It isn’t very often that Mandi comes with me to local gigs, not so much because of the music but because she doesn’t like the fact that I have a tendency to get too involved with everyone there and end up ignoring her. Tonight was different though, as we are both massive fans of Josh Kemp and she wanted to go and see him, even though it is a ‘school night’ and Mandi gets up rather early for work. The gig was Under The Tree, a regular acoustic night that takes place at Bodega, and Josh was headlining.

We arrived a little bit late and missed a couple of acts, Jamie Moon was just starting as we arrived, someone I have played a few times but can’t recall seeing him live before although I must have done. I said a few hellos when we walked through the doors, but I took Mandi and sat with her at a good vantage point near the stage.

As a live music venue, Bodega can be a little bit strange. The upstairs is a dedicated venue that is equipped to deal with bands, and as such (and the fact that you have to pay to get upstairs) it attracts people who actually want to see live music. Downstairs is a public bar space and as a result plays host to those lowest of the low people, the talkers. Bodega seems to attract a large cross section of people; the people who sat at the table next to ours certainly didn’t look like they were there to witness some live music, something they proved by talking all the fucking way through. Thankfully they soon left, presumably for somewhere else more suited to their needs.

The low hum of chatter hangs over the tables, replacing the cigarette smoke that used to gather there.

It is very unusual for a Nottingham musician to escape my attention, but tonight I saw for the first time a singer whose name I had never even seen anywhere before tonight. Yasmin Issaka took to the stage armed with just a guitar and rolled through a seductive set of soul tinged wonderment which I managed to focus on, zoning myself out of the million conversations that were taking place around us. Determined to find out more, as soon as I was home I typed her name into Google and found myself at her Reverbnation profile, where I proceeded to download a couple of her tracks, one of which will definitely find itself being played on my American radio show this weekend.

It’s always nice to see Josh Kemp performing, with his upbeat compositions and loveable lad stage presence, he has never to my knowledge put on a below par show. Although this set was shorter than usual, he turned the crowd round to his side immediately. I would have liked to have seen his cover of ‘Sweet Child of Mine’ of course, but he delivered the goods nevertheless and ended on the always popular ‘Hangover Song’. It was over far too quickly, and we were home before we knew it.

The Nottingham music scene can be annoying, self-indulgent, and a little bit up its arse. On the other hand it can fill you with pride. I have my playlist to organise for this weekend’s American show, doing it after a gig always makes my head burst with possibility.

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Saturday 28th September

This is the weekend of The Great Notts Show, a weekend of music and various entertainments and food. When the Market Square was redeveloped and reopened in 2007, a lot of people complained about it. They were wrong; the ‘new look’ Market Square was an ideal space for live music, markets, the big wheel, an open air ice-rink at Christmas, and much more besides. Unfortunately, Nottingham Council are a short-sighted bunch of idiots who immediately stopped City Pulse, stopped having the big wheel, reduced the farmer’s market to a handful of stalls, and turned the Christmas attraction into a small scale funfair with no ice-rink. One of the better uses of the space was the ‘Nottingham Riviera’, a makeshift beach in the middle of a landlocked city. This was provided by James Mellors, one of the main fairground owners whose name you won’t escape at Goose Fair next week, totally free of charge. What the public didn’t realise was that this was part of a very clever long game; the first beach was a lot of sand and water, with a bar and a smattering of stalls and rides. As he was providing the whole thing at no expense to the council, nobody could complain about the use of council tax money. In my opinion, more council tax money should be spent on entertainment; music festivals being the biggest area seeing as we are in the “UK capital of music”. Over the years, Mellors has manipulated the beach to his own commercial means, which is understandable. However, I do feel that the council should perhaps have stepped in and asked him to rein it in a bit, as over the last four years the free beach has reduced and the space devoted to stalls and rides has increased. The time scale has also been scaled down, and what we had this summer was basically Goose Fair with a bucket of sand in the middle. This was an unnecessary move as Goose Fair is one of the biggest and most exciting events in the Nottingham calendar, attended by the entire population of the city.

The Great Notts Show is perhaps the first proper use of the Market Square for about two years, although it appeared cluttered. Live music was split between a small stage and a tent. I’m pretty sure that a big stage could have been erected by the Council House in the same way that it was for City Pulse. It’s good that the council - who are well known for making bloody stupid decisions that go against public opinion – are finally getting the right idea, although time will tell, but they need to hand over control to the organisers and not get involved as they apparently make a mess of things. We didn’t stay long as Mandi wasn’t feeling well and the heat and crowds didn’t help, but we did manage to catch our very talented friend Josh Kemp performing. I have written about Josh’s immense talent before so don’t need to go over it again, but he did something today that I haven’t seen him do before. Perhaps wary of the audience being ‘the public’ and not his usual crowd, he played more cover versions in one set than I can remember them doing. What stood out for me was a cover of ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’, which I had never heard him do before, and made a point of asking him to record for radio play. I am the reason that there exists a cover by Josh of ‘I Wanna Be Like You’, so it would be cool to have another cover of his to play on NottinghamLIVE’s (one word) occasional cover version of the week feature.

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