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ijustwantedtobeoneofthestrokesuk · 1 month ago

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Prologue

I was working in a kitchen on Sunday 23rd October 2005, I timed my trips to the fridge to pass the radio as the charts counted down to number 1. I remember the feeling of pride as I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor kicked in. I remember 30th December 2004, I was at my friends in Nottingham, music was playing in the background, just a mix of the indie demos that were being shared online. Twice I asked “Who is this?”, both times it was Arctic Monkeys, early versions of I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor and When The Sun Goes Down, they stuck out like a sore thumb, they were operating at a different level. I lived in Sheffield, and went out in Sheffield, this was the first time I ever heard of Arctic Monkeys, never mind heard them. When I got home I downloaded the demos, my mom thought they were a joke band when she heard Alex singing in his broad Sheffield accent, using our dialect.

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I can remember 2nd February 2005, the first time I saw Arctic Monkeys, they were supporting Tom Vek at The Fez Club in Sheffield, there was me, my Nottingham friends and a few others watching (max 50 people). They were good, but still in the ‘work in progress’ category’. I can remember a completely different experience when I next saw them in Sheffield (I had seen them in Nottingham in between this), this was 26th May 2005. They had sold out The Boardwalk in advance, nobody sells out The Boardwalk in advance, it was the place local bands played in front of their mates, there was a queue outside, this felt different.

At this point I was in the middle of this exciting indie scene that was taking over the UK, I had seen Babyshambles in pubs, The Strokes headline festivals and all of the up-and-coming bands around the country, I knew what to expect, this night felt electric. I stood at the front and witnessed the band confidently walk on stage, welcomed like heroes and power through a set that was pretty much the debut album. The crowd sang every word, it was blissful chaos. I knew I had just been part of something special, I couldn’t believe how much better than had got in 3 months, and, where did all these people come from? Ok, it was only 400 people, and these were still probably the only people in Sheffield how cared about this band but where were they in February?

I did see The Strokes at Leeds Festival in 2001 but I was a Kerrang! reader, I missed the hype the NME created, when I looked at The Strokes I saw untouchables, these effortlessly cool New Yorkers, like Alex, I wanted to be one of them, but I couldn’t relate to them. But, Arctic Monkeys, they were a year older than me, look like normal lads, from Sheffield, they talked my language. I didn’t need to Google “mardy bum”, my mom called me one when I was a kid. The hype around Arctic Monkeys wasn’t in the NME, on the radio or on the TV, it was on the indie forums, in between threads about other bands I loved like Good Shoes and The Paddingtons. They didn’t feel like stars, they were just like us, so when they sold out The Leadmill (900 capacity) in July, that felt massive. It was massive for them too, so much so that they played a warm-up show at a working men’s club in Barnsley, the locals were bemused. This was the first time we saw the national press come up here to see our band, it felt a bit weird, they were our band.

Then I can remember the feeling of loss when I struggled to get into the tent to see them at Leeds Festival, and when I did get inside I could barely see them, and left a few songs in. They weren’t my band anymore but I still I celebrated every win. That record-breaking debut album and their homecoming (on the NME tour) completed 12 months of madness and it was all organic! There has never been a rise like it, and we’ll never see another one like it.

It happened at the peak of ‘indie’, and music being shared online was all the rage (even if, in most occasions, was technically ‘stealing’). Arctic Monkeys were the right band, at the right time and they have continued to drop classics. When I was on the bus home from The Boardwalk I knew I watched a band who could headline Leeds Festival, but Razorlight could headline Leeds, I didn’t expect them to become who they became, the biggest band in the world, the most important band for a generation. The Strokes were influential but they were relatively underground compared to Arctic Monkeys who made music that the masses loved, without making music for the masses (y’know, beige music, I don’t need to name anybody…).

I have watched the band grow to headline Leeds, V and Primevra, celebrate the arrivals of Favourite Worst Nightmare at The Astoria, Humbug at Brixton, Suck It and See at The Roundhouse and Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino at the Sheffield Arena. The band have grown up with me, but this story isn’t just about Arctic Monkeys…

The Strokes made music exciting again but The Libertines were the band who changed my life. I can remember how I felt after seeing Pete and Carl for the first time on the 1st March 2004, that gig changed the way I dressed, who I hung out with and what online forums I went on.

The 2000’s were different, we were the first generation of the internet, our parents didn’t get it, we communicated with friends on MSN Messenger, we all had MySpace and the Nokia 3210 was the ultimate accessory. Having a mobile phone and the internet gave us a step ahead of anyone 10+ years older than us, but we didn’t take it for granted, we were old enough to remember having to call our friends on their home phone and having awkward conversions with their parents, then there was Teletext for football scores…

The internet brought us together, online forums built communities offline too. Social media was actually social, it was DIY at its purest. Bands actually used MySpace themselves, uploaded demos, wrote posts and replied to messages, they didn’t have a team who did it. Bands cared about their fans, whenever I met Pete Doherty, he always offered to put me on the guest list. When I couldn’t get into a The Others gig the band got me and on that first meeting I was welcomed into a community and met some of my best friends. After meeting The Holloways a few times, at one gig in Leeds, after saying I had to leave to get the last train, they said stay, they will find somewhere for me and my friends to sleep, and they did! What bands do that today?

We think social media brings us closer to our favourites but it’s all part of a marketing campaign today, it didn’t be like that. At uni in London (2008) I should have been revising but I was scrolling through MySpace and came across a post from Patrick Wolf (who I was obsessing over) saying he’d be playing on the Thames in the afternoon, which, even at this point, when “secret gigs” were regular, seemed odd (he was selling 4000 capacity venues in London). Obviously, I ditched revision and chanced it, he turned up, with a mate, no manager, PR, marketing team or cameras, he played and chatted to about 20 fans sat in a semi-circle and to bemused tourists on Southbank for 3 hours just because he wanted to. And that was the 2000’s. MySpace, YOLOing and a “pop-up” gig on the river for no reason.

Enjoy.

CONTENTS

Introduction

The best decade is the one you spent your teenage years in, and the 2000’s were ours. We were the kids to outsmart the older, wiser generations with the internet. We communicated differently with mobile phones, MSN messenger, MySpace and forums where we formed communities online which became friendship groups offline.

We grew up in a new, developing culture, unique and unlike anything that had come before it, the resources had never been available. The internet gave us the tools to know what was going on in, not only in other cities but other countries with ease, we could educate ourselves, learn from others and discover the world with an AAA pass. We could make up our own rules because there weren’t any.

How do you tell a story with so many cogs? The best stories have a start, a middle and an ending, with twists and surprises that keep the reader on edge. This is a real story, we all know the finish but, how did we get there?

The heroes in this story come from New York, they kick it off. They saved a record label, made a magazine relevant again and everybody wanted to be them. The internet is the twist, nobody took it seriously in 2000 but we wouldn’t have got to the end, four lads from Sheffield without it. They were inspired by the New Yorkers, and their success made that magazine irrelevant. The internet has a lot to say for itself. That is basically the story, it will be told, by city, scene and moment. London plays a pivotal role too…

The 2000’s were lawless, the dawn of accessible internet, it was Tech, Drugs (Class A) and Rock ‘n’ Roll. Everything was moving 10 times faster than ever as mobile phones were becoming the accessory for every millennial hitting their teens and the internet was going from the painfully slow and inconvenient dial-up to broadband. This was timed perfectly for (illegal) file sharing, music was free (ok, it was low-key stealing…). Napster and the platforms that followed almost killed the music industry until it reluctantly struck deals with Spotify, who reinvented the way we consume music.

A lot happened in such a small amount of time, it was easy to get lost in it, when you were in the middle of it. Now we can detach ourselves away from the hype and hysteria to see what really happened when you remove context and myths, such as… (a few spoilers) Arctic Monkeys weren’t the first band of the internet, a lot of bands can take that crown, including The Strokes. After months of hype, their generation-defining debut album, Is This It was released in Australia a month before the UK, when file sharing was in the early days of being normalised. Inevitably, the Australian version was uploaded to Napster and it was being shared online ahead of the band's hyped-up appearance at Reading & Leeds Festival, the weekend before the UK release.

Then there is The Libertines, one of the first bands to break down the barrier between the rock star and the fan. They used their online forum to talk to fans, announce last-minute gigs (sometimes in their flat) and share demos. This was pre-social media, this wasn’t a marketing plan, it was authentic, genuine and groundbreaking. This was an inspiration for the likes of Dominic Masters from The Others who shared his mobile phone number with fans and The Cribs, who booked a tour via fans on their forum. Forums became a community hub, where like-minded people hung out with each other (online, for the first time). Bands saw this as an opportunity to reach people who liked bands like them, so they shared demos there. It had never been so easy.

And finally, Arctic Monkeys, their story is a little different. The band wrote great songs, recorded demos, put them on CDs and handed them out at gigs. Unaware to the band, fans uploaded these demos to forums and shared around the internet. These songs were different, better than any other band about, that is why it worked. In a few months they went from a band who didn’t have fans in their home city to the biggest band in the country. This wasn’t powered by the media, press, marketing or a record deal. Nothing has happened so quickly as this before, and it will never happen again. It was the right band, at the right time.

NEXT CHAPTER

#MySpace #indie #indie sleaze #the libertines #the strokes #arctic monkeys #patrick wolf #the holloways #the others #nokia 3210 #the 2000s #Youtube

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