The Alternative Heritage of Leeds Mural, spotlighting the iconic gothic heritage in Leeds plus to to help promote the Alternative Day event on the 6th July in Leeds. John Robb, the lead singer of The Membranes and a highly regarded musical journalist and author who coined the term Brit Pop, talks about the new mural, goth culture and heritage, and his new book.
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00:00 (crowd chattering)
00:03 - Hi, I'm John Robb, and I've written a best-selling book
00:06 on the history of goth called The Art of Darkness.
00:09 Now, one of the most important parts of that book was
00:12 to kind of restate the claim that the Trinquet,
00:15 that Leeds was the birthplace of this culture.
00:17 'Cause I think too often, the message got spread,
00:20 and London tried to grab the claim
00:23 with their club, the Batcave,
00:24 but we all know that the Fono
00:25 was the first goth club in the world.
00:27 And the culture came out of here,
00:28 and also in the history of music
00:30 in the Northwest of England,
00:31 and a lot of people talk about Manchester,
00:33 and Liverpool, and Sheffield.
00:34 And I don't think Leeds gets enough of a call out.
00:37 And I think when you look at the goth culture
00:39 and its long-term sort of influence on the world,
00:42 you know, like 30, 40, 50 years later,
00:45 it's still like a world,
00:46 massive movement across the whole world.
00:48 And it all started here,
00:50 and it's brilliant to get celebrated.
00:51 I love it when towns celebrate their culture.
00:54 'Cause often, towns and cities are too modest
00:57 to state their claim for something they invented.
00:59 So this is really fantastic.
01:01 It's great to see all these bands
01:02 left as a bit about here.
01:04 The only thing is for me, it's not big enough.
01:07 But it's great to see all these things
01:08 put in something that's a permanent
01:10 kind of space to celebrate this.
01:12 And also, the black plaques,
01:14 now that's such a cool idea.
01:16 Going around the city as well,
01:17 I love that kind of stuff.
01:18 See, I grew up in Blackpool,
01:19 so I get their tourism.
01:21 I think the idea that you could have
01:23 like goth tourism in Leeds is actually quite cool.
01:25 It's quite funny.
01:27 So I think it's great.
01:28 I think everywhere should celebrate its culture.
01:30 I think it's great that Leeds is celebrating
01:32 being the birthplace of goth
01:34 and that kind of culture.
01:35 So this is my book,
01:38 The Art of Darkness, The History of Goth.
01:40 And the biggest chapter of the book,
01:42 the longest chapter of the book,
01:43 that takes up about that much of the book,
01:45 of course, is a chapter about Leeds,
01:47 the birthplace of goth culture.
01:49 So that's why I'm here today
01:51 to help the people from the scene in Leeds
01:53 celebrate their culture
01:55 with this really fantastic new mural
01:57 on the wall, which has all the bands
01:59 and all the corpse and all the reference points
02:01 of the birthplace of the goth culture,
02:04 which is now a massive worldwide culture,
02:06 which started within about two miles
02:09 of where we're standing now,
02:10 which is brilliant and should be completely celebrated.
02:12 [BLANK_AUDIO]