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Thursday, 1 May 2014


Photo taken by Dean Jackson

Despite being one of the cogs in the machine that is the Nottingham music scene, people keep forgetting to ask me to take part in certain things; I doubt very much that I will be asked to be a judge in this year’s Future Sound Of Nottingham competition for example, nor will I ever be part of one of NUSIC’s live workshop events. DHP dropped the bollock of not sending me Indiana’s song for my American radio show, despite the fact that the release date was a particular Monday, so I could have played it on The Sound Of Nottingham UK and it would have been heard on the Sunday before release day.  As I’m still something of an outsider with the scene (mainly down to my refusal to kiss the arses that require kissing in this city), it was nice to be asked by David Nolan if I’d interview him about his biography on Jake Bugg. I assume that he had done some kind of research about me and found that I am not exactly a fan of the singer.

I was David’s last interview of a long day of media-whoring (I’m sure there’s a more professional term for it but can’t think of it at the moment) for the book. Having driven to Nottingham from Manchester he did a pre-recorded interview for East Midlands Today (BBC regional news), spoke to The Nottingham Evening Post (as I still call it), a live radio interview in the afternoon and various other outlets before meeting me at half past seven this evening. We had arranged to meet at the BBC, but from that point I didn’t know where we would be doing our bit, a quick scan on the way to the studio revealed to me that there was a pub over the road and along a bit, and the UK’s only remaining branch of Hooters, hardly conducive to a journalism assignment.

At exactly half past seven I arrived at the BBC just as David was being shown out of the building by Dean Jackson, who he had just done a pre-recorded interview with for Saturday’s edition of The Beat. Without a place to go to do the interview, Dean Jackson introduced himself to me (presumably and thankfully not recognising me from some of the less than complimentary things I have said about him) and invited us to use a conference room in the BBC building, he even made me a cup of tea. I’ve never said anything bad about him or his character, which is a good thing because he is a really nice man. When we were doing NottinghamLIVE I tried to instigate a rivalry between the two shows. My biggest issue was the fact that I have never seen him at a gig despite his apparent stature in the local music scene, but I now take all of it back as a result of his niceness.

The interview went really well considering I wasn’t really sure if I should even be doing it as I am not a fan of Jake Bugg. However I steered things around the Nottingham music scene and the impact that Bugg has had on it. My lack of questions was countered by the fact that David talked brilliantly with a real passion for music. To counter the fact that I was the last of the day on his interview schedule, I am now going to type it up and get it published on NottinghamLIVE first thing in the morning, thus giving us the exclusive. That will also annoy the people who keep ‘forgetting’ to involve me in things.

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