Notts music 2015

January 1 2015

2014 saw a sold out show at the Capital FM Arena by Jake Bugg, a Top 20 single for Indiana, critical acclaim for Ronika and Sleaford Mods, plus a two-month arena tour with Ed Sheeran for Saint Raymond. So what in store for Nottingham musicians in 2015?

THERE has been no date set for Jake Bugg’s third album but you could bet your house on Nottingham’s biggest music star releasing it by the end of the year.

Remember, Shangri La followed just a year after his No. 1 self-titled debut but that was at the end of 2013.

While touring the world this year, the 20-year-old (he turns 21 in February) has been crafting new music, playing a number of fresh tunes at gigs such as Looking Down The Alley and Hold On You.

We can also expect an arena tour to follow and a return to the Capital FM Arena, which he played in February.

Snapping at his heels is Saint Raymond, 19-year-old Callum Burrows from Bramcote, who has been building momentum all year for the release of his debut album.

As well as three songs in the iTunes Top 30 (a fourth single Fall At Your Feet is out this week), he went on the road with Ed Sheeran for two months playing arenas across the UK and Europe, including two shows in Nottingham.

“2014 has been insane, all the shows, recording the album, and obviously the tour with Ed Sheeran,” he said, promising the album would be out “earlyish 2015”.

One would hope it lands before he plays his sell-out show at Rock City in February, only the second Notts artist to do that. The other? Jake Bugg, of course.

The album was finished months ago, as was the debut by his mates Amber Run, the anthemic guitar band who got together at uni in Nottingham.

They released three singles on RCA and a fourth, I Found, is due in January.

What we do have a date for is Indiana’s No Romeo album, which will be released on January 26.

The 27-year-old mum-of-two, who lives in Long Eaton, has had phenomenal support from Radio 1 this year, earning her a Top 20 single, Solo Dancing.

Don’t be surprised to see her at Splendour this summer after a year off from the festival when she joined the line-up for DHP Family’s new No Tomorrow festival in Wollaton Park last summer.

Expect more new music from Ronika, whose Selectadisc album picked up phenomenal reviews.

As did Sleaford Mods. The punk duo’s latest album Divide And Exit made a number of end-of-year polls including the NME and The Guardian. Their Rescue Rooms gig on January 27 is sold out.

Dog Is Dead, now called D.I.D., have been exploring a sludgier, if still melodic, sound. Hear them at The Bodega in March.

Notts-raised soprano Lucy Kay goes on tour with Britain’s Got Talent winners Collabro this month, including the Royal Concert Hall. The 25-year-old has been performing for celebrities and royalty, here and in Hong Kong, following the Top 20 success of her debut album, Fantasia.

Grime star Gino, who has a phenomenal following on social media, should break through this year.

Others expected to build on their success in 2014 are Gallery 47, who toured with Paul Weller; Joel Baker, who had Radio 1 support from Huw Stephens and Fearne Cotton; Harleighblu who played festivals across Europe, and guitar band Lacey, fresh from winning a support slot with James Blunt at the Capital FM Arena.

Harleighblu

July 2014

IT was at last summer’s Splendour festival and a backstage chat with Jake Bugg’s manager that the seeds were sown for Harleighblu’s current success.
She had been on the local music scene for a few years, picking up acclaim and tips for success on a regular basis. Then came the deal with Tru Thoughts and the subsequent debut album Forget Me Not, plus national airplay and magazine cover features.
But she’s stepped it up a gear this year, making her Glastonbury debut last week, playing the Isle of Wight Festival, festivals in Switzerland and France, with more to follow including Bestival and The Great Escape.
“There are lots of great things coming up,” says the 22-year-old, who lives in Carrington.
“It’s going to be a good summer. It feels like it’s going to be my year.”
It all started with a mini-tour of the UK, including the Rescue Rooms, in February.
“I’ve not stopped since then,” she says.
The jump from local gigs to international festivals has been down to her finding a manager.
“It’s had a massive effect on my life,” she says.
“I only came across him because of a big talk I had at Splendour last summer with Jason Hart, Jake Bugg’s manager. He said I needed a manager who would, eat, sleep and breath me, who totally gets the direction I want to go in, someone with time, money, energy... all of that.
“It was invaluable advice. And I soaked it all in. Then I played an industry festival that was showcase for Tru Thoughts. Chris Young was there to give a talk about the success of Subtracks, a producer he manages. He’d just been in the States working with Drake.
“Chris knew who I was because XFM’s John Kennedy had been championing me and I’d been played on 1Xtra. He said he was interested in managing me and I told him I was in between management. I wasn’t, I was doing it all myself,” she laughs.
“He gave me his card and that was it. He sorted my life out. Now I can enjoy the singing and he can sort out the business side of it. That had been killing me and the reason why I’d not been playing so many gigs.
“Then, as soon as you give that job to someone who knows what they’re doing... bam! it all starts.”
Not that Chris is finding managing Harleighblu that easy.
“He gets quite annoyed with me because I’ve not been checking into flights on time when I get the emails,” she laughs. “All this flying malarkey, it’s a bit much for me. I find it really confusing.”
Already this summer she’s played the Isle of Wight Festival, then Fete Du La Musique in Switzerland.
“I didn’t know until I got there that I was on the main stage. I thought I was playing some little jazzy stage. There were thousands of people there. It was massive. I was in the Geneva newspaper as ‘one to watch’ and even when I was soundchecking there thousands of people waiting and staring at me. And when I started singing they knew the words. It was a really surreal feeling.”
Last weekend’s Glastonbury was a good experience she says but the smaller, leftfield festivals are what she’s most excited about.
“Glastonbury is as mainstream as I’m getting,” she laughs.
“It was great but the next day I was in Paris supporting Charles Bradley and the Dap Kings at La Defense Jazz Festival.
“On Tuesday it was Gilles Peterson's Worldwide Festival in th South of France. I’ve got Love Supreme this weekend where I’ll get to support De La Soul again, and Laura Mvula... just cool soul and hip-hop artists. And I’m excited about the other jazz festivals I’ve coming up in France later this month.”
Harleighblu is her real name. Her mum was pregnant with twins that she planned to call Harleigh and Blu, merging the names when she lost one of them.
It was her mum’s vinyl collection that inspired the music she makes today.

“Singing is definitely the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do,” she admits. “I have no plan B.”
Her debut album, Forget Me Not, came out on Tru Thoughts last summer. It earned great reviews but wasn’t a commercial success.
That said, it served its purpose, she says.
“Forget Me Not was a great platform, just to get something out there and start the ball rolling. I got the attention that I needed from that album but now I’m moving on.”
The more she plays live with her band, the more her sound is developing: “It’s going a bit more trip-hop and electronic. It still has that hip-hop soul element but it’s developing. I’ll release an EP with that new sound at the end of the year or in January.”
Harleighblu is back in Nottingham tonight for the Tia Maria Dark Room, a curious event in a pop-up venue in Broad Street.
TV and radio presenter Gemma Cairney is the curator of what is billed as “the ultimate girls’ night out” that includes cocktails, hair styling, manicures and live music.
“I wasn’t sure about doing it because it’s the day after I come back from France and I’m off again to Love Supreme the day after,” says Harleighblu.
“I could have done with the day off. But Chris said that Laura Mvula did it last year and I like her. I think she’s cool. And I pretty much do as he says anyway.”

The Tia Maria Dark Room, with Harleighblu and One Girl, One Boy, is at Unit 2, 7 George Street, Lace Market from 5pm to 11pm and again tomorrow from 4pm to 11pm (Harleighblu only appears tonight). Admission is free but tickets are required. Go to facebook.com/tiamariadrink for details.

WHAT THEY SAID

“The new queen of hip hop soul”@ Radio 1/1Xtra’s Mistajam

“Her protean, dexterous voice immediately impresses. A talent to watch"@ Q

“A raw talent… with a voice that pours old soul in unfeigned torrents… a polished yet stirring debut.”@Clash

“Great soul. Look for this voice to grace some future high profile collaborations”@ DJ Mag

“Great vocals and songs to die for… expect big things and a bright future (5/5)@ Blues & Soul

“Unforgettable”@Echoes

“Can’t get enough of Play Me”@ 6Music’s Nemone

“A tune that a lot of people are asking about… Harleighblu… I like that!”@ 1Xtra’s Trevor Nelson

“She is something else. Massive, massive”@ 6Music’s Huey Morgan

Harleighblu at HMV

January 2014

The last gig Harleighblu played in her home city, it was for the launch of her debut album at Nottingham Contemporary and hundreds of people had paid to see her.

Since then she’s had songs played on Radio 1, 2, 6Music and 1Xtra by the likes of Trevor Nelson and Craig Charles.

But yesterday afternoon, it was around 50 who turned out to see her play a free show at the HMV store in the Victoria Centre.

The 22-year-old jazz, soul and funk diva from Carrington, was kicking off a series of weekly gigs there to showcase local music talent, tapping in to the burgeoning local scene that has been led by Jake Bugg but also seen the likes of Dog Is Dead, Indiana, Saint Raymond land major record deals.

Harleighblu (it’s her real name) signed to Tru Thoughts last year, through which the album, Forget me Not, was released in October.

Racks of the album flanked her on the stage to the rear of the shop.

“Come on, move forward, I’m not Beyonce, I need to feel you,” she grins, after opening songs Casanova, a woozy blues number and a funked up version of Eurythmics’ Who’s That Girl.

Those assembled dutifully shuffle closer, although some of us are hampered by Davina McCall’s Body Buff... and another fitness DVD in the obstructive rack called Butt Camp.

Used to a large band with a brass section, this was a new set-up accompanied by just a guitar, bass, backing singer and laptop, designed to inject more of a hip-hop vibe.

“It’s the first time we’ve done it like this so we’re just testing it out,” she says, as a shopper behind tries but then gives up on getting to the wall of posters, obscured by the band.

After trying to encourage some movement from us but failing, she resorts to a more sedate song, the soulful ballad Love Like This.

“You like the slower ones don’t you?” she asks, rhetorically.

There’s a premature finale, Let Me Be, her next single out on January 27. A minute after saying goodbye, she’s back.

“We’re doing one more,” she laughs, but then realises the backing singer has disappeared into the shop.

The closing song is her best, Play Me, one that has drawn comparisons to Amy Winehouse, after which she announces a date at the Rescue Rooms for March 8, the end of a debut headline tour of the UK.

“It’s a weird environment, a little bit more conservative than what I’m used to,” says Harleighblu after.

“I had to work more because of that. People at my gigs are usually on it and well-oiled by the time I come on stage. But with this they seemed to prefer the slower songs.”

“I’ve very proud of her and I like the new set up,” says Harleighblu’s mum, Diane Low, 45, from Grantham, who was there with grandma, Helen Low, 73.

“It’s my kind of music because it comes from her growing up listening to all of my vinyl, people like Isaac Hayes, Aretha Franklin and Marlena Shaw. So it’s beautiful to my ears.”

Mike Atkinson, 51, from The Park saw her at Nottingham Contemporary.

“That was a really big, full sound and this was stripped down and more acoustic. But it shows just how string her songs are that they can be stripped right back to the bare bones and still come through.

“And it was nice to see her relaxed in front of her hometown crowd,” he adds.

“I thought she worked the crowd really well,” says Beth Frisby, 20, from The Arboretum.

“It’s quite a formal setting but she warmed everyone up.”

Rob Maddison, 39, from Sherwood, is a member of local bands Spaceships Are Cool and Yunioshi.

“It’s the first time I’ve seen her with the laptop backing and I thought it was fantastic,” he says.

He’s played similar shows in France where Spaceship Are Cool have a record deal.

“We’ve done shops in Paris and one of them was smaller than the Music Exchange. So, yeah we’d play HMV.”

“It went really well and I’m pleased with the turn-out,” says the store’s social media manager Zoe East who organises the weekly gigs.

“It’s tricky doing it at 4pm because people are still at work so I was happy with the numbers.”

She adds: “We’ve had quite a few people come in store asking about playing.”

Next week it’s Josh Wheatley, with the likes of Oscar Speed, Josh Kemp and Georgia Rose to follow in the coming weeks.

For more about HMV Live follow @HMVNottingham on Twitter.

Harleighblu

July 19, 2013

IT feels like she’s been on the Nottingham music scene for years and yet Harleighblu is still only 21.

She started early: “I was in gospel choirs from being quite little,” says the music student, who lives in Carrington.

“And I entered singing competitions all over the country, winning vouchers to buy equipment. A karaoke machine was one do the first things I bought because there was a recording setting on it,” she laughs.

Although she moved all over the country with her mum’s job – a Toni & Guy hair stylist – Harls (you can call her that, go on) has spent most of her life here.

“It was my mum’s passion for rare groove, soul and R&B that got me interested in that kind of music. Even when I was at school I wouldn’t listen to anything else. My school friends were listening to Britney Spears or Busted while I was listening to Lauryn Hill and Jill Scott.”

Those influences remain despite many describing her next single, Play Me, as sounding like Amy Winehouse.

“It’s definitely a good thing as she’s amazing but it’s just a coincidence that Play Me sounds that way. The last track I had out, Enough Now, everyone said sounded like Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Lauryn Hill and Floertry. And that is what I listen to more than Amy. But it’s a massive compliment.”

She describes her music as hip-hop soul: “It’s beat driven with a soulful edge.”

Harls signed to Tru-Thoughts in December and has since been played on 1Xtra, 6Music and Radio 1. Play Me will be released on July 29 with the debut album due in October, after which she’ll tour the UK, France and the US.

Which means she is unlikely to finish her music studies at NCN.

How she manages to get to college is a mystery as she often stays up until the early hours writing music.

“I get the most creative in the middle of the night. I don’t know why,” she admits.

Harleighblu will be on the Courtyard Stage with a band slimmed down to a five-piece.

“I’m looking forward to seeing Jake because the last time was when he was about 16,” she says.

“He was amazing. Off stage, he was a typical Nottingham lad but when he was singing it impressed me so much! No one had done Bob Dylan since Bob Dylan and Jake added his own twist.

“I’m looking forward to seeing Georgie Rose as well and Joel Baker because they’re both amazing. And no, they’re not friends of mine before you start...”

MistaJam

May 2011

To be a radio DJ the pre-requisite is that you have to be a nerd

THE journey from Nottingham to national radio started for Pete Dalton around seven years ago when he invited the BBC’s urban music station 1 Xtra to the hip-hop all-dayer, UK Takeover at the Marcus Garvey Centre.

“They recorded some sets from there but they didn’t see me DJ,” says Dalton, 28, better known as MistaJam, who organised regular hip-hop nights with Joe Budha under the name SureShot.

“That went so well that when we booked KRS-One in to Rock City and added on a Q&A with him at Broadway the next day, they came up to Nottingham again. And that’s where they first saw me DJ. They asked me to try out for a show. That was in 2005 and I’ve been there ever since.”

Three years later he was drafted in to host a Saturday night show on Radio 1.

“I continue to do both. From Monday to Thursday I’m on 1 Xtra, then on Saturday night I’m on Radio 1 and 1 Xtra.”

He adds: “Being on national radio is a major thing. I grew up listening to Radio 1 and people like Pete Tong, Trevor Nelson, the late great John Peel so it is weird being amongst them.

“And the nominations for the Sony Awards has been the icing on the cake for me.”

MistaJam has two nominations for the 2011 Sony Radio Academy Awards, the Oscars of the radio world. He’s up for Best Specialist Music Programme and Music Broadcaster of the Year and he’ll find out if he’s won at the ceremony in London on Monday.

“It’s the first time I’ve been nominated and I wasn’t expecting it,” he says.

“I’ve got a good chance but I’m not holding my breath. I’m up against Jarvis Cocker, Zane Lowe and Mark Radcliffe, people with real pedigree. I mean, Mark Radcliffe was on Radio 1 when I was at school, so it’s weird to be nominated alongside him.”

At least there’s the party to enjoy, although he must be used to them by now.

“That’s the thing, you think it might be all glamour and glitz but the majority of the time it’s sitting in front of a laptop listening to music.”

What a nerd.

“You have to be. To be a radio DJ the pre-requisite is that you have to be a nerd.”

He grew up in Bestwood Park and Arnold and has family and friends in Radford and St Ann’s. His first taste of DJing was as a child using a Fisher Price record player.

“I used to spend hours and hours and hours playing records on it, ruining my parents vinyl collection,” he laughs.

At 14 he joined a local youth sound system then DJ’d for hip-hop collective Out Da Ville.

“I served my apprenticeship with them before working with Trevor Rose (at CRS) then with Joe Budha.”

MistaJam now lives in Northampton with his wife and their 10-month-old daughter.

“My missus works in Northampton so it made sense to move there and me to commute.”

He is still in touch with the Nottingham music scene and is a fan although he doesn’t give preference on his shows.

“Everything I play on my show is based purely on musical merit but there is a lot of really good music coming out of Nottingham, a lot of talented musicians. Liam Bailey is doing amazing things right now and flying the flag. In terms of hip-hop there’s a kid called Juggernaut who I think is absolutely amazing. Scorzayzee is finally getting round to releasing his album and I cannot wait to hear some finished material from Harleighblu, because she’s an amazing singer.”

The 2011 Sony Radio Academy Awards are on Monday at The Grosvenor House Hotel in London. The ceremony, hosted by Chris Evans, will be broadcast live online atwww.radioawards.org from 6.45pm