Beta Blockers), Dave Egan (Broken Teeth), Liam Fox (Perspex Flesh, Die, Beta Blockers, Mere Mortal, Apedreado, Deal with It, Sad Dolls) and Sam Laycock (Regiment), later hiring Tom Pimlott (Nowhere Fast, Violent Reaction, Deadlock, Arms Race, Payday, Standpoint). Their music sits between early-‘80s Boston hardcore and UK street punk, and they were one of the earliest proponents of the NWOBHC.
The American-isms within the current scene are fairly recent, as even if you look back to Leeds NWOBHC groups such as the Flex, they retained some elements of UK street punk or oi, however the emergence of the likes of Higher Power, Big Cheese and Rapture, saw this fade. Although, this is true for the majority of the UK scene as well, not just Leeds, which you can see with the difference between Arms Race, Violent Reaction or Blind Authority and Mastermind, Payday or Frame of Mind.
Possibly a product of the American-isms within the scene right now, many UKHC musicians, especially those from Leeds, are claiming edge. Straight edge bands in particular were more common a few years ago, likely derived from the underground success of straight edge act Violent Reaction, leading to a few years of edge paradise with the likes of Rapture, Regiment, Shrapnel and Unjust, who all broke up or went on hiatus around 2017 or so. Nowadays Big Cheese are the largest of the few bands, although edge musicians ring through the likes of the Flex, Higher Power and Mere Mortal.
This may be an overstatement simply based on my experience, but Leeds also seems to have a much more significant presence of women in its scene than most other places. Obviously it isn’t early-‘90s Washington or anything, but women have always made their presence known, as far back as Sara Lee (from Gang of Four), Julz Scale and Bethan Peters (from Delta 5) and Bev Smith (from Acon A.D.) in the ‘70s and ‘80s, to Maegan Brooks (from Big Cheese, Mere Mortal and Rapture) and Jojo and V (from Pulverise) today.
This is currently by far the longest and most extensive article that's been written for this blog, I'll probably make a series out of it but I've been writing and researching for this since September, so bear with it. The majority of the next few probably won't be as extensive as this, more likely covering pretty niche scenes like post-2000 North Yorkshire hardcore or the '80s Durham youth crew scene, but I think it would definitely be interesting to research the entire history of extreme subcultures in London, but that would be even longer than this article.
Update 24 December 2019: added reference to the Autumn Years.
