Hot City Sounds is a nine day marathon of gigs across seven Norwich music venues, showcasing over 130 local bands and artists. Kicking off tonight at the Norwich Arts Centre then trekking across the city’s music venues via The Marquee, The Waterfront, The Forum, Bedford’s Crypt before finishing off on the 11th July with an afternoon gig in Chapelfield Gardens followed by an evening gig at B2/The Brickmakers.

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Back to the Arts Centre last night for “The Electric Busker” night, featuring Rory McVicar, Lowery, Alex Carson, Jess Morgan, Girl in a Thunderbolt and Lucy Elliot in the main room. Then Francis & Louis, Sam James Hill, Scraps and others in the bar. After a brilliant night on Saturday at B2 with Shakeout and Tommy Twist, last night failed to hit the spot for me with small fun gems occasionally shining through, nothing caught my ear enough.

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The Kabeedies - Katie

Soulful melodies, flannel shirt clad grunge, guest appearances from a pair of Cold Hands, short sharp straight up punk and a Michael Jackson cover. All lead up to Norwich darlings the Kabeedies taking to the stage to deliver their energetic ska punk pop and waltzy ballads about Vaseline.

An awesome start to what promises to be a wonderful nine days of gigs across the city.

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Shane Meadows‘ latest film Le Donk and Scor-zay-zee, sees him teaming up once again with Paddy Considine this time to produce an improvised faux-rockumentary about Rock Roadie Le Donk (Considine) and his side kick, up and coming Nottingham rapper Scor-zay-zee (Himself). The film is set to be screened at this year’s Latitude festival followed by a Q and A session with Meadows and Considine. Click Read More to see the teaser trailer for it.

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Wave Machines brought their rather interesting yet gimmicky masks along with their wonderful sound and energy, to the Norwich Arts Centre last night. The bouncy drum machine and synth fun of recent iTunes Single of the Week, I Go I Go I Go got the crowd moving and shouting the catchy chorus over and over. They slowed it down with the seductive Keep the Lights On before finishing with the anthemic Punk Spirit. Click Read More to see more photos.

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I spoke to Graham Horne, vocals and guitar for The Barlights last week about the band, their influences, recording their first album and this year’s Hot City Sounds. You can catch them at Chapelfield Gardens and The Brickmakers on 11th July. Also download their first album If It Wasn’t For The Light, The Dark Would Have Killed Us on iTunes.

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This week’s Monday Morning Distractions is a Great Yarmouth heavy one to remind you that the latest in a long line of skate videos from the seaside town is coming very soon. With the premiere at Hopton fast approaching, Chris is putting a series of out-takes to wet your appetite onto YouTube.

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Last night was the opening night of this year’s degree shows at NUCA (What used to be called Norwich School of Art and Design) they are open for the next fortnight, to showcase students’ work from Graphic Design, Photography, Fine Art and more. There’s some really impressive work on display by some talented people, so go have a look over the next fortnight.

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Stop go animation might be synonymous with such wonderful childhood plasticine creations such as Trap Door and Wallace and Gromit or recently the numerous lego based comedy videos on youtube. Some recent favourites have been Deadline (pictured above) and TXT Island.

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Tom Harrison - Backside 5-0 - The Works, Leeds

Here’s another selection of online skate videos that should serve as a good distraction this Monday Morning. Starting with Tom Harrison’s (Pictured at The Works a couple of years ago above) introductory video now he’s joined the Blueprint team. Next is the rather bangin’ Battle Commander with Brandon Biebel over at The Berrics. Finally here’s a little treat Glen sent me in the week, Nick Jensen’s section from The Scrum Tilly Lush.