The Sheffield Scenester

“Electrifying… Familiarise yourself with these mugshots, for you will definitely be seeing a lot more of them this year” – Clash Magazine

The Violet May will be releasing new single ‘TV’ on May 30th via Oh! Inverted World Records.
‘TV’ is the lead track to be taken from the forthcoming debut EP to be released on June 27th, available on all formats.

With a nod to the media’s wide spread obsession of reality TV stars and fame for fame’s sake, the new single ‘TV’ is a fine example of the bands gritty slink, seductively swaggering through a haze of cigarette smoke.

TVM’s ferocious combination of distorted bass lines, jack knife guitars and McClure’s prowling voice has already caught the attention of tastemakers who have backed the band from the beginning, winning support from Steve Lamacq as "his new favourite band", BBC Radio 1's Rob Da Bank and Huw Stephens, XFM's Eddy Temple Morris and John Kennedy.
The Sheffield based five piece first bonded over a shared appreciation of Queens of the Stone Age, Masters of Reality and Screaming Trees amongst others, while discussing a mutual irritation with conveyor belt, paint-by-numbers indie bands, the band say:

“We’d lost faith in British guitar music,” says Sheffield-born McClure.
“There was twee indie band epidemic! We were all fed up and that brought us together.”

If you’re new to their marriage of anthemic melodicism with heavy brawling grooves you can check out their debut single ‘Bright or Better’, directed by Jesus & the Mary Chain’s Douglas Hart featuring the band in the den of iniquity that is London’s Stringfellow’s Club

Having recently returned from Germany touring with The Chapman Family and a sold-out Italy tour , the band have a busy year ahead with headline shows including KOKO and Proud Galleries as well as festival slots confirmed (Iceland Airwaves in October, Boardmasters in August).

LIVE DATES!!!
Thursday, May 19 - LONDON - Proud Galleries (No Time For Heroes)
Friday, May 27th - BLACKBURN - Live Lounge
Saturday, May 28th - BARNSLEY - Cedar Rooms
Friday 24th June - SHEFFIELD - Plug (supporting Kate Jackson)
Saturday, July 2nd - BIRMINGHAM - HMV Institute
Saturday, July 16th - MANCHESTER - Night & Day
Friday, July 22nd - SHEFFIELD - Tramlines
Saturday, July 23rd - SHEFFIELD - Tramlines
Friday, July 29th - LONDON - KOKO (Club NME)
Saturday, Aug 6th - STOKE - The Underground
Saturday, Aug 14th - NEWQUAY - Boardmasters Festival

The Violet May are also proud to announce that their new single "TV" will be available from all good digital stores (itunes, amazon, HMV, etc). They are also offering the single for FREE with all pre-orders of the forthcoming EP out next month. Here's the link...

On Monday 23rd and Tuesday 31st of May Chris Goodyear, guitarist with Driftrun, went on Sheffield Live radio (Communities Live show) to promote the upcoming Weston Party. On the Monday he spoke in great depth about the artists performing, how it was organized, as well what other things will be happening on the day, including DJ’s and food stalls. On the Tuesday Chris talked about the music scene in Sheffield today and how it compares to other big cities such as Manchester and London, as well as his thoughts on TV reality shows…admittedly that last one was a bit of a short conversation! He did of course have time to talk about his own band, Driftrun and as a taster of their music the song ‘LSD’ was played on the Monday while ‘Berlin Wall’ was played on the Tuesday, both classic examples of Driftrun’s foray into the world of Drum and Bass, so if you missed either, the full podcasts are still available for download via the Sheffield Live website.

On a cool Saturday lunchtime, May 28th to be precise, we found ourselves strolling down Fargate only to bump into Tom Moz Casserly and Pete Botterill of Ripoff Britain fame. Casually stood outside Clinton Cards, guitars in hand as they were happily busking away, playing not only their own material, but various covers of some classic blues tracks, a genre close to their hearts, as well as more well known tracks. We stopped to say hello and asked if they were enjoying this rather unorthodox set, to which Moz replied;
“Well it’s pretty good actually because you only get a passing audience….so you don’t really have to know the whole song, just enough for them to recognize. Mind you I think the Owl Protection tent (which was situated no more than twenty yards away) is probably getting fed up with us playing the same stuff!”
Obviously the sound quality was nowhere near as good as when we’ve seen them live…after all Moz’s by now famous guitar Lucille was no doubt still in bed as they both had nicely polished acoustic guitars instead, but even so the enthusiasm was there….so the owls didn’t really have that much to complain about. Unfortunately though we had places to go and people to see so after requesting the Thin Lizzy classic ‘Whiskey In The Jar’, we strolled on humming along to their pretty faithful version after leaving a tip of course!