BBC - Radio 1 - One Live In Nottingham

Tell us about playing live in Nottingham?
Gavin (guitar, MAL): It is fairly easy to get gigs in Nottingham. Every body seems to look out for each other and give each other gigs.

Darren (drums. MAL): We moved to Nottingham because it has a better music scene. Seachange came up to us after they saw us play and asked us if we wanted to play a gig with them.

What is so good about the Nottingham scene?
James (local DJ):: There's a lot of guitar bands, not in the nu-metal vein but a lot of psychedelic and a lot of post-hardcore.

Andrew (Gentle Electric Records): Hip Hop is massive in Nottingham, Out De Ville are the biggest - there's a huge scene.

How has the music scene evolved over the last few years?
James (local DJ): It's certainly picked up massively in the last two years or so. We get a lot of bands that seem to miss out a lot of the rest of the country.

We have a good local promoter, Anton Lockwood who gets bands who might only do a gig in London but he manages to drag them up to Nottingham for an extra date. He's a bit of a local hero.

How receptive are people to live music?
James: A few years ago it was hard to find out about gigs and there wasn't many people turning up to gigs. Now even with bands who no one's heard of, there seems to be really good attendances.

James: There are more venues now and people are more prepared to take a chance.

What are the venues like?
Andrew: There's The Social which is quite a nice venue and only comfortably you can get about 150 people. You tend to get bands there who are playing their first tour. The Strokes and The White Stripes played at The Social.

Then there's Bunkers Hill which is brilliant - you get the amazingly weird and obscure. This tends to be home to the more leftfield and smaller labels, things that you have to search out rather than being advertised.