Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Agig in a Middlesbrough artwork, the room smells of blood. A rainbow of confetti is scattered on the floor. Someone has been making music by shaking the rusty springs of their father’s sofa. The walking artist Shlinga bends and climbs around the cultivated wires; later, Finn Darrell pulls a needle through their skin as stomping loops fill the air. This was the latest gig hosted by Industrial Coast, the Teesside based music and event promoters who have found themselves at the forefront of the English arts scene.
Twenty-four-hour noise, 50p tickets and a £999 digital release are some of the label’s unrelenting promotional tactics. Gigs can be found in old pubs or any available space, and the people at the doors are lenient with the entry rules. The point, I’m told, is to get comfortable people in the room.
The loose team draws many into its fold and rejects a few, but Steve Kirby is undoubtedly the most important person. The 58-year-old from Stockton-on-Tees started the project in 2018 as a partner in his global corporate career. Despite his age, Kirby is a TV personality, and his Instagram posts – “BORO IS NOT THE NEW BERLIN” – have reached as far as the River Tees.
Kirby thought that untrained, untrained musicians would make the best pool. “There will always be people doing things in their front rooms with tools,” he says. “I was writing from my kitchen, so it was a natural fit.”
After receiving Arts Council funding, the Industrial Coast went on to showcase artists such as Scott King, Coil’s Drew McDowall, and Evicshen. Kirby took part in his career in managing the Marks & Spencer cemetery, to make more room in his life on the Industrial Coast. “Fortunately, my wife works, and she’s very supportive of what I’m trying to do with labels and gigs.”
Like many northern towns, Middlesbrough has suffered greatly after deindustrialisation. Drug addiction is another problem. A recent study showed Middlesbrough has more cocaine in its daily water supply than any European city. In 2019, 26 out of 1,000 the residents were users of crack or opiates. When I arrived at the port town’s “entertainment centre”, police stood over an unconscious woman who was believed to have fainted and collapsed between Debenhams and House of Fraser.
But against the odds, Middlesbrough has created its own creative universe. As well as the Industrial Coast, there are organizations including The Auxiliary – which runs the town’s Sonic Arts Week – and the Creative Factory, as well as places like Cafe Etch and the micropub Disgraceland. The event has been supported by BBC Radio 6 presenter Mary Anne Hobbs, and the MIMA art gallery – currently hosting the New Contemporaries 2026 exhibition – will receive a Turner prize later this year. Documentary assistant and local artist Rachel Deakin finds her Middlesbrough muse easy: “The light is magic – it touches this side of the beach.”
As their father’s mentor, Kirby clearly influenced Middlesbrough’s young artists; several shaved their heads in line with him and called themselves Avant-Sharps, meaning the existing group of Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice.
Wren Adobe is one of these acolytes. The 23-year-old singer studies in Manchester and can’t wait to get back home and build the city. Although he admits that some places in Boro can be a “string” as a teenager, he says that “Middlesbrough has the best art in the country”.
Adobe traces the city’s “mercurial” art back to its “rare, dark history”. But that inspiration can be two-fold: lacking and creating new political concerns. “If someone is going to vote for Farage or whatever, they shouldn’t,” Adobe says. “At the same time, he’s doing this because he’s been duped.”
Seb Hewison, 19, who became a singer under Kirby, says there is a need for young people in the area to express themselves. “Many who like music and art go to uni,” he says, “but for some boys, things turn bad.”
Kirby hopes to continue to inspire Adobe and Hewison to believe that their work is worthy of escaping their bedrooms. He points to Scarborough artist James Balf as an example: “He’s worked with Rainy Miller, who’s co-billed with Richie Culver” – two leading lights in “Northern Gothic” events that have made waves across the north in recent years. “This is a 43-year-old guy and I don’t think he played until last year.”
As a northern Gothic showcase, the Industrial Coast inspires artists to create work – and in their forgotten northern towns. “There are a lot of people who want something fun but don’t want to go to London,” says Haydn Landis, 26, an artist from Hartlepool who works on the Industrial Coast. “They were like: ‘Why, let’s start here.’ There is no real reason to live in Teesside, but the people who do, the ball is in their court. “
Middlesbrough has apparently turned deindustrialisation into industrial music. And for the city’s artists, living with nothing is an opportunity to create: “It’s one of the toughest places in the country,” Landis says. “I think it’s great.”
