Prince Shops at Bardwells

Guardian journalist goes looking for UK underground music. Finds it. The end.

“My tour begins in Sheffield. In the past, the south Yorkshire city has produced bands that embody all that is great about British rock and pop: irreverence, intelligence, fun … The Fat Truckers are lugubrious about both their city and its music scene, like a synthesizer-prodding equivalent of Monty Python’s Four Yorkshiremen. According to them, most things in Sheffield are rubbish, except for a local condiment called Henderson’s Relish.”

“Aside from Fat Truckers, who weld pounding synthesizers to songs about “cheap motorbikes, import-export business and multiplex cinemas – we’re a social comment on modern living”, there’s I Monster, who had a huge hit last year with Daydream; the Mu Chan Clan, fronted by a Japanese ex-pat (“sort of shouting and screaming, quite punky”); the splendidly named Kid Acne and the equally splendidly named Kings Have Long Arms. All fit into the Sheffield blueprint, which matches futuristic electronica influenced by the city’s industrial past with a bizarre sense of humour.”