Calling all grass-roots geeks, creative visionaries, innovative entrepreneurs and talented technologists
I’m not sure anyone would choose to give themselves any of those titles, but if you are (take a deep breath) a developer, designer, creative, educationalist, technologist, blogger, student, entrepreneur, writer, artist, academic, geek, marketeer, investor or gamer then you should get yourself down to BarCamp Sheffield 2.1: the Joy of Techs later this month.
As explained on the BarCamp Sheffield website, a BarCamp event is an ‘unconference’ that typically takes place over a weekend. The focus is technology in its widest possible sense, and usually features demonstrations, workshops and seminars which attendees are encouraged to run themselves with the intention of maximising knowledge-sharing and learning.
It has grown out of the monthly GeekUp Sheffield events (which also come highly recommended) and takes place at the Showroom cinema cafe bar from 28-30 November. If you can’t commit to the whole weekend then you can drop in just for one of the sessions.
And whether you can attend or not, if you are on Twitter then make sure you follow @barcampsheff to keep up to date with goings-on.
A list of concerts at the stadium from 1993 to 2006 - with videos
A previous post that mentioned getting more live music at Don Valley stadium caused me to search* the internet for some videos of shows at the venue.
Some of the clips I found are from the height of summer which seems a long way off following the dark and foggy weather Sheffield has had over the last couple of days.
So think back to summers gone by and the artists that have played at Don Valley stadium - although I seem to recall that it threw it down when the Stones played back in 2006.
* by the way, I didn’t search that hard for Celine Dion clips
Def Leppard
6 June 1993
Rocket
Let’s get rocked
Bon Jovi
28 June 1995
Rolling Stones
9 July 1995
Michael Jackson
9 July 1997
(I did find a video of Scream/They don’t care about us from this show but it has since been removed from YouTube)
It is back and looks set to keep growing - but could do with a better website
The annual comedy festival returns next month, and it could be final one to be located solely in Sheffield. From 2009, the organisers have plans to expand it into Rotherham, Barnsley and Doncaster, which should further raise the profile of the festival in future years.
When it comes to comedy, I’m quite picky over what I enjoy, and even more picky over who I would go to see live. However, I’m looking forward to Grin up north, so decided to ask my friend - a writer for BBC Radio 4 and BBC3 and who has just returned from Edinburgh - what he recommends this year.
So, apart from the people you have probably heard of (Jimmy Carr and Dylan Moran), his picks include:
Jason Cook (The Lescar, Saturday 11 October) - hilarious and really moving
Rhod Gilbert (Memorial Hall, Sunday 12 October) - surprising that he didn’t win the main prize at Edinburgh this year
Rich Hall (Memorial Hall, Monday 13 October) - an all-time favourite
Tim Minchin (Memorial Hall, Wednesday 15 October) - one of the best shows in Edinburgh this year; a properly-done musical comedy
Plus Mark Steel (Memorial Hall, Wednesday 1 October) and Comedy Store Players (Oval Hall, Thursday 2 October) would be well worth seeing
Or for another person’s recommendations, you can read a Sheffield student’s picks in their (new) blog.
The Grin up north festival brochure, bundled with a recent Sheffield Telegraph, is a good guide to who is appearing, but the website needs a bit more attention. Several of the shows from last year are still promoted on there (the text links need updating on the homepage), the website browser bar title still shows 2007 (getting this right essential for good search engine optimisation) and nowhere is an at-a-glace list of all performers. And can you not book tickets online?
When comparing this to the website for the upcoming Off the Shelf reading and writing festival, I soon realised that this also wasn’t much better. Likewise, there doesn’t seem to be a basic list of all events and the only way to view what is on is by downloading a pdf of the festival brochure - again, not at all search engine or user-friendly. By all means offer a pdf download, but surely the festival listings should be on the site as a minimum?
I really want these festivals to succeed as they are an important part of the cultural life of the city, but instead of being exploited as a key marketing tool, it appears that the internet basics are not being done well at all.
A plug for the one-day festival and Nat’s debut single
I previously wrote about Sheffield band Monkey Swallows the Universe disbanding and singer Nat Johnson going solo.
Since the split, Nat has been playing on her own at various acoustic nights but now has announced her first full band show at the Carling Academy. It will take place on Saturday 27 September to tie in with the release of her debut single Dirty Rotten Soul on Sheffield independent label Thee SPC. The video to the song was filmed at various locations in and around the city:
The gig at the Academy is going to be an all-day event, with nine other bands appearing throughout the afternoon and evening, including David Thomas Broughton, I Concur, The Kabeedies, Champion Kickboxer, Smokers Die Younger, The Yell, Urgent Talk, Mayor McCa, Rory McVicar, Laura Groves, Stereo Horizo and The Bon Bon Club.
Nat’s acoustic shows, which you can see a taster of below, have so far been a treat so it will be great to see her playing with a full band. And ten bands for ten quid is good value for money.
Showing the city’s most iconic buildings in a different light
It may be over a year away, but something to look forward to in 2009 will be the arrival of Light Night in Sheffield.
Six UK cities have been selected to host Light Night, starting with Birmingham next month. The idea is that for one night only, the key buildings in each city centre are illuminated using high quality light projections in order to show the environment from a different perspective.
To accompany this, areas in the city are also opened up for some sort of cultural, community festival.
Exact details at the moment are sketchy, but it’ll be worth keeping any eye on the other Light Night events before the Sheffield one to see what sort of thing we can expect.
A visit to one of the north’s biggest multicultural festivals
Yesterday we paid a visit to Music in the sun for music, food and drinks as the sun set over Don Valley.
Who did we see there? I’d heard Steve Lamacq mention Hiem a few times before but never watched them live. They appeared in the main arena and were good, quite electronic but more melodic and poppy than I was expecting. This is Electricity from 2004:
And following them was Steve Edwards, who I didn’t realise wrote and provided vocals for Bob Sinclar’s 2006 hit World, hold on (children of the sky):
Bob Sinclar also released Love generation, which Steve Edwards also performed live on Saturday.
There were several other arenas with other performers and DJs playing, as well as graffiti artists, food, drink, retail stalls and fairground rides.
The festival continues today from 1pm. If you do go down, also don’t miss the tasty African/Caribbean food from Broomhill’s UK Mama.
Four performance that I will be keeping an eye on during Sheffield’s upcoming music festival
So the Music in the sun website has gone live, along with the usual MySpace plus Facebook fan and event pages. A few of the acts have caught my eye, and at just £9.50 for a two-day advance ticket, it seems good value.
However, it is frustrating that the line-up doesn’t specify when many of the bands are actually playing over the weekend. The arena performers seem to be better mapped out, but being more of an indie fan, it would be helpful to have a proper running order for the main stage on each day, too. Perhaps nearer the time this information will be made available.
It is good to see some local acts represented on bill. Here are some of the performers I will be looking out for:
Kings Have Long Arms
Described by Wikipedia as ‘rocktronica’, this Sheffield-based act has been around for a few years and collaborated with several well-known musicians including Phil Oakey (the Human League), Mira (Ladytron), Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce (former Smiths), Denise Johnson (A Certain Ratio) and Ray Dorset (Mungo Jerry). The excellent single Big umbrella (featuring Candie Payne) was released at the beginning of the year:
Tiny Dancers
Another Sheffield-based group, this indie-country-rock band signed to Parlophone in 2006 and last summer released their debut album, Free school milk. Their singles have had some airplay and entered the top 40 but they are yet to have a major breakthrough hit. This is the catchy and upbeat I will wait for you:
Levi Roots If you watch Dragon’s Den, the you will know about Levi Roots’ (real name Keith) appearance in the last series of the show, where he was awarded money to produce Reggae Reggae Sauce. By the looks of things, he was a musician prior to this so he should definitely be considered more than just a novelty at Music in the sun. And if his performance successfully captures any of the charm and charisma that came across on television then we should be in for a treat. This is Reggae reggae sauce (the song) on Dragon’s Den:
Artery
If you listened to the recent BBC Radio 2 documentary in which Jarvis Cocker took listeners on a tour of Sheffield (still available to listen to here) then you would have heard 70s/80s post-punk band Artery being mentioned, as the former Pulp frontman was a big fan. Although they didn’t have any big hits, the band are seen as one of the big influential Sheffield bands from the time and reformed in 2007. This is John Peel’s favourite song, and by far their most well-known track, Into the garden:
The Artery and Tiny Dancers MySpace pages say that they are each playing on 2 August, so hedge your bets it will be the Saturday for those two bands.
Celebrating art and beer: two things to do this weekend
Looking for a piece of original artwork to hang in your home? The Great Sheffield art show, now in its is twentieth year, is reportedly the largest art show in the north of England featuring over 1,400 exhibits and attracting thousands of visitors. It takes place 11-13 July at the Octagon building, University of Sheffield, although if you are quick you may get tickets for the preview night on Thursday.
It is good that semi-professional and amateur artists have got a platform to display and perhaps sell their work, while for visitors it is a chance to pick up an original piece from an artist you may not have otherwise come across.
And after you’ve been to the art show, why not pop in to the Rising Sun pub in Nether Green for the second annual Sunfest beer festival, which runs from 10-13 July?
Luckily, the Rising Sun - and the brewery for that matter - are both still profitable businesses but I am sure they would appreciate the support all the same. And besides, it is good fun, even if like me, you know very little about real ale.
Another quickly-forgotten Sheffield band is remembered here
In the early 90s I remember Blammo! playing quite a bit live in and around Sheffield, but it was only when they changed their name to Speedy that the band properly caught my attention.
Most memorable for me was the promotional campaign for their Boy wonder single. The artwork for the release featured a striking illustration of a boy in his Boy wonder pants and if I recall correctly it was plastered on lampposts all over the city centre in the run-up to its release in 1996.
This was just around the peak of Britpop when guitar bands were getting top 10 hits, but for Speedy this wasn’t to be. Despite the promotional campaign, Boy wonder failed to break into the top 40 and a couple of years later they split, with their debut album recorded but unreleased.
I saw them at Music in the sun in 1997 and they were great, holding their own on the bill alongside Longpigs and Baby bird (Stephen Jones was in a very irritable mood that day though). Speedy stood out as a good guitar band and were described by Sheffield music journalist Martin Lilleker as “lyrically clever-funny”.
Locating Sheffield on the increasingly-popular microblogging site
I was thinking a few months ago about the presence of Sheffield-based people and organisations on microblogging site Twitter. As an investigative exercise, I decided to include a Tweetscan feed of tweets that mention Sheffield in my reader software. Here is a quick summary of the sort of stuff that has been cropping up:
Football is a recurring theme, with tweets from established news organisations linking back to their stories and the occasional update from fans
Travellers to and from Sheffield - particularly by train - seem to like to announce their arrival into the city with a tweet
Weather updates also feature predominantly…I guess the nation’s favourite pastime is the same in a web 2.0 world
Promotions for various events, products and job vacancies also crop up, something that I expect we will see more of as organisations exploit the commercial potential of Twitter
Gary Sheffield, the Detroit Tigers designated hitter seems to be a popular tweet topic, with items from the American press
Looking through the list of users on Twitter who have declared that their location is Sheffield (as I write, a total of 306), it seems that many of them have a major interest in the internet/web 2.0/digital technologies/the semantic web. My experience of Twitter would say that this also rings true for the application’s users as a whole: many Twitterers do seem to be self-proclaimed ‘web gurus’ and as such are compelled to tweet about technology in preference to their own lives.
There is nothing wrong with this - and maybe for them the two are inseparable - but in order for Twitter to fully break into the mainstream, the breadth of the user base needs to widen and the topics covered need to diversify. For me, social media is not using these websites and applications to solely discuss social media, it is using social media to interact with people and topics you are interested in, ones that aren’t necessarily related to the actual medium you are using.
There is also a risk that this microblogging service starts to mirror the tedious “echo chamber” effect that tarnishes so many otherwise reputable blogs.
People use other social networking sites for status updates initially see Twitter as no more than a duplication of this, but it has subtle differences, including the dialogue between users as you reply publicly to other tweets, which is encouraged. As well as being immensely useful for journalists, another strength of Twitter is the use of SMS; for alerts when people send a tweet and also to respond when you are on-the-move.
If you choose to follow the right users, you can effectively sign up for free text message updates on topics and people that you are interested in. Hence organisations and companies are catching on to this, seeing it as a publishing platform and slowly creating their own Twitter accounts. I read this week that Stratford-on-Avon council has launched its own Twitter account, and a few months ago 10 Downing Street received quite a bit of publicity when it started Twittering.
So, back to Sheffield on Twitter. As far as I can see, combining Sheffield Tweetscan with users based in the city is the best way to build up a picture of Sheffield Twitter users and tweets. This is pretty primitive though, as obviously not all messages derived from one location will necessarily mention that name, and not all users from Sheffield will have necessarily specified their location.
For what it is worth, I have created a page of interesting Sheffield-based Twitter users (mainly organisations). Anyone know of any more?
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