As I leave Wrexham for Rock City it’s humid, warm, and bloody uncomfortable. Fortunately, I miss the nightly traffic chaos on the approach to the Birkenhead Tunnel and park right outside my main venue for the night, the small but beautifully formed Kazimier club. Paloma and Delphic are the big hitters tonight, but I ain’t buying -the O2 will be heaving, unbearably hot while Delphic don’t do it for me. There’s no photo pass for Paloma - for me and Shakenstir it’s an utter waste of time (her loss our gain…).

So, it’s Liverpool’s clubland that holds all the aces for me tonight with the Jim Jones Revue and Archie Bronson Outfit heading my list. After a gentle walk round to the Hilton to complete the registration process, JJ and I head off for a exhibition of photos and gig posters at some empty retail building - one of several in the locality. Mark MacNulty’s rock images are good but it was the walls of limited edition gig posters that starred at this little show. However, we thought it a tad strange that no Sound City gig posters were on display…

It’s still early so we wander over to the bar/cafe on Parr Street, grab a couple of cappuccinos, sit outside in agentle cooling breeze and chat about biz/music. Getting the picture? Okay, I’ll spell it out: there’ll be not gut-busting at this year’s event, and the three venues I need to visit tonight are within spitting distance of each other. First stop, The Masque Theatre and a young Italian singer/songwriter who goes by the name of The Second Grace, aka Fabrizio Cammarata from Palermo, Sicily.

I was hoping against hope that my start to Sound City 2010 would be an inspiring one. Fabrizio duly supplied and in spades. The young man has a powerful and very expressive voice, his songs are musical diamonds full of melody, meaning and emotion - sung in perfect English. Frankly, I was bowled over by him but with just one criticism: he didn’t sing a song in his native language. After the show I spoke to his manager and him and discovered he is performing again the following night. I’m attending a funeral but will try to catch him again, perhaps singing in Italian… In any event, I’ll be playing a couple of his songs on our radio show this Sunday including a song inspired by an African mother talking to her young child…

So, a great start and the standard was about to be sustained at the Kazimier with rock instrumentalists Mugstar. This four-piece band blew my socks off immediately with a slam-dunk of a song called ‘Technical Knowledge’ and its stupendous guitar and drum playing. Hell, if I’d had their CD earlier I would have played in on our 4-hour radio drumming special last week. The band is from Liverpool that is currently flooded with good bands, but Mugstar are just a bit special.

Next on the menu at the club is a young lady from Portland, Oregon who goes under the name of White Hinterland, real name Casey Dienel. Casey’s music and voice are unique; haunting with a sub-strata of heavy dance beats; but I had difficulty hearing her messages because of poor sound quality.