Laurie Illingworth, a well-known member of the Nottingham music scene and a musician himself, has been running Acoustic Rooms since he moved to the city in 2018. Having studied music at university, Laurie has channelled his passion into local music and showcasing new and experimental artists. We chat to him about the open mic night’s fifteenth anniversary, the artists who have performed there over the years, and how you can get involved…
Hi Laurie! First of all, can you just tell us what Acoustic Rooms is, for those who may not know?
Acoustic Rooms has been running itself, longer than I’ve been running it, pretty much every Monday since 2009, fifteen years ago. I joined in 2018, my first one was a bit of a disaster actually - it was in June 2018, it was the first job that I got when I moved here. The first show we did was on the same night as one of the England games of the World Cup in 2018, so obviously Rescue Rooms in the bar, where Acoustic Rooms takes place, was rammed before and there were massive crowds. England won, they beat Tunisia 2-1 in the last minute. The place went up, things were everywhere, sofas were everywhere, chairs - it’s just like carnage and as soon as it finished, everyone left.
There were only four of us in the room left, me and my guitar, just sat there… So that one didn’t go ahead. Ever since then, basically it’s been every single Monday. Initially, the name was because a lot of the music that was accessible for people to play at the time would have been acoustic and obviously now that’s changed a lot so we do cater for whatever genres, whatever artists, whatever creators turn up - usually, within reason. As long as it’s something that you want to perform, that you feel comfortable performing, whatever ability that’s at, we make the space if we have the time on the night to showcase that.
How do you find the artists, or do they find you?
I think these days it’s definitely based on reputation. On our website it says ‘Nottingham’s original open music night’, it’s a very long running one, there’s obviously a lot of open mics to choose from if you are an artist in Nottingham. Everybody knows we are on Monday. I think it’s invaluable to have the backing of DHP as well because then I am then able to offer slots at Dot to Dot Festival, Splendour Festival, Beat the Streets, and Hockley Hustle, because I wear that hat as well. So it’s been a really lively community of artists who are engaged with Nottingham and its music and creatives.
Recently, we had a chap who turned up and he was just off mic, in the audience, opera. I was like, that’s what we need
Do you find a lot of the artists are people who have already got music on Spotify or Soundcloud, or do you find that they are students or newcomers or just people wanting to dip their toe in the water?
We operate on a first come first serve basis on the night so I normally pitch up for about 7:30pm with my clipboard and we roughly showcase about twelve artists a night, with the midnight curfew. It’s all sort of dished out, you get to choose your slot, as long as it’s available. Because of that, it really does depend who turns up, so we get all sorts of people.
On average we get two new artists a week, sometimes it's more, sometimes it's fewer and literally every scale of the ability level. It doesn't matter if it's your first time, we get loads of people come down for the first time, it’s a safe space to do that.
Do you find that you get a lot of artists who are quite experimental? I remember an artist who had a robot themed set and wore a cape?
I know the guy you are talking about, he was called Experimental Sonic Machines, Neil - interesting dude. Yeah we have all sorts of artists, there’s a guy called Glen who occasionally turns up, the highlight for me was he brought his own hi-fi system (like a CD player but bigger), and we had to mic it up which is so unusual but I was like yeah cool, that’s your game, we’re not going to knock you off that. And then, he's sort of MC-ing about this, that and the other, original music, and then he just went ‘not to blow my own trumpet’, and then just whacked a trumpet out of his bag and started playing it mid song and I was like what is going on here?
It’s just such a nice blend because you’ll get students who are really trying to mature into being great artists and it’s brilliant, they’re maybe inspired by more mainstream or maybe more niche artists. And then you’ll get an artist who comes in and you’ll be like ‘how on earth are you doing what you do?’ We get poets, we get a real broad spectrum and as I said we do try to cater for everyone so we do see some very experimental happenings.
Can anyone join or do you listen to them first?
No, there’s none of that, I like the shock of it. Recently, we had a chap who turned up and he was just off mic, in the audience, opera. I was like, that’s what we need. But also, I would love it if artists could bring a pianist or a guitar to play whatever the piece is, but I know it’s not always as simple as that - I encourage the live setting but I’m aware that the music scene is evolving.
Do you have any stand out artists that you want to mention?
I actually have a list on my phone including all sorts of names - Jerub, Alfie Sharp, Josie Beth, Remy CB, Omari Marsalis, members of Divorce such as Adam Peter-Smith, Katie Keddie… and Lara Elise Grant is a current artist who is coming into that soft Billie Eilish vocal vibes - acoustic, beautiful. All sorts really yeah. I don’t even know a figure of artists that I’ve seen on that stage over the years, I’ve been here for five and a half years now.
Are you looking for new artists at the moment?
Always. We are always looking for new artists and it’s that funny blend of trying to encourage the right amount of people to come every week because I hate saying no to people. If you are an artist who happens to be reading LeftLion, please join us. It’s free entry, free drink for every artist, three songs each.
We’ve had Jake Bugg who made a bit of a name for himself back in the day at Acoustic Rooms, we’ve had George Ezra and Dua Lipa on the line up for Acoustic Rooms. Mental
Who are some of the most famous people who have performed at Acoustic Rooms?
We’ve had Jake Bugg who made a bit of a name for himself back in the day at Acoustic Rooms, we’ve had George Ezra and Dua Lipa on the line up for Acoustic Rooms. Mental. We’ve also had lots and lots of artists, Saint Raymond, Nina Smith, we’ve basically became a bit of a hub for anyone in Nottingham that wanted to just play some tunes.
I’m proud of the work we’ve done in the last five years to maintain that and I’m really pleased it’s a thing that Nottingham has. It feels like a night that is like ‘it’s the start of the week - let’s go’.
Acoustic Rooms is at Rescue Rooms every Monday night from 7pm
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