J-Pop comes to Sheffield in the shape of The Plastics, a Japanese 5-piece on their first tour of the UK. Language is no barrier when both band and audience just want to get down and dance. Elsewhere, the 'Thirst' line-up of Clock DVA splits and

Romance and Robert Smith , what more could any new couple want from a date night?Roger is keen to impress a new girlfriend, but what will she make of The Cure's bleak monoliths of sound, as they haul Pink Floyd's PA around the UK? Also, the immi

The worst April snows in living memory are no deterrent to those ambassadors of abnegation Killing Joke, ever eager to share their forewarning of the imminent global apocalypse. Roger gets close to the belly of the beast in London and Birmingham, and find

Bewitched by 'Unknown Pleasures' and 'Closer', Roger regrets never getting to see Joy Division live. However, the next-best-thing presents itself when New Order rise from the ashes of Joy Division, playing at Sheffield promoter Disco J

The sound of Young Scotland comes to Sheffield during one week in April 1981. Edwyn Collins and Orange Juice  charm the Limit Club with their pounding jingle-jangle on April 2nd. Seven days later, Roger gets down and boogies to Restricted Code, but headli

Ronald Reagan gets shot and Roger spends one night in Heaven, an innocent wrinkle in a frown of goths. It's  a none-more-black celebration of Northampton's nocturnal heroes Bauhaus. To be honest, it's not his chalice of Chai. However, there

On the menu: a West Yorkshire agit-prop bap with a Midwestern avant-garde filling.

American alternative musicians invade London during one weekend in February 1981.

Sheffield indie band I'm So Hollow meets The Hipsters Uptown at a swanky nightclub in February 1981.

Fetish Records host an industrial music party on The Strand in London, February 1981.