- The Mirror Cracked-None More 80s!
They say nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.
Since the publication of the book about Sheffields Limit Club Phil Staniland has been calling around the ex members of our first band “The Mirror Cracked” AKA The Mirror Crack’d and so for the first time in thirty years we all got together for a few drinks and a lot of laughs.
The Mirror Cracked will be unknown to anyone reading this (unless you are a Sheffielder in your mid forties) and you certainly wouldn’t want to book us for your wedding (please visit the main website www.lmmuk.com for wedding and party bands / DJs etc) but it was this band that led me to be an entertainment agent and director of LMM.
Back in the early 1980s Phil and Steve and myself were pupils at Herries School in Sheffield.We were all in different years and had nothing in common, initialy ,but a burning desire to play music.We later found a shared sense of humour which helped when we realised that none of us could play particularly well and even getting hold of instruments and rehearsal rooms was a major chore (I see bands of roughly the same age now who all have great gear and have been playing at Rock School -they can nearly all play every rock classic note perfect.)
We were joined by Pete Hiley (who now plays in Boy On A Dolphin ) and began writing a bunch of songs and playing shows.
As a four piece we released one single “Friends/Scramble For Style” which was produced by Kevin Baconfrom The Comsat Angels who went on to produce Ian Brown,Finley Quaye,The Sugarbabes,Ziggy Marley and Ephraim Lewis .
The Mirror Cracked Played loads of gigs around Sheffield at venues like The Limit, The Leadmill (where we had a great rehearsal room upstairs,) The Royal Oak (where a memorable poster shows The Human League and Def Leppard played the same week back in 1979),The Crucible Theatre (for The Stars On Sunday series of shows which featured most of the early 80s Sheffield acts),The Hallamshire on West Street,The Top Rank (we came second in the Sheffield Star Battle Of The Bands Rock And Pop Contest which,and this seems strange to me now,attracted over 1500 every week to see about 60 bands in heats of six battle it out.)On one occasion we were supported by Pulp at the George IV on Infirmary Road (as recalled by Jarvis Cocker in an hilarious and spectacularly unflattering description in Martin Lillekars book about the Sheffield Music Scene “Beats Working For A Living.” We also appeared with a Jarvis Cocker comedy side project “Heroes Of The Beach” at an all day Anti Unemployment concert at the Leadmill.My main memory from this was the Heroes great “Evel Kneivel” song and a when they mimed to “Come On Eileen.”I actually remember quite a lot about this concert (the Heroes Of The Beach also threw sweets out into the audience) but I can’t remember playing!I read that we played on a Pulp blog http://www.pulpwiki.net/Jarvis/MiscellaneousLive
Our first gig though was at the Wimpy on Fargate and we were paid with a burger,fries and shake.I think Susan and Joanne from The Human League were at this gig (and that was a BIG deal-they were royalty in Sheff.)
This era is celebrated by Pete Mckee in one of the paintings from his 22 views of Sheffield Exhibition and I am incredibly proud that if you look on the Sheffield Records Painting you can see the name Mirror Cracked up there with some legendary Sheffield band names in the Sheffield live poster.
Pete Mckees Sheffield Bands Painting