Kegsy

The copy I have isnt on the dice design label its the regular ABC design like "If I could only Be sure". Kegsy

According to popsike it rarer than Frank Beverly ITWYW. and Larry Clinton She's Wanted (8 copies listed) Kegsy

Besides the copy I've got I dont think i've ever seen another one. There are none on GEMM,Musicstack OR eBAY. There are only 4 on popsike which, when compared to records that are considered quite rare thats not many, For instance there are dozens of Frank Beverly If Thats what you wanted, which is supposed to be quite rare, on popsike. Is this record as rare as it would appear or is there just no demnd for it. Kegsy

I reckon thats what happened. Kegsy

But I will pissed ASAP. Kegsy

The Ministry of (Soul) Sounds has recently become aware of a rather disturbing dispute that has broken out, all over the country, regarding the playing or non playing of tunes from their original vinyl format. This dispute seems to have stemmed from an event held, at a famous venue, in a northern seaside town, but has spread at an alarming rate across the country and the rest of the world via the Internet. A moderator for one of the sites involved has said and I quote "Bloody hell, five pages over this? Almost all who care about format know what you get with most DJ's and venues these days. Those that don't couldn't care less if vinyl, cd or mp3." We at the Ministry feel, that this rather concerning outbreak of hysteria, cannot be allowed to go unchecked. We have therefore formed a select committee (OVOCOM) to investigate the matter. After an emergency (OVOCOM) meeting on Friday Feb. 24th the following actions have been proposed. 1. Since most Original Vinyl comes from the U.S., we intend to petition the treasury for funding of £10million. This will be used to set up offices in the U.S., preferred locations are Beverley Hills and Las Vegas. These offices will be primarily used to verify what Original Vinyl actually is. They will operate under the title Original Vinyl Only Research Institute (OVORI), not to be confused with OVARY where many OVO fanatics believe dissenters should have stayed. 2. In order that The Ministry can properly police this issue we will need to recruit and train the necessary personnel. Therefore we will petition for further funding of £50million for a brand new purpose built complex which will be known as O-VOT-TOP (Original Vinyl Technical Training Opportunities Program).Once properly trained the personnel will then attend venues and issue Original Vinyl Only Certificates Of Proficiency (OVOCOP). 3. We will also be liaising with equipment suppliers, turntables Amps etc.to ascertain whether any technical measures can be used to verify OVO policies. A new subcommittee will be formed for these consultations. This subcommittee will be called Original Vinyl Only General Electrical Equipment (OVOGEEQ). Until we can bring all these new resources on stream we would like to ask all citizens, who may be tempted to engage in this fracas, to remain calm at all times.

Bloody hell I hope nobody reveals that he played CD's or he will be right in the brown n smelly. Kegsy

Ok the pink issues of the Carstairs. Where did they come from ?. Who instigated getting them pressed up ?. When ?. if they weren't legal "No Comment" will do. Kegsy

I think the guy is asking about records that were repressed in the states, not Out Of The Past or that sort of stuff. Stuff like small 45 Okehs for example. I.E. records that were ordered from the proper record companies and pressed in the states for the UK northern scene. Another example would be the pink issue Carstairs. Kegsy

I would have thought the people from Selectadisc and Global were the ones to give an accurate answer to this. kegsy

Oh ye of little knowledge, try getting a copy of Foster & Stevens on Jerri or The Crow on Inner Ear for "buggar all" they were both first played at the Mecca. You would be very surprised how difficult, some of the records played as "new releases" at the Mecca by Colin, are to get these days. You would also be surprised how many remained virtually unknown after Colin packed in the Northern scene. Kegsy

What a truly silly thread this is. With respect to the thread title, I would suggest that Colin Curtis had very little Original "northern" Vinyl after the mid to late seventies, he had moved on from the northern scene. As to why he should be booked to play a Mecca revival night, there are very few people about these days who can remember what was originally played at the Mecca. So who else could have done it any better than the guy that did it in the first place. Dont blame Colin blame the promoters for wanting his "name", they must have known he didnt have the records anymore. I would also so suggest that, if Colin is reading this, he will be laughing his cock off, as most of the arguments about OVO/playing new releases etc are probably why he left the scene in the first place. Whilst i can appreciate the OVO argument from a collectors point of view, and we should always be aware that without these people the scene would never have been what it is. However why should OVO matter to people, who just want a good nostalgic night out listening to music from whatever source. Nobody owns this scene, although some try to. What we need is the government to set up a quango so that DJ's and venues can be OVO accredited, and must have all the correct certificates. But what is OVO ?, which copy of the Invitations Whats Wrong With Me Baby would be allowed, Stateside, on which it was first played out, or the Dynovoice one. Would there be a rule that said, only the first DJ to discover the record could ever be allowed to play said record as his is the only true original copy ? Everybody knows which nights play OVO so you pays your money and makes your choice. By the way, and i'll probably get some crap about this, I've seen Richard Searling playing northern off CD's in the main northern room at a major event. Kegsy

PM'd You Kegsy

Pm'd You. Kegsy

Have to agree though re his original choices,when i first started chasing soul 7" most wants were on Stateside or London American Holy Moly two people have agreed with me in one day !!!!!!!!!!!!. Is this the start of a trend ?. May have to set up a Kegsy Fan Club. 5 quid membership. female members get undraped photo and some used underwear. Kegsy

PM'd you kegsy

Ok Frank/Ian lets get this straight then. Ian Levine heard the record played on a U.S. radio station, presumeably this was in 1973 when the record was sent out as promo copies.Has to be 1973 why would anybody be playing a promo of a record that was released yonks before. Sometime later Ian gets a copy and plays it at the Mecca, the general consensus being that he got it from Soul Bowl.I actually do remember the night he first played it. The record then becomes THE biggest record on the scene and demand for it is massive, as demonstrated by Brian Phillips post. As you well know big records back then, became available very quickly, small 45 Okehs, and other types of pressings, many legitimate 2nd issues from the states etc, even though they were many years old. These were all readily available from Selectadisc,Global etc who probably instigated the re-pressing by contacting the U.S. Labels/distributors. Keith Williams has already said he got a pink one from Soul Bowl, in all honestly that could have been where I got mine too. Are you seriously suggesting that Soul Bowl/Selectadisc/Global waited 2 years before trying to get copies of such a massive record that was obviously a brand new release ?. I dont think so. Finally there were dozens of U.S. new release records being played at the Mecca which lasted for ages so why would Carstairs pinks copies stop it from being played out, as I said before we all knew it was a recent release. Kegsy

So as I say, in the very early days Stateside and London American kickstarted the scene, and the whole collecting thing, but in the 40 years since, by breadth of variety, worldwide appeal, and sheer quantity, Kent UK has to have been the most influential label over the whole period of the Northern Soul Scene. I certainly cant argue regarding the quality and breadth of the Kent catalog. . Besides if I did Ady would probably put me in a caravan on Thorpe Park, alone with Swish. My point is that If there had not been labels like london-American and Stateside would there have ever been a Northern Soul scene to speak of. Kegsy

Before i start I have deliberately excluded the Tamla Motown stable from my calculations. I have done this because there has always been a distinction between Motown and what became known as Northern Soul. I also dont want to diminish the part played by other UK labels Columbia, Pye Int, Sue Etc. I would say that the two most influential record labels in the history of Northern Soul have got to be UK London-American and UK Stateside. Given that the vast majority of records ever played on the scene are U.S. imports, this statement may sound pretty wierd. However here's the case for the defence. During the formative years of the scene, up to the closure of the Wheel, virtually all the records played were UK copies.Yes we all know about the Baby Reconsider enigma and a few Ric Tic stuff. You only have to look at the bootleg Soul Sounds label, how many of these were originally played on import copies ?. This continued onto theTorch where many of the big sounds were played on UK labels Beatiful Night,Chubby Checker, Lynne Randell,Nancy Ames,Levi Jackson,Lou Johnson, Bok To Back,Little Richard Etc. About this time (1972) ,as if by some strange coincidence, boatloads of cut out records started to appear in shops/markets all over the UK. e.g. Bostocks Bradford,F.L. Moores,Shude Hill Market Manchester. So here's the scenario. You are a record collector and you're now faced with thousand of records on labels you have never heard of by artists you have never heard of either,Sandi Sheldon,Carstairs Rose Batiste. You can't ask or expect the shop owner to play every record that looks interesting, so what do you do ?. You use the knowledge/information that you already possess. This means you look for the artists you already know via their releases on UK labels. Edwin Starr/Darrell Banks for instance, this explains why Ric Tic/Revilot were two of the earliest import labels to be sought after. because collectors would just buy anything on the label regardless of the artist. How many people had heard of J.J.Barnes, before the Ric Tic stuff was found, even though there are two UK releases by him prior to that ?. Lets face it, which lunatic would buy or even consider a record called Sking In The Snow if they had not already heard the Invitations on Stateside. In addition to looking for artists they knew, I reckon early UK "crate diggers" also used other information found on the labels of UK releases such as; A Mala Recording A Revilot Recording A Goldwax Recording A Solid Hitbound Production The two labels which always did this were of course London-American and Stateside. These two labels also issued most of the early northern sounds by percentage of releases which means they were the source of most of the required information. Therefore these two labels MUST be the most influential in the history of Northern Soul Discuss. Kegsy

Thanks for that Dave I was pretty sure it was not too long before the pink issues started turning up (Record Corner/Global etc). What with this thread and the Cecil Washington one I was beginning to doubt my own insanity. Kegsy

I may be wrong on "a couple of weeks" but 9 months I would dispute that, Maybe its just that, for some strange reason, time, especially weekends, seemed to pass a lot quicker in those days. Kegsy

PM'd Ya kegsy

Oi Pete Maybe you could send a Paypal gift to Molynuex so your beloved Wolves could buy some decent players. Kegsy

PM'D You kegsy

I have no actual evidence as to what happened with Carstairs but here's the story I know. Ian Levine had heard this record being played on a radio station when on a trip to New York. Somehow he managed to obtain a copy of the demo, which he brought back and played at the Mecca, it was an instant floorfiller and a massive sound. Everybody knew at the time it was a new or very recent release. Not much later, I would say within a couple of weeks, the pink "issue" copies were readily available at places like Record Corner and Global in Manchester. These shops specialised in selling new releases from the states, along with the usual racks of cut outs. I would say that the record was rush "released" due to demand from the UK by shops like Record Corner and Global. There is also another slight twist. Later releases on Red Coach Shalong,Richmond International turned up in their hundreds on the Bostocks stall in Bradford Market who were buying container loads of records from the U.S.A. However I dont think any pink Castairs copies were ever found on the market. This would strengthen the theory that the pink issue was pressed for the UK and most, if not all the copies, came directly to the UK and any overstocks never made it to the warehouses in the normal way. It would be interesting to know how many copies have been bought by people on here, directly from U.S.A. rather from sources in the UK. Kegsy