“This is still the worst part of the city…I feel like I can say that after spending so much time here,” laughs Ed Crisp, looking out over Exchange Street on the outskirts of Sheffield. city center.he is sitting in the office delicious clams: A record label, practice space, recording studio, and live venue he co-founded in 2015. It may be the edge of town, but it's the only edge of town where Crum can realistically exist. “That kind of works in our favor. If Krum wasn't in this run-down part of town, we wouldn't have been able to afford to survive,” he shrugs.
This is a story you may have heard before. Lured by cheap rents and central locations, musicians are taking up residence in unwanted and unloved spaces in different corners of different cities. But Crumb's challenge to normalcy ends here. First, they're here because the former shared studio on nearby Sidney Street has been given a demolition notice by the city council. It has since been reimagined as an advanced, accessible rubble pile with parking for approximately 10 cars. progress.
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Still, Crum's move to its current site proved to be a concrete-encased blessing, even though the city council deemed a pile of rubble to be more valuable to the city than two creative companies. It was done.
“When we had the studio, we were having trouble finding a place for the band to play,” Ed explains. “But when we came up with this, we had three floors and enough space to create a gig space, so it worked really well.”
Delicious Clam is also in a unique position in that it sublets space from CADS, a Sheffield-based charity that provides accessible workspace to creative businesses across the city. That means we pay almost no rent, and the savings are passed on to the musicians who practice here. In a world where music is increasingly becoming a plaything for the middle class, Crumb's price freeze will allow the city's underground music scene to hone its craft for next to nothing.
“About 20 bands practice here regularly,” says Ed. “They all pay £20 a month per person. That hasn't changed since we opened and pretty much covers the rent for the whole building.” Clam's presence has led to bands forming here. There is also. They discover there is a cheap space to practice and begin making music together.
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What's clear from all of this is that profit isn't what drives Delicious Crumbs. Ultimately, Ed and the team just want to provide a space for people to perform, promote the music they love, and have a little fun in the process.
But that doesn't mean life at Crum HQ is all rosy. Rent may be cheap, but like any independent music business, life is still precarious. “There are no guarantees in terms of how long we can stay here,” Ed says. “When we first moved in, they said it could be a year, it could be six months. It all depends on the landlord. For example, if they wanted to redevelop this property, We’re not really protected at all.”
The first whispers of the R word are beginning to be heard in this part of the city. Across the road, work has begun to redevelop another pile of rubble into a sparkling new public park. In the same building, Wilco recently pulled down its shutters, having lived in the city for 40 years. And now that Wilco is gone, they feel like they've lost their “corporate guardian,” as Ed reasons. In the near future, developers may suddenly become more interested in this forgotten street.
But for now, Crum remains an important outlet for the city's underground scene. Musicians can not only practice here cheaply, but also become part of Klam's mini-ecosystem. In theory, you could also record here, do a live show and release a record on the Delicious Scrum label. Not bad for £20 a month.
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While the practice space may pay the rent, Ed says the gig space on the label's ground floor is “becoming an increasingly important part of what we do.” It's reminiscent of the run-down DIY venues that defined Sheffield's past but were thought to never exist. The live shows here are a must for Crumb. They put a few extra pounds in the company's coffers, gave local artists a venue to perform, and even brought the label a little more public attention. Local royalty Rebecca Taylor (aka Self Esteem) has also performed her gig or two over the past few years.
But no event put it on the map quite like “Clams in Their Eyes.” Almost everything about this event, called Eyes of the Psychedelic Stars, is comical. The concept on which this work is based is tenuous at best. “Someone thought that the sliding door behind the stage looked a little like stars in your eyes.” The economics behind it are questionable. “We always spend a lot of money on fake glass to break each other's heads.” Still, his first Clams in Their Eyes in 2017 sold out in his two minutes. As Ed explains, it only went from strength to strength.
“It was really silly and so much fun that we moved it to Picturehouse Social and upped the production values a little bit. It also sold out within minutes and people seemed to like it, so we ended up doing it every New Year's Eve.” I did.”
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people seem to like it even more Clams in my eyes. Nowadays, it looks more like a cult gathering than a night out. Last year, they sold out his 700-person capacity network, but according to Ed, this was the first time the event had made money. That's partially due to the really impressive production values, but it's also because they're more interested in getting laughs than making money. “It’s a really fun, really silly event and we’re having a lot of fun doing it.”
Clams in my eyes Since then, the event has come into its own and become one of the most famous events on Sheffield's cultural calendar. In March of this year, they held their biggest event to date at his 1,000-capacity FORGE warehouse in the city. Clams in Their Eyes was about to get serious.
At least, that was the plan. From the moment a man dressed as a '90s professional wrestler took the stage and gave the audience a middle finger, any doubts about whether this show would go mainstream were firmly put to rest.
The night is ostensibly a kind of reckless interpretation of Stars in Their Eyes, with T-shirt cannons, early Soccer AM-style skits, and random “celebrity” appearances thrown in for good measure. Seven performers emerge from the smoke, each with his Clams in Their Eyes introductory video on the big screen, performing as everyone from Iggy Pop to Eminem to Dido.
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Clams in Their Eyes VII felt like a significant milestone for Ed and the team, given that the night sometimes felt like a gathering of friendly banter. The fact that he sold 1,000 tickets to see grown-up people impersonating Avril Lavigne and Rod Stewart is a huge (if somewhat embarrassing) accomplishment. But as Ed reasons, Clam in Their Eyes is simply an extension of his Clam ethos, and one that probably many people can relate to.
“For me, Crumb's approach has always been fun and never taking himself too seriously,” he says. “So I think ‘Clam in Their Eyes’ is the purest form of that.”
Crumb's story is unique but universal. In this particular hip, in this particular city, they're not mythologizing or armed with any lofty vanity about changing the world. In short, it's just a bunch of friends laughing together and inviting you to have a good time. After all, isn't that the true meaning of this musical lark?
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Follow Delicious Clam on Bandcamp.
words: nick haaland
Main image: alex burton
Crumb exterior: alex burton
Gig space: James Winstanley
Crumb cover exterior: Laura Merrill
In their eyes, a shell appears: Reese Pinches
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