My radio/pork scratching treat might have come to an end tonight, as I bought four packets to take to Trent Towers (not an actual tower) and was fed up of them by the end of the second bag. I persevered with the third bag but gave in and put the fourth bag in the cupboard for Sunday, if nobody else steals them that is. It is quite an easy thing (I imagine) to choke on a pork scratching, which is what a thief would deserve.

There was a happy atmosphere in the studio, despite the fact that it was Mike Atkinson’s final show with us. He hasn’t been with us very long but has proved a valued member of the team with his monthly appearances. To mark the occasion we gave him full control of the show rather than the final hour, with a full playlist of his choosing and even the booking of this week’s live music guest. In fact there wasn’t a great deal for Darren and me to do other than keep chipping in every now and again, whether Mike wanted our input or not. Cassia was on hand to do the gig guide of course, which we did in the first hour out of a slight necessity as not one of Mike’s chosen tracks had been uploaded. It turns out that he hadn’t been added to the Dropbox system when Trent Sound changed it. The only course of action was for me to download them from an email he sent me earlier and add them myself. This put us all on edge a little, but we soon got ourselves back into the swing of things. Besides, it wouldn’t be NottinghamLIVE without something going wrong, better it happen right at the start of the show. Perhaps we should instigate a listener drinking game where everyone has to take a shot whenever either one of us presenters or the computer system fucks up? Thursdays would be interesting with nobody in Nottingham in a fit state to go to work after that.

Mike’s musical picks ran through a potted history of Nottingham music, going through the genres with the knowledge and wit that got him invited to become a regular contributor to the show in the first place. To mark the occasion, I went through my archive and found the Christmas 2011 edition of Leftlion, the one with everyone connected to the scene (at the time), on the front cover. I wanted him to point himself out as I couldn’t find him, so we all did a picture of ourselves pointing to ourselves.

All above photos © Steve Oliver

Both Kane Ashmore and I were aware of each other but couldn’t say for sure if we had actually met each other before. It’s a funny situation sometimes as you can say a very quick hello to someone at a gig but immediately forget who he or she is, or even worse you see him or her again and think they are someone else. I knew for a fact that I had not met Rebecca King in person, but as is the way these days, we ‘knew’ each other thanks to Facebook and Twitter. When I haven’t met the guests before, I’m always a little wary as I am (honestly) very shy around people that I don’t know. Thankfully they both turned out to be really nice people so I was able to relax, especially as a ‘do you remember?’ type conversation sprung up about children’s television. Rebecca had brought her young son (two years old if I remember correctly) with her so she joined Kane for one song during the set. They aren’t a duo so it didn’t matter too much; in fact Rebecca’s involvement was a bonus feature really as Kane was the booking. The live session was four songs long, and as it was his swansong show, Mike took Kane into the broadcast studio for the brief interview/chat.

As we entered the third and final hour, Mike continued with his choice of tracks from Nottingham past and present. There’s a lot of songs there, so now I have the collection saved to my computer which will be good for The Sound Of Nottingham UK as I like to chuck a few oldies in there for a totally different audience.

All above photos ©Matt Stone

I used to keep the archive of NottinghamLIVE shows, but when I lost shitloads of files when my old laptop died I couldn’t be bothered to try and find them all again. Now I just record the live sessions for my library, but tonight I made an exception and recorded the whole thing as it was an important part of the history of not only the show (one show away from our anniversary), but of the Nottingham music scene as a whole.

You can relive Mike’s final show here.

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