Common people A Sheffield council house and the birth of electric dreams

A band turning up for a session at Studio Electrophonique in the late 1970s could have been forgiven for thinking they had the wrong address. An ordinary Sheffield council house with a caravan parked on the driveway, it was semi-detached with deep pile carpets and a toy poodle with a bark like a wildebeest.

- Helen Pidd

But behind the chintzy curtains, an RAF veteran and panel beater called Ken Patten had handbuilt one of the most pioneering electronic studios in Europe. In return for a £15 recording fee, he helped some of Sheffield's most important bands form their nascent sounds - from Pulp to ABC, Heaven 17 and the Human League, as well as less-heralded acts such as the Doncaster Wheatsheaf Girls Choir.

Now, two former teachers from Sheffield have made a documentary celebrating "one of the great untold stories of British pop music". Premiering at the Sheffield DocFest this week, they paint Patten's home on the Ballifield estate in Handsworth as the unlikely crucible of South Yorkshire's electro scene and Patten its thrifty resident genius.