Book about legendary Sheffield rock club Rebels due to be launched

The event – which unveils the ‘Dirty Stop Out’s Guide to Sheffield – Rebels Edition’ – sees original club DJ Bob Maltby return to the decks.

Rebels was one of the most popular rock clubs in the north of England in the 1980s and 1990s. But it might never have happened if the final Sheffield venture of one of the city’s most famous entrepreneurs had worked out.

Few people realise Peter Stringfellow had more than a little hand in the future launch of the region’s undisputed king of rock clubs.

It was he that opened the Penthouse in 1969 in the space destined became Rebels years later.

His love affair with the venue sited many floors above Dixon Lane didn’t last long. If it had, well, there might have never been a rock club at all.

Peter Stringfellow, and his brother Geoff, had already achieved massive success in Sheffield in the years preceding the Penthouse opening.

Their Burngreave-based King Mojo teenage club attracted stars spanning Jimi Hendix to Ike and Tina Turner. Their performances at the venue were some of their very earliest gigs on record. Not only that, Peter Stringfellow had already been a presenter on the iconic Ready Steady Go! TV show and been a comperé for the Beatles.

The Penthouse was his first venue with an alcohol licence and it didn’t end well.

Peter Stringfellow ended up selling the Penthouse business within months of opening and moved his business interests to Leeds.

It was, in his eyes, a disaster. Fighting became a consistent problem.

Rebels was the brainchild of former Limit bouncer Steve Baxendale.

He said: “On opening night I thought no one had come. I came down the street and only saw four people stood outside. I was gutted.

“But then I opened bottom doors and over 1,000 people were on the stairs - all seven flights of ‘em.”

Bob Maltby spun the discs in the early days. Ken Hall, best known for his years at the Wapentake, was also on the decks. He’s also spinning the discs at the Rebels book’s launch party.

The opening of Rebels was perfectly timed as the rock scene exploded in the mid-1980s with the rise of spandex-charged hair metal following the rise of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal genre a few years earlier.

DJ Lez Wright took over the disc spinning duties in later years – his roots can be traced right back to the Buccaneer – with Rebels becoming one of the most popular rock clubs in the whole country towards the end of the 1980s.

Rebels regular Phil Staniland remembers: “After ascending up the multi flighted, and very steep staircase you entered the club on the top floor and paid through some kind of hole in the wall I seem to remember.

Then you ventured into a dark black- walled one level room with music blasting out even beyond volume 11! It was a great club and not
just popular with rockers.”

The Rock Reunited/Rebels book launch event is set to take place on Saturday, December 10th. Tickets are just £8 and available from www.dirtystopouts.com