The young Sheffield band that split before they had time to mature fully and reach their flavoursome peak

I don’t need to mention here all the bands from Sheffield that have deservedly made a lasting impression in the world of pop music. But what about the ones that were on the cusp of something big, but for whom things never quite worked out?

I remember listening to university/community radio station Forge FM in 1992 (I think) while doing my homework and there was one record on quite heavy rotation that stood out due to its great hook. It was a three-chord pop-punk number called I’m Okay and to a 14-year old discovering indie music it sounded raw, youthful and exciting.

The song was a by a band called Various Vegetables, so I tracked down the CD single on Gift Records and also really liked the b-sides Shirk and Hate my valentine. The unique thing about the band was that one or more of the members were about my age, so we had one thing in common and I think they were at least partly responsible for me picking up and learning guitar.

The Veggies, as they were known (at least by my friends anyway), had a couple of follow-up releases including Some day in May and also a 10″ single that included Favourite enemy. They gigged quite a lot in the early 1990s, including a show at the City Hall sandwiched on the bill between Pulp and the Longpigs, and recorded sessions for BBC Radio 1, but they never really took off on a national level.

It seems you can’t keep a good band down though, as a bit of internet research shows that bassist Jody Wildgoose is now recording his own music again after being ill. And I was most excited to stumble on a reunion performance of I’m okay on YouTube from about a year ago (with tagged on acoustic ending fully intact). It certainly still sounds raw here, and although not perhaps as good as I remember, it is still great to hear after all this time: