INTRODUCTION
BY WHISKAS AND SIMON RIX
With the closure of The Duchess and the Town & Country club, and the rise to prominence of The Cockpit, there were some fantastic bands and individuals in the indie Leeds music scene at the turn of the 21st century. There had been moments in the spotlight, with John Peel supporting artists like Lorimer, and Radio 1’s visit for Sound City in 1996, but by the early 2000s a new scene around Josephs Well had developed, with musicians being involved in gigs, working behind the bar, or frequenting the venue for 7 nights a week of live music from mostly local artists.
There was a UK wide resurgence of guitar music, driven by New York artists like The Strokes, and then UK bands like The Libertines, Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party exploded through the British indie scene with angular jagged guitar lines. Out of this, a new wave of Leeds artists emerged, the reimagining of old post-britpop influenced bands influenced by the city’s thriving DIY culture, Cops & Robbers music blog and Out of Spite festival. Within that, Kaiser Chiefs rose fastest and highest, alongside a wave of bands including 10,000 Things, The Cribs and the Blueskins. Then Dance To The Radio label emerged with more new bands, led by ¡Forward, Russia! alongside This Et Al, The Sunshine Underground and I Like Trains. These artists paved the way for a long tail of diverse bands from the region including Sky Larkin, The Pigeon Detectives and later Wild Beasts and Pulled Apart By Horses.
This walk was devised by whiskas of ¡Forward Russia! and Simon Rix of Kaiser Chiefs. It draws on their personal experience of making music in Leeds in the early 2000s, their long friendship and their continued involvement in the Leeds music scene.
THE ROUTE
Start: Leeds Corn Exchange, Call Lane, Leeds LS1 7BR
End: Josephs Well, Hanover Way, Leeds LS3 1AB
Length: approx. 2.1 miles
Leeds Corn Exchange, Call Lane, Leeds LS1 7BR
The Corn Exchange was an important place of counterculture in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and it had loads of alternative clothing stores. For both of us (whiskas and Simon) growing up around Leeds, it was where people would hang out. Ricky from Kaiser Chiefs worked at Arc there, a shop for people getting their rave gear and shoes. It was a sort of cross-contamination where people from different levels/places/scenes were all connecting.
For the purposes of this walk, it is a convenient place to start because, more than anything, it’s close to a number of interesting places to visit! During this period however, many people tried to reboot the small bar underneath The Corn Exchange as a music venue, and it was the place of one of the last Parva gigs put on by our friend Mido. Parva were supported by Union Volts (Visa, Voltage Union), featuring current Kaiser Chiefs drummer Vijay Mistray.
Döner Summer, 10-12 Call Lane, Leeds LS1 3DN
From the Corn Exchange, head north east up Call Lane, towards Kirkgate. Döner Summer is on the left. Before it was a kebab place, this was Milo, a bar, with Think Tank indie club next door. Milo had an upstairs gig room, and midweek it hosted parties downstairs when bands would play on the floor in front of the bar.
It was a late night hang out, especially midweek. If you weren’t going to the Cockpit, you’d likely end up in Milo. Ricky Wilson from Kaiser Chiefs, Sam from 10,000 Things and Paloma Faith all worked at Milos. There was a night called Village Green (from The Village Green Preservation Society, by The Kinks), started by Nick Hodgson from Kaiser Chiefs with Nick Scott who was responsible for The Cribs artwork It was pretty chaotic because bands like The Cribs and 10,000 Things would play, and it was usually unannounced, but it would get round who was playing that night. And the pub was far, far too small for a band to play on the floor, let alone a band selling 300 or 400 tickets to be playing. It was a sweat dripping off the walls kind of place. It was fighting to get to the bar – if the band was playing then you just couldn’t get a drink. You just had to sort of make do.
Hi Fi Club, 2 Central Road, Leeds LS1 6DE
Turn around and head back towards the Corn Exchange, then cross over Vicar Lane into Duncan Street. Central Road is the first turn on the right.
Hi Fi is a small club and venue that put on gigs until 2022. It was notable for the Sunday Joint and Movin’ On Up club night. As the Leeds scene, exploded, Nick Hodgson from Kaiser Chiefs, Nick Scott and “Johnny Florida” (aka Ash Kollakowski who later put on gigs at The Faversham, Nation of Shopkeepers and Belgrave Music Hall) set up a club night, Pigs, on the last Tuesday of the month.
Pigs started to generate a cool reputation off the back of the cool New York and London scene with LCD Sound System and Trash (London club). The night had a big sort of f*** you attitude, an old school punk mentality, and crazy music. It was a night that wasn’t just going to the pub, it was a night to make an effort for. The DJs would drop random stuff in the middle of the night. Everyone would just lose themselves… and it was a Tuesday night! By the second or third night, you had to make sure you arrived early otherwise it would be full and you wouldn’t be able to get in. They would book random bands to play at midnight. whiskas remembers being very excited when they booked New York electroclash band ARE Weapons, as it felt particularly on point with the scene and what the night was trying to be. Pigs drew people to the city, with journalists and industry people coming up from London to hang out, as well as other bands and music people from across the North.
Most famous is the night Black Wire, an electronic post-punk band, performed. It essentially started a riot! whiskas’ memory is that the band got naked and invited everyone on stage, and then it collapsed into a chaotic naked stage invasion. Instruments went awry and songs got abandoned part-way through. This was the inspiration behind some of the lyrics to ‘I Predict A Riot.’
Be At One, 19 Boar Lane, Leeds, LS1 6EN
Turn back to Duncan Street and continue onto Boar Lane until just after Holy Trinity Church (on your right). Be At One is on your left.
In the early 2000s, this was Bar Roc. Although it doesn’t look likely from outside, it had a large downstairs area. Mick McCarthy (manager of 10,000 Things, ¡Forward Russia! and The Pigeon Detectives) ran a monthly East Village type songwriters night on the last Sunday of the month with songwriters playing three songs each. It went on till one or two in the morning, everyone sitting on beanbags. It was renowned for being a nurturing night and bands who played there include 10,000 Things, Corinne Bailey Rae’s band, Helen, and lots of bands from Leeds College of Music (now Leeds Conservatoire).
Continue west along Boar Lane. You will pass The Bourse, on your left. In the 1960s there was a café in this square called the Blue Gardenia, which hosted beat bands.
3 Swinegate, Leeds LS1 4AG
Continue along Boar Lane, then turn left down Mill Hill. Turn left at the Moot Hall Arms onto Swinegate under the railway arches. Note the old entrance to the Cock o’ the North pub and continue to the other end of the tunnel. Look left for the old Cockpit entrance, next to the car park. The Cockpit opened in 1994 and had two gig spaces inside. It also hosted club nights such as Brighton Beach (famous patrons include York’s Shed Seven), which became The Session, and The Garage.
The Cockpit took up the mantle of the Duchess of York. The Duchess was famous for its nightly gigs (and for Kurt Cobain sleeping on the sofa!). It was somewhere bands on their way up would play, and so it offered vital support to upcoming bands. It closed in 2000 and is now Hugo Boss (Vicar Lane). The Cockpit was owned by Futuresound, who now own The Wardrobe, The Key Club and Slam Dunk, and run Live at Leeds. But they were born out of the Cockpit where they put on gigs.
Meanwhile, Dance To The Radio record label was launched by whiskas and Andy Roberts in 2005 and they did five limited releases. But then, whiskas says, “we weren’t sure how to grow the label or even if we wanted to grow the label, because maybe it had done everything it wanted to do.” At the end of 2005, Futuresound came on board and gave Dance to the Radio the money to sign !Forward Russia! properly and for the band to make their first album [released 2006]. More signings followed, including The Pigeon Detectives.
Futuresound also used to run a battle of the bands competition, of which six winners would get to play Leeds Festival. In the early noughties, it was quite revolutionary that local bands could play Leeds Festival, so the battle was fiercely contested. whiskas was invited to do the shortlisting: “I remember being sat in the dressing room of the Cockpit and with 200 CDs and going through them to pick the 30 that would be in the heats of the battle of bands. One band was Buzzkill, two of whom are now in Tiger Island. In 2004, the year everything seemed to be building from, I think the winners were !Forward Russia!, I Like Trains, This Et Al and The Sunshine Underground.”
The Cockpit closed in 2014 due to structural issues, to the sadness of many Leeds music fans, but Futuresound moved activities to The Key Club on Merrion Street and The Wardrobe.
9A Albion St, Leeds LS1 5AY, City Exchange
Retrace your steps to Boar Lane, turn right and then turn left up Albion Street. Go under the bridge to City Exchange on your left.
What is now an unobtrusive door was The Mixing Tin, a small venue underneath the shopping centre.
Whiskas remembers, "I was never quite sure what the set up was there, but it seemed to be a place where no one cared about the rules, it closed when it wanted, and if you were in a band you would generally be fed shots all night. It had a lot of local band nights: Jack Simpson who now runs Hyde Park Book Club would put on nights there, and Neil Hanson who was in lots of Leeds bands, promoted there and he gave a lot of first gigs to people. It was at the start of bars opening past 11pm, and that was quite a new thing unless you were at a club night like Brighton Beach or Session. So it was one of the venues and bars you could go to late at night. And a lot of people in bands worked behind the bar."
Paddy Power, 13 The Headrow, Leeds LS1 6PU
Head up Albion Street, then turn left along Headrow and continue past Dortmund Square until just before the Three Legs pub. Paddy Power is the site of The Vine pub, where whiskas promoted gigs 20032004.
Josephs Well had been somewhere local bands played, but they were promoting more and more touring bands, meaning fewer spots for local bands to play. Enter The Vine. The Vine, along with Mixing Tin, saw an opportunity to provide stage space for local bands seven nights of the week.
Whiskas recollects, “To get to band rehearsals at Sponge Studios, I used to get the bus outside The Vine. And one day there was a little poster in the pub window that said they were looking for event promoters Monday to Thursday. I was nineteen. I went in and talked to the landlords, one of whom used to run The Warehouse in the late 80s/90s. They explained to me that they closed at 6pm every day apart from Friday and Saturday because there was a queue of people outside at 11 and they’d drunk enough by 6pm.
So they said, ‘you can rock up at 6pm and do what you want with the place’. The first gig we put on was The Cribs, Pylon and 10,000 Things, which we managed to repeat again a year later for the 1st Birthday, but at this point The Cribs had released their debut album, so they headlined. Within two or three months, we were putting gigs on Monday to Thursday and by the January they’d built a stage and installed the PA properly. So then we would put on gigs on Friday and Saturday nights as well. There was a point where we were putting on two gigs in one night, because they had a little upstairs room as well.
My favourite time of gig listings was October 2004 - every Thursday and Saturday that month we had on bands that went onto big things: Jack and Yannis from Foals played with their old band The Edmund Fitzgerald, Arctic Monkeys played first on the bill, The Subways headlined, as well as a big Japanese electro-rock band Boom Boom Satellites, plus there were early gigs from The Pigeon Detectives and The Sunshine Underground.”
Other gigs of note: Gecko, Vinnie Peculiar (a Manchester Beat poet legend backed by Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce from The Smiths), The Noisettes.
Millennium Square, Leeds LS2 3AD
Head back west along Headrow and then turn left along Calverley Street between the Art Gallery and the Town Hall. Cross over Great George Street and continue into Millenium Square.
In 2005, Leeds bands such as Kaiser Chiefs, Cribs and ¡Forward Russia! were finding national success. In their hometown, this was indicated by the size of the venues they could now sell out: Millenium Square, Leeds Town Hall, and the student union venues. Millennium Square was a relatively new venue so to have Kaiser Chiefs and The Pigeon Detectives playing large hometown shows at Millenium Square felt very important.
¡Forward Russia! played with Editors and Biffy Clyro just after their album release. Underneath the Square there are lots of tunnels and a vast bunker complex of toilets, dressing rooms, kitchens and things.
In 2008, Leeds 02 Academy in nearby Cookridge Street opened in the old Town & Country club building, with Kaiser Chiefs headlining supported by Club Smith. Club Smith featured Vijay, now of Kaiser Chiefs, and was fronted by current Dance To The Radio boss, Sam Robson. As the T&C, which closed in 2000, the downstairs bar, The Underground, was home to many who went on to open bars around Leeds - Mido went on to run Josephs Well, and Ed and John took over HiFi Club.
The George, 67 Great George Street, Leeds, LS1 3BB
Go back to Calverley Street and head back south. Turn right into Portland Street with the old Leeds Infirmary building on your right. Continue into Great George Street. On your left, almost opposite the church, is the old George pub, which had a gig room in the cellar. It hosted many bands in the early 2000s, such as Scaramanga Six, whilst retaining its traditional pub charm upstairs. It was one of the only pubs that had a post-11pm license, so hosted some of the early Transmission nights, which were the precursor to Dance To The Radio.
Josephs Well, Hanover Lane, Leeds LS3 1AB
At the end of Great George Street, go over the footbridge and immediately turn left towards the red brick building. On the corner closest to you, underneath the offices, was Josephs Well, a pub and music venue. Kaiser Chiefs worked behind the bar there. While it started off with a slate of local bands and DIY gigs by the likes of Out of Spite, when landlord Mido, (Francois El-Alfy) took over, it became a mainstay of the UK touring circuit with bands such as The Killers, Bloc Party, Editors and more all playing, normally with a local support.
Whiskas says, “My dad used to work in the offices above Josephs Well, so when I would see gig listings in the NME and as I started to get into more DIY punk rock music I noticed bands playing the Well. There was a big scene of bands playing there, lots of different promoters and a large online community around the Leeds Music Scene website. It meant most bands would end up playing The Well pretty regularly. I don’t remember the first gig I ever went to, but the one that resonated throughout my life, due to people that I’m still in touch with now, was a band called Appleseed Cast. They were supported by a band from Berlin called Sometree, who we later released through Dance To The Radio, and I supported in Germany, with my solo project. I was probably 17 or so when I went to that Appleseed Cast gig. I would look at the local bands who were making waves and get the bus up from Wakefield to see them, bands like Catalyst, 5’4 or Bodixa.
When I was 18, I came to Leeds to study music at Leeds University and only made it to about six classes before I dropped out, because of Josephs Well. At that point I was playing trombone in a ska band called Bobby Sixkiller and I got a house round the corner from The Well with Matt and Gemma the brass section - which was a terrible idea for sticking through a University degree. Three of us in the house got jobs at Josephs Well, so we were in there pretty much every night. It felt like home.
Our whole friendship group of bands would sit on the top tables of Josephs Well at the end of a working day, and people would arrive throughout the night if they had been working elsewhere, and we would just amass a big group of us and drink until the bar shut at 11 and then go off to the Cockpit or Star (indie club night at Leeds Met SU). Everyone was in bands, there was a whole community. I cannot overstate how important The Well was - every night of the week there were new, local bands playing, and every night there were people in bands drinking in the bar, and it meant everyone was aware and mostly supportive of what people were doing. If there was a new band and they sounded good or had a big crowd, you noticed.
People who were involved with Josephs Well have gone on to other roles in the music industry:
Simon Rix and Peanut were bar managers at Josephs Well between the end of Parva and Kaiser Chiefs taking off.
Whiskas’ housemate Matt Peel, who worked behind the bar, set up Nave Studios in Stanningley.
Chris Catalyst, who was part of the community, went on to play in Sisters of Mercy, Ghost and Bradford’s Terrorvision, amongst other bands, including his own successful band Eureka Machines.
Mido is a Brooklyn-based touring sound engineer.
And many other stalwarts of the Well scene continue to be important parts of the Leeds music and culture scene.
The Faversham, 1-5 Springfield Mount, Woodhouse, Leeds LS2 9NG
From Josephs Well, head up Clarendon Road/Claremont Villas, turn right into Hyde Street, then left into Hyde Terrace, followed by an immediate right into cobbled Clarendon Way. Follow the lane to the end and pass through the gate to the Faversham.
The Faversham pub is important in the history of punk and goth in Leeds, as well as the burgeoning house music scene. For all these scenes the Faversham was an important meeting place before going out, and it was where musical plans were hatched and ambitions evolved into realities. In the mid 2000s it was host to Bad Sneakers and Nasty Fest.
Ash Kollakowski, who now co-owns Belgrave and Headrow House, began putting on gigs and a Saturday club night called Bad Sneakers. At the time the venue was co-owned by Ed Mason, who went on to manage Wild Beasts and now runs Whitelocks and White Cloth Hall. Whiskas remembers that, “the Saturday nights became where everyone went. Then they put on Sunday evening gigs where generally a lot of people would meet up and have Sunday lunch there and then just stick around drinking until bands came on the evening.”
In 2004, The Faversham hosted Nasty Fest, a festival which included The Futureheads, Hot Chip and Pink Grease, and people flocked to it. Whiskas recalls that, “the line-up was incredible, but I don’t think they’d thought about the logistics. I must’ve been putting on gigs at The Vine at this point, so Ash rang me up about a week before asking me to stage manage. So, aged 20 or 21, I was suddenly thrown into dealing with tour managers and bookings for this event, without any structure for it. The first one was so chaotic. By the second Nasty Fest, I had a few months to prep running it, so I was able to do proper advances and everything ran smoothly. By the third one, ¡Forward Russia! were headlining.”
From this walk and these stories, you can see just how many of the people who were involved in Leeds indie in the noughties are still involved with music in the city today, continuing to work together. As much as places have changed and people have moved around, music has continued to be at the centre of things. There’s a thread through almost everything in Leeds and the collaborations between those involved. In the mid 2000s there was a perfect storm of indie music and influences in Leeds that led to some amazing music and a powerful feeling of being part of a scene.
Launchpad support for local music
www.launchpad-music.com Kaiser Chiefs
http://kaiserchiefs.com/ Dance to the Radio
www.dancetotheradio.com/ Futuresound
www.futuresoundgroup.com
