Today we found that she had removed her Twitter account, and stripped her Facebook profile down to nothing but the default silhouette. Her Facebook page for her music had vanished completely, and pages usually take two weeks to totally disappear so this must have been timed to perfection for it to happen today. Strangest of all, her official website has gone. Darren and I commented on how there were only ever two photographs of her on the Internet, which could have been standard library shots of a model. Thankfully, we aren't the only people to have been taken in, unless of course everyone was in on it and have been working together to make this hoax really work. Mike Atkinson (who writes about music for The Nottingham Evening Post (as I still call it), Leftlion, The Guardian, and his own music blog, but most importantly and career defining of all is one of the contributors to the popular radio show NottinghamLIVE) voted for her in one of the heats of The Future Sound Of Nottingham contest to open the Splendour Festival. Either he was fooled too, or he was in on the joke. Maybe it was NUSIC who set the whole thing up to try and undermine us, or maybe it was gig-shy radio presenter Dean Jackson taking a break from pretending to give a shit about the local music scene to try and make monkeys out of his rivals to try and win back some listeners? The really odd part to this story though, is that all the while we have been talking with her, not only about organising the live session but her sending music in and thanking us for playing it, is that we have dealt only with her. Today, a phone call was made to Trent Sound from her 'manager' (boyfriend?) to cancel the session because she had been told that she had to do three songs, and she only had two. Firstly, she has more than two songs, I have more than two of her songs in my collection of Nottingham artists. Secondly, how was she ever going to do a gig with only two songs? The Future Sound Of Nottingham competition didn't have a live heat in the city this year, so she wasn't required to perform, which is convenient as nobody seems to have actually seen her live.
Whoever has pulled off this sting nearly had us, by discussing it on air we have beaten them. They can no longer brag about how they fooled Nottingham's most influential music flag-wavers, because we turned the tables and the proof is recorded. If this was Scooby Doo, we would be pulling the mask off someone to find out who this mystery singer really was.
One question remains unanswered though; who was that singer on the tracks we were sent? Because she has a lovely voice.
I was of the opinion that our hoaxer had intended to inconvenience the show by taking away our live session guest. Fortunately, NottinghamLIVE is a much sought after gig as pretty much everyone who is anyone has appeared so far. We would never have been without an act, and have to thank John Hardy for stepping in at the last minute and performing a set of beautifully heartfelt and authentic songs.
Whoever that hoaxer was, you must try harder.
We did wonder if this was in any way connected to a strange man who has been sitting on the wall outside Trent Towers for the last two shows we have done. But it probably wasn't. That would be stupid.
===
My daily blog can be delivered straight to your Kindle for 99p a month (link)
