INFL: 15 years of blood, sweat & beers

In the words of Gordon Ramsay -"Wow!!!" 

Five days in and two thirds of the way there, to say I am overwhelmed is an understatement!

I was very apprehensive to launch this at this time but I really wanted to do something to celebrate the fifteen years we've kept going. I was unsure of how to start so I wrote this poem that you may have seen, if not, I hope you like!

All your support/money is already going to VERY good use!

 The poem mentions the unreleased videos that we'll be putting out every day of the campaign. One of these will be filmed this weekend, thank you! It was our good friend Louis Cypher's birthday yesterday. Louis has been to countless INFL nights and rapped at a lot of our hip hip Imprint label/night "I'm Not From Brooklyn"for many years. Last year in collaboration with BoomBap professionals we put out Louis' and I'm Not From Brooklyn's first release "Cypher Sore Eyes".

 We had a sell out show which was our last ever show at The Maze.

Photo by Ralph Barklam

As anyone who has known anything about Nottingham's music scene will attest, The Maze was an institution ran by the loveliest people you could hope to know. It was very much a family and they nurtured INFL as promoters and gave thousands of bands and musicians their first break including Jake Bugg who under other circumstances at that time may have had to wait another four years to be old enough to play a nightclub. It was a sad day when those doors closed and everyone I know in Notts has fond memories of the place, Leftlion collated a lot of them here! Big up Gaz, Steph, Ben and The Maze crew! #VivaLaMaze

We're releasing our second "I'm Not From Brooklyn" release with "Paintings On The Wall"by the Ty Healy and Nay Loco of the incredibly prolific and socially conscious hip hip group "Local Healers" and Louis Cypher. 

Happy birthday Louis, hope you ate all the cake! X

As part of our 15 year campaign we're releasing five new tracks from different bands, the lead tracks will appear as a free download on the back of the cans of the awesome INFL Ale brewed by the (hip) hoptastic Black Iris Brewery. 

The other videos we'll be releasing will be a combination of our old gig mini documentaries and unreleased music videos we made as part of "I'm Not From London - The Movie". An ambitious project launched in 2009 asking the question, Do Nottingham acts have to move to London to make it. This comprised of 30 + bands being interviewed and filmed with a full video and music production team. We ended the filming by hiring a bus full of with the crew and bands  sell out gig in the East End of London that Samantha Morton attended, partying with us all afterwards all sponsored by those cool cats at Castle Rock!

Our executive producer in the film was at that time my squat housemate/See tickets workmate, the awesome now award winning Anna Griffin just cutting her teeth who went on to win awards and make some amazing films with Wellington Films and now heads up her own production company, Griffin Pictures soon to be making a film with the aformentioned Nottingham starlet Samantha Morton, one of the finest actors of our generation!

For some reason, mostly likely the lack of any money, the film went through 6 different directors, we had a camera and footage left in L.A while filming Amusement Parks On Fire and by the time we got that back and the songs mastered half the bands had broken up. I found closure however when INFL were hired as consultants, guest and music supervisors on the BBC/Spool Nottingham band documentary Music City and we gave permission for all footage to be used in the documentary thereby giving the footage an honourable death, much of it on the cutting room floor. During lockdown, a few bands started asking if they could see the old footage of their old bands so I hired Adam Clarkson of INFL's first release Captain Dangerous to tidy up the edits. NB: He asked if he could have a stab at the old footage to direct a film about it all so he shall now be hereby referred to as Number 7!

INFL Movie Poster by the reverend videomatt aka White Dolemite

Working with so many bands led to some brilliant nights which were more like mini festivals really, people would end up playing in each other's bands, making each other's videos and sleeping with each other's significant others. Life long friends and generation spanning blood vendettas were made in seconds and in general everyone had a bloody good time, drinking, dancing and doing things we would currently only dream about.

I'll dig out a higher res poster for you all (which will be in the INFL 15 Years of Blood, Sweat & Tears book) that Jared from Leftlion is currently making for us and in which many of you will have your names, but here's an example of one of the nights and do check out the video after filmed by our man Nick Cairns, hope you're doing well Nick!

Poster by Marcus C Bell

A big line up which lead to an even bigger hangover, here's how the night went. You might remember some of the old faces, looking brighter, fresher, drunker and in some cases angrier...

So as our first in the series of the unreleased videos , here is Greatest Wolf with "Indian Summer"for the I'm Not From London - The Movie project in 2009 at Nottingham Arts Organisation asking the question do bands have to leave Nottingham to go to London make a career in music?

Ironically enough Gemma Upton lead singer from The Greatest Wolf actually went on to move to London and formed a new band, Marine Store Dealer  who launched their self titled album last Friday and whom I shall be interviewing tonight on INFL's IGTV!

Thank you for reading, please spread the word and stay tuned for more updates!

Love Will X