Sheffield Town Hall
Sometimes, when I’m bored, I have been known to “join in” at people’s weddings at the Town Hall. These are always people that I don’t know; I’ll just sit at the back of the room in the registry office, cooing in the right places, standing up and sitting down when told, then I leave, usually after standing in the background of the friends and family photoshoot. I don’t think it’s a fetish; I’m just a romantic psychopath and love the building.
The Train Station
I mainly associate the train station with either going on a little adventure or meeting a visiting friend/musician I’m collaborating with, so it’s kind of connected to me as a place of escape: be it escaping the city for a while or escaping into some kind of creative head space. It’s unfortunate Northern Rail can’t be relied on to ever turn up on time, but any serious delays and I’m in the beautiful Sheffield Tap lobbing a milk stout down my gullet! It’s a win-win situation.
Paternoster Lift (Arts Tower)
I did a photoshoot for ITOP at the Arts Tower with photographer Duncan Stafford. I love the building, but that bloody lift proper puts the willies up me. I think the night before the shoot I was out watching some blues dude at the Greystones and having a couple of shandies with my good friend – and Sheffield’s friend – Richard Hawley, so I was already feeling a bit like I was on a storm-battered ferry to Dublin. But then I was having to step onto this fast-moving lift that never stops and with no doors and all I could see was two of everything and I just couldn’t step out and any time I did step out the band would scream, “NOOOOOOOO!” We wanted to photograph two of us in one paternoster lift going up whilst one of us was going down, but I just couldn’t get the timing right as all I could imagine was me decapitating myself and my behatted head pathetically rolling out on to the ground floor. We mainly just shot outside of the building of the building after that.
Picture House Social
I love the Picture House. Tariq and all the staff there are like family to me, and I can pop in at any time and everyone’s always dead friendly and asks what I’m up to. The DJs always play stuff I like, the drinks and food are all top notch. This was the place where Lias (Moonlandingz/Fat White Family) and I would come up with daft ideas for Moonlandingz songs over a few yards of Deception. It was also where we did the first two live Moonlandingz shows in Sheffield and where I’ve made a few videos. The last two ITOP videos and a version of a Moonlandingz song I collaborated on with Sean Lennon called ‘Sweet Saturn Mine’ was filmed in the cinema room at PHS. It’s a nice feeling knowing that you’ve brought the super-talented child of John and Yoko to Abbeydale Road, not to mention Britain’s greatest actress, Maxine Peake. In fact, I got them both DJing down there for me at the launch of the last Eccentronic Research Council album Party, which was a great night.
Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet
A few days after a UK tour I always arrange for my band to meet me in one of the old manager houses at Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet. The place is a 13th century ex-steel workshop-cum-museum with an old water wheel and all that business. It’s from here where I live out my Fagan-style fantasies and hand out bags of coins to my band members for their wages. I still pay them in shillings.
