EESH – how the ‘eck has it been a year since the last Dot to Dot?
It’s always a special 8 – 12 hours (depending how much Red Stripe you have). Starting with the fact – it’s traditionally the start of festival season for a lot of peeps (on the guitar front at least, Wigflex repping on the Electronic tip). Today it showed – with lads and lasses going mental for Notts artists, all in the good knowledge they can lie in till 2pm Monday.
Like any good D2D, we start our day at Rock City. This time – cos SOFT GIRLS AND BOYS CLUB are making their monster debut. And they look riiiight at home. Beeeefy riffs, twinkly catchy melodies, and some pretty funny banter from frontman Ben. Oh, and he was wearing a DO NOTHING top, so that was well cute an’all.
WE LEG IT (this happens a lot) through the pouring rain to catch BLLE at Stealth. Once known for her soothing sad Folk songs, she’s now a POP MACHINE (yes I will use caps a lot in this article). Teaming up with musical maestro Ben Tennett, and donned in the sickest lil suit you ever did see, Billie rips through a bunch of melodic beauties which on the Stealth sound system are well tasty. Debut single ‘Calling Me’ is super fucking catchy – and live it translates just as well. Sweetabix.
We then return to Nusic HQ to prep the next New Music Podcast (it’s a biggie dontcha know), get that out the way, shove our fourth flat white of the day down us (support your independents folks // don’t get addicted to caffeine), and then we’re off to Trent SU to see GEORGE GRETTON. No idea how to describe this dudes genre, so file him under ‘very very good’. Starting with a vocoder-style epic vocal intro, and leading into his beast of a debut single ‘Treading Water’, George and his band project many many melodies into the crowd. Too many melodies, too many many melodies (ok, sorry I’ll stop now).
We then… you guessed it LEGGED IT over to the over side of town to catch RE TEU doing his tingggg on the Suede stage. Stripped back, but still as a 3-piece band, he managed to sound very large as the packed out pizza party was loving it. We then head back to the SU to catch REFLEKTER – who having just launched their second single, plus announced a headline Bodega show, are having a big weekend. Do they top it off? They do indeedy. Bags of Indie swag. Some well catchy tunes. And enough rockstar pizazz to really make ya wanna pick up a guitar again.
Next up we head over to Giardino’s (the Market Street Ugly Bread), to catch some tunes from the soulful superstar that is ABII. She serenades with some proper soothing Soul jams, and even manages to keep a running commentary on when the high notes are coming. It’s summat ya have to see with your own eyes. And then we get burgers. And shakes.
After we’ve successfully increased our waistlines by 7.2% we head over to Peggy’s Skylight – the home of Jazz, but for a rapper – JORDON THE EGO. “This is mad weird venue for me to play – my target audience is normally… a bit younger” – great opener Jordon. The crowd actually loved the cheek – and embraced his cocky but honest lyricism. As well as his proper interesting genre mix across his beats.
Down to 31K (unfortunately not for meatballs) but for something even better – ESTHER VAN LEUVEN with most of her band – performing a bunch of her majestic, soothing, and in her own words “very depressing’ tunes. They’re well lovely to listen to. And there’s a lot of love in the room for EVL.
Across to Jam Cafe, and as we squeeze our way in we have a lovely lil bop to ROE GREEN (not Rob). Armed with two handsome bandmates, Roe bashes through a set of funky, jazz-y, and bloody awesome-y tunes, with bags of charm that had quite the little fanbase growing for him. He’s a v loveable human to watch on stage, so it’s no surprise. We then have the bop of our lives to SAN JUNIPERO’s set – which is full of monster radio smash after smash. Three mins in, a confused party of seven middle aged women walked in, and ten minutes later were completely converted – and proceeded to shout “this lot are the best fucking band I’ve ever seen”. So, ya know – that’s a pretty good review. And shouts Bodega – hiring in a Funktion One for D2D made everything sound ridonkuloussss.
Back to the squeeze-fest of Jam Cafe, this time for J LITTLES. A lot of love in the room for J even though things are running a tad late. Conscious hip-hop, great energy – and he got the room bouncing, even though there was about 0.7mm space in the room. Tasty.
Final legging of the day (we defo deserved that shake), off to Rescue Rooms. This time – to see a band that have just announced they’re playing an arena with fucking Interpol (yup). DO NOTHING – Huw Stephen’s current fav band (basically). With their Talking Heads styley guitar fuelled bliss. A packed out Rescue Rooms can hardly contain their feelings for Chris and co. Who, worth noting has absolutely nailed the ‘look cool as fuck whilst drinking a Guinness’ look we all try so hard to do.
And finally – Albert’s – ya know, Spanky’s but not. To see the punk bliss of BABE PUNCH, who have already pulled a monster crowd. Drum hits that defy physics, high-octane choruses, and, ya know what – they have got loaaads of mad catchy songs now. What a way to round off the night.
And then – we had a chamomile tea, wrote these words you’re reading now, edited a bunch of photos (Notts, ya look sick don’t ya), and now we’re gonna lie down for a v long time. Well, we say that, there’s a big Future Sound of Nottingham announcement today…
Yours in Love of New Music,
Sam Nahirny x
