IT isn't the kind of place you'd expect to find a rock night. A rock night with a 52-year-old bald, tattooed DJ, live bands and podium dancers. Rock City, yes. The Salutation, Seven and The Pit and Pendulum perhaps... but canalside bar The Waterfront?

When it opened over a decade ago, it was more of a trendy hang-out for lunching office workers and, during the summer, a haven for weekend sun-seekers.

From next Thursday it'll be the home of Deliverance, a new monthly rock night.

"This is my little baby," says assistant manager Craig Disley.

"I've been trying to put this together for a long while. Nottingham is a massive rock city. If we can get them down here..."

To help do that he's employed an old face from the city's rock scene.

Metal Micky has been DJing in Nottingham since 1970, starting out at the Nottingham Boat Club.

"The first record I bought was Led Zeppelin II. That was it for me," he says.

In terms of working with big band names, those days down by the Trent were his best.

"Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, Saxon, Robert Plant and The Honeydrippers, Generation X and Siouxsie and The Banshees but they went under the name of Janet and The Icebergs.

"With Def Leppard, Rick Allen was 15 and he'd got both his arms. And we had to get a special licence for him to play in the club."

It takes a moment. Ah, the licence because he was under-age, not due to having both arms. OK, got it.

After The Boat, Micky became a familiar face behind the decks at The Palais de Dance.

"Dale Winton was DJing there at the time. He worked upstairs. Miss Winton we used to call him.

"When the Palais shut for a refurb that's when Rock City took over. I moved on to Zhivago's where I got the sack because I played a Macc Lads record," he laughs. The Macc Ladds were a sweary pub band of the mid-80s, like a musical equivalent of Viz magazine."

Micky took his box of vinyl over to The Astoria, the Mardi Gras and numerous other pubs and clubs across the city.

"I also did Warrow's on Bottle Lane. They knocked that down. I think it's a Tesco Express now."

He adds: "I was called Metal Micky before the robot. I was DJing at the Newshouse on St James' Street and a mate of mine said, 'you play rock and metal, I'll call you Metal Micky.' Then the robot came out. Unless he'd heard of it.

"We may weigh the same..."

At the turn of the nineties he pretty much retired from DJing, except for a few school discos for his children.

"A lot of the places that I was playing closed down and I had to get a full-time job."

Then at the age of 50 he felt the urge to get back behind the mic and worked for 18 months at The Intake in Mansfield.

"At the start people would come up to me and say 'I thought you'd died'," he laughs.

Deliverance will be on both of The Waterfront's levels with the bands playing downstairs.

"We've three young and unsigned bands," says promoter Kevin Dean, who runs Black Knight Music with his partner Cheryl Poxon and son Tom Dean.

Says Cheryl: "They're all playing their own material, it's not covers. There are lot of young bands out there with a lot of talent and if they're a heavier band there's nowhere for them to play."

Adds Kev: "To reiterate, they'll be podium dancers, not pole dancers."

"The only topless person there will likely be me," laughs Micky.