10 years of I’m Not From London

Anybody who has attended, played, booked or reviewed a gig in Nottingham over the past decade will know the name I’m Not From London, the promoters/record label/rights service/publishers/drinking legends have their fingers in just about every Nottingham event pie – from the Waterfront Festival to Shoe Aid, Bamalamasingsong to the Great Notts Food Show, they pretty much are everywhere.

What you might no release though is that the INFL gang have been doing their thing for a whole decade, founder Will Robinson having booked his first gig while working at See Tickets back in 2006. During that time they’ve booked gigs with the likes of Jake Bugg, Saint Raymond and DiD (formerly Dog is Dead), released records from Baby Godzilla, Captain Dangerous and more and promoting every single sell-out gig from the incredible Invisible Orchestra. It’s safe to say they work hard and are bloody damn good at what they do.

I first came across I’m Not From London when NottinghamLIVE first launched, as an online PDF magazine, back then INFL was Will Robinson and was making its mark putting on gigs including stages at Hockley Hustle and a Halloween Bus Tour. I first met Will outside Lloyds Bar down by the Canalside, both of us on our lunch breaks from the day job and neither of us able to actually afford a pint from the pub.

Will was a huge supporter of NottinghamLIVE from the start, giving us access to all his gigs and even writing monthly for us when we were running in PDF format, in fact without the support of people such as Will (and a few others) it’s possible that I may never have returned with NottinghamLIVE.co.uk once the pdf magazine ceased to be – and thus there would have been none of the great moments of the past five or six years.

Over that time I’ve seen INFL grow, I remember first meeting Pat Cannon when he came along to the Not the Glastonbury Music Festival event I helped put on at Bartons in Beeston. Though he was there as a new member of the INFL team he actually stepped up and performed on stage when the act that was meant to play pulled out of the show due to illness.

That says it all about INFL, there always ready to make sure the show goes on no matter, even if it means stepping up on stage, they have also always been a great help whenever I have needed advice. Back in 2012 when I put on my first NottinghamLIVE presents show at The Maze, at which I decided to go all out and have about 12 acts playing, Will helped sort all the tech issues out, emailing bands and helping arrange kit shares etc, something that completely threw me out of a loop.

More recently INFL have played a huge part in helping NG Digital get off the ground, offering us opportunities to stream their gigs, promoting, presenting and even launching a new show on the station, ‘Underground, Overground’ hosted by their newest interns Sam and Ross.

As well as being a great help, as well as ace drinking buddies, I’m Not From London have also been responsible for some of the best gigs I’ve attended in Nottingham, not least the two Captain Dangerous Rescue Rooms shows that both still feature in my all time ‘Best Notts gigs’ list (or would if such a list existed).

So it’s a happy tenth birthday to the ace I’m Not From London team, and, as expected, they are not going to let such an event pass quietly, as such they have teamed up with the ace Alley Cafe (itself marking it’s 15th birthday this year) to present OUTSTANDING (IN A FIELD) a brand new two day festival taking place at Old (John) Macdonald’s Farm in Woodborough. Featuring a headline set from SCORZAYZE on the Saturday as well as sets from the likes of THE AFTERDARK MOVEMENT, ULYSSES STORM, EYRE LLEW, DEAF BRIDGES and more this promises to be the ultimate party weekend. Tickets are still available, at the bargain price of just £10, but we understand they are running low so make sure to get yours now.

If that wasn’t all the I’m Not From London team have also launched a Kickstarter campaign to help them with their aims to release a double vinyl compilation to mark a decade of distortion. The campaign is currently over half way towards it’s £5,000 goal with just 9 days remaining so if you want to chuck in your support head over to the Kickstarter page now, where you can also check out the rewards on offer.

So all that is left to say is Happy Birthday I’m Not From London, we’ll see you at the bar.

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