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Pulp began at the City Comprehensive, Sheffield in 1978.
The original line-up was Mark Swift, David Lockwood, Peter Dalton and Jarvis Cocker.
Originally known as Arabacus Pulp (after a commodity Jarvis learned about during economics)
this was soon shortened to Pulp because nobody else knew what the full name meant.
In the beginning, practises were held at Jarvis' granny's house and the
first song ever written was called "Shakespeare Rock". David Lockwood's departure heralded the
beginnings of an unsteady line-up when he left and was replaced by Philip Thompson. Pulp's first
project was a film which was made before they played any concerts. "The Three Spartans", which
was shown at school with a 10p admission fee, only featured two spartans - the third was depicted
by a hat on a cane. By 1980 Pulp had been mentioned in a booklet which was part of the "Bouquet
of Steel" compilation of South Yorkshire bands and soon after they played their first concert (with
Mark Swift replaced by Jimmy Sellars) at the Rotherham Arts Centre in July of that year. A month
later, at the Sheffield Leadmill, Russell Senior first encountered Pulp and he reviewed them for his
fanzine "The Bath Banker". After the first few concerts, Pulp got two new band members - Jamie
Pinchbeck on bass and Wayne Furniss on drums. The first recordings, made in June 1981, were
given to John Peel at a Radio 1 roadshow in Sheffield resulting in the band being asked to travel
down to London for a session recorded by Dale Griffin (drummer of Mott the Hoople). The sessions
were heard by Statik Records' Nigel Burnham and they contributed a track "What Do You Say"
(from the demo) to the compilation album "Your Secret's Safe With Us" which was released early in
1982. That year, all the band members left school, forcing Jamie and Peter to leave the group as
they were off to University. Tony Perrin was working with Pulp and arranged for them to record a
mini album with the line-up of Jarvis and Simon Hinkler along with David Hinkler, Wayne Furness,
Peter Boam, Jarvis' sister Saskia and Gary Wilson (credited as ''Beefy Gary O'').
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