The kinks with the new studio had thankfully been ironed out, which was a good thing as three of our studio guests had pulled out at the last minute. Just lately we have been building the show around a big event, (Rosie May benefit, Arboretum, Splendour) and this coming weekend there are two big events in Nottingham; Deerstock and Waterfront. We had invited Jed, the organiser of Deerstock along to discuss the festival, along with Bainy and Andy Haynes. Bainy and Andy are hosting the event, and I thought a good twist would be to have them talk to Jed, as they used to host Notts Live before it became NottinghamLIVE. Unfortunately, none of them were able to make it in the end. The live session took place in the first hour, as Joe the sound engineer had a gig of his own to get to, which meant that we had two hours remaining and very little material. The show actually went quite well, as we had a lot of music to play and didn't dither and drift off into weird tangents like we are prone to do.
Our live session guest was Ar Mulah, a rapper and producer who has only recently entered our radar. When we took over the show we agreed that we should try and widen the net as far as Nottingham's eclectic music scene is concerned and try and be more representative. Bainy told me a few weeks back that he and Andy Haynes couldn't make any sort of inroad into the hip hop scene, although they did try. The old show, as good as it was, (and I'm in no way dissing them after what I wrote when we took over), was very much centred around guitar bands, singer-guitarists, and our selection of talented female singers. We decided that Nottingham music is Nottingham music, and as such we should include all genres, regardless of whether or not we are particularly into it. It isn't a show about our personal tastes, it is an all embracing show about the 'UK capital of music' (my expression that literally millions of people haven't started using). Of course we have our favourites, but we're allowed to. One area that NottinghamLIVE has embraced is rap, and Ar Mulah tonight became our third rap guest.
I always get far more nervous about meeting and hosting rappers than I should, as there's this built in assumption that they are going to be aggressive and 'swagger'. The funny thing is that the rappers have so far been the coolest and nicest guests. At the end of the day they have turned up to promote their wares and perform on one of the city's biggest platforms, and they are just as happy to be at Trent Towers as we are. I'd have a hip hop guest every week if it meant that we never had to work with arrogant cunts like Six By Seven again.
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