There are certain artists who are endlessly and essentially tied to their point of origin. You can’t think of The Smiths without thinking of gloomy Manchester, you can’t listen to Sam Fender without considering the context of the North East, or, as perhaps the ultimate example, there is no Pulp without the odd culture of Sheffield. I say ‘odd’, and I mean it, because Sheffield has to be one of the most complex and conflicting hotbeds of history. Within a relatively small patch of land, you have so many merging legacies. There is the industry of the place and the looming remembrance of the miners’ strikes and the violent clashes involved. There is rock history with bands like Def Leppard and Arctic Monkeys, but there is also a huge history of electronic and new wave acts from the area, as in the 1980s, especially, the city buzzed with basement venues pioneering the sound. There’s nature and city, peaks and troughs, posh parts and impoverished parts, and all of it is smushed together in both land mass and, reflectively, in the world of Pulp. Add on top of that the straight-up call-outs to local areas, streets and hot spots, and there can be no separation of the band from their hometown. You could do a whole tour of the city purely based on areas given a shout out by Jarvis Cocker in one or other tune, hitting up the place where he fell out of a window or the music heritage sign that sits on the outside of what was once The Leadmill. Overwhelmingly, that tends to be the venue people associate with the band, as the group first performed there back in August 1980 and has been loud, proud supporters of it ever since, especially during its recent landlord battle. But, if there’s one venue that truly launched Pulp, it’s another lost spot, although this one is long since buried.  While Leadmill might have hosted the band’s first show, it was The Limit club down on West Street that saw them evolve. Opening in 1978, it was there right as Cocker and co were beginning to form into a group, and it was on the dance floor there where their musical horizons were broadened through the club’s early obsession with synth music. As the spiritual home of another Sheffield act, The Human League, The Limit came to represent exactly the lines between pop, rock and alternative sounds that Pulp would capture throughout their career. When they first started out, it all lay far more on the classic side with Cocker openly admitting that he was busy trying to be a Morrissey-type figure, writing gloomy guitar tunes. But as they began playing at The Limit regularly throughout the early 1980s, also becoming the first place they gained any real press attention, you can hear their sound evolving. Through their first three albums, you can hear the impact of the venue creeping in more and more. It also seemed to undeniably lead to a point in 1984 where Candida Doyle was brought in, now found on their stages, manning a huge keyboard and synth set-up. While they had keyboard players before, bringing Doyle in felt like a commitment to their sound remaining more than just that of your standard rock band, and after years of seeing more interesting stuff than just guitars at The Limit, the venue left an impression. On the band’s latest album, The Limit is immortalised. Inspiring the sleazy scenes on ‘Slow Jam’, the band put a big image of the club’s door up on their screens when they play the track live. “This is a photo of a very, very important place in my development and a lot of the people on this stage,” Cocker said to introduce the track at the O2 in London, “You have to pretend it’s almost ten o’clock on a Monday evening, because you have to get in before ten to get in for free. Down there, you’re gonna hear some music that will change your life,” painting the scene that changed his as Pulp evolved to greatness in the club’s image. ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE The post The long-lost Sheffield club that launched Pulp first appeared on Far Out Magazine.