Moggie is a Nottingham based promoter, producer and founder of That’s Good Then events. I had a catch up with him and we spoke about everything from paradiddles to promotions.
What inspired you to get into music?
When I was really young my cousin played drums. He had a drum set in his garage and I used to go round and play about with it. Then one day when I was about six or seven he taught me how to do a paradiddle. I pestered my Dad for drum lessons, shout out to my drum teacher Tom Giggs, great guy. My Mum also had an acoustic guitar that had been sitting around the house. I just picked it up one summer when I was about eleven and had nothing else to do. When I was a kid, my Mum only used to play The Killers, Blink 182 and David Bowie which is possibly the weirdest combination but it helped get me into music.
When did you start writing your own music?
I was probably about fourteen and we had a little cover band playing stuff like Chili Peppers and Franz Ferdinand. My music teacher had just marked me down on my drum piece even though I’d cheated and got my drum teacher to write it so I just thought fuck it and decided to write it on guitar instead. That was the first piece of music I’d ever written and he gave me an A for it so I just carried on.
What made you take the step to actually start your own events company?
I think it was mainly the fact that I had no motivation to make music after finishing uni. I’d put all that energy and creative effort into uni and when I finished and just wasn’t doing anything. I’d had the idea for the events company and just figured while I wasn’t making any music, why not give it a try and be creative in another aspect. My favourite thing about doing it is you get people who usually do covers at open mics. With That’s Good Then they have an opportunity to perform their own music.
Is there anything you learnt from your degree that you think is valuable for you working in the events industry now and would you recommend for someone to go to uni?
I definitely learnt things at uni but I don’t necessarily think it’s worth it. I genuinely believe that it can be a great thing and you can learn a lot of stuff from it but everything that I learnt when I was there involved expensive equipment that I dont have when I’m making music in my house or putting on a gig. I actually made a suggestion to the course leader that there should be a module where you have to make music on a laptop, purely in the box. That’s what everyone’s doing now. The networking I was able to do at Uni was incredible though, a lot of people involved in That’s Good Then are people I went to uni with or at least met while I was there. You just have more time to make those contacts. I’ve got someone in my contacts for everything, whether I need an engineer or a saxophone player. I don’t regret going at all.
Having an acoustic night in the caves is a great concept. What made you choose to do that?
It was the venue mainly. I saw it and thought it would be a great place to do it. I’d been to other events there but none of them were sit down, chilled music. It’s a really nice room with a great natural reverb. All the artists are shocked by how good it sounds during the soundcheck. It looks and sounds great. The location is also really good. It all just came hand in hand really.
Did you face any challenges with your first event?
Oh my God, loads. I didn’t even really think about how much work it was going to take. I just called up the venue and booked it. Which, for anyone wanting to put on an event is a great first step to take, you just need to make sure you know what you’re doing. One of the biggest challenges is marketing. With social media these days you have to be posting five to six times a week minimum and you just need a constant flow of content. It’s difficult to think of what to post and to make backgrounds and stuff when you’re also working a full time job. I think that’s the main challenge that you run into really. You’ve also got to get ticket links sorted and get barcodes working. A lot of things you don’t consider at first
You have an interesting mixture of artists playing at your events. How do you choose who is going to perform?
I wanted there to be a range of different artists for the first event. You want to see what people like and what works. In the end, everyone said great things about all the artists so people clearly enjoy having the mixture so I just decided to keep it that way. I think each artist really bounced off of each other’s energy. It had a great vibe and a nice mix of people. Hopefully I can keep that up for the next few events.
There’s a huge amount of talent within the Nottingham music scene. Is there anyone you haven’t worked with yet that you would like to?
There’s so many. There’s a lot of artists I know well that I want to work with. Some of them don’t even have things released. Every artist I’ve had on ‘That’s Good Then’ I would love to make music with. Omari Marsalis is an incredible rapper and artist. He’s sick. I saw him live at rescue rooms a while back and told him I’d love to work with him. Lyvia is great. I’d love to work with her. We talked about content earlier on and she’s just on it with that, people seem to know her. I’d say she’s the biggest underground Nottingham act to be focusing on at the moment.
What lesson have you learnt from your previous event that will change how you do something next time?
There’s always lessons to learn. I’ve got better behind the scenes. I’ve been preparing posts in advance and making sure the ticket links work before the day. People get too comfortable and the event ends up being exactly the same every time and people get bored and stop coming back. I just want to learn how to adjust and stay interesting.
Anything exciting coming soon from That’s good Then?
We have another acoustic night in the caves happening on November the 23rd. That will be a great night. There’s going to be more coming through. They won’t all be acoustic nights. We’ve got a jazz rap night in the works. There’s incredible jazz musicians and rappers in Nottingham and the two worlds aren’t crossing over. I want to do a Neo Soul night as well. I just want That’s Good Then to be a platform to show lots of genres. Especially ones people don’t know as well that don’t have a huge platform. I want to get unique locations too. I wish I could talk more about locations but it’s all still in the works and I don’t want to make any promises that I can’t keep
Any advice you would give to anyone else wanting to do the same thing?
Take up smoking, it will help with stress. The better advice is probably to just be patient and organised though. When something goes wrong and it seems like it’s falling apart just take a second to compose yourself and then solve the problem. Or just nip outside and have a cig.
What’s the dream?
I think the main goal for me overall is to give a platform to people who don’t already have one and I guess I’m starting to achieve that. I just want to keep it growing and have bigger and better events and get it to be a name people have heard of. We’ll just keep it going and see how far we can take it.
How can people help out?
I guess the main thing is to follow us on instagram @thatsgoodthenevents where you can see everything we’ve got coming up. Then the best thing people can do is follow the artists. Go and see local bands and artists play. Support the music scene. That’s the best way to keep it going.
That’s Good Then are putting on another Acoustic Night in the Caves on the 23rd of November. You don’t want to miss it.