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Creative Nottingham: Nottingham's music scene is becoming big business

THIS October Nottingham is buzzing with creative events. We've already had Wayne Hemmingway launching Kioskiosk on Pelham Street and the NCBAs, and now we've got the Roses Awards and GameCity coming up.

One of the most exciting is the infamous Hockley Hustle on Sunday, October 25. From noon to 4pm you can choose from over 22 gigs - music, fashion shows, performance art and all sorts of malarkey in and around Hockley.

Hockley is one of the only areas of Nottingham where independent new businesses are springing up.

Outfits such as Montana Paints and Fuzz Guitar Shop are bringing new commercial life to this exciting part of Nottingham, and the Hockley Hustle is helping to build a strong community spirit.

The Hockley Hustle is the brainchild of young entrepreneur Adam Pickering, who is more of a mad music lover than a budding Alan Sugar.

Adam started the event four years ago when, aged 18, he was helping to promote local bands.

"Hockley is ideally suited to a festival, it has the right personality" he explains.

"The gigs we put on include a lot of local talent but we don't deal exclusively with Nottingham bands.

"Our promoters are very forward-thinking and are always looking for new artists."

Adam is pleased to help local bands get valuable exposure and build an audience for their music, and after getting a taste for things in Hockley he is now studying for a degree in event management in Leeds.

Adam has secured funding for the Hockley Hustle from Nottingham Leisure Partnership, a fund generated by a collection of licensed premises businesses in Nottingham.

Visitors can buy a wristband that gives them entry to all of the events for £7.50 in advance or £10 on the day, and all the proceeds go to Oxfam and a local NSPCC charity.

Adam is hoping as many as 3,000 people will enjoy this year's event, which is more than double every previous year!

Giving another outlet for Nottingham's new music talent is a great new blog site by Trent FM - nottsunsigned.

This site is dedicated to promoting local new music in Nottingham and gives us a new music podcast every week.

The team behind it have a single-minded mission: to get a Nottingham music artist to No1 in the UK Charts in 2010!

As well as published music online, they will be embarking on a full tour of every Notts secondary school from mid-November.

Trent FM is also promoting the creative industries (which I thought was my new job) in the shape of an exciting new radio show by Andy Stevenson on FlyFM, Trent's student radio station.

Lastly this week, a big shout out to Big Trev, one of Nottingham's music industry heroes. Trevor Rose runs the Community Recording Studio (CRS) in St Ann's.

Every 16-year-old in St Ann's knows his name, and he is doing an incredible job of giving young people in the area the chance to get involved in making music.

Today, CRS release a showcase of new urban music on nottsunsigned. This features drum and bass, hip hop and R&B artists from Nottingham.

Find out about the Hockley Hustle 2009 at www.hocklethustle.co.uk, and discover the Nottingham Leisure Partnership at www.gotonottingham.co.uk.

Check out www.nottsunsigned.co.uk every week, and see what Big Trev and CRS are up to on www.myspace.com/bigtrevs. Next week we look at the city council's work with the creative industries in Nottingham.

Source:this is nottingham|

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