You would expect a city with a large university student population to have some dance clubs and other live music venues that cater to a young crowd. To say that about Sheffield is an extreme understatement. The vibrant live music scene in the city has been the soundtrack to life for citizens of Sheffield for over 30 years.
Past and present Sheffield musicians have enjoyed great success. Names from the not too distant past include Joe Cocker, Pulp's Jarvis Cocker, Def Leppard, The Human League to name a few. More recently the Arctic Monkeys, Pink Grease, and The Long Blonds are very popular in and outside of Sheffield. The live music venues, such as clubs, pubs, halls, and stadiums fill the air with music, and vibrate the cities streets with a baseline.
So many talented acts come from Sheffield that is seems an odd coincidence. Perhaps something in the water that helps vocal cords develop, not likely, but something has to explain the large volume of musicians coming out of this fairly small area. Well, it's not that big of a mystery.
It seems that in the early 1980s when the steel industry was on a down turn, someone on the Sheffield City Council heard about the big money involved in music. The multi-million dollar incomes of rock stars looked like an attractive way to bring a lot of money into the city. By 1982, a year that saw double-digit unemployment rates and 20,000 jobs lost, the City Council decided to do something about it by producing a few rock stars of their own.
It may not have occurred quite that way, but the fact is, the council got involved in the music business. They figured out that to have a great income producing music scene several things were needed. An infrastructure for the music industry was necessary, so the Council began funding projects related to music. A recording studio was needed to attract top acts and lot of live music venues were needed to showcase the local talent.
Sheffield City Trust owns Sheffield International Venues and operates Hallam FM Arena, and Sheffield City Hall to name a few of the 13 venues for music, sports, and entertainment. (SVI) Sheffield International Venues vision is to promote Sheffield as an international and cultural centre point for sport, leisure and entertainment, something they have been quite successful at doing since 1988.
Red Tape Studios is a training site for Sheffield City Council. It offers training to people interested in careers in the music business. Band Development, Band and Artist management, Music Technology, Music Business Courses and even DJ training courses are available. Because these courses are part of a local government backed system, they are competitively priced and the program really helps promote the music scene in Sheffield.
Of course the City Council offers other training units. Aspiring caterers, (if there is such a thing) can train at Sheaf Training alongside aspiring construction workers and customer service representatives. Tritec Computer Training is the City Council's IT training ground and every city has at least one of these. The fact that the city recognizes and promotes popular music is just so surprising, and what's more exciting and surprising is how well it works.
That answers the question how one small area can produce so many talented musicians. Not really a mystery, it's more of a plan. Council backing is only a small part of the music scene however, and the venues that have been committed to growing the live music scene for the past twenty five or thirty years deserve much of the credit as well.
The Leadmill celebrated its silver anniversary in 2005, and has grown from a derelict flour mill in a rundown part of the city during the last stages of the steel industry's demise. Unemployment and hopelessness was the consensus among young people at the time. A group of volunteers, students, artists, and unemployed people, who described themselves as ?insane but likable? came together to set up a centre for arts and music for people like themselves who had nowhere to go.
The Leadmill has grown into a landmark, and the live music has grown legendary. The opening in 1980 of what was a performing arts center with jazz, pop bands, theatre, education workshops, and club nights began a tradition of live music that venues the world over have tried to emulate. The ?insane but likable? founders turned out to be visionaries, except when they turned down a strange young blonde girl for a gig in 1983 who turned out to be Madonna. But who would have thought a club where the toilets backed up onto the dance floor would do so well. It's not the bricks and mortar, but the bands and the experiences of the people who have been there time and time again that are memorable. The Leadmill is a launching pad for stars in the music business, and the place to see up and coming musicians in Sheffield.
The Leadmill is of course not the only famous live music venue in town, and is just one of the great live venues. There is a club in Sheffield for whatever your taste is. Live Music, DJ & MC stuff, techno, synthpop, indiepoppunk, and whatever other combinations of music are left over are represented somewhere in the city. Starting from a forward thinking city council and bright young people who love music, the city of Sheffield has been producing musicians like other cities produce butchers for the past 30 years.
The music scene in Sacramento is a potpourri of great artists and a few up and coming ones. With several major successes and label recordings and signings over the past few years, Sacramento is now firmly placed on the map of the music industry. Sacramento music scene reflects the entire culture of the place, which consists of both classical as well as modern genres. However, amongst all the other genres of music, jazz has now become synonymous with Sacramento. There are many music festivals held in Sacramento, making it one of the biggest music destinations in the country today.
If you are planning on visiting Sacramento and you happen to be a music lover, then perhaps you already know that Sacramento is famous for its sponsorship of the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee and the Sacramento Traditional Jazz Society, which bring music to the area in myriad ways. The Sacramento Jazz Jubilee is the world largest traditional jazz festival, which attracts thousands of people who come to hear the musicians perform during the Memorial Day weekend.
Monthly concerts, Jazz in the Park, and the Youth Scholarship Program all highlight this citys everlasting love for jazz. The piano lounges and blues clubs are all tucked away in cozy little corners throughout the city, where some of the most talented amateur musicians and established artists perform.
If you are interested in classical music, there are plenty of exciting programs and events in store for you in Sacramento. The Camellia Symphony Orchestra is recognized all over the country for producing and presenting programs that are high in artistic merit, which include world premieres, rarely performed and basic repertoire works. If you are interested in studying classical music, then it is offered in Sacramento in association with some of the local universities. Some of the universities with such programs are U.N.I.Q.U.E at CSU and the Mondavi Center at UC Davis.
In the eighties, bands like Club Nouveau, Tesla, Steel Breeze and Bourgeois Tagg made big news in the music scene, and each of them had national hits. Tesla continued to make big money until the nineties before they broke up temporarily, and then got back together over the millennium. Also, in the nineties, the local artists that went on to become national musical successes included DRS, Deftones, Papa Roach, Cause & Effect and Oleander. Indeed, the history of music in Sacramento includes various artists that either came close to making it or made it to stardom. From Lynn Anderson to Mark Curry, Kevin Sharp to Timothy B Schmit, these artists were based in Sacramento before, during or after signing up for a record label for national distribution.
What is more, the Memorial Auditorium, the Crest Theatre, the Arco Arena and the Sleep Train Amphitheater are all known for hosting big names and rock concerts, and even national pop-tours. The Amphitheater is particularly famous because it is brand new and has state-of-the-art, open-air concert facilities in its 18,500 seater space. It also has an exceptionally good sound system and three large video screens. On weekends, the locals head towards the Cesar Chavez Plaza and J Streets for the free Friday night music concerts. For a little over two weeks, local bands perform here, attracting more than 5,000 people each week. Blues, country, alternative music, and rock and roll are performed at this Friday night event. Everything, from beer to wine, food vendors to soda gardens and great music form the essence of this tradition.
What with all the music festivals and programs, events and traditions, Sacramento has become an important hub of music. Who would not want to come here to have a good time?
Both Susan Ashby & Kris Koonar are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
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