Celebrating 10 years of Sunderland culture hub Pop Recs

This year the city centre venue turns 10 with a series of gigs at its third home in High Street West, which has proved a huge success since opening its doors in November 2021.

Half cafe, it serves some of the best food in the city and, half venue, it can host everything from a knitting group to a rave all in one day – it’s a real jewel in the city’s culture crown.

Sitting there with a flat white now, it’s easy to forget the Pop Recs journey. But it’s been a long road, not without its problems, navigating everything from building issues, break ins and a pandemic to the loss of co-founder Dave Harper.

Rewind to 2013 and indie pop darlings Frankie & the Heartstrings came up with the idea to set up a pop-up shop in their home city to promote second album, The Days Run Away, after the Top 40 success of debut album, Hunger.

It was a pretty out there idea for the time, but their passion for the project was infectious.

Anne Tye from Sunderland City Council helped them find premises, council staff helped them spruce up the old Tourist Information Office in Fawcett Street and the band put £4k of their own money into the shop from their record deal, with Pop Recs mark 1 opening its doors on June 1.

Band member Michael McKnight recalls: "It started as a selfish idea to promote our second album, really. It was only supposed to be two weeks and the idea of putting gigs on was to bring people down and do something cool in Sunderland.

"The second album ended up being a big hit nowhere, but people egged us on to keep Pop Recs going. Back then coffee culture hadn’t really started in the city centre, you couldn’t even get a decent flat white. It’s hard to imagine, because it’s such a massive part of people’s day now and there’s so many people doing great things.”

Part coffee and record shop, part gallery and venue, in its first year alone Pop Recs hosted gigs by Badly Drawn Boy, James Bay, The Cribs, The Vaccines, The Charlatans and Franz Ferdinand.

More than 200 people would pack into the shop to see household names in an intimate setting, queuing round the block for gig tickets, back in the day when you had the tangible joy of a physical gig ticket.

That building would go on to be sold a year later, but Dave and Michael didn’t want to close the doors.

They moved into Stockton Road, in what is now Otto, in 2015, continuing to deliver a service to the community, whether it be through exhibitions and selling coffee to hosting gigs, with punk and folk hero Frank Turner launching Pop Recs Mk II.

But the best mates and band members had a vision for bigger premises where Pop Recs could really flourish and reach its full potential.

Back in 2018, they were shown the buildings at the very bottom of High Street West, which had been taken over by Tyne & Wear Building Preservation Trust.

Once home to the very first Binns store in the 1840s, they had fallen into a desperate state of disrepair – and were ripe for a new chapter.

Michael and Dave could see the potential in this historical, but oft-forgotten corner of the city.

Michael said: “You couldn’t even go into the buildings, they were so unsafe, they were falling into the street.

"Back then, there was a lot of cultural activity starting, such as the transformation of The Fire Station, which was all part of the City of Culture 2021 bid. Sunderland didn’t win, but all the projects planned as part of the bid happened anyway and what it did was to shine a light and belief that this is a cultural place.

"I really think Sunderland is a cool place. I was born here and I love living here. Where we’re stood now, in Pop Recs, you’re five minutes from the river, 10 minutes from the beach, there’s beautiful leafy suburbs with beautiful countryside either side.

"The retail side has let the city down in the past, but we’re proud to be part of what is making Sunderland cool now.

"We’re here on a drizzly Tuesday afternoon and the cafe is packed with people eating delicious food, it makes us so proud. It shows how the city has changed and how people are embracing that.”

Just weeks from opening the third Pop Recs, in August 2021, the driving force of the project, Dave, died at just 43, devastating his family, friends and the wider music community.

But his legacy lives on.

Dan Shannon, who’s behind the city’s Midnight Pizza Crü, came on board as a director in 2021 following Dave’s death, with Naomi Griffin later coming on board to make up the trio of directors at the community interest company, which employs nine people.

With a background in hospitality, Dan was determined to do his late friend’s vision justice whilst giving Sunderland the type of vibrant venue it deserved.

"I used to take Dave pizza in lockdown and also not long before he passed away,” said Dan. “He’d always had an idea of a food offering and we’d had a loose conversation about doing a pizza thing.

"As soon as I was shown the cafe space, I started imagining how the space could have a multipurpose offering. At the time of opening, we were dealing with Dave’s death and we just wanted to get Pop Recs over the line.

"Shortly afterwards, we tried to imagine what Dave would have wanted, the finer details, and what you see today is what me and Michael imagined Dave would want.”

Dave is, of course, still an integral part of Pop Recs: he’s on the walls, he’s on the T-shirts, snippets of stories of the band’s rock ‘n’ roll days (which can’t be printed) can still be heard over the clatter of coffee cups and his indomitable passion for boosting Sunderland’s cultural offering flows through the site.

The cafe really hit its stride this year, with a seven-day offering of brunch and lunches, a popular Sunday dinner and pop-up pizza nights.

"We always put our faith in the people of Sunderland, there’s a lot of people here who’ve travelled and eaten in good places and they know what they like,” said Dan.

He added: "It’s great to be a part of the shift in the city, along with places like Cole, Holmeside Coffee, Otto, Wild Fire, little by little it’s raising people’s expectations.

"Most of the people doing exciting things are independent, local people without big budgets, they’re grafting and getting stuff done with a good product.”

A series of gigs from Frankie & the Heartstrings and The Futureheads will take place in May and June to mark the ten-year milestone which, unsurprisingly, sold out in hours.

It will be the first time the Heartstrings have performed properly on stage without Dave, with Field Music’s Pete Brewis stepping in on drums.

An emotional night, no doubt, but a rousing and fitting way to mark ten years of cultural trailblazing.