This was a Home of Metal project, generously supported by Historic England’s Everyday Heritage Grants: Celebrating Working Class Histories.
Home of Metal’s first major exhibition in 2011 showcased important touchstones in local metal history, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, Diamond Head were some of bands who, in their own different ways, carved out what has come to typify the sound of heavy metal. We also dedicated a big part of the exhibition to Napalm Death, and Godflesh, who took metal in heavy, subversive directions, grinding the ferocity of metal with the rawness of punk. This metal punk crossover was also steeped in a do-it-yourself culture and anti-capitalist politics. At the exhibition, we gathered fanzines, hand-drawn leaflets, and bootleg cassettes to tell Napalm Death’s origin story, and the Mermaid appeared on dozens of these. We’ve been intrigued to learn more about the Mermaid ever since.
With project researcher Sarah Lafford, and a team of volunteers, we held interviews with musicians that had performed at the venue, as well as audience members that attended. We used social media and word of mouth to do a call out for people to contribute their memories of the venue and surrounding scene, as well as those that had kept or collected ephemera ie photos, flyers and posters.
Through the oral histories that Sarah captured, we started to build a bank of varied memories and stories which helped to paint a picture of the surrounding area of Sparkhill, the Mermaid pub itself, memorable gigs that took place there as well as the culture of DIY politics.
“This was the magic, this was literally kids doing it for themselves. This was the real DIY. This was the real punk rock.” Justin Broadrick
Over a series of months, the team transcribed and edited the oral histories collected, and turned these into a 4 part podcast series and zine-type publication which was launched in June 2023.
All editions of the series can be acessed here: At The Mermaid – Podcast – Apple Podcasts
Copies of the zine are for sale via: Home of Metal | At The Mermaid zine
The project achieved a feature in the Guardian which can be read in full here