8/8/2009 Trash-Stock festival @ Seven, Nottingham

Subject	Trash-Stock festival @ Seven, Nottingham
PostedDate	8/8/2009
	This Saturday is one of my musical (and social) highlights of the year - the Trash-Stock festival in Nottingham. Once again it's a great bill of underground rock bands (and an established headliner) at a bargain price. Last year I went up with my good friends Honeykill but had to leave early as they were my ticket home. This year I was determined to make the most of it and actually put some planning in - transport has been arranged and hotel rooms booked. No having to drive home until the next day enables maximum drinking! Not that I'm a piss-artist or anything mind... My motor is in dock and I'm supposed to be getting it back on Saturday morning. The grease monkeys haven't finished it and it's not ready in time. I have to borrow a Mondeo - oh the horror! I really don't want to become 'Mondeo Man' under any circumstances, but it's the only way we are going to get to Nottingham in time - I just have to hope no one spots me driving a Ford. Fortunately, the Dagenham Dustbin turns out to be a half-decent jamjar - it's a Gia and fully loaded. We make good time to Nottingham, and after a fashion find our cheap hotel and book in. The Stage hotel proves to be quite a find - only £29 a night including quite a good breakfast, and it's walking distance from the venue. And the hotel bar is open all night!  Unfortunately we don't manage to arrive at the venue in time to see the first band Society Crisis - a late addition to the bill. As usual with any show involving around ten bands, there have been some changes late in the day. Peepshow had split up in the week before the festival, although to be honest I wouldn't have been bothered about missing them anyway. The High Society (who I had been looking forward to seeing) had to pull out due to being a man down. However, this still leaves seven or eight bands who I want to see so it's still great value for money at only a tenner! Nottingham's Seven is quite a small venue with only one stage, but there are bars upstairs and downstairs and a BBQ in the car park so it's all pretty self contained. The advantage to only having one stage is there are none of those annoying festival clashes where two bands you want to see are on at the same time. The changeover time between bands give you time to go to the bar and/or BBQ outside so it's all good! Trashstock is also a great social event as well as having loads of terrific bands - I meet far more friends from London at this event in Nottingham than I normally meet at London gigs! The first band we manage to see are the ever rockin' Kitty Hudson from South London. They are highly entertaining as usual with their high powered Thunders/Ramones influenced rock 'n' roll - and some of the catchiest and most hook laden songs around. With songs this good they should be massive by now. Next up are Obsessive Compulsive - proving not all bands from Manchester are trendy indie scenesters. Their riffs are so heavy that if they dropped one it would take the whole band to pick it up again. Just as well they keep a firm grip on them as one carelessly handled riff could go straight though the stage if it slipped out of their hands - particularly the one from 'In Memory Of...' It's another London band next - Shush also have a load of catchy and melodic pop/rock songs and deserve to be bigger than Katie Price's gob. Shush knock out a great cover of Blondie's 'Call Me' as well, but their own songs are in the same league. Then we have a top midlands band - the second time this week I get to see Teenage Casket Company. This is the last show and highlight of their comeback 'Road To Trashstock' mini-tour - Nottingham being virtually home ground for this lot. And look - it's that Rob Lane again! It seems to be some sort of rule for Trashstock that every year Rob has to be playing in at least one of the bands on the bill! In fact he was here with his other main band DIP last year, and Teenage Casket Company played at the very first Trashstock festival. Promoter James Riot created a rather good spoof 'Lanestock' poster featuring Laney74 in the many other bands he has played/toured with over the last couple of years or so. It's good to see him back in one of 'his' bands though. In some bands there is a tension between certain members than can add to the interest or excitement of their live shows. This is one of those bands, or at least it has become so in more recent times. Sometimes the banter and insults are just in jest - sometimes not. You decide. But maybe that's all part of the fun? Guitarist Jamie Derelict often rips the piss out of frontman Rob Wylde - his hair being a popular target. At this show he takes it a stage further with this infamous T-shirt! Does he mean it? Again, you decide... The next band come from a bit further North. Eureka Machines hail from Leeds and are without doubt one of the best and most entertaining live bands in the UK right now. Their album 'Do Or Die' is excellent, but you really have to experience them live - they are totally unique! They look different, and they sound different, but they have clever and catchy songs. They are highly rehearsed and play really well, but unlike many bands of tight and well drilled musicians they have charisma and personality in spades. Frontman Chris in particular is very funny and has a great line in banter between songs - his patter about a certain riff he wrote being very good. As a live act I really can't recommend Eureka Machines highly enough - they really are that good, and I suspect a lot of much bigger bands would be scared to take them out on tour as support. Seriously. We've got another London(ish) band next: Drugdealer*Cheerleader - another band I'm seeing for the second time this week. (See previous blog) This band have some good tunes, and some interesting (and sometimes challenging) contempory lyrics - there don't seem to be many bands around these days that actually have anything to say. I really enjoy being able to go outside for a chat/beer/burger/hot dog between bands - if only more gigs could be like this! As well as being nice, the food is really cheap as well - what a refreshing change from being constantly ripped off in London for the most basic food. It's just a shame that the food runs out so early as they could have sold a lot more if only they had stocked up a bit more beforehand. A lesson to learn for next year maybe... Then it's back to the Midlands again with New Generation Superstars. They play well and throw everything into their performance. You can't knock them for giving less than 100% but they seem a bit generic to me compared to the other bands on the bill. I guess I'm just a jaded Londoner who's seen far too many very similar looking and sounding bands in every Camden sleazepit over the last few years. Promoter James Riot has pulled something rather special out of the bag for this year's headliner. Apparently it took some doing and a lot of negotiation, but he has managed to book who many regard as the UK's finest songwriter - Ginger from the Wildhearts. I know a lot of people are particularly excited to see this man and his solo band at this event. With some artists you just know that when you go to one of their gigs there will be a great atmosphere - whether with the Wildhearts or on his own Ginger is one of those artists. With several very well critically recieved solo albums under his belt now, Ginger has a terrific catalogue of songs to pick from without having to dip into the Wildhearts repertoire at all - although he usually throws one or two or their songs in as well - and why not as he wrote most of them? As expected, the atmosphere is terrific! Ginger has a cracking solo band at the moment, including Jase Edwards from Wolfsbane on guitar (also responsible for much of the production on Ginger's solo albums) and the popular Denzel on drums. No one seems to know who the new bass player is, but he's rather good. The setlist is as good as expected and Ginger seems in good humour - he really seems to thrive on playing intimate shows to packed venues and he certainly seems to be enjoying himself tonight. So are we. After thoroughly enjoying what has been a really great event we stagger back to the hotel and the open-all-night bar. Apparently I'm the last one still in there and fall asleep on the sofa at about four in the morning.  I can't believe how good this hotel is for only £29 a night - my room is really nice and although it's not large it's clean, tidy, looks freshly decorated and has everything I want or need. Not that I see much of my room at all as I spend virtually all the time I'm in it asleep! Amazingly, I just manage to get up in time to take advantage of the rather nice free breakfast that's included in the price. It's been a great Saturday/Sunday morning all round and feels like a whole weekend crammed into 24 hours! Same time next year then?

PS: This venue is now closed.