Wiggyflat

You are joking.....it's usually oldies from boots/CDs or collectors impressing their mates with rubbish obscurities from the mid seventies sixties reject pile....which is why I started my own gig! I love UK Sue.boogaloo r&b stuff and I have a 500 box of early reggae ska/bluebeat stuff plus loads of Cotique/Fania Tico 45's and a great collection of jazz lps etc....but i do have a problem when people play it and call it northern soul.It isn't!!! I'ts the emperors new clothes scenario.People are digging everything but the basics of those great records played at The late Twisted Wheel/Torch/Wigan etc..its like the motown uptempo soul beat is uncool.....we need claves/bongos/latin piano.....early r&b guitar.........bo diddley riffs........anything that isn't Motown based. Re the above "child of the eighties".I do feel that the young kids of today have taken to the uptempo beat like it or not and the days of the collector as deejay are numbered.........Im even worried about vinyl (they honestly dont care).Last Crossfire there were loads of them.........anyone over 40 and you were in a minority. Theres no room for mid tempo....thats so eighties!

Play northern soul(Im assuming this is a northern soul website not a rare soul website)........its not friggin hard, not mid tempo allnight,&b[, reggae WTF (Lynn Tait being discussed as a northern soul record FFS?),popcorn, latin boogaloo, Jazz R&B,Punk Funk,beat ballads..........lets get back to basics and all those overlooked oldies and "QUALITY NEWLY DISCOVERED DANCEABLE RECORDS".DJ's stop looking at your navel and your mates and how you can add your DNA and slant and lets sort this crap out. I'm into northern soul ie uptempo based motown sounding sixties music.....You can stick your rare soul where the sun don't shine,I'm not into rare soul,......which can be anything but not necessarily dance music.Northern soul all the way....FFS it might even get exciting and we might even get converts on the way . I do not think im the only one. What is "our scene"??? as described above

The SRT label in the UK specialised in custom pressings.Theres an album on that label from 71 by Grannie worth £800. They also pressed up a lot of club sort of acts that were sold at Butlins etc I believe they pressed up in limited runs to avoid some sort of tax as did the UK Purdah label (releases 99 copies).Oak was another UK label that specialised in very limited runs and they didn't specialise in any sort of music.I suppose it was some sort of cottage industry in limited pressings.Lyntone pressed up flexi discs for all sorts of uses....company promotion/Readers Digest etc etc. On the soul side. Can previously unreleased tracks like The Producers-What Is this,Mirwood Orch-Oh My Darlin etc be classed as originals then (always lived in my boot box). https://www.djhistory.com/features/working-man%E2%80%99s-soul

Instrumentals never released before the seventies so must be original issue

Cliff was always played by the more adventurous seeking out latin stuff, stick with it and he covers The Blendells too......great northern dancing as well Wasnt Reach Out by The Brotherhood comped https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBbNH5HZMKs

I think the backrooms/function suites in pubs should be looked at more.Drove through south London up to Willesden a few weeks ago and I couldnt believe the amount of tinned up pubs there were..........the ones that are left would probably give these rooms for free if they knew there was going to be a load of ale over the counter.....then promoters would be able to give cheaper entrance fees..just a thought

We will be getting on to Flemmings next.......what type of jeans were they...anyway a few more pics.Still no answer on the beer towel question.You would think it was all Abba and Spacehoppers acording to the middle class twats on tv.........no bootboys/3 day weeks/queing for bread or your mam attempting to bake it/spitting (very seventies),proper graffiitti wilth mis spelling ie rools ok,cross earings/saint man tattoos/borstal dots,dealer boots....bought from Darkie Tans gipsy shop (air wair/lace up brogue ones/tan or ox blood)....click click click....segs or blakeys,staining your white adidas t shirt blue when it pissed down when you had your new levis jacket on,old men in pubs with grey hair with nicotine streaks in it and brown fingers,woodbines and capstan full strength, alpine lorries, mysterious tyres around lamp posts...I could go on. jacket.bmp

These ones.....What was the beer towel thing, tucked in the belts, backs of parkas, scarves ive even seen a picture of a lad who had a pair of bags made out of them. york in pub.bmp york white hart.bmp york in pub.bmp york white hart.bmp

Giffer in the soul scene sense is usually a man of late forties up to fifties soul music collector who is a deejay (never was back in the day but now he has a few quid in his pocket he can splash out)....he has lost the fire of youth and the excitement of fast northern soul records and prefers to smoothly glide side to side to mid tempo and beat ballads...he has probably had a health scare.......and this is what he plays to the floor.If asked he says his tastes have matured and looks for the soulful content in a record. Some of the new youngsters on the scene who giffers would call divs...use the term in a derogatory wa "what's this load of crap this old giffer playing" and will walk up and remonstrate with the dj....usually "is it time to go home? DJ "No".Div "well why are you playing all this slow crap?" DJ "I paid £300 for this". Div "I don't care if you paid 50p its crap", play something I can dance to .... DJ Looks at his mates at the bar....

Are any of these trousers Skinners?

Northern and scooter scene mid seventies fashion shots.....note patchwork jeans,abundance of DM's (who ever wore platforms on the street),denim jackets,beer towels (worn on the parkas) and worn by soulies in belts, why???? (heard it was a northern working class thing), feather hair,red socks,badges (patches of northern soul clubs/northern scooter clubs),sheepskins and long leather jackets.Football scarves were popular. scooter jeans.bmp scooter flares.bmp jacket.bmp scooter jeans.bmp scooter flares.bmp jacket.bmp

Seen the replies.....Mossy has got the hump.Don't think anythings going to change unless a group of like minded individuals got together and put on an event. As i said before I had the same problem with the type of music I wanted to hear so put my money where my mouth is and I have found there was a lot of other people felt the same...packed night..I wasn't really bothered about deejaying but got so pissed off with bedroom deejays playing schizophrenic sets I thought I could do it better.....I'm not alone.Still can't find a venue I really like that plays northern on the scooter rallies not even on the Isle Of Wight,Camber at the summer was okay but the winter one was bad.Anyone got any reports of northern soul on other rallies as I'm planning some trips up north next year. BTW is Elbie Parker rare.......seems theres one on ebay every week!! Theres a new dj on the rallies see pic....

Ive a white ABC demo of Nolan Porters If I could Only Be Sure with a press sheet and a lyric sheet.........are there many of these around?

Seen a few punch ups outside some northern niters as well...........I remember one in Newton Aycliffe which was a toe to toe fist fight(northern soulie casual wedgeheads) though.

You can play classics/oldies and slip in the odd underplayed oldie and they wouldnt blink an eyelid. What you can't do is play the classic oldie then slip in some downtempo or twist r&b and not expect them to walk off the floor.A previous poster said you should have hung around I played some modern, r&b,popcorn etc.....thank god I went to bed.Im blinkered/old fashioned/stuck in my ways but in a northern soul room I want northern soul...........give me the classic uptempo motown derivative fast dance music and some good uptempo seventies I will be there all night. At 2am thats what I want to keep me on the floor.........and awake.Play your Doug Banks/Just Loving You's/Kurt Harris/Ace Spectrums/r&b and popcorn and I'm off to bed...............most of these are wind down end of night records anyway .It's not hard.Go back to 85 and John Buck and Brian Rae's set list from northern allnighters at scooter rallies and you would probably find more northern soul (upfront as well) than what you would hear now.What riles me is that looking around the hall at Camber there were probably people there with better collections than some of the deejays that were on...and we get played bootleg after bootleg and then twist music and r&b along with fxxck off slowies at 2am....

Got em both.........will pm you

Don't know but it is the northern soul fist turned around a flaccid penis with Northern Soul Is Wank in the outer circle.

I will top my hat off to Bailey......the psych and freakbeat kids havent stopped still (well maybe clotheswise!!). They are regularly digging up great obscurities.Bit like the early days of northern soul.I wonder when they are going to get midtempo and freakbeat ballads.I feel there is a groundswell of new kids from both the scooter scenes and the mod scenes.Crossfire was packed with young kids dancing to northern soul oldies......but they are new to them and Camber was full of daughters and sons.Mostly stuff they have probably heard on CD.I gave a few flyers out to some mod looking lads at Xfire who looked at it. Next question was is it the top 500? Me......sort of yeah.Their faces lit up and I got a we will be there!!.Theres 500 records in that book..how many of them get regular plays.It seems the kids just wanna dance.....they don't get hung up on how they hear it.These kids won't go to boring doos where midtempo and slowies are played.If a records shit they dont mind complaining either and they dont give a toss about whether it was 50p or 50k.Its only us old fogeys who care about originals...........i'ts a history involving Dave Godin/Black Civil Rights movements/royalties to artists/integrity/discovering new records(and covering them up),northern soul halcyon days (thousands of punters and big money to be made/3 formats (emidisc/tapes/vinyl),Only a few ways to get them......dealers lists in the post and first on the phone.Get your arse over to the US (thank you Freddie laker ), visit the venues and junkshopping.It must be great to be a kid and listen to the Velvettes for the first time and the CD gigs cater for them....the problem is when they start getting sick of the tunes and want to get deeper....the credible ovo gigs better be ready.BTW I'm ovo only and the odd carver for the unreleased stuff.The scooter scene is schizo these days with this darkside mob and their northern soul is wank t shirts.Mod cabaret (if Bruce leaves From The Jam and leaves a shoe on stage will the band go on tour as From The Jam Shoe?),and eighties scooterboys and plastic mods.Regarding the poster re scooterboys.....most of them from where I'm from Teeside area were mods in the first place and some others were even pre mod revival...........yes before 79.Never got any bother but then you wouldnt want to argue with Bonn and Andy Brown from Norton Bulldogs.No it wasn't The Jam or The Chords in London it was good old northern soul and Motown that was their soundtrack. I think some on here should read Time Trouble And Money-Mark Broughs book on the mid seventies scooter scene.Camber was good in the summer but not the last one.We will be travelling more north next year just for a change.How about a soulsource northern gig on the Isle Of Wight? .........................Don't Keep The Faith Spread It (Not on CD though) BTW I'm sure X Ray soul is a London night playing CD'S...........probably packed full of young kids dancing to exciting music or commonly known as same old, same old, wigan baggies top 500 to a lot on here.Young kids dancing to northern on CD and MP3 at unadvertised venues....its the future.

Which ones blew you away?

You should have done another play a box night........and had another 60 in.With the amount of deejays there are out there you would probably have a good packed night.IMHO you have to pay what the punters want .........this isn't a week in week out scene anymore for most people with two big venues so you can turn over records on a weekly basis.They want familiarity and a good dance and not just a night of newies (what are oldies to some people are newies to others).Instead of smashing people in the face with newies introduce one or two so they can familiarise themselves with it.....five on a trot is suicide at most venues unless it's an upfront cutting edge venue .The dancefloor is the barometer.We play dance music ...if theres nobody on the floor after a few records your'e failing.The records are not the preserve of people who have access to importers or access to the states anymore....ebay.No more big national sounds played at big venues with a few copies with key deejays who play them to break them.We play only uptempo sixties and seventies traditional sounding records oldies and underplayed...because nobody in the south was doing it and the people love it....give em what they want and work slowly to change from the inside with a few newies dropped in here and there..........we have a midtempo or slowie at the end btw

Which Ebony Keyes....Sweet Mary Anne?, If Our Love Should End?

Fxxxk me this has gone off tangent. Mark Johnson....dead RIP.Now the scooter scene now.Had enough of Camber boots /Mersea Canteen reggae canteen/early twisted wheels sounds....altho they did get up to Love factory this year.Is there anywhere on the scooter scene with credible northern. The place where after you have ridden 100 miles and just want to get on it with top tunes exist without the matrix car drivers/oldies from boots/progressive newies fellers exist............and has anybody mentioned the crap dance competitions??

I'ts not purist it is respect and integrity.The scooter scene seems to have lost it's way with northern soul.I travel miles on my scooter to rallies and get pissed off with plastic deejays playing plastic played to death northern soul from boots when there are deejays out there with respectable collections, who can hold a crowd,who can appreciate that after a hundred mile ride they want tunes to keep them awake and inspired instead of schizophrenic sets with enders in the middle of the night, rocknroll twist hours and r&b hours.As I said Sarge was there with his camera. He should have been on the decks 2am on Saturday.What happened to all the deejays from the summer? Anyway 11th Dec Southend.....Northern Soul Jihad (many of them scooterists too).

You tell me...........I'm having trouble finding it.Am I the only one that wants it. Am I expecting too much to travel miles on a shopping bike and be entertained by deejays with a boxful of boots or deejays who travel in cars and then proceed to bedroom deejay me back to the chalet/tent.Camber this year was a disappointment. Friday was okay but saturday was schizophrenic.I remember listening to half an hour of mid tempo ender tracks at around 2am and then a bloke with glasses came on and started playing twist/popcorn music......jesus this is on til 6!!..we all decided to give it up as a bad night and ended up back at the chalets.As in the previous post what happened when the two scenes ran parallel and the northern deejays played on the rallies.Why isn't Jon Buck given spots or some of the big northern names?.Slowly introduce new records.......Can anyone recommend any good scooter rally northern soul rooms that have integrity? I as talking to Mark Sargeant on Saturday night for about an hour and thought why isn't he given a spot?

Educate.........I can do that myself in refosoul.When Im out I want to be entertained and I want an atmosphere.I want fast soulful dance tunes that fill the floor.A mix of solid oldies with some lesser knowns and the odd few I don't know that are as good as the rest.I want some great seventies records as well. I'm not into so called "rare soul" at advertised northern soul nights.Call me old fashioned, blinkered, a non progressive.I don't care.And more importantly not an hour of obvious easy popular northern either.....I might play the snake but you can bet your bottom dollar it won't be Al Wilsons version.If it's advertised as northern soul I don't want doo wop, I don't want popcorn, I don't want r&b,I dont want latin,I dont want jazz,I don't want reggae masquerading as new northern.I wasn't getting what I wanted anywhere in the south.....so I started my own club.I'm not knocking any other musical genre (check out some of my posts).I love british jazz (Joe harriot/Phil Seaman/Tubby Hayes etc etc),latin...Costanzo/Candido/Puente/Palmieri brothers...reggae (Pama/Escort/Crab/Torpedo/Camel), prog rock (Arzachel/Secondhand/Locomotive/Out Of Darkness).......but is it too much to ask at a northern do for uptempo produced records based on the Four Tops-I Cant Help Myself beat??